I'm thinking of running a Dictionary of Mu/Dying Earth mash-up using some version of DnD.

In these two settings the line between lost science and sorcery becomes blurred.  Laser guns are magic wands, Palmtop computers are ancient oracles, and knowing how to read, write, and do mathematics makes you a wizard.  All this in addition to traditional magic actually working.

I'd like some tangible benefit to scientific skills.  I'll probably be using either Iron Heroes or Fantasycraft as the system, but I might go with 1e as well.

Knowing how to use/repair old tech is a place to start.  Creating items is something to look into.  I'd like any sort of scientific/mathematical skills to have a mystical quality to them and maybe produce actual game effects.

Any ideas?

Even without advanced technological tools, scientific knowledge can help a lot in fields like medicine and argiculture. For every traditional remedy that worked there plenty examples of sheer madness like bleeding ill patients or drilling holes in the skull to "relieve" headaches ( I guess the later sort of worked).

Understadning what infections are and how they spread is huge, and penicillin isn't all that high tech.

In Koine Greek (what the New Testament was primarily written in), the word translated as "witchcraft" and "sorcery" is "pharmakeia"--which gave us the word "phramacology" in English.


Strongs concordance says of the word:

1) the use or the administering of drugs
2) poisoning
3) sorcery, magical arts, often found in connection with idolatry and fostered by it
4) metaphor: the deceptions and seductions of idolatry

I think it is important to first write up what modern or high tech is available and working, and then write up ways to describe it so that it sounds like fantasy. You shouldn't tell players what exactly the magic item is. Let their own imagination fill in the gaps.

Wand of Scorching Ray

Range 400'
Damage 3d8+3
Charges 12

The wand of scorching ray can have its charges reset to 12 by setting it on the Alter of Zeus. Every half hour it sits on the alter restores 1 charge, provided that the handle is in contact with it.

Alter of Zeus

By letting objects of ancient magic contact the alters surface in a particular way, their charges can be reset. Each device takes a certain amount of time to be restored.

Quote from: Soylent Green;402967Even without advanced technological tools, scientific knowledge can help a lot in fields like medicine and argiculture. For every traditional remedy that worked there plenty examples of sheer madness like bleeding ill patients or drilling holes in the skull to "relieve" headaches ( I guess the later sort of worked).

Understadning what infections are and how they spread is huge, and penicillin isn't all that high tech.

Definitely.  Modern medical skills alone would make such a person seem like a semi-divine healer.  If said person has access to machines that can make anti-biotics, vaccines, etc then they might as well be a sorcerer.

I'm envisioning a world thousands upon thousands of years old.  Something like the world from Neil Stephenson's Anathem mixed with a healthy dose of Jack Vance.  Technology used to be very advanced - nanobots, complex genetic manipulation, and cloning, but now all that is gone.

A wizard might be someone who found an ancient working computer and deciphered its arcane runes to learn great and powerful secrets.  They might be someone who inherited the last working Replicator and knows how to operate it thanks to generations of closely guarded knowledge.

Cranewings I think you're spot on.  Describing the magic might be more important than actually coming up with unique game mechanics.

I guess what I'm asking for now is inspiration.  What sorts of science, either actual or theoretical, might seem magical to a civilization in technological dark age?  Feel free to go wild here and draw upon stuff well outside the range of modern science.

chemical reactions of various sort could seem like magic.
superglue
acids
polymers (?) like porcelain infused metal
stealth tech.
optics

Nanotechnology

harmonic resonance

Energy projection
Teleportation
Regeneration of Tissue or Armor
Anti-Gravity
Cloaking / Invisibility Suits

Well, warhammer 40,000 has this sort of thing in it perfectly, where technology is looked upon as magic of divine and the main technicians belong to a religious cult that worships a machine god.

In Asimov's foundation series you also had tech priests who treated technology as magic, and in fact the good Doctor invented the term tech priest before 4k was written, I believe.

So the concept of the descendants of a collapsed culture regarding ancient tech as magic is perfectly valid and quite established.

As to game effects, well, someone who knows how to extract potassium nitrate from manure and find sources of sulfur is going to be pretty damn impressive to ignorant peasants when he tosses some black powder on a small fire or a clay pot of it with a lit fuse.
Likewise anyone who knows how to make even crude penicillin or extract basic medicines like aspirin base from tree bark or digitalis for nightshade's going to be real popular. Also someone who knows how to make tasteless poisons will be in demand.

'Behold, when one looks into the Mirror of Louhkdun, one sees all, for miles!

AKA, Geosatelite mapping gadget. Or a gadget locked into map mode by age or ignorance.

Think of a solar powered led flashlight for a durable device that might be useful and regarded as magic.

Or those shake recharge lights.

An old minefield might be regarded as an area infested with demons.

You might consider the latter half of Larry Niven's A World out of Time.  Spoilers ahoy:
















The protagonist steals a Bussard ramjet powered craft and uses its tremendous speed plus onboard cryonics to survive a trip around the core of our galaxy, only to return to our solar system countless millions of years in the future to find our sun a red giant, and the earth moved (!!!) into position as a moon of Juipiter, but now largely abandoned and covered in the ruins of a long-forgotten society (but with some relics remaining: a functioning underground system, an automated all-terrain vehicle, men and women split into almost entirely different societies, etc.).  It's a good read and a damn good entry into the "dying earth" genre.  If you've read The Integral Trees and or The Smoke Ring, it's part of their shared universe ("The State"), but has no interaction or impact with either of those books - just uses the same overall premise.  Earth of the 2200s is run by a totalitarian socialist government which, naturally, considers people to be disposable components - an even worse fate is meted out to all the folks who in our time were cryogenically frozen after death: they're used as slaves.  However, the second half of World out of Time takes place eons after that.

Something else to add to your reading/viewing list: Ralph Bakshi's Wizards.  This is an animated film set in a post-apocalyptic Earth that sees a return to magic after the slate is wiped clean.  Two brothers, the titular Wizards, have to throw down.  One is a lecherous, alcoholic but magically inclined Wizard.  The other gains most of his power by digging up and exploiting lost Earthing technology.  I think you'll get some mileage out of it.

Spoilers: There are Nazis.  Lots of mutant Nazis.

Quote from: winkingbishop;403183Something else to add to your reading/viewing list: Ralph Bakshi's Wizards.  This is an animated film set in a post-apocalyptic Earth that sees a return to magic after the slate is wiped clean.  Two brothers, the titular Wizards, have to throw down.  One is a lecherous, alcoholic but magically inclined Wizard.  The other gains most of his power by digging up and exploiting lost Earthing technology.  I think you'll get some mileage out of it.

Spoilers: There are Nazis.  Lots of mutant Nazis.

I fucking love that movie.

Quote from: Cranewings;403199I fucking love that movie.

Hell yeah.  Wizards!

A "never-ending" lighter that gathers hydrogen from atmospheric H2O.
A device that can recall memories (as holograms or actual enhancement).
Potions of +Attribute: Bottled nanites that are dangerous to use more than once a day.