The Unformed Lands have a wide variety of tech levels, mostly due to the sheer size of the world. There are also some technology anomalies due to the presence and use of magic in The Unformed Lands and mage domains.
Ideas can spread fairly quickly via horse and foot. Ideas must spread lineraly from one place to another and then take hold in the new place before spreading again. The biggest reason for a variety of tech levels is the rise and fall of warlords and civilizations. The individual city-states and races will have different production capabilities, but that is generally due to local resources and temperment. There are some strange tech anomolies on The Unformed Lands though. There are a number of advanced pieces of technology that were discovered much later in Earth history, but are actually simple to build or maintain.
Technological devices also move very quickly from the settled islands to the newly settled areas. This is similar to the United States west during the late part of the 1800s. People in the frontier areas tend to heavily tax adventuers, knowing that adventuers don't want to travel for weeks back to the older lands for simple supplies. This largess is then used to buy manufactured stuff from the older, settled lands.
The first is neccesity. There will generally not a be any advances in technology unless there is a need for it. Note, that there is almost always a need for high productivity or less man power being used to do an existing job. Hence, effort will be put into improving existing items to make them more efficient. An example of this would be the transistion from matchlock guns to flintlocks. Along with neccesity there has to be the idea that change and improvement is possible. This is illustrated in David Drake's books "The Reformer" and "The Tyrant". On The Unformed Lands the imputus for change is that magic spells can be discovered.
Second is having a sufficient surplus of goods and educated people to actually try new things. This includes sufficient food or raw materials to use with the chance of having no return. Hence, subsistance agriculture will not generally try anything new and experimental with regards to farming since a failure would mean starvation.Along with trying new ideas, there is the need for basic research as Galileo or Newton did. Related to having a surplus of people is also haveing a lot of luck. It can take a lot of insight and genius to make leaps in technology. A large population doesn't mean lots of inventors, only the possibity of geniuses. The flip side to this though is that in a society like ancient Rome, the presence of cheap slaves and lack of an inheiritance framework held back the desire to create improvements. The Romans wouldn't generally try and invent a newer or bigger system, they would build a lot more of the same small ones. For example, instead of trying to build larger iron furnaces which would require research, they would just build more of the same small ones they had been using for generations.
Third is the presence of magic. Magic is in many ways another technology. In a magical world, people are as apt to look for a magical solution first as opposed to a mechical or chemical technology. Magic is more likely to shut off exploration into specific areas than to total eliminate innovation. Once a magic spell has been developed to solve a problem, there has to be a real incentive or demonstration of a superior non-magic technology to propel further research. This is especially true of basic research. Magical research can more easily lead to the creation of spell to solve a specific problem, but will not generate the basic scientific data to enable a technological advance.
Fifth, is being able to keep and diseminate discoveries. Improvements to an existing item are not easy to spread far and wide, such as the horse harness or stirrup. The need for land travel hampers long distance trade to the speed of horses. The much tougher part is to share more abstract knowledge, and to keep such discoveries well known. It is the ability to eventually make connections that can lead to a lot of the modern inventions. The Unformed Lands has suffered in regards to keeping non-magical abstract knowledge. While paper has been discovered in the more civilized lands, there has been no printing technology until recently.
There is essentially no maritime technology. There is not sufficient open water to get beyond simple rafts. Canals are common in some mirs, but their use and creation depends mostly upon the geography of the mir.
Ground transportation technology is mostly at the pre-industrial (early 1800's) level. Ground transportation technology of that level is fairly evenly spread out. Almost every society has full knowledge and access to the various technologies, mostly due to the simplicity of the technology. Ground transportation consists mostly of foot, horse, rickshaw, chariot or horse drawn carriage or oxen pulled wagon.
The Roman style road is common in the mirs, but the level of repair depends upon the mir. Mirs that have a stable and settled government are able to maintain their roads. Mirs that have fallen into anarchy and warlordism don't maintain their roads. There are no roads in The Unformed Lands. Mage domains will have roads made from magic that are smooth and easy to ride on.
The concept of the railroad is known but is not implemented except in few exceptional places. The limitation is the lack of need. Rails won't last against attacks in Flux, and generally there is not enough need for rails within most anchors. Rails made of wood or stone are common but awkward and rough on the wheels. As such they are rarely used. Most people that encounter such stone or wood rails will not automatically know what they are for.
Travel in The Unformed Lands is easy, but dangerous. The gently rolling plain makes it easy to traverse, and the lack of weather means that travellers are not frozen or bogged down in mud. There are no normal navigation marks in the Unformed Land. Compasses don't work, and there is no moon or sun to sight. Navigation is done by certain uncommon people who can see the power lines that run between mirs.
There is no teleportation.
Air transport is all magically based, and as such only occurs in The Unformed Lands and mage domains. Non-magical flight isn't viable outside the mirs, since magic makes it so easy to fly using brooms, carpets or similar. There are kites and hot air ballons which are of course non-magical, but they are of limited use for travel or even observation in the mirs. There are no planes since they are not feasiable outside the mirs, and mirs are rarely large enough to warrent flights. The technology has not been developed due to lack of need.
Communications is fairly Colonial era with regards to non-magical communications.
The Unformed Lands invented the printing press over 2,500 years ago. Paper isn't cheap, but is cheap enough to print books that are commonly availiable. Literacy is normal in some societies, but almost unheard of in others.
Mass communications is limited to the printed word and live performances.
Long distance communications is much tougher on The Unformed Lands. The semaphore tower (clacks) is well known and available on many of the larger islands. Intra-island communications is thus fairly fast. The clacks is both a day and night device. During the day the towers use flag arms. At night, they shift to lights using carbide to generate acetylene gas as the light source. Note that acetylene gas is very explosive, and occasionally a clacks tower will blow up. Also, the use of carbide lamps underground is subject to explosions if the party encounters mine gas (methane). The concept of the telegraph and telephone exist, but the expense of the copper keeps it a laboratory experiment instead of a viable technology. The lab sets are powered by chemical batteries since there are no generators availiable. The concept is known, but nobody has a working version; nor is anybody likely to bother.
The Unformed Lands is relatively low tech when it comes to energy sources. The Unformed Lands has very little availiable coal and essentially no availiable oil. The primary energy sources in the mirs are animal dung, wood, and charcoal as far as heating goes. Vegatable and animal oils are used for non-magic lighting. Beeswax, tallow and such oil are commonly in use, albeit all but tallow are expensive.
The mage domains don't have an energy problem, although it is a trade off between using the magical energy to maintain a larger domain or for production use within the domain. In areas of peace, mage domains commonly act as production centers, albeit small ones. Mages, wether the one who created the domain or lessor ones, manipulate matter to fashion goods such as iron tools, weapons and such. While mages can create matter from the Unformed Lands, the cost is high and some types of objects will vanish if they are brought into a mir. More commonly mages work with existing matter from mirs and just manipulate it.
Human, or altered human labor is common both in mirs and mage domains.
Farming technology is fairly late 18th century tech level on the majority of mirs. The northern European bread board or mold board plow is in use in most societies. Oxen are used for traction animals instead of horses. There is crop rotation and use of manure for fertilizer. Plant and animal breeding is fairly common and at the level of early 20th century US or Europe. There are a variety of domestic animals including cows, sheep, goats, pigs, and various types of fowl such as turkeys, chickens and pidgeons. There are generally multiple breeds of each species instead of the small number of breeds seen in late 20th century Earth. Magically altered people are common for farm labor use, but not for food.
The richer and more advanced mirs have horse or oxen drawn farm machinary similar to what was seen on US and European farms around the early part of the 20th century. This provides a significant boost in food production.
Irrigation is in common use, but is limited by geology. Windmills exist and are used along with reservoirs and aquaducts. The water meadow, invented in England in the mid 1600s is in use in many parts of The Unformed Lands. The water meadow yields more hay and similar grass type feed crops for animals. Water powered grist mills are normal. The multi-field system of clover, turnip, fallow, etc is normal.
Fishing is a minor source of food most mirs. Fish are raised in ponds or swamp areas.
Food stuffs don't travel cheaply in a horse and foot economy. Unless the mir has access to a mage domain nearby, they are limited by what they can grow both in quantity and variety. The randomness of the geography and climate of mirs makes for strange trading networks. It is possible to have a tropical mir with bannanas only a few weeks travel from an artic mir with furs. While the temperate wheat growing mir is months away.
Food is stored by salting, pickling and smoking mostly. The wooden barrel is in use, along with the clay amphora.
Food can not be grown in the Unformed Lands, but can be grown in a mage domain or mir. It is possible for a mage to transmute organic material into edible food. It takes considerable energy, and thus most mage domains must grown food normally.
Metal working is fairly basic in most mirs. Mirs that would normally have the technology and capital to create an industrial infrastructure also usually have the ability to get such work done in mage domains. The best metal working, especially steel and iron, is done by the dwarves. The lathe, drill press, milling machine, shaper and other early 20th century machine shop equipment exist and are used in the mirs, but mostly for repair work. All such equipment is hand operated, or at best jig operated. It is also water powered or hand powered, not electrically powered.
Links:
Stone and ceramics are in common use. This includes high efficiency fire places & ovens, cooking pots, frying pans and such. Concrete and cement are known from Roman days, are often used in societies that are stable enough to do the creation of the raw materials out of the Unformed Lands. They have the kick pottery wheel.
Wood is in common use for many things. The protection of forests is a religious duty though. There are religious restrictions on cutting down trees. The restrictions are to ensure a permanent growth of forests while providing wood for the various races. Deforestation was an issue historically, but has been solved in most civilized city-states for the past 1,000 years. Bamboo is in common usage since it is fast growing. It is used for furniture, building and fuel.
Glass production is inexpensive since it is normally done in mage domains.
Links:
The Unformed Lands have the spinning wheel, cotten gin and loom.
Medicine is fairly primitive in most of The Unformed Lands. The existance of magical cures has held back the need or desire to improve things. Surgery is fairly common, and the cure disease spell has made survival reasonable.
Sanitation is fairly advanced, with buried sewage lines common. The upkeep of such infrastructure is another matter.
There is little theoretical science.
The Unformed Lands economy is fairly simple. Despite the on going trade, there was no banking or credit system. The limited liability corporation is to be common. Most of The Unformed Lands's major powers are still cash economies though.. Taxes are paid in cash, instead of the feudal method of crops and goods.
Back to The Unformed Lands Index