Editing The Dawn After Steam: Setting (section)

===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.