Editing The Dawn After Steam: Setting (section)

==Power==
In this world, the laws of magic, nature, and science are not differentiated.  There are simply ways the world works.  As such, there is no technology vs. magic tension the way we usually think of it.  Someone could smelt ore purely using methods we would consider scientific, but it would be much more efficient to do that while also speaking the right incantations over the metal.

Instead, the primary tension is a question of reaction and imposition.  Does an individual (or a society) gain power by imposing its will on reality, or by reacting and adapting to reality?  This sets up a spectrum of sorts, and all power in the world is situated somewhere along it.

Another theme involving power in this world is that the seeds of your own destruction are present within your power.  If your power is based on imposition, your fall will be related to hubris.  You won't be able to remake the world as much as you want, and sooner or later, reality is going to irritated with you hacking it constantly.  On the other hand, people who master adapting to reality in some level run the risk of losing themselves.  These people cease to have an independent free will; they devolve into pawns or become part of the ecology.

===Artisanry===
Artisanship imposes one's will on the materials and energies of the world.  Wizards and gadgeteers are both expressions of imposing one's will on reality.  As mentioned earlier, the laws of physics & magic are not differentiated.  The bigger divide is matter vs. energy, or what the focus of your imposition is on. Most of what we would consider technology is dealing with the matter side of the equation: one manipulates inert, lifeless matter until it becomes a powerful item of some kind. Guns, airships, swords, potions ... these are all material imposition. Material effects can naturally arise as well. The weapon of the greatest swordsman in the world will become magical, and the field where a horrible battle took place will become cursed.  Creating fireballs, laying on hands, and many other effects we would often call magical are about manipulating energy flows. The farther down this path one goes, the less one can embed the effect in a material form. It's fleeting and often invisible.

The benefit of this path to power is that the artisan (or an artisan community) is in control of their own fate. Unfortunately, this is also a path defined by a degree of hubris.  With great power comes an increasingly likelihood that things will go horribly wrong.  In many ways, this is the story of the Kingdom of Steam.  In the end, it was not defeated by a greater enemy, or even bad luck.  It was defeated when its own creations turned against it, destroying it from within.

This world is not industrialized. There are guns, the occasional airship, but no mass production. The physical and social infrastructure necessary for industrialization is simply not there. Some societies are more advanced than others, however.  The Kingdom of Steam came close to industrialization, but things ended badly for them. Things would also end badly for people specializing on the energy side of things, or someone who does both.

===Patronage===
The other end of the spectrum involves adaptation, and the major representative form of powee here is patronage, this setting's version of divine magic. The Patrons are various cosmic forces and concepts. They are single-minded entities, each with an idealized view of what the world ought to be.  These idealized views may or may not make sense to humans.  Indeed, it is likely that the Patrons are alien intelligences, and any coherence perceived by human beings is an illusion imposed by humanity.  Nevertheless, Patrons are represented as masked individuals wearing stylized clothing of some form.  Most if not all have very specific ideas about what human societies should look like.

One can gain power by giving one's self to a Patron, submitting to their will. It is common for a community or an individual promise to act in accordance with a Patron's wishes in specific ways (rituals, following taboos, etc.), and in exchange the Patron grants specific boons. 

The Patrons love having insane or mindless instruments furthering their cause.  While most people do not see anything particularly wrong with a degree of patronage, most view The Listeners as dangerously unhinged.