THE FANTASTIC LOCALES around NEW AMSTERDAM
Full Campaign Map is Here: IMGUR-MAP
The region is not one giant metropolis, there are cities and town scattered about, with estates and roads in between, where farms and forests still grow.
The largest cities are New Amsterdam, Queens, Perth Amboy,
There are some underground delvings, but they are rare and mostly dangerous. The subway or underground malls as we know do not exist anymore.
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In the far far future of the Earth, magic has been rediscovered, but it has been mish-mashed with high technology, blatant psionics,
genetic mutation, and years of neglect. One might speak of the age as being Post-Apocalyptic, but would beg the question
"To Which Cataclysm do you Refer?" Since there have been at least 7 recorded global catastrophes. The full and boring history can be found below.
but sufficed to say the current times are the year 316 of the Age of Wisdom, year 52016 since the first Declination.
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Technology Discussions:
Steampunk is the norm.Diesel engines exist, but gasoline is considered risky and stupid, only gnomes or alchemists would use gasoline.
Radio exists, but uses an ethereal component, not radiational. Electronics exist, but remain at a 1950s plateau of improvement.
Printing presses exist, but are tightly controlled by either kings or guilds. Nanite colonies can exist also.
Due to magic, there are some anomalies on the tech tree. Cybernetic implants can be had in a limited way.
The average factory power source is a coal fired steam engine.
Factories are usually built with a walking-beam engine set-up for distributed tasks.
Hydro power is common, and is exploited in many imaginative ways.
City lights are common at night, but they can be magical, gas fired, elemental or electrical. Varies widely.
Electricity is expensive, and does not run to each and every household
Also appliances as we understand them do not exist. For example, a freezer is a huge, bulky, noisy affair, and quite rare.
An average home-maker can't afford one, but a hotel can. So can a meat-cutters guild.
Automobiles are not widespread, they are reserved for the wealthy or nobility, usually.
Carts and horses are the average man's transportation. Some cities have a train guild that handles commuters.
Portable phones exists, but since they operate on a techno-magical principle, they can usually only make 3 calls a day, or send 3 texts.
Airplanes do exist, but are rare and esoteric machines, since they are frowned upon and hunted for sport by dragons of all colors.
Computers exist, they are detailed in D20 Factory, but they are wonky and made by gnomes.
Usually serious organizations such as businesses, banks, and governments do not rely on computer data.
Cyberspace does not exist, nor an Internet. Here's the essay on Television
SCENES from the REGION
A Gnome and a Necromancer discuss politics.
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Mutant bodies hang outside the enclave where they were spawned.
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the murky edge of the Western Lands, far from the clean sidewalks of NYC.
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MORE TECH NOTES:
RAILROADS
Rail travel used to be in great vogue, and rail lines formerly connected all the way from Hackensack to Levit Town. But the Union Wars, the Daemon Wars, and other shenanigans in the 42500s caused nations to scale them back and sometimes dismantle them. Rail lines are limited, local, or backwater affairs that merely facilitate mining for the most part. Also, it was realized that the average citizen cannot afford either the coin or the intellect to travel widely. Far Travel remains again, in the pocket of the wealthy and noble, and the train is seen as pedestrian.
Few nations have what we call interstate highways, but the road nets around cities are well developed, usually in proportion to the population and wealth index of the city in question.
ILLEGAL TECHS: Several types of devices are outlawed in most nations, and at least frowned upon in others.
Nuclear Weapons have been invented and detonated on a few occasions, but since the overkill and nuclear winter of the Daemon Wars they have seen scant use. Nowadays they are mostly held by kings, and the dwarves have a few.
Since the side-effects are magical and planar as well as radioactive, its rarely worth it. No matter how much those barbarians deserve it.
Dimension Travels (high speed "bullet trains") have also been largely dismantled, and discouraged, due to deaths and side-effects.
Guns are often available; and gnomish and dwarvish curiosity has driven their designs and varieties to extremes.
Most are legal, rare and fancy. Illegal types include Needlers, Shredders, Poisoners, Con-Drainers, Level Drainers, Nanite-shooters, etc.
Dimension Guns (high speed kinetic kill rifles) were once widely used, but now have fallen out of favor. Usually Illegal.
Anti-Matter guns are also illegal, but since they are astronomically expensive, it rarely comes up. Same with Disintegrators.
The ancient-tech power sources, such as zero-point, singularity, and fusion are not illegal per se,
but goodness gracious did you really want to walk that alien powered monstrosity down the middle of a crowded town ?
What if it went hyper-critical ?
For some big ticket items, they are not illegal as such, but penalties will be stiff for any side-fx you inflict on the lord mayor's good citizens.
Also legality varies by locale and culture, and payload. Most kings do not invite well-armed mercs to saunter into the capitol region with rockets.