Material culture and technology

While there is high technology (in many cases much higher than real-world, or even much science fiction) and magic available, there is not an equivalent to modern-day consumer culture of technology. The following guidelines are to give the players an idea of what kinds of technology and magical items are available. Eventually, I will be adding new equipment options to this section.

Upper Levels and Types of Technology Available

• Computer and information technology is uncommon and not favored. You won't see much in the way of monitors or displays, databases of any kinds, keyboards, etc. There are people specially trained to be savants in terms of calculation and feats of memory. Many powerful people have an assistant who can recall the contents of an entire library in impressive detail, and handle massive amounts of mathematical calculations in seconds.
• Genetic Engineering and vat-grown life forms exist.
• Power supplies of effectively infinite duration are possible, although they do have a maximum sustained output.
• Faster than light travel and teleportation exist, but cannot reliably be replicated at the current time.
• The Lizardmen had psionic technology with telepathic interfaces, although it has never been (and may not be able to be) adopted by humans.

Teleportation and Propulsion

There are three major forms of highly advanced travel, which are possessed of their own unique advantages and disadvantages.

• Teleportation is instantaneous, but very, very energy-intensive. It is impossible to move much mass by teleportation. You cannot send non-living matter unless it is being carried by a sophont. This does mean that the undead effectively cannot teleport.
  • Dynamic teleportation is directed by a sapient mind. The most common type is a spell of teleportation. This is generally somewhat inaccurate as to target, but you can choose the target at the time the spell is cast. You could, for example, choose a city to teleport to. You won't have much choice as to where in the city you appear. Finer control than that is difficult or impossible.
  • Static Teleportation requires a gate at each end. Each pair of gates is linked; you cannot change the destination of a gate once it is built, and they must be built as a pair. If one gate is destroyed, its partner-gate is rendered useless. A typical loadout for a gate is 8 roughly human-sized sophonts, none of whom can carry more than 5 stone. Their range is limited, and they can't teleport someone further than, say, from the planetary surface to one of the moons.
  • The Cidrian Gates are a specialized type of Static Teleporter. They are huge, comparable in size and mass to a modern-day Main Battle Tank. They can only activate approximately once every 24 hours. They send their targets to their opposite gate (an activation drains the capacity of both gates, so you can't pop forward and back in less than 24 hours.) These are used to send riders to other planets, or possibly other planes. It is an extraordinarily bad idea to activate a Cidrian gate if there is any other Cidrian gate within fifty miles (measured in a sphere that ignores all material obstruction.) For this reason, the known ones are scattered about the world, and are rarely moved. You never know if another one you don't know about might be in the way.