FrivYeti/WyldspanTech
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Technology In The Wyldspan
Hundreds of years of adaptation and change have altered the technologies of the Span, but not as drastically as many had initially hoped. In particular, a flood of Celestial Exalts (especially Solars) have restored much of the power of the Shogunate, and that power has trickled down into other areas. In general, the technology levels of the worlds of the Span range from primitive all the way to Shogunate-era, with pointed sticks and campfires giving way to Essence lights and rapid transit networks. The closer that one gets to the Scarlet Imperium or the New Realm, the higher general access to advanced thaumaturgy and magitech tends to become.
Artifact Production
The breaking of the world and the spread of Wyld energy has had a number of secondary effects on the production of magical materials. When the worlds shattered, the power of the Incarnae spread through the fabric of Creation, their energy interacting strangely with the Wyld. The result are the broken worlds; held together by the infinite density of the veins of magical material running through them, they are chunks of rock floating through the Wyld, curving away from worlds as they approach them. Miners go out to these worlds, pulling them into the waypoints bordering Creation to mine. Most such broken worlds contain jade, but many exist with orichalcum, moonsilver, or starmetal deposits, and the occasional dark rock appears lined with silently screaming soulsteel, relics of worlds and lives lost in the depths of the Wyld. It is from these rocks, and existing Creation-based veins, that the Scarlet Imperium draws their ample jade supplies.
The New Realm has its own sources of magical materials, although they also move to seize any broken worlds that come near their radius, to keep control of their supplies. In addition to these, they possess the factory-foundries, twenty-five great machine-manses in the very heart of the New Realm. Each is built out of a different manse, and they process any sort of raw material, transforming them through Essence flows into orichalcum, moonsilver, starmetal, jade, and adamant - five Manses for each material. The foundries work night and day, and are heavily-guarded at all times; their results are shipped to artificers across the New Realm to transform into artifacts and Wyldfarers. These foundries allow the New Realm to possess amounts of the Magical Materials in excess of what the Imperium can acquire, despite their relatively smaller volume and population.
Military Technology
Span military engagements are generally divided into Wyld engagements and Creation engagements. Within Creation, battles go much as they have in the past - even more traditionally, in fact, as most former air forces have been retrofitted into Wyld engines. Swordsmen and archers fit alongside warstriders and Essence artillery, with the amounts of each depending on the nation in question. Wyldfarers are rarely used in Worldside engagements, as they are too valuable and their weapons are ineffectual outside of the swirling chaos of the Wyld.
Major nations, however, have access to more Shogunate-style magitech than was previously available. Most nations can be assumed to have access to at least one Essence weapon of some sort, and the great nations of the Realm and the Imperium fight with battle armour-clad mortals and numerous artillery pieces, dropped in by Wyldfarer on the edges of worlds for ground assaults.
In the Wyld, engagements are based around Essence weapons and ship manuevers. The vast majority of Wyldships are capable of flight, simply because this is the most straightforwards way of navigating the Span, and they take full advantage of this when interacting with one another. Boarding actions are also common - wyldfarers are valuable artifacts, and many would prefer to capture them if at all possible.
A brief mention must be made of ocean technology; few major nations have oceans any more, and it is difficult for boats to travel between worlds; in the far West, some boats double as Wyldfarers, but as this requires either extra work or a Wyldfarer that cannot leave the West, this is not common. This makes such nations very defensible when compared to more traditional nations.
Communications Technology
Communications technology in Creation is generally based around such innovations as calling an elemental to carry your letter somewhere, or carrying it yourself. There is no instant communications - with the exception of Wyld networks. These towers allow a Manse to easily communicate with equipped wyldfarers that are in the nearby Wyld. In addition, Wyldfarers are equipped with devices that allow for communications with other ships in their Waypoint, or long-range but simpler Essence pulses. Finally, both the Imperium and the New Realm have courier ships that move between worlds constantly, bearing news and updates, and certain sorceries can spread information even faster. Regardless, news can travel slowly in the Span, and there are worlds that can be weeks, months, or even years behind the times.
Sanitation, Agriculture, and Luxury
Most worlds in the Central Span now possess sanitation, with elaborate sewer systems that gradually pump waste out into the Wyld, far from any shipping lanes. These sanitation systems are considered the norm by dwellers in 'civilized' nations, while those in more outlying areas make due with traditional sanitation systems (or the lack thereof).
Similar systems have been designed that provide light, refrigeration, and heating or cooling to many (or even all) houses in a nation. These systems require the active participation of nearby manses, as there is no system beyond wires run from the the manse to easily conduct the immense power requirement for these systems, power that even a small manse can easily provide. Because of this, these systems are also common in the worlds of the Imperium and the New Realm. Further out, having access to such systems often requires the payment of extra taxes to the owner of the local manse, while others do not have the systems in place to begin with; they are fairly expensive to install, if not to maintain - it takes Resources 4 to install the initial system into a Manse, and Resources 2 to connect a given building. Maintenance requires Resources 2 per month in the central manse, and Resources 1 per additional building.
Transportation
Due to the ease with which Wyldfarers span the worlds, advances in other forms of transportaion have not been made in any notable way, and some have actually degraded. In particular, seafaring travel has all but stopped in three-quarters of the world. Outside of the Western Reach, Wyldfarers travel to ports via Wyld and air, and boats are used exclusively by those within. Carts and horses are still used for the travel within a world by most locals; Wyldfarers are too expensive to be wasted on simple jobs moving across country.
The sole exception, as usual, is the New Realm. The New Realm has small Essence-driven rail lines in many of its worlds, which link the Wyldfarer ports to inland regions. Using these rail lines, gleaming artifact trains carry goods at forty miles per hour to outlying regions, ensuring that the worlds have constant and easy access to the bounties of the Wyld.
