Intro/Technology

Since the Conflagration, magical and mechanical invention has flourished. Becoming an artificer, even one of little skill or advancement, remains a lucrative and stable career choice, such that schools of magic are always full of applicants and apprenticeships and masterclasses are in high demand throughout the Reach. True artificers and wizards (character level 2 and higher) are still fairly rare; magic is difficult to master, and those with the skill for it are often snapped up by guilds, companies, and governments looking to employ these skilled individuals. However, there are plenty of artisans and mages who can provide a great many services with enchanting and 1st-level spells.

## Communication

Steam and clockwork machines, invented by gnomes and other brilliant minds, provide constant energy that can heat water, create light, dig tunnels, and lift payloads without the use of magic. Clockwork cannons, rifles, and pistols are employed by any ship traveling the Reach that cannot afford the more expensive (but more effective) experimental Fireball cannons. New advances in Golemancy use magic and clockwork combined to create animated constructs that can perform simple tasks, interpret humanoid speech, and even give simple replies. Artificers and Mechromancers are in high demand throughout the material planes.

Technology of this sort is omnipresent in trade cities throughout the realms, but rural and remote settings still have not fully embraced the modern wonders - whether by choice, or because they simply don't have the wealth or the need for large infrastructure development.

Perhaps the most useful invention is the ***scry-glass***, also known as a "magic mirror". These come in varying shapes and sizes, but all feature a glass pane seeming to be filled with murky, swirling smoke. A creature looking into a scry-glass can contact the holder of another glass, provided that they have met their target or know the arcane symbol sequence identifying their target's glass. Each glass then shows the other holder's head and shoulders, allowing for face-to-face conversation. There are not yet public scry-glasses available in any realm, but many scry-glass messaging services exist which can convey messages in a sort of postal system across the Reach, for a small fee.

## The Dangers of the World

Despite all the technological progress, most of the land within each realm remains untamed. The broken realm of Seiyance in particular is a testament to this; civilization may carve out its place in the world, but it will be a very very long time before the wilderness poses no significant threat to it. All major cities in the realms are extremely defensible, and outside of the civilized portions travelers can expect to encounter monstrosities and beasts that can kill in a single blow.

The ocean may be safer than the wilds, especially near the coast, but even that has its dangers. The waters that surround most realms have no defined borders that separate them from the starry void. Many aberrations are rumored to lurk within the water, creatures that were born there in the borderlands, coming in towards shore to seize prey in the dead of night.

Even the Astral Reach itself is not safe, for great creatures the size of islets roam the stars - dreadnoughts, titans, krakens, and the like. Few ships have brought back tales of anything of the sort, but that only means (say the sailors in the taverns) that once you can see those beasts, it is already too late.

## The Balance

The wilderness-dwellers of the realms, in particular those in Vander, believe that the technological revolution is cause for concern. The delicate balance of the magical forces of the planes is being disrupted by mining, building, destruction of forests, killing of animals, and binding of elemental magics to golems and other magical constructs. No civilization concerns them more than the Vandrin Empire, for they are at the forefront of the revolution.