Technology of Arcanthea

Arcanthea’s Industrial Revolution happened while mages were still arguing about whether steam engines counted as “real innovation.” They lost that argument when dwarven engineering started outperforming traditional magic in practical applications.

Common Technologies

Things I’ve personal experience with (usually disastrous):

Airships: Armored ironclads of the sky (I’ve been kicked off three)
Steamboats and Ironclads: Naval transportation (banned from two Valorian ports)
Firearms and Artillery: Practical violence tools (I’m an excellent shot when sober)
Steam Locomotives: Land transportation (only one derailment incident, not my fault)

Advanced Tech (Magic-Enhanced Innovation)

Propeller Planes: Runic stone-powered aircraft that shouldn’t work but do
Submarines: Wind magic air bubbles keeping crews alive underwater
Brass Automatons: Steam-powered servants with runic command interpretation

Airships (Flying Ironclads)

Airborne ships that blend technology and magic into something that shouldn’t work but actually does. Armored hulls riveted like naval vessels, powered by crystal engines attuned to Force or Air magic, achieving vertical lift through anti-gravity fields or wind manipulation.

I’ve traveled on dozens of airships across multiple continents. The experience ranges from “majestic transportation fit for nobility” to “death trap held together by prayers and questionable engineering decisions.”

How They Work

The fundamental principle is elegant: crystal engines generate lift while conventional propellers provide thrust and maneuverability. The magic handles the impossible physics, steam power handles everything else.

Most airships maintain altitude through continuous magical field generation, which means engine failure is exactly as catastrophic as you’d expect. Emergency descent protocols exist, but “controlled crash” is more accurate than “landing.”

Aegis Frames

Kaiserreich’s towering mechanical soldiers that I know intimately thanks to the single stupidest decision of my career. These humanoid combat vehicles blend steam technology, crystal engines, and multiple magical disciplines into twenty meters of mobile destruction.

Fyrie still plays funeral dirges when we discuss Aegis Frames

First deployed in 1855, current models are third-generation units that only Kaiserreich possesses the secrets to construct. Earth Magic reinforces frames, Force Magic optimizes weight distribution, crystal engines provide primary power.

Aegis Frame Classes

Jäger Class (12m): Scouts with twin-barrel rapid-fire steam guns. Fast, lightly armored, frequently the first to die or first to warn.
Krieger Class (15m): Standard combat frames with shoulder-mounted cannons and forearm repeater guns. Backbone of Aegis deployments.
Panzer Class (18m): Heavy assault units with siege cannons and pneumatic pile-driver fists. When subtlety fails, send Panzers.
Festung Class (20m): Mobile command fortresses that rarely risk direct combat. Walking castles for officers who value survival.

Production Secrets

Other nations have tried replicating Aegis Frame technology. I’ve seen Valorian attempts that looked impressive until they tried to walk and promptly face-planted into canal water. Only Kaiserreich possesses the industrial capacity, magical expertise, and technical knowledge required for proper production.

The exact construction details remain closely guarded state secrets, with manufacturing facilities hidden deep in Drachenland where even diplomatic visits don’t get you past the outer workshops.

Firearms

I’m an excellent shot when sober. When drunk, I’m a menace to architecture, innocent bystanders, and occasionally my own dignity. Arcanthea’s weapons technology spans everything from flintlock antiques your great-grandfather used to precision-engineered death dealers that make Kaiserreich gunsmiths weep with professional jealousy.

Common Types

Flintlock Pistols: Museum pieces still carried by those too poor or too stubborn to upgrade. Reliable in the same way a donkey is reliable: slow, temperamental, and liable to fail when you need it most.
Percussion Cap Revolvers: Six shots before you’re fumbling with powder and primers while someone’s trying to ventilate your skull. Modern standard for personal defense among adventurers and officers.
Breech-Loading Rifles: The sweet spot between “reloading takes three minutes” and “costs more than a small airship.” Crack the breech, drop in a cartridge, close it, shoot. Kaiserreich infantry carries them standard.
Lever-Action Repeaters: Valorian innovation that their gunsmiths are insufferably smug about. Tube magazine under the barrel, work the lever, chamber a round. Faster than revolvers, more compact than breech-loaders. Popular with frontier types.
Bolt-Action Rifles: Military precision weapons that Kaiserreich sharpshooters use to put holes in targets from distances that shouldn’t be possible. Smooth bolt action, superior accuracy.
Steam-Powered Gatling Guns: Rotating barrels, steam engine providing the muscle, ammunition feeding from belt or hopper. Experimental, expensive, prone to dramatic malfunction at the worst possible moments. I watched one explode on a Valorian ironclad during naval exercises. The gunner survived but his eyebrows did not.

Transportation Networks

Railways

Steam locomotives connect major cities across Orin with varying degrees of success, punctuality, and passenger survival rates.

Kaiserreich: Comprehensive rail network where trains run exactly on schedule because Kaiserreich engineering tolerates neither delays nor excuses. Miss your connection by thirty seconds? The train left twenty-nine seconds ago. I respect the precision even as I curse it while sprinting down platforms.

Vaillancourt: Limited routes because the mage aristocracy views locomotives as “crude mechanical abominations unworthy of refined society.” What routes exist run on schedules measured in “whenever the crew feels ready” rather than actual timetables. Their passenger cars are beautiful though.

Valoria: Cargo-focused network where passenger comfort ranks somewhere below “don’t actively set travelers on fire.” Cheap fares, packed carriages, and the distinct sensation that the rail company values your coin more than your spine’s structural integrity.

Independent Territories: Whatever collection of salvaged locomotives, repaired track, and desperate prayers they can maintain. Quality ranges from “surprisingly functional” to “how is this moving without divine intervention.”

The Basilisk Incident

Someone—and I maintain this wasn’t me despite circumstantial evidence suggesting otherwise—thought transporting a caged basilisk by rail through the Adamantine Pass was a brilliant idea. The creature broke containment somewhere past the third tunnel.

The engineer panicked. Passengers screamed. I was hung over in third class and initially thought the screaming was just my headache achieving sentience.

By the time I realized a basilisk was loose, we were already in emergency stop mode on a downhill grade. Train wheels don’t handle emergency braking well at speed. Neither do passenger cargo containers. Neither does my dignity.

I helped subdue the basilisk using Fyrie and three passenger luggage trunks. The Rail Authority still sends me invoices for “damages to rolling stock and passenger trauma counseling.”

Not. My. Fault.

Maritime

Naval technology has advanced faster than any other transportation sector, driven by Valorian merchant competitiveness and Dark Elf naval supremacy that makes everyone else look like they’re paddling canoes.

Steamships: Standard cargo and passenger transport. Reliable, economical, and boring unless corsairs attack or someone discovers sea serpents breeding in the cargo hold.

Ironclads: Military vessels with armored hulls thick enough to shrug off cannon fire. Slow as continental drift but nearly impossible to sink through conventional means. I watched Valorian ironclads trade broadsides with Umbraqueth corsair ships for three hours, like watching armored turtles fight with cannons.

Hybrid Sail-Steam: Economical for long voyages where you can’t carry enough coal to steam the entire distance. Sails for cruising, steam for maneuvering and combat. Practical compromise that makes purists on both sides hate them equally.

Irontide’s floating fortresses represent the absolute pinnacle of maritime engineering—entire cities that drift across oceans, powered by unholy fusion of dwarven innovation and gnomish magical theory. I’ve visited twice. Still can’t explain how they work.

The Technology-Magic Divide

Not everyone embraces progress. Vaillancourt’s mage aristocracy actively suppresses technological adoption, viewing steam engines as “crude mechanical abominations for those lacking proper arcane refinement.” I’ve watched elderly mages sneer at locomotives while teleportation circles fail for the third time that week because someone miscalculated the runic array.

The Mage Wars a century ago proved they couldn’t stop progress, dwarven artillery and mass-produced firearms beat traditional battle magic through sheer volume and practicality. They haven’t stopped trying to slow adoption though, bless their stubborn traditionalist hearts.

Meanwhile, High Elves consider most technology beneath them. Father still refuses to travel by airship despite the Celestine Isles being sky islands.