"I would like to see you... the GUN Golem!" I used my 9th level spells to allowed the boring single shot gun to fire many more times... sometime about warping time and space...
@@Eugene-tm8fm before summer i was camping with friends and two of them were constantly grilling things so i called them merry and pippin and do we do lord of the rings watch togethers, ah yes 3 am ideas
Also, what helps determine the system of magic too is asking if the setting is a universe or multiverse? Are souls eternal or is life finite? Are we our bodies or are our bodies a vessel in which we reside through life and then the energy splits upon death, resulting in the physical energy vessel decaying and being spun back into the physical life cycles while the other half, the conscious soul goes into an afterlife? Or is life more solipsistic and everything outside the self is but a projection/reflection of the self? All of this would determine how energy flows between life, death, other worlds and dimensions.
Guns would actually make sense for the wizards themselves as backup weapons. Since they require far less training than other weapons, a wizard who spends most of his time on studying magic would still be able to pick one up and be a reasonably effective without taking too much time away from his main pursuit. A wheellock pistol hidden within the wizard's robes could be a nasty surprise for some enemy who thinks he's safe because he prepared anti-magic defenses.
Wizards aren’t useless in this case, tge ergon puts it best…. You have wizards to battle other wizards, but enough foot soldiers in a battlefield can alter a war in small ways, which is why in the ergon books you have a dragon rider lead the army, but still have armies following the dragon riders.
@LCCWPresents the sword of truth series was much the same. Wizards would combat other wizards. Something that might also exists are Mage Breakers, spec ops groups specifically designed to take down wizards.
True. Most "medieval" fantasy is actually late renaissance and early modern in terms of aesthetics. So early firearms with wildly different and varied mechanisms and design existing alongside magic and wizards is totally valid tbh.
"Any wizard bright enough to survive for five minutes was also bright enough to realize that if there was any power in demonology, then it lay with the demons. Using it for your own purposes would be like trying to beat mice to death with a rattlesnake." ― Eric by Terry Pratchett
@@ClockworkGearhead I'd imagine for the same reason they arent depicted as magical crossbow or longbowmen, because they would be something else if they focused their magic on a weapon. Like a spellsword or in this case spell gunner
One intangible factor that affected Magic vs Science in many of my old D&D campaigns involved the perceptions and politics of the players themselves. Over the years, I've noticed that "Magic" seems to be a more comfortable concept for certain players to digest, while "Guns" just make them uncomfortable. And, of course, the reverse has also held true; albeit with a different sort of player. Some people just find the Pointy-hatted wizard to be a silly trope, while others don't want to see Cowboys in Camelot. Others still are perfectly fine with both. My solution to this is a homebrew campaign setting with cyclical historical periods. In some eras, fantasy-based "Magic" holds the upper hand, while others heavily feature the widespread usage of flintlocks and cannons. Here's my basic outline: 1.) Corruptible figures will always seek absolute power, and once they master the forces of "Magic", nothing can stop them from doing as they please. The less-powerful must develop skills and weaponry of their own to counter the advantage of these Wizard-Kings, while the Wizard-Kings seek to stamp out the development of science in order to maintain control of an ignorant labor pool. This leads to a global confrontation of blackpowder vs black magic. 2.) After the "Dark Age" that follows the destruction of the Wizard-Kings, valiant knights and heroes must arise to defend the weak in a broken world without order while remnants of the olden days run wild. Ancient wisdom is lost and "Wizardry" is viewed as something dark and evil. 3.) The pendulum of history swings back in favor of a more balanced world. Fresh minds rediscover ancient secrets and appropriate them in new ways to elevate society out of superstitious barbarism without repeating the mistakes of the past. 4.) Those with the greater vision notice the inherent patterns of History. Rather than aquiring power for its own sake or rebelling against said power, they seek to maintain a delicate balance while softly developing Humanity itself, all in the fragile hope that we'll mature as a species and become something greater... 5.) The dream is broken and new Wizard-kings take over. Rinse and repeat.
@@jackknifevideoworks Thanks. Yes, that's the basics. I borrowed a lot of these concepts from books and things. Michael Moorcock's 'Eternal Champion' (Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum...) books, Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' and Frank Herbert's 'Dune' series all have characters who are continuously reborn into different time periods. For my old D&D campaign setting I drew up a chart that illustrates the time cycle as a sort of literal Yin-Yang. The world is our world, but a mirror opposite of it always exists on the "Other Side" of History. Different doorways and means of traveling between the mirrored worlds exist. So, if the players exist in an idylic paradise on one side of the door, a dark and hellish dystopia surely exists in the other. Some examples of Tropes I've used have been visitors from "The Other Side" being mistaken for beings like Angels, Aliens, Elves etc on "This Side". The Elves (as such) are in fact the hyper-evolved descendants of Humans like us. Several of them visited ancient Ireland via a time-shifting Island called Hy-Brasil, and that's where tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann came from, which in turn inspired our popular conceptions of "Elves".
Magic itself is a technology. Simply put, how would a DnD wizard work without spell scrolls, and how would spell scrolls work without writing? Divine and innate casters could exist in a pre-literate society, but not wizards proper. In fact, I would question if the pointy-hatted wizard would even exist in a world with divine and innate spell casters. How did the first wizard cast the first spell? I would imagine that it would have been an inefficient casting, involving unnecessary complexity because the last 10 apprentices who took a shortcut wound up casting fireball on themselves. If a wizard is simply an inefficient version of an innate-casting sorcerer, there would be little need of wizards. In fact, I could see them being suppressed by divine-magic cleric kings, and arcane casting to remain a niche school until the industrial era, when science discovers the nature of the magic.
@@blkgardner You're not wrong. This is just the cyclical pattern that I adapted for my own homebrew campaign setting, and I don't necessarily follow the current 5e D&D rules for all these things. My campaigns have been running since 2e AD&D, settling comfortably into 3e/3.5/Pathfinder, and I've adopted quite a bit of the Magic system from Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), where failure to cast spells responsibly will result in dire consquences. I do treat "Magic" as a Science all its own. What makes the "Magical" Sciences different from subjects like Chemistry or Physics is that they will require certain logistical studies and insights that aren't readily apparent. They function off poorly understood universal forces that take centuries of applied experimentation to even notice, let alone master. Much as the Gun replaced the Bow through ease of training, it takes many years for one of my "Wizard" types to even cast their first Magic Missile. In an average Human lifetime, we'd only be able to reliably reproduce one or two "Spells" that would seem magical to the uninitiated. Those few who could even perform this feat (without blowing themselves up) would need to be prohibitively Intelligent, Perceptive and above all else Persistent. In my histories, the very first Wizards were the nigh-immortal Tuatha Dé Danann/"Elves" whose lives are measured in Millennia. They're the ones who first noticed the cyclical patterns of history, charted doorways and passages between times, and wrote down realiable methods for teaching "Magic" to shorter-lived peoples. It was their visitation and meddling in our own time that first lead to stories of our own Merlins, Rhiannons, Druids and all the various Pointy Hatted witches and wizards. Now, "Divine Magic" is something else entirely. I don't personally call that "Magic." Chosen Ones don't "Cast Spells", they Perform Miracles. In my campaign, one cannot simply go to Cleric School and earn a degree in performing the will of God. That's something that occurs only rarely and on a truly Biblical scale. I treat this very much in the way of Moses, Elric, or Paul Atreides. It's something huge that will change the course of history. Most Churches in my campaign were founded because of a single individual Performing Miracles many centuries beforehand, which in turn set precedents of right, wrong and superstition. The Priests and Leaders of these Religions may claim some kinship or authority granted by proximity to said figures, but they cannot bestow any sort of genuine Divine Power themselves. In one of my campaign's eras, there's a prolonged civil war between a declining empire of knights and "Magic" users and a rising state of puritanical industrialists inspired by Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army.
Funnily enough there was a bigger prevalence of guns (both siege and handguns) during the Late Middle Ages than the early Modern Period. During the 1300's the use of guns was much more prevalent than during the 1500's and early 1600's. You'll only see guns overpowering the might of the heavy cavalry and massed melee infantry in the later parts of the 1600's, having learned the lessons from Gustavus Adolphus, father of modern warfare, and even during the 1700's you'll still see the heavy cavalry being the most powerful part of an army, which started to be beaten by formations such as the Spanish Tercio, which used a combined force of pikemen and musketeers. If I had to choose a period that reminds me the most of Warhammer Fantasy it would be the the 1400's Central Europe, which saw the advent of the full plate knight in combination with the apex of firearms before their resurgence 200 years later.
@@395leandroNice Reference of the great Swedish General,he developed staged volleys. One line would fire,then reload as the second line advanced and fired.
In a world with magicians that can light a candle with the snap of a finger, I wouldn’t want to be the one holding the powder horn or stand within 100 meters of a powder keg…
The biggest issue with guns in fantasy (particularly in ttrpgs) is 2 fold. The first is due to many years of media reinforcing stereotypes there is a commonly accepted genre that we think of Fantasy. The second is the vast majority of players that ASK for guns in their games always want some OP weapon that follows real world physics, despite the rest of the game being abstracted.
I think it mainly just stems from world building just being a secondary concern for a lot of people who write stories - be it for pen and paper RPGs, video games, books, or movies. A lot of people tend to just focus on the stories they want to tell, making the places they're set in take something of a backseat. This isn't a condemnation of this sort of writing, just an observation. Most people hardly understand how the real world works or its history, so I wouldn't expect them to consider the environmental, cultural, political, or economic circumstances necessary for the development and use of firearms in a fictional story. They see the works of people who came before them, say "oh that's cool", and use elements of those for their own work.
@@spnked9516 like Harry Potter and Dr.Who have cool world building but anything related to combat takes a backseat as its not the focus. noting because shooting a guy can usually end a evil plot or something similar and then you got to explain this to whoever keeps pointing it out
Vary well argued. I usually just point out the economics/logistics to justify the development and adoption of some type of rifle. What is more practical? A life time investment into training and keeping a mage corp loyal, or arming pesent conscripts and drilling them for a month with weapons you can collect after the war is over.
Eh, magic would still be around, it is more versatile. Guns are at the end of the day, just extremely efficent ways to do one job, putting holes into people. A magican is essentially having the periodical table at your command. Magican's are essentially combat chemists. A world with magic and firearms... guns would obviously play the more dominant combat roles... but imagine how usefull to a military campaign disarming traps, giving people nightvision, purifying water....... instant growing food or just instantly charginging a warmachince with a controlled lightning spell would be.
@@PJDAltamirus0425while magic would certainly still be around, it would still simultaneously exist in a world where the non-magical people would be in an arms race to ever attempt to gain equal footing. Granted, magic users would always continue to have an advantage over nonmagical beings.
@@Beuwen_The_Dragon Yeah, but why invest a huge into making ttractors to move dirt when some guy with a scroll can just use magic to do it. Magic has more non combat uses than firearms do.
@@PJDAltamirus0425 It ultimately depends on how scarce and how accepted by society magic users are. If they're a dime a dozen, then it's totally reasonable to believe one can be hired for relatively cheap to do labor-intensive tasks in an afternoon at most. However, the more rare and/or less accepted they are by their world's society, the less likely it is they'll be able and willing to help commoners, necessitating the need for a nonmagical way to do that task. With that in mind, even if sheer labor could solve that task, there's still a few incentives for people to try to develop something to make it easier: They want to sell the machine / knowledge of the process, they could do it just to make it easier for themselves, or they could experiment around just for the fun of it.
I always like the idea of Magical society’s creating analog versions of modern technology. Like the gun, say instead of explosive powder they used a small fire ball spell to launch the projectile down the barrel. And taking some creative liberties said spell was engraved in tiny runes on the mechanism that is completed by a single rune on a spring powered hammmer.
I hear the wizards cancel tech argument... and well, there shouldn't be much of anything... Lots of traps, weapons and other tools even of the medieval age shouldn't exist either then. Such a high society could potentially fear them too.
If anything, in a fantasy setting with wizards guns would be _more_ likely to occur! Not only would alchemy yield actually impressive results but also average folks would now have a very pressing need for easy projectile weapons. The issue of peasants being bullied by knights, samurai, or other equivalent elite fighters, would be way worse and involve way more projectile attacks with questionable wizards taking their place and roaming the land. And with alchemy yielding actually useful results, people would tinker with it way more and try way more exotic things, considering some people would inevitably discover stuff like recipes for gold or healing or whatnot encouraging others. And also, an accidentally explosive result would just be seen as yet another useful alchemical creation and people would get right to work finding uses for it. And whats to say that there wouldn't be some alternative, magical explosive powder which would make firearms way more powerful and practical early on? Even in today's world, many societies never invented or adopted guns, but it was inevitable enough that it was developed at least once and spread. In realistic fantasy all these needs would trigger its inevitable invention and many societies would end up adopting it.
I agree. Firearms don't require an industrial revolution and alchemists running around everywhere would expedite their development. You'd really get stuck in the 17th century when, if this is the sort of magic that makes certain people's lives quite easy, the upper class would have little to no reason to invest in manufacturing things that'd only matter to people poorer than them.
In a wworld with powerful magic/alchemy think we'd be seeing a lot more bombs/grenades, rockets and flamethrowers; not neccesarily guns though; they'd still develop eventually (guns are essentially a development from alchemical flame-throwers) but when alchemical fire becomes more effective it is entirely possible that guns will only develop slowly, as they would take much longer to develop into something actually better than alternatie pyrochemical options.
@@colbyboucher6391 yes, i know; only about 300 years after gunpowder started being used in warfare; the point I'm making is that firearms development might be slower when alternative weapons (rockets, flame throwers, bombs etc.) become more powerful than they were historically.
@@captainnyet9855 Not necessarily, Greek Fire was pretty good and was basically an early flamethrower, but ended up falling out of use even as guns continued to develop. Even today we have really great flame based weapons, bombs, grenades, and rockets in modern warfare and yet guns are still the staple of any army.
Not finished with the video, but one thought here: Magic is magic in our world because it does not work or rather because it ignores the chain of cause and effect (if you believe in such things). In a fantasy world, it is much harder to differentiate magic from science. This is because when it becomes understandable, it stops being magic. Recently, I have a fascination for magic settings where the magic is unknown and unknowable for this exact reason.
I happen to like firearms & dont really see an issue in using them. As an aside though, I once was an occultists myself & occult only means hidden. The dividing line between science & magic is the mass understanding of how it works. Once everyone knows, it ceases to be hidden & the mystery leaves it.
I agree. Another reason might be because its because its almost "peasant alchemy". Any normal human with no magical talent and who knows the formula can make gunpowder. Its worth noting that rockets came before guns. Maybe the mages supplied rockets for signaling and some servant working in the magician's factory learned the formula and figured out that if you reverse the rocket and stuff rocks down the tube you can cause them to fly out at high speed. Also remember people like Leonardo were not just inventors, scientists and artists, they were military engineers and that's what paid the bills. And once the technology became known it would be very attractive to the professional warriors as it made having to go up against an evil mage more survivable.
So, end of guns, with a new creation. It resonates with the gunpowder and brass, and turns bullets into remote detanated booms. So it's dangerous to even hold a gun. Haven't had bullets in my work yet, but I found a blinding method. It uses glass
I like l guns in fantasy, but would personally only take it as far as breach-loading single-shot guns but with sound and flash suppressors, smokeless powder, cylindrical self-contained metallic cartridges and advanced projectile designs.
I am creating a series of animatics, characters designs, etc for my animation portfolio. One of the main ideas i'm working on is a high-fantasy story set in a world where humans have developed gunpowder to counter elven magic. After seeing the thumbnail of this video I decided you are going to be one of the characters. You are now a half elven powder shaman named Bordo the Old. You have no saying in this.
In Ralf Bakshi's movie Wizards, the good guy takes out his rival with a sleight of hand magic trick. Pulls a Luger from his sleeve and shoots Black wolf three times through the chest. Magic. Works.
The best explanation for why there wouldn't be any significante firearm development is 3 fold. - 1st - In a world of Magic, supernatural strong humans(fighters/barbarians), and monsters the guns would need to perform a lot better before they could be used as weapon. The first few guns, like handcannon and even flintlock would be rather expensive and the chemical to physical reaction wouldn't be able to keep up with what a supernatural human, even non wizard would do. As such maybe cannons and artillery would only be the developed path. Otherwise you would need to mix magic enchantment to the gun itself and that would increase even more the cost and would be self defeating for the wizards to do. Otherwise, if guns are just as deadly in fantasy world as they are in RL then the powerscalling would become incredible out of loop, any peasant could pull a flintlock and kill a wizard or superhuman fighter that took decades to reach their lvl of skill. - 2nd - Research and Development of firearms is expensive and need talented and intelligent people to do. This mean learned people with money, people that are way more likely to endup as wizard or merchant than this arms development route, so there is a strong brain drain this front. In fact the person that is more likely to discover and develop arms is in fact, the wizard themself. From the simple research in alchemical reactions, to improvement in their golem/construct design and even personal fall back mechanic. Beside them there are the fantasy thieves but what they have in ingenutity in conceal gears lack in large investment and development that a wizard could have. - 3rd - Guns need to compete with another form of instant destruction, spell scrolls or talisman if you are in asian setting. Like guns anyone can use it and just need to tear it open or something and they will do the effect you want without need training, and while in the long run the mundane gun might outcompete the scrolls in personal destructive potential, the problem is the early age is more cost effective to get a scroll of fireball or spend 3 years of whole logistic chain from mining, to processing and testing a handcannon (and their ammunition) and the many decades later of ReD to improve that. Often is the scroll that will come on top at time firearms are a risky, impratical, expensive self defence tool that underperform against anything but the standard human.
I think Arcanum Obscura games made the whole "tech vs magic" the best. In this world, magic coexists with Steampunk Victorian Society. But they can't mix because foundation of magic is alteration of fundamental laws of universe while science utilize them. Entities heavily aligned to magic or technology emit special mystical or reason fields. For example, a powerful mage has this aura of alteration of laws and as a result, technological inventions simply don't work in his hands. Because laws of physics and chemistry don't work exactly as they should-revolvers has a huge chance of just exploding in his hand, if he boards a train- there is a massive chance that SOMETHING will go wrong with it (so they are not allowed to ride on one). But there spells and magic items work perfect. On the other hand, Doctor of Physics simply can't cast spells, enchanted items don't work for him. But as a trade of- science mechanisms work super well for him and his sheer comprehension of the fundamental laws of the universe weakens any magic used against him. On a societal level, magic can make an individual far more powerful than any tech. Millennia old elven mages can destroy even the most advanced scientific nations on their lonesome. But it takes centuries to become THAT good, while any village Joe can learn to use the revolver in months- and it works on non-enchanted medieval armor as good as you expect. When scientific republic fought pretty powerful magical human kingdom-former OBLITERATED latter.
I think the real difference between science and magic is understanding. There’s the TVtropes page “sufficiently analyzed magic,” which is the inverse of Clark’s third law on technology and magic. Your videos are always so much fun. Edit: Replication is important too ofc.
The way i see it, magic is another word for technology. A series of actions/rituals that involve certain objects in certain configurations, all designed to "hack" an inherent quality or aspect of reality to achieve a certain personal goal, which would have been much harder or even impossible to achieve without the aforementioned actions and objects.
Even in our world, we have magnets, gun powder, sulfur, which have what could be percieved as inherent magical properties (properties that have functional uses that are extremely hard/impossible to achieve without those materials)
Sif you want a Fantasy setting with guns i would highly recommend to check out the Pillars of Eternity video games. it is a setting with Gods and Magic and basic fire arms. It is a really good game series up there with Baldur's Gate series IMO
An aside: In Glenn Cook’s Black Company novels, later in the series, when they are fighting against mages controlling the ethereal shadow-souls of dead men (which are immune to mundane weapons), the mercenary mages engineer magical bamboo poles that with a set amount of fireballs that can be “shot” from them. The advent of these weapons quickly changes the way war is fought by the mercenary company. The primary limiting factor to the poles is that wizards have to craft them.
So I feel like the need for firearms might still arise. Because in most universes learning magic/being a wizard takes years of study. So if a conflict were to break out a lord may have a handful of wizards at most. So I think people would be interested in giving their hordes of peasants the same destructive capability as a wizard. There is a really cool game called "Arcanum" where there were to countries who went to war. One of them used knights and powerful wizards, and the other side had maybe a few wizards but mostly conscripts who they spent a few weeks training. The guys with guns won hadly
As I said, on the last video, a lot of authors, don’t like firearms, because whenever firearms show up in a fantasy setting, it usually signals at the fantasy part of the world is dying. And will inevitably be replaced by our industrial world. That was part of the whole story of Joe Abercrombie‘s first law trilogy . Where a fantasy world is being dragged into an Industrial Revolution. With everything magical, kicking and screaming and fighting to prevent it, and eventually failing.
Love this channel. In a DnD campaign I played, guns (specifically pistol) were a new technology introduced from Plane of Fire that became popular when mass produced by thieves guild. I played a Wizard who studied tactics in school and went on journey to write a book on the applications of firearms with magic artillery.
The adoption of firearms was the result of the combination of technological development and military necessity. So firstly you have to have a society which is developing out of feudalism due to a long period of stable climate, good harvests, population growth, cutting down forests, draining swamps, building roads and villages turning into towns, being allowed to establish town markets etc, which also requires not being in the midst of being destroyed and depopulated by Vikings or Mongols or Crusaders/Jihadists. The beginning of using coal instead of wood for fuel contributed in terms of the supply of charcoal and sulpher for gunpowder. So that's the economic basis of wealth for technological development. And then it's the matter of military necessity, first for cannons to defeat castle walls and the epic Roman walls of Constantinople famously. But the switch from bows to muskets had to wait for refinements in the hand-held technology, when the European Military Revolution began, between roughly 1450 and 1750 AD, where the military competition between the little states of Europe forced a whole series of technologies and reorganisations of society to happen, including the _Trace Italienne_ fortifications* to withstand cannons, which required vast resources to build because of their huge scale, which required centralisation of states and bureaucracy to raise enough taxes to pay for it, and much larger armies to provide garrisons for such huge walls or to besiege them, and the switch to muskets to be able to produce such huge numbers of soldiers with minimal training, more bureaucracy for supply and medical services to keep huge besieging armies alive on multi-year long campaigns etc. Now a lot of that is going to be slowed down because of the extra dangers to civilisation in fantasy worlds - dragons, angry gods, evil humanoid hordes, undead, giants etc. But I agree with you about the contribution of Dwarves and Gnomes. Personally I always think of Dwarves as naturally communist - Stakhanovite miners, smiths and stonemasons who enjoy hard work and achieving things with their hands and are collectivist and anti-feudal due to the need to work together for safety underground, and their mutual respect for the quality of each others' work, and therefore disrespect for "gentlemen" who don't work. Plus they are also all soldiers, so there isn't the possibility of being turned into serfs or disarmed over-exploited proletarians. If disarmed, they can just make themselves new swords and axes. But in any case, they are too highly productive _not_ to invent gunpowder weaponry and some amount of steam technology. They might well want to keep it to themselves, or only make it available to others as mercenaries for huge payment. * "Star" forts, angled bastions, sloping external _glacis_ of the walls, much thicker walls - 30-50 feet, cannons inside the walls to keep attackers' cannons at further distance etc.
War hammer has a medieval fantasy where magic and guns are in the world as a norm for army’s. Mainly human beings use firearms. But I think a fellow UA-camr Monstergarden fuses firearms and magic as working together. The firearms are like catalysts for firing magic. He goes far reaper in to a more scientific grounded look into magic.
I kinda like to imagine an alchemist or wizard would be the kind of person who knows how to make more potent blackpowder, and use magic enchantments to replace some of the less reliable and more time consuming mechanisms for operating something like, say, a matchlock arquebus which fires with literally a smoldering match cord. You might replace the cord with, say, a magic device that all it does is make a spark when activated and you've gotten rid of the chance of misfire and the need to prime a pan. Alchemists are known for trying to transmute lead, and primitive guns happen to use cast lead balls as ammunition, so I can see alchemical enchantments affecting the ammunition in various ways in more high level fantasy.
I think the problem is, people add modern things to fantasy settings. Though no one minds when magic is added to any setting. So it seems like implementation is the problem rather than the existence thereof.
My company is working on a Dark Fantasy setting with late Victorian Era technology. (Inspired by Bloodborne) Trains, Repeaters, Elevators, etc. All of which existed around the late 1870's alongside the use of sabers and calvary in history. In the companies setting, 1870's technology is a normal part of society while medieval elements like armor-smithing and bladesmithing are still valuable. With mystical elements that are implemented into everyday life and technology like light crystals. Why? Because the threat of the setting is not other humans it is the undead. So many technologies phased out by firearms are still valuable in an era where you can not kill many monsters unless you decapitate them or pierce their heart. Unlike many settings that force technology and fantasy, the goal is the seamless inclusion of both in a way that makes it feel believable.
Your discussion got my mind wandering and I came up with a new idea related to the idea of culture developing around demand. Although it was a long and winding path that holds only a small relation to your discussion. (which i enjoyed very much!) I came up with the idea of adapting the German tale of Siegfried slaying Fafnir and gaining his power through bathing in his blood (not all versions agree on this), and I decided to take the curse of the gold to turn people into dragons and make it to where Siegfried's bloodline is cursed to turn into dragons if they are within the sight of gold, like a werewolf. So then these people of Siegfried blood decide to isolate themselves and form a new society based on avoiding gold, they instead value silver, iron, and brass, becoming expert smiths and swearing oaths on silver rings. Becoming a society centered around trading and bartering with their warriors being paid in silver and iron when asked to fight for their king. Rumors of the warriors going mad in the presence of gold becomes legend as any unfortunate enemy who wears gold upon a battlefield is never seen again, with survivors reporting a berserk rage taking hold of the knights with eyes of red and gold flaring as they fight everyone in reach to secure the gold for themselves, even attacking one another. Such warriors who succumb to this madness are exiled and often head North into barren snowfields to die alone or join their bewitched kin who tunnel and burn beneath the snow and ice in search of more gold.
Literally just finished reading " men at arms" where the ankh morpork city eatch run around the city trying to stop a rogue assassin whose found the "Gonne" and it causing trouble. Hilarity ensues
In my setting, the presence of unique materials which partially and sometimes entirely block magic exist. It's an arms race between science and magic, because both can counter each other. Salt, elder bark, cold iron, plus magical metals, etcetera all provide protection.
Dont wizards have the same problem as archers? Both are better than an early gun man, but they take way longer to train and a bullet with kill some one almost just as good as a lighting strike/arrow.
@@PALACIO254 I like your idea, but I don't think it would work. The same way Archmages are quest givers because they have more important things to do, lines of gunmen would act as a first line of defence. However, the same way Archmages do take action against very important threats, they would consider a revolt against the mageocracy the most important threat.
@@jgr7487 Well while guns are powerful, even in medieval Ages, they were still limited in range, accuracy, reliability, and rate of fire. This is why for many centuries, Guns were only used as supplemental weapons in warfare. Primary weapons were still spears, Pikes, Halberds, Bows and Crossbows. If anything, the only real advantage firearms would give over other weapons is Armour defeating capabilities. So most magic users really wouldn’t see guns as any more or less dangerous to them or their status as any other ranger weapon. At best, large field cannon and ship’s guns would be more the game changers, rather than small firearms.
Have you heard of better living through undeath? Everyone can have unlimited power with just a skeletal hamster endlessly running on a wheel and if you don't pay your necromancer his service fee it will put your eye out while you sleep
My favorite mountain dwarf uploaded! great day! and a great topic too! I think that Guns would come into being over time if the demand for it presented itself however it would take much longer because everyone whos smart and would have otherwise accidentally or purposefully ended up discovering gunpowder would be focusing on learning magic and the arcane so it would take a LONG TIME for the substance to be created and applied, even then it may end up being used as a reagent for magic before it becomes a tool for propeling projectiles!
It is the argument that outer tech is largely based on inner tech. And if one subscribes or looks at the larger ~24-25,000 year Yuga cycle we fell into a slower vibrating/denser material realm right around the time of the dark ages (Kali Yuga) and while some think we are still there others believe we began to climb out around the 1800s which is when a lot of mystical ideas began to become more mainstream again. Love your videos brother.
About the rarity...... dragons might guard surfur desposits. In not that guns are a bad idea in just that getting an ingredient to create gunpowder is hyper dangerous. Smarter dragons know how fucking screwed they would be if people could make so that every man has the DPS of a wizards so they guard and injest the ingredients for gunpowder. Hell, the componets to gunpowder may taste like candy to tell.
It takes many years to train a war mage. It takes years to train a bowman. It takes months to train a bunch of peasants to use broomsticks. Gunpowder was discovered at least 3 times in human history, so it would take no time for alchemists to magically enhance either the gunpowder or the bullets. If you are defending your plot of noble-owned land from monsters, you should have several gun users. If you are an adventurer trained with weapons, you shouldn't carry guns, because gunpowder only works in almost perfect conditions.
I think guns would not be a primary weapon but a secondary think having a pistol as a secondary to draw and shoot a mage or archer. In another use case witch hunters or something similar would likely arise to hunt mages that dable in forbidden magic or that aren't under the control of nobles. A musket would likely be their primary weapon.
@@warlordjjj2111 if archers are still a thing, rifled guns don't exist yet. In that age, a wall of bullets was the choice because you couldn't be sure that any of the bullets would hit a specific target.
@@warlordjjj2111 OK. I mentioned rifled guns because smooth-bore guns, such as the arquebus, are far less accurate. But, yes, a short range 1-shot pistol would be a terrifying secondary weapon.
3:40 *tries to create the elixir of imortality* *jump starts the development of guns, leading to the carnage of WW1* I guess someone rolled a natural 1 on that... XD
The often overlooked air guns have been around nearly as long as gunpowder weapons. I believe that air cannons were developed around the 15th century as well. Air guns in fantasy intrigue me, as hardly anyone puts them in settings.
Goated drip my dude. I posit that actually a magic setting might actually encourage innovation so as to let non magical people fight back against the magical. Taking out a dragon would be tough without cannons.
Pov you tryed to get a discount from the gnome weapon monger by ofering him magical herbs but now hes just babbling about reality from an outside prospective
Fun stuff! In my game setting, elemental magic is common and thus steam powered guns firing stone balls are a thing. Performance is not quite as good as a black powder pistol, but it is easier to maintain and use since the propellant and ammo are summoned rather than loaded. This does put a hard limit on the rate of fire.
@@Apple_Apporu My magi-tech guns work along those lines although they are runes etched in crystals via a ritual. Fire, water, and air are summoned for the propellant and earth (stone) is summoned for the projectile There is a fifth crystal that acts as a magic accumulator which is part of the trigger for the assembly. So while non-magical people can use guns, the relative high cost and resources needed limit their use. Bows and crossbows are still a thing.
The gerogian weapons museum is awesome!! David lets you touch and hold everything you can see and you can wear armor and take photos ❤ it's tucked away in the underground wine museum in a cool corner 😁
I like how the old game Arcanum answered this question. In that setting magicians can't use technology such as firearms because they blow up in their hands if they try So the magic users couldn't develop such weapons if they wanted to. So magic and technology were developed in parallel to each other. People lacking magical talent followed the path of alchemy and those who did learned magic.
Thank you very much for sharing your ideas and interpretations, you comment on a couple of very interesting things. I'am taking note 👍 Also you seem like a very nice/affable guy. Really a good dwarf. This is the first video that the current inscrutable and unquestionable mystical will (the UA-cam algorithm) has decided to recommend your channel to me. Instant subscription.
I always had a fantasy world in my head that had guns in a fantasy world, except that guns were more like wands for pistols and staves for rifles instead. In this world, magic is considered an integral part of the rich man's world and is definitely taught throughout the nobility. Anyone can learn magic, but the lessons and mentoring required cost way more than any average peasant could ever afford, which the nobility and certainly the Mages' Guild keep in check with magic. Not to mention that you'll almost certainly have to dedicate many years of your life to master it. But with wands and staves, all of that is pushed aside. These magic tools can arm the unknowledgeable to use basic but powerful offensive magic at will. No mana required and it is easy to use. Advancements are currently being made to make more powerful tools, but the best materials for these tools exist only on the other side of the world, in the New World. Alternatively, if we are talking guns for DnD... I thought up a system that emphasized the ease of use guns had while trying to keep them balanced. You have your average pistol and rifle, both of which normally gain no bonuses to damage nor bonus to hit from the weapon nor the user, but from the type of bullet instead. The better the quality of the bullet, the more damage or bonus to hit you get. This is so that ANYONE can use them. There are no requirements for it just as if it were a club or a spear, but there are feats that can be used to make its usage better or deal more damage. To add for balance and lore, mid-to-high quality bullets like lead or iron can only be made and sold from specialists and as such, are absurdly expensive compared to arrows and bolts. You can make your own out of pebbles or even wood, but that would be more detrimental to use, of course. Unless, that is, you become such a specialist yourself.
In the book I'm writing, guns have been invented. Despite mages and magic being rather common use. I've built up a history where guns, at first, were thought of as 'cowardly' but have since been used in combination with enchantment to be incredibly powerful. Most nations have arquebus esque guns, but the nation in the book still use something more akin to an ancient Chinese fire lance.
If I remember right, in the lore of Forgotten Realms there is a group whom stop technology (one of the being Elminster) as they don't want a single kingdom to become to powerful and go full Empire...
Cause they're weak, magic guns are extremely useful, specifically cause they can be ridiculously long range. Which would absolutely destroy a lotta DND playthroughs if not everyone has a passive force-field.
Counter argument: Slings existed before bows, yet bows were invented and adopted above it. Why? it takes longer to train a slinger than a bowman. When bows were the default ranged weapon, crossbows were nonetheless invented even though bows are cheaper, can fire faster, and further. Why? it takes longer to train a bowman than a crossbowman. Early guns were just as dangerous to the operator than the intended target, inaccurate, had a short range, and were awkward to fire, yet they've replaced both bows and crossbows. Why? It requires almost no training to wield a firearm. Humans are notorious for trying to find easier ways for doing things, and all magic would do, is expose them to a vast array of things that they would like to do without the special talents of a wizard or mage, or spend a lifetime learning to cast themselves.
No slings just weren't sufficiently powerful enough to defeat armor after a time. Once heavier armor became more prevalent you needed the power of bows and crossbows and then firearms. But even then slings kept limping along through the Medieval period to toss early hand grenades. They were used this way in the Spanish Civil War and probably even to the modern day. Literal children were taught to be crack shots with slings to guard livestock and crops. You arent wrong with crossbows and later firearms however.
@@80krauser The big factor that lead to slings not being in widespread use is that it's extremely hard to become accurate with one, unless you start practicing with one as a child. I have been throwing sling for over two decades now, and can attest that even though I can generate quite a lot of power and range, accuracy to any degree and consistency is something that eludes me, the same goes for almost all youtubers whom I've watched, with only one or two notable exceptions. Replacing trained slingers lost in battle thus becomes near impossible, unless you have time to wait for the next generation to come of age. Using lead shot for sling ammunition vastly improves it's efficacy, as was done historically.
@@orangutanjuice There is another factor in the nature of formations and the strategy of warfare as a whole. Slingers declined around the same time that battlefield tactics transitioned towards much more sense, rigid formations, and slingers require a lot more operating room than bows, javelins, etc, making them less suitable for those sorts of formations.
@kittythepet485 Contrary to cinema depictions, arrow volleys appear to have been extremely rare. Arrows were largely shot directly at short to medium-range.
Firearms are hard to reconcile with storytelling in a setting with a hard magic system that still operates under somewhat human limitations (i.e. casting a blocking spell takes time, knowledge of attack direction as well as projectile speed). In a flash-forward in The Wheel of Time, gunpowder had advanced enough for them to develop rifles, and those with the tech absolutely decimated the established magical elite.
Well while magic takes time to use, so does gunfire with early firearms. Plus as early guns were less accurate at long ranges, there is still a chance of missing. Other than armour defeating capabilities, early guns are not much different from Crossbows. In fact it can be argued that many types of Bows are still better for long range accuracy and rate of fire than early guns.
Relating to their argument of how a magic society don't need to innovate because of magic existing to which I also disagree. I did incorporate that idea of a magical society being technologically stagnant in my own writings. Where their fey and wood elf society remained stuck in the pre-medieval classical setting while other civilizations around them are already in the Napoleonic age.
I would say there are lets say, four pillars or four "forces" pushing technology forward.. IMO: (or by the teal deer, "Its complicated") 1 - reliability: Is it repeatable? Is it stable? does it follow rules? Hard magic says yes to all of these, thus is a form of science.. D&D and other systems, along with Full Metal Alchemist are exemples of Hard Magic (where Lord of the Rings is an exemple of Soft Magic and whimsical not-science). 2 - Range / Dispersal: or how much of a population does magic reach? how easy is it to learn (with variable effort)? You can see it as a "how many "armed" with magic a lord can field to defend a village under them, or their own keep?" 3 - The eternal battle between attack and defense.. the spear vs the shield. Some say crossbows demand less effort then a bow, and can have a better punch (but lacks speed).. on defense, all Plate level armors are awesome, but very expensive (also, weak vs lightning).. A thick wall is a mighty defense.. and a catapult and trebuchet demands a lenghty siege.. a good mage, if can reach range, can crumble or reshape that wall (or allow higher walls, magicly reinforced vs trebuchets)... 4 - Access control: Who can have magic? Similar to how metal armors and weapons were limited by nobility, does magic suffers from any kind of limitation? is it restricted by blood (like the wizarding world)? is it restricted like weapons were (in European and Japan Feudal times)? or can a magic user roam freely (be a wandering priest/shaman, or an adventurer/hero)? is it restricted by education, similar to priesthood and nobility (be a wizard, sorcerer or cleric) or are there exceptions for the common folk (druids, rangers, warlocks)? How these interact will answer if the discovery of "fire dust" / "flash powder" (gunpowder) will be used for fireworks.. and latter on camera flashes and dynamite (for mining).. and maybe cannons and smaller guns.. or where such "progression" will halt because magic is either safer, more accesible or more efficient in dealing with the same problem. One could also include a point of how metal or even technolocy interact with magic.. does one interefere with the other? does wearing Plate armor dampens ones Mana? or does Spellcastin have side effects (fire spell igniting nearby "fire dust" (either near the caster or who it hits)? In a broader sense, does a Mana rich land jinxes any research on technolocy or usage of tech? does having many tech gadgets working on an area dampens Mana and a magic user capability? These can also cause or expand a rift between magic and tech and shift the balance and some point in time.
![Fantasy Should Have Flintlock Firearms | Alliterated Articulacy™ [cc]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/5n9kHXXyoa4/mqdefault.jpg)
![Fantasy Should Have Flintlock Firearms | Alliterated Articulacy™ [cc]](/img/tr.png)
“I may be out of spells, but I am not out of shells”
"I would like to see you... the GUN Golem!" I used my 9th level spells to allowed the boring single shot gun to fire many more times... sometime about warping time and space...
“This is my BROOM-STICK!!!”
>watching lord of the rings
>check UA-cam notifs
>see that my favorite dwarf/gnome also uploaded
Life is good
funny thing that yesterday i was rewatching two towers and now i woke up for our favourite mountain dweller
Man I was just watching the first half of two towers earlier tonight. I must say, Gandalf fighting the Balrog is the best movie opening of all time
@@Eugene-tm8fm before summer i was camping with friends and two of them were constantly grilling things so i called them merry and pippin and do we do lord of the rings watch togethers, ah yes 3 am ideas
@@wojszach4443 nice, that’s the life
fr
The first question you need to answer is “What is the nature of magic?” And that will define the rest of the argument.
In our game world it is used to replace modern things.
Also, what helps determine the system of magic too is asking if the setting is a universe or multiverse? Are souls eternal or is life finite? Are we our bodies or are our bodies a vessel in which we reside through life and then the energy splits upon death, resulting in the physical energy vessel decaying and being spun back into the physical life cycles while the other half, the conscious soul goes into an afterlife? Or is life more solipsistic and everything outside the self is but a projection/reflection of the self? All of this would determine how energy flows between life, death, other worlds and dimensions.
magic = divine imperative, divine Talentation
The nature of majik is the nature of witchcraft. To influence without confrontation.
“What is a witch?” - Wizard Walsh
Guns would actually make sense for the wizards themselves as backup weapons. Since they require far less training than other weapons, a wizard who spends most of his time on studying magic would still be able to pick one up and be a reasonably effective without taking too much time away from his main pursuit. A wheellock pistol hidden within the wizard's robes could be a nasty surprise for some enemy who thinks he's safe because he prepared anti-magic defenses.
Enter the wizard from Wizards(1977) who bodies his evil sorcerer brother with a luger. "ma taught me one spell after you left" *DRAWS FUCCING GAT*
"I thought wizards hated guns?! Why are you using one, too?!"
"I enchanted my gun to shoot nukes. Checkmate."
Wizards aren’t useless in this case, tge ergon puts it best…. You have wizards to battle other wizards, but enough foot soldiers in a battlefield can alter a war in small ways, which is why in the ergon books you have a dragon rider lead the army, but still have armies following the dragon riders.
@LCCWPresents the sword of truth series was much the same. Wizards would combat other wizards. Something that might also exists are Mage Breakers, spec ops groups specifically designed to take down wizards.
Wizards and sorcs in my setting who developed firearm/arcane force propulsion weapons: Ay, lmao.
Warhammer fantasy is a early modern period esc world. It makes early firearms look so cool. The dwarves take this to a new level too.
True. Most "medieval" fantasy is actually late renaissance and early modern in terms of aesthetics. So early firearms with wildly different and varied mechanisms and design existing alongside magic and wizards is totally valid tbh.
"Any wizard bright enough to survive for five minutes was also bright enough to realize that if there was any power in demonology, then it lay with the demons. Using it for your own purposes would be like trying to beat mice to death with a rattlesnake." ― Eric by Terry Pratchett
Wizard: I spent decades perfecting my firebo…*bang*
Mercenary: yah yah, hard to cast spells with a hole in your wizard cap
As if a wizard that exists around guns wouldnt have a ward against high speed projectiles
@@Dogman262 Then you enchant the bullets.
Depending on the spell a flechette would ignore the spell, then you do a sword pack or arrow bane spell.
@@Dogman262 Why are we pretending wizards wouldn't only use guns, but enchant them to be better? It's not like wizards are stupid.
@@ClockworkGearhead I'd imagine for the same reason they arent depicted as magical crossbow or longbowmen, because they would be something else if they focused their magic on a weapon. Like a spellsword or in this case spell gunner
One intangible factor that affected Magic vs Science in many of my old D&D campaigns involved the perceptions and politics of the players themselves.
Over the years, I've noticed that "Magic" seems to be a more comfortable concept for certain players to digest, while "Guns" just make them uncomfortable. And, of course, the reverse has also held true; albeit with a different sort of player. Some people just find the Pointy-hatted wizard to be a silly trope, while others don't want to see Cowboys in Camelot. Others still are perfectly fine with both.
My solution to this is a homebrew campaign setting with cyclical historical periods. In some eras, fantasy-based "Magic" holds the upper hand, while others heavily feature the widespread usage of flintlocks and cannons.
Here's my basic outline:
1.) Corruptible figures will always seek absolute power, and once they master the forces of "Magic", nothing can stop them from doing as they please. The less-powerful must develop skills and weaponry of their own to counter the advantage of these Wizard-Kings, while the Wizard-Kings seek to stamp out the development of science in order to maintain control of an ignorant labor pool. This leads to a global confrontation of blackpowder vs black magic.
2.) After the "Dark Age" that follows the destruction of the Wizard-Kings, valiant knights and heroes must arise to defend the weak in a broken world without order while remnants of the olden days run wild. Ancient wisdom is lost and "Wizardry" is viewed as something dark and evil.
3.) The pendulum of history swings back in favor of a more balanced world. Fresh minds rediscover ancient secrets and appropriate them in new ways to elevate society out of superstitious barbarism without repeating the mistakes of the past.
4.) Those with the greater vision notice the inherent patterns of History. Rather than aquiring power for its own sake or rebelling against said power, they seek to maintain a delicate balance while softly developing Humanity itself, all in the fragile hope that we'll mature as a species and become something greater...
5.) The dream is broken and new Wizard-kings take over. Rinse and repeat.
this is very cool. so your world basically swings between low and high fantasy?
@@jackknifevideoworks Thanks. Yes, that's the basics.
I borrowed a lot of these concepts from books and things. Michael Moorcock's 'Eternal Champion' (Elric, Hawkmoon, Corum...) books, Robert Jordan's 'Wheel of Time' and Frank Herbert's 'Dune' series all have characters who are continuously reborn into different time periods.
For my old D&D campaign setting I drew up a chart that illustrates the time cycle as a sort of literal Yin-Yang. The world is our world, but a mirror opposite of it always exists on the "Other Side" of History. Different doorways and means of traveling between the mirrored worlds exist. So, if the players exist in an idylic paradise on one side of the door, a dark and hellish dystopia surely exists in the other.
Some examples of Tropes I've used have been visitors from "The Other Side" being mistaken for beings like Angels, Aliens, Elves etc on "This Side". The Elves (as such) are in fact the hyper-evolved descendants of Humans like us. Several of them visited ancient Ireland via a time-shifting Island called Hy-Brasil, and that's where tales of the Tuatha Dé Danann came from, which in turn inspired our popular conceptions of "Elves".
Magic itself is a technology. Simply put, how would a DnD wizard work without spell scrolls, and how would spell scrolls work without writing? Divine and innate casters could exist in a pre-literate society, but not wizards proper.
In fact, I would question if the pointy-hatted wizard would even exist in a world with divine and innate spell casters. How did the first wizard cast the first spell? I would imagine that it would have been an inefficient casting, involving unnecessary complexity because the last 10 apprentices who took a shortcut wound up casting fireball on themselves. If a wizard is simply an inefficient version of an innate-casting sorcerer, there would be little need of wizards. In fact, I could see them being suppressed by divine-magic cleric kings, and arcane casting to remain a niche school until the industrial era, when science discovers the nature of the magic.
@@blkgardner You're not wrong. This is just the cyclical pattern that I adapted for my own homebrew campaign setting, and I don't necessarily follow the current 5e D&D rules for all these things. My campaigns have been running since 2e AD&D, settling comfortably into 3e/3.5/Pathfinder, and I've adopted quite a bit of the Magic system from Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC), where failure to cast spells responsibly will result in dire consquences.
I do treat "Magic" as a Science all its own. What makes the "Magical" Sciences different from subjects like Chemistry or Physics is that they will require certain logistical studies and insights that aren't readily apparent. They function off poorly understood universal forces that take centuries of applied experimentation to even notice, let alone master.
Much as the Gun replaced the Bow through ease of training, it takes many years for one of my "Wizard" types to even cast their first Magic Missile. In an average Human lifetime, we'd only be able to reliably reproduce one or two "Spells" that would seem magical to the uninitiated. Those few who could even perform this feat (without blowing themselves up) would need to be prohibitively Intelligent, Perceptive and above all else Persistent.
In my histories, the very first Wizards were the nigh-immortal Tuatha Dé Danann/"Elves" whose lives are measured in Millennia. They're the ones who first noticed the cyclical patterns of history, charted doorways and passages between times, and wrote down realiable methods for teaching "Magic" to shorter-lived peoples. It was their visitation and meddling in our own time that first lead to stories of our own Merlins, Rhiannons, Druids and all the various Pointy Hatted witches and wizards.
Now, "Divine Magic" is something else entirely.
I don't personally call that "Magic." Chosen Ones don't "Cast Spells", they Perform Miracles.
In my campaign, one cannot simply go to Cleric School and earn a degree in performing the will of God. That's something that occurs only rarely and on a truly Biblical scale. I treat this very much in the way of Moses, Elric, or Paul Atreides. It's something huge that will change the course of history.
Most Churches in my campaign were founded because of a single individual Performing Miracles many centuries beforehand, which in turn set precedents of right, wrong and superstition. The Priests and Leaders of these Religions may claim some kinship or authority granted by proximity to said figures, but they cannot bestow any sort of genuine Divine Power themselves.
In one of my campaign's eras, there's a prolonged civil war between a declining empire of knights and "Magic" users and a rising state of puritanical industrialists inspired by Oliver Cromwell's New Model Army.
This is a sick way you built your world!
Magic can give someone power.
But a gun can give that power to everyone.
There's plenty of ways they're not op or can be restricted
Have the reload take 2 rounds, misfire chance, expensive ammo, training requirement, etc.
Firearms are just big heavy clubs to anyone who lacks the knowledge or materials to use them
@@batteredskullsummit9854
Enchantments. Also not every setting/system is D20.
Magic firearms, Because Touhou(Touhou fanbase sucks, though. I hear they like 'em young.)
Why I like Warhammer Fantasy which is more Early Modern than Medieval
Funnily enough, the argument still holds, as it was the magically resistant dwarves that invented the first firearms.
@@krinkrin5982no, it was cathay
@@dyfrigshandyIt was the Sky Titans
Funnily enough there was a bigger prevalence of guns (both siege and handguns) during the Late Middle Ages than the early Modern Period. During the 1300's the use of guns was much more prevalent than during the 1500's and early 1600's. You'll only see guns overpowering the might of the heavy cavalry and massed melee infantry in the later parts of the 1600's, having learned the lessons from Gustavus Adolphus, father of modern warfare, and even during the 1700's you'll still see the heavy cavalry being the most powerful part of an army, which started to be beaten by formations such as the Spanish Tercio, which used a combined force of pikemen and musketeers.
If I had to choose a period that reminds me the most of Warhammer Fantasy it would be the the 1400's Central Europe, which saw the advent of the full plate knight in combination with the apex of firearms before their resurgence 200 years later.
@@395leandroNice Reference of the great Swedish General,he developed staged volleys. One line would fire,then reload as the second line advanced and fired.
In a world with magicians that can light a candle with the snap of a finger, I wouldn’t want to be the one holding the powder horn or stand within 100 meters of a powder keg…
That's why you and 20 buddies shoot the mage before he can. A Wizard dies to a bullet as well as anyone else.
The biggest issue with guns in fantasy (particularly in ttrpgs) is 2 fold.
The first is due to many years of media reinforcing stereotypes there is a commonly accepted genre that we think of Fantasy.
The second is the vast majority of players that ASK for guns in their games always want some OP weapon that follows real world physics, despite the rest of the game being abstracted.
I think it mainly just stems from world building just being a secondary concern for a lot of people who write stories - be it for pen and paper RPGs, video games, books, or movies. A lot of people tend to just focus on the stories they want to tell, making the places they're set in take something of a backseat.
This isn't a condemnation of this sort of writing, just an observation. Most people hardly understand how the real world works or its history, so I wouldn't expect them to consider the environmental, cultural, political, or economic circumstances necessary for the development and use of firearms in a fictional story. They see the works of people who came before them, say "oh that's cool", and use elements of those for their own work.
@@spnked9516
I wholeheartedly agree
@@spnked9516 like Harry Potter and Dr.Who have cool world building but anything related to combat takes a backseat as its not the focus. noting because shooting a guy can usually end a evil plot or something similar and then you got to explain this to whoever keeps pointing it out
Vary well argued. I usually just point out the economics/logistics to justify the development and adoption of some type of rifle. What is more practical? A life time investment into training and keeping a mage corp loyal, or arming pesent conscripts and drilling them for a month with weapons you can collect after the war is over.
Eh, magic would still be around, it is more versatile. Guns are at the end of the day, just extremely efficent ways to do one job, putting holes into people. A magican is essentially having the periodical table at your command. Magican's are essentially combat chemists. A world with magic and firearms... guns would obviously play the more dominant combat roles... but imagine how usefull to a military campaign disarming traps, giving people nightvision, purifying water....... instant growing food or just instantly charginging a warmachince with a controlled lightning spell would be.
@@PJDAltamirus0425while magic would certainly still be around, it would still simultaneously exist in a world where the non-magical people would be in an arms race to ever attempt to gain equal footing.
Granted, magic users would always continue to have an advantage over nonmagical beings.
@@Beuwen_The_Dragon Yeah, but why invest a huge into making ttractors to move dirt when some guy with a scroll can just use magic to do it. Magic has more non combat uses than firearms do.
@@PJDAltamirus0425 It ultimately depends on how scarce and how accepted by society magic users are. If they're a dime a dozen, then it's totally reasonable to believe one can be hired for relatively cheap to do labor-intensive tasks in an afternoon at most. However, the more rare and/or less accepted they are by their world's society, the less likely it is they'll be able and willing to help commoners, necessitating the need for a nonmagical way to do that task.
With that in mind, even if sheer labor could solve that task, there's still a few incentives for people to try to develop something to make it easier: They want to sell the machine / knowledge of the process, they could do it just to make it easier for themselves, or they could experiment around just for the fun of it.
@@PJDAltamirus0425 so you are correct, usually in my world a mage corp looks a lot more like a engineer corp. then a artillery crew.
I always like the idea of Magical society’s creating analog versions of modern technology.
Like the gun, say instead of explosive powder they used a small fire ball spell to launch the projectile down the barrel. And taking some creative liberties said spell was engraved in tiny runes on the mechanism that is completed by a single rune on a spring powered hammmer.
I hear the wizards cancel tech argument... and well, there shouldn't be much of anything... Lots of traps, weapons and other tools even of the medieval age shouldn't exist either then. Such a high society could potentially fear them too.
they never heard of stress induced research where tanks exist
Ya, If magic is such a catch all answer why would a world advance past the stone age?
If anything, in a fantasy setting with wizards guns would be _more_ likely to occur! Not only would alchemy yield actually impressive results but also average folks would now have a very pressing need for easy projectile weapons.
The issue of peasants being bullied by knights, samurai, or other equivalent elite fighters, would be way worse and involve way more projectile attacks with questionable wizards taking their place and roaming the land. And with alchemy yielding actually useful results, people would tinker with it way more and try way more exotic things, considering some people would inevitably discover stuff like recipes for gold or healing or whatnot encouraging others. And also, an accidentally explosive result would just be seen as yet another useful alchemical creation and people would get right to work finding uses for it. And whats to say that there wouldn't be some alternative, magical explosive powder which would make firearms way more powerful and practical early on?
Even in today's world, many societies never invented or adopted guns, but it was inevitable enough that it was developed at least once and spread. In realistic fantasy all these needs would trigger its inevitable invention and many societies would end up adopting it.
I agree. Firearms don't require an industrial revolution and alchemists running around everywhere would expedite their development. You'd really get stuck in the 17th century when, if this is the sort of magic that makes certain people's lives quite easy, the upper class would have little to no reason to invest in manufacturing things that'd only matter to people poorer than them.
In a wworld with powerful magic/alchemy think we'd be seeing a lot more bombs/grenades, rockets and flamethrowers; not neccesarily guns though; they'd still develop eventually (guns are essentially a development from alchemical flame-throwers) but when alchemical fire becomes more effective it is entirely possible that guns will only develop slowly, as they would take much longer to develop into something actually better than alternatie pyrochemical options.
@@captainnyet9855 You _do_ realize firearms were already around in the early 1400s right
@@colbyboucher6391 yes, i know; only about 300 years after gunpowder started being used in warfare; the point I'm making is that firearms development might be slower when alternative weapons (rockets, flame throwers, bombs etc.) become more powerful than they were historically.
@@captainnyet9855 Not necessarily, Greek Fire was pretty good and was basically an early flamethrower, but ended up falling out of use even as guns continued to develop. Even today we have really great flame based weapons, bombs, grenades, and rockets in modern warfare and yet guns are still the staple of any army.
Not finished with the video, but one thought here: Magic is magic in our world because it does not work or rather because it ignores the chain of cause and effect (if you believe in such things). In a fantasy world, it is much harder to differentiate magic from science. This is because when it becomes understandable, it stops being magic.
Recently, I have a fascination for magic settings where the magic is unknown and unknowable for this exact reason.
Had a hard time focusing, I NEED that HAT! It is Spectacular!
It has the same vibe as the Colovian fur helm.
Just wanted to tell you how much I truly enjoy listening to you your videos. I love how much enthusiasm you have for this content. A fan from Wyoming
My dream was to finally find people willing to listen to my ramblings, happy to have reached you
I happen to like firearms & dont really see an issue in using them. As an aside though, I once was an occultists myself & occult only means hidden. The dividing line between science & magic is the mass understanding of how it works. Once everyone knows, it ceases to be hidden & the mystery leaves it.
3:33 in romanian we also say opa when lifting something heavy. i wonder what the etymology of opa is
I agree. Another reason might be because its because its almost "peasant alchemy". Any normal human with no magical talent and who knows the formula can make gunpowder. Its worth noting that rockets came before guns. Maybe the mages supplied rockets for signaling and some servant working in the magician's factory learned the formula and figured out that if you reverse the rocket and stuff rocks down the tube you can cause them to fly out at high speed.
Also remember people like Leonardo were not just inventors, scientists and artists, they were military engineers and that's what paid the bills. And once the technology became known it would be very attractive to the professional warriors as it made having to go up against an evil mage more survivable.
So, end of guns, with a new creation. It resonates with the gunpowder and brass, and turns bullets into remote detanated booms. So it's dangerous to even hold a gun. Haven't had bullets in my work yet, but I found a blinding method. It uses glass
Was a random phanomanon that turned me into this. Odd set of secomstanses
I like l guns in fantasy, but would personally only take it as far as breach-loading single-shot guns but with sound and flash suppressors, smokeless powder, cylindrical self-contained metallic cartridges and advanced projectile designs.
I am creating a series of animatics, characters designs, etc for my animation portfolio. One of the main ideas i'm working on is a high-fantasy story set in a world where humans have developed gunpowder to counter elven magic. After seeing the thumbnail of this video I decided you are going to be one of the characters. You are now a half elven powder shaman named Bordo the Old. You have no saying in this.
In Ralf Bakshi's movie Wizards, the good guy takes out his rival with a sleight of hand magic trick. Pulls a Luger from his sleeve and shoots Black wolf three times through the chest. Magic. Works.
That is a film I haven’t thought about in a long long time. ^.-.^
I like the Powder Mage explanation that Wizards are literally allergic to gunpowder.
The best explanation for why there wouldn't be any significante firearm development is 3 fold.
- 1st -
In a world of Magic, supernatural strong humans(fighters/barbarians), and monsters the guns would need to perform a lot better before they could be used as weapon. The first few guns, like handcannon and even flintlock would be rather expensive and the chemical to physical reaction wouldn't be able to keep up with what a supernatural human, even non wizard would do. As such maybe cannons and artillery would only be the developed path. Otherwise you would need to mix magic enchantment to the gun itself and that would increase even more the cost and would be self defeating for the wizards to do. Otherwise, if guns are just as deadly in fantasy world as they are in RL then the powerscalling would become incredible out of loop, any peasant could pull a flintlock and kill a wizard or superhuman fighter that took decades to reach their lvl of skill.
- 2nd -
Research and Development of firearms is expensive and need talented and intelligent people to do. This mean learned people with money, people that are way more likely to endup as wizard or merchant than this arms development route, so there is a strong brain drain this front. In fact the person that is more likely to discover and develop arms is in fact, the wizard themself. From the simple research in alchemical reactions, to improvement in their golem/construct design and even personal fall back mechanic. Beside them there are the fantasy thieves but what they have in ingenutity in conceal gears lack in large investment and development that a wizard could have.
- 3rd -
Guns need to compete with another form of instant destruction, spell scrolls or talisman if you are in asian setting. Like guns anyone can use it and just need to tear it open or something and they will do the effect you want without need training, and while in the long run the mundane gun might outcompete the scrolls in personal destructive potential, the problem is the early age is more cost effective to get a scroll of fireball or spend 3 years of whole logistic chain from mining, to processing and testing a handcannon (and their ammunition) and the many decades later of ReD to improve that. Often is the scroll that will come on top at time firearms are a risky, impratical, expensive self defence tool that underperform against anything but the standard human.
I think Arcanum Obscura games made the whole "tech vs magic" the best. In this world, magic coexists with Steampunk Victorian Society. But they can't mix because foundation of magic is alteration of fundamental laws of universe while science utilize them. Entities heavily aligned to magic or technology emit special mystical or reason fields.
For example, a powerful mage has this aura of alteration of laws and as a result, technological inventions simply don't work in his hands. Because laws of physics and chemistry don't work exactly as they should-revolvers has a huge chance of just exploding in his hand, if he boards a train- there is a massive chance that SOMETHING will go wrong with it (so they are not allowed to ride on one). But there spells and magic items work perfect. On the other hand, Doctor of Physics simply can't cast spells, enchanted items don't work for him. But as a trade of- science mechanisms work super well for him and his sheer comprehension of the fundamental laws of the universe weakens any magic used against him.
On a societal level, magic can make an individual far more powerful than any tech. Millennia old elven mages can destroy even the most advanced scientific nations on their lonesome. But it takes centuries to become THAT good, while any village Joe can learn to use the revolver in months- and it works on non-enchanted medieval armor as good as you expect. When scientific republic fought pretty powerful magical human kingdom-former OBLITERATED latter.
I think the real difference between science and magic is understanding. There’s the TVtropes page “sufficiently analyzed magic,” which is the inverse of Clark’s third law on technology and magic.
Your videos are always so much fun.
Edit: Replication is important too ofc.
The Great Georgian Dorf has uploaded again! Praise be to his vertically-impeded name!
Hello from Ukraine, my Georgian friend. Your videos very warm and interesting to watch
The way i see it, magic is another word for technology. A series of actions/rituals that involve certain objects in certain configurations, all designed to "hack" an inherent quality or aspect of reality to achieve a certain personal goal, which would have been much harder or even impossible to achieve without the aforementioned actions and objects.
Even in our world, we have magnets, gun powder, sulfur, which have what could be percieved as inherent magical properties (properties that have functional uses that are extremely hard/impossible to achieve without those materials)
In other words, i think most high medieval phantasy wizards would love to have a fire arm as part of their arsenal.
"Bent Lightning by its balls" is an incredible quote that I'm totally stealing
"You don't need firepower when you have fire powers."
Sif you want a Fantasy setting with guns i would highly recommend to check out the Pillars of Eternity video games. it is a setting with Gods and Magic and basic fire arms. It is a really good game series up there with Baldur's Gate series IMO
An aside: In Glenn Cook’s Black Company novels, later in the series, when they are fighting against mages controlling the ethereal shadow-souls of dead men (which are immune to mundane weapons), the mercenary mages engineer magical bamboo poles that with a set amount of fireballs that can be “shot” from them. The advent of these weapons quickly changes the way war is fought by the mercenary company. The primary limiting factor to the poles is that wizards have to craft them.
So I feel like the need for firearms might still arise. Because in most universes learning magic/being a wizard takes years of study. So if a conflict were to break out a lord may have a handful of wizards at most. So I think people would be interested in giving their hordes of peasants the same destructive capability as a wizard. There is a really cool game called "Arcanum" where there were to countries who went to war. One of them used knights and powerful wizards, and the other side had maybe a few wizards but mostly conscripts who they spent a few weeks training. The guys with guns won hadly
As I said, on the last video, a lot of authors, don’t like firearms, because whenever firearms show up in a fantasy setting, it usually signals at the fantasy part of the world is dying. And will inevitably be replaced by our industrial world.
That was part of the whole story of Joe Abercrombie‘s first law trilogy . Where a fantasy world is being dragged into an Industrial Revolution. With everything magical, kicking and screaming and fighting to prevent it, and eventually failing.
Love this channel. In a DnD campaign I played, guns (specifically pistol) were a new technology introduced from Plane of Fire that became popular when mass produced by thieves guild. I played a Wizard who studied tactics in school and went on journey to write a book on the applications of firearms with magic artillery.
The adoption of firearms was the result of the combination of technological development and military necessity. So firstly you have to have a society which is developing out of feudalism due to a long period of stable climate, good harvests, population growth, cutting down forests, draining swamps, building roads and villages turning into towns, being allowed to establish town markets etc, which also requires not being in the midst of being destroyed and depopulated by Vikings or Mongols or Crusaders/Jihadists. The beginning of using coal instead of wood for fuel contributed in terms of the supply of charcoal and sulpher for gunpowder. So that's the economic basis of wealth for technological development.
And then it's the matter of military necessity, first for cannons to defeat castle walls and the epic Roman walls of Constantinople famously. But the switch from bows to muskets had to wait for refinements in the hand-held technology, when the European Military Revolution began, between roughly 1450 and 1750 AD, where the military competition between the little states of Europe forced a whole series of technologies and reorganisations of society to happen, including the _Trace Italienne_ fortifications* to withstand cannons, which required vast resources to build because of their huge scale, which required centralisation of states and bureaucracy to raise enough taxes to pay for it, and much larger armies to provide garrisons for such huge walls or to besiege them, and the switch to muskets to be able to produce such huge numbers of soldiers with minimal training, more bureaucracy for supply and medical services to keep huge besieging armies alive on multi-year long campaigns etc.
Now a lot of that is going to be slowed down because of the extra dangers to civilisation in fantasy worlds - dragons, angry gods, evil humanoid hordes, undead, giants etc. But I agree with you about the contribution of Dwarves and Gnomes. Personally I always think of Dwarves as naturally communist - Stakhanovite miners, smiths and stonemasons who enjoy hard work and achieving things with their hands and are collectivist and anti-feudal due to the need to work together for safety underground, and their mutual respect for the quality of each others' work, and therefore disrespect for "gentlemen" who don't work. Plus they are also all soldiers, so there isn't the possibility of being turned into serfs or disarmed over-exploited proletarians. If disarmed, they can just make themselves new swords and axes. But in any case, they are too highly productive _not_ to invent gunpowder weaponry and some amount of steam technology. They might well want to keep it to themselves, or only make it available to others as mercenaries for huge payment.
* "Star" forts, angled bastions, sloping external _glacis_ of the walls, much thicker walls - 30-50 feet, cannons inside the walls to keep attackers' cannons at further distance etc.
War hammer has a medieval fantasy where magic and guns are in the world as a norm for army’s. Mainly human beings use firearms. But I think a fellow UA-camr Monstergarden fuses firearms and magic as working together. The firearms are like catalysts for firing magic. He goes far reaper in to a more scientific grounded look into magic.
Im so glad we live in this era of fantasy acceptance and cosplay so that all our dwarf brothers feel comfortable not hiding anymore 😀 16:32
I kinda like to imagine an alchemist or wizard would be the kind of person who knows how to make more potent blackpowder, and use magic enchantments to replace some of the less reliable and more time consuming mechanisms for operating something like, say, a matchlock arquebus which fires with literally a smoldering match cord. You might replace the cord with, say, a magic device that all it does is make a spark when activated and you've gotten rid of the chance of misfire and the need to prime a pan. Alchemists are known for trying to transmute lead, and primitive guns happen to use cast lead balls as ammunition, so I can see alchemical enchantments affecting the ammunition in various ways in more high level fantasy.
I think the problem is, people add modern things to fantasy settings.
Though no one minds when magic is added to any setting. So it seems like implementation is the problem rather than the existence thereof.
My company is working on a Dark Fantasy setting with late Victorian Era technology. (Inspired by Bloodborne)
Trains, Repeaters, Elevators, etc. All of which existed around the late 1870's alongside the use of sabers and calvary in history.
In the companies setting, 1870's technology is a normal part of society while medieval elements like armor-smithing and bladesmithing are still valuable. With mystical elements that are implemented into everyday life and technology like light crystals.
Why? Because the threat of the setting is not other humans it is the undead. So many technologies phased out by firearms are still valuable in an era where you can not kill many monsters unless you decapitate them or pierce their heart.
Unlike many settings that force technology and fantasy, the goal is the seamless inclusion of both in a way that makes it feel believable.
Your discussion got my mind wandering and I came up with a new idea related to the idea of culture developing around demand. Although it was a long and winding path that holds only a small relation to your discussion. (which i enjoyed very much!) I came up with the idea of adapting the German tale of Siegfried slaying Fafnir and gaining his power through bathing in his blood (not all versions agree on this), and I decided to take the curse of the gold to turn people into dragons and make it to where Siegfried's bloodline is cursed to turn into dragons if they are within the sight of gold, like a werewolf. So then these people of Siegfried blood decide to isolate themselves and form a new society based on avoiding gold, they instead value silver, iron, and brass, becoming expert smiths and swearing oaths on silver rings. Becoming a society centered around trading and bartering with their warriors being paid in silver and iron when asked to fight for their king. Rumors of the warriors going mad in the presence of gold becomes legend as any unfortunate enemy who wears gold upon a battlefield is never seen again, with survivors reporting a berserk rage taking hold of the knights with eyes of red and gold flaring as they fight everyone in reach to secure the gold for themselves, even attacking one another. Such warriors who succumb to this madness are exiled and often head North into barren snowfields to die alone or join their bewitched kin who tunnel and burn beneath the snow and ice in search of more gold.
I don’t think tolkiens elves would fall in that category but all the other fantasy worlds that does seem to be true
Funny enough, in current dnd lore, the push towards firearms is being made by clerics whose god loves popping schematics into people's heads
Literally just finished reading " men at arms" where the ankh morpork city eatch run around the city trying to stop a rogue assassin whose found the "Gonne" and it causing trouble.
Hilarity ensues
In my setting, the presence of unique materials which partially and sometimes entirely block magic exist. It's an arms race between science and magic, because both can counter each other. Salt, elder bark, cold iron, plus magical metals, etcetera all provide protection.
In that world, can/does magic make ice (lowering temperature, soft science) or magic mimics ice (elements are conjured, like poof: ice spears)?
That museum looks amazing I'd love to see more of it.
Brilliant show, thank you for sharing your Great Work, I appreciate your efforts.
lol I love the way you said that. The lightning administrate in the sky . lol! God bless you sir!
Very good
"Wizards don't want you to know this!"
Guns are cool idk why DMs are so against them. Imo matchlock firearms are perfectly fine in any standard fantasy setting.
Dont wizards have the same problem as archers? Both are better than an early gun man, but they take way longer to train and a bullet with kill some one almost just as good as a lighting strike/arrow.
I like firearms in any setting because average folks have a better chance at defending themselves
Yeah. I think if there are an elite group of wizards, the non-wizards would be highly incentivized to develop arms that could counter them.
@@PALACIO254 I like your idea, but I don't think it would work. The same way Archmages are quest givers because they have more important things to do, lines of gunmen would act as a first line of defence. However, the same way Archmages do take action against very important threats, they would consider a revolt against the mageocracy the most important threat.
@@jgr7487 Well while guns are powerful, even in medieval Ages, they were still limited in range, accuracy, reliability, and rate of fire. This is why for many centuries, Guns were only used as supplemental weapons in warfare. Primary weapons were still spears, Pikes, Halberds, Bows and Crossbows. If anything, the only real advantage firearms would give over other weapons is Armour defeating capabilities.
So most magic users really wouldn’t see guns as any more or less dangerous to them or their status as any other ranger weapon.
At best, large field cannon and ship’s guns would be more the game changers, rather than small firearms.
@@Beuwen_The_Dragon let's not forget that handguns were the result of miniaturizing cannons.
@@Beuwen_The_Dragon I did mention all those issues you commented about in another comment in this section.
Have you heard of better living through undeath?
Everyone can have unlimited power with just a skeletal hamster endlessly running on a wheel and if you don't pay your necromancer his service fee it will put your eye out while you sleep
Guns are magic!
Enchanted guns are magic²
Like you, I am not really a soccer fan either, but I am also a fan of Georgia!😊
My favorite mountain dwarf uploaded! great day!
and a great topic too!
I think that Guns would come into being over time if the demand for it presented itself however it would take much longer because everyone whos smart and would have otherwise accidentally or purposefully ended up discovering gunpowder would be focusing on learning magic and the arcane so it would take a LONG TIME for the substance to be created and applied, even then it may end up being used as a reagent for magic before it becomes a tool for propeling projectiles!
It is the argument that outer tech is largely based on inner tech. And if one subscribes or looks at the larger ~24-25,000 year Yuga cycle we fell into a slower vibrating/denser material realm right around the time of the dark ages (Kali Yuga) and while some think we are still there others believe we began to climb out around the 1800s which is when a lot of mystical ideas began to become more mainstream again.
Love your videos brother.
About the rarity...... dragons might guard surfur desposits. In not that guns are a bad idea in just that getting an ingredient to create gunpowder is hyper dangerous. Smarter dragons know how fucking screwed they would be if people could make so that every man has the DPS of a wizards so they guard and injest the ingredients for gunpowder. Hell, the componets to gunpowder may taste like candy to tell.
It takes many years to train a war mage. It takes years to train a bowman. It takes months to train a bunch of peasants to use broomsticks. Gunpowder was discovered at least 3 times in human history, so it would take no time for alchemists to magically enhance either the gunpowder or the bullets.
If you are defending your plot of noble-owned land from monsters, you should have several gun users. If you are an adventurer trained with weapons, you shouldn't carry guns, because gunpowder only works in almost perfect conditions.
I think guns would not be a primary weapon but a secondary think having a pistol as a secondary to draw and shoot a mage or archer. In another use case witch hunters or something similar would likely arise to hunt mages that dable in forbidden magic or that aren't under the control of nobles. A musket would likely be their primary weapon.
@@warlordjjj2111 if archers are still a thing, rifled guns don't exist yet. In that age, a wall of bullets was the choice because you couldn't be sure that any of the bullets would hit a specific target.
@jgr7487 sorry I didn't mean to refer to rifled guns maybe more like an arquebus
@@warlordjjj2111 OK. I mentioned rifled guns because smooth-bore guns, such as the arquebus, are far less accurate. But, yes, a short range 1-shot pistol would be a terrifying secondary weapon.
Nice breakdown! Subbed for more.
3:40 *tries to create the elixir of imortality*
*jump starts the development of guns, leading to the carnage of WW1*
I guess someone rolled a natural 1 on that... XD
Very insightful!
People forget there are a lot of drawbacks to early firearms, hence why they were mainly battlefield weapons early on.
I would like to see a wheellock halberd or a flintlock spear in fantasy tbh.
I want a hat like that!
The often overlooked air guns have been around nearly as long as gunpowder weapons. I believe that air cannons were developed around the 15th century as well. Air guns in fantasy intrigue me, as hardly anyone puts them in settings.
OH! You're the caucasian dwarf guy! I loved that video! I just thought a funny gnome man was talking about magic for funnies
Goated drip my dude. I posit that actually a magic setting might actually encourage innovation so as to let non magical people fight back against the magical. Taking out a dragon would be tough without cannons.
Please do a video on the metallurgy priests!!! It’s so interesting I want to know more
3 words Tactical Breaching Wizards! and dont forget that suppressor for the wand.
Loving your channel. Keep posting.
Pov you tryed to get a discount from the gnome weapon monger by ofering him magical herbs but now hes just babbling about reality from an outside prospective
Fun stuff! In my game setting, elemental magic is common and thus steam powered guns firing stone balls are a thing. Performance is not quite as good as a black powder pistol, but it is easier to maintain and use since the propellant and ammo are summoned rather than loaded. This does put a hard limit on the rate of fire.
Why not a rune etched inside the very end of a barrel that produces air or a small explosion to propell a projectile?
@@Apple_Apporu My magi-tech guns work along those lines although they are runes etched in crystals via a ritual. Fire, water, and air are summoned for the propellant and earth (stone) is summoned for the projectile There is a fifth crystal that acts as a magic accumulator which is part of the trigger for the assembly. So while non-magical people can use guns, the relative high cost and resources needed limit their use. Bows and crossbows are still a thing.
You have a ton of interesting takes on fantasy, hope your channel grows!
Elves ruined this for us
*I LOVE THIS CHANNEL!!!* 😆
I REALLY love how TROIKA games add guns and technology in Arcanum of steamworks and magick. Truly one of the best rpg games.
"before wizards had toilets they would just go wherever and magic their droppings away"- cannon in harry potter.
The gerogian weapons museum is awesome!! David lets you touch and hold everything you can see and you can wear armor and take photos ❤ it's tucked away in the underground wine museum in a cool corner 😁
I like how the old game Arcanum answered this question. In that setting magicians can't use technology such as firearms because they blow up in their hands if they try So the magic users couldn't develop such weapons if they wanted to. So magic and technology were developed in parallel to each other. People lacking magical talent followed the path of alchemy and those who did learned magic.
Thank you very much for sharing your ideas and interpretations, you comment on a couple of very interesting things. I'am taking note 👍
Also you seem like a very nice/affable guy. Really a good dwarf.
This is the first video that the current inscrutable and unquestionable mystical will (the UA-cam algorithm) has decided to recommend your channel to me. Instant subscription.
I always had a fantasy world in my head that had guns in a fantasy world, except that guns were more like wands for pistols and staves for rifles instead. In this world, magic is considered an integral part of the rich man's world and is definitely taught throughout the nobility. Anyone can learn magic, but the lessons and mentoring required cost way more than any average peasant could ever afford, which the nobility and certainly the Mages' Guild keep in check with magic. Not to mention that you'll almost certainly have to dedicate many years of your life to master it.
But with wands and staves, all of that is pushed aside. These magic tools can arm the unknowledgeable to use basic but powerful offensive magic at will. No mana required and it is easy to use. Advancements are currently being made to make more powerful tools, but the best materials for these tools exist only on the other side of the world, in the New World.
Alternatively, if we are talking guns for DnD...
I thought up a system that emphasized the ease of use guns had while trying to keep them balanced. You have your average pistol and rifle, both of which normally gain no bonuses to damage nor bonus to hit from the weapon nor the user, but from the type of bullet instead. The better the quality of the bullet, the more damage or bonus to hit you get. This is so that ANYONE can use them. There are no requirements for it just as if it were a club or a spear, but there are feats that can be used to make its usage better or deal more damage.
To add for balance and lore, mid-to-high quality bullets like lead or iron can only be made and sold from specialists and as such, are absurdly expensive compared to arrows and bolts. You can make your own out of pebbles or even wood, but that would be more detrimental to use, of course. Unless, that is, you become such a specialist yourself.
In the book I'm writing, guns have been invented. Despite mages and magic being rather common use. I've built up a history where guns, at first, were thought of as 'cowardly' but have since been used in combination with enchantment to be incredibly powerful. Most nations have arquebus esque guns, but the nation in the book still use something more akin to an ancient Chinese fire lance.
If I remember right, in the lore of Forgotten Realms there is a group whom stop technology (one of the being Elminster) as they don't want a single kingdom to become to powerful and go full Empire...
Cause they're weak, magic guns are extremely useful, specifically cause they can be ridiculously long range. Which would absolutely destroy a lotta DND playthroughs if not everyone has a passive force-field.
Counter argument:
Slings existed before bows, yet bows were invented and adopted above it. Why? it takes longer to train a slinger than a bowman.
When bows were the default ranged weapon, crossbows were nonetheless invented even though bows are cheaper, can fire faster, and further. Why? it takes longer to train a bowman than a crossbowman.
Early guns were just as dangerous to the operator than the intended target, inaccurate, had a short range, and were awkward to fire, yet they've replaced both bows and crossbows. Why? It requires almost no training to wield a firearm.
Humans are notorious for trying to find easier ways for doing things, and all magic would do, is expose them to a vast array of things that they would like to do without the special talents of a wizard or mage, or spend a lifetime learning to cast themselves.
No slings just weren't sufficiently powerful enough to defeat armor after a time. Once heavier armor became more prevalent you needed the power of bows and crossbows and then firearms.
But even then slings kept limping along through the Medieval period to toss early hand grenades. They were used this way in the Spanish Civil War and probably even to the modern day.
Literal children were taught to be crack shots with slings to guard livestock and crops. You arent wrong with crossbows and later firearms however.
@@80krauser The big factor that lead to slings not being in widespread use is that it's extremely hard to become accurate with one, unless you start practicing with one as a child. I have been throwing sling for over two decades now, and can attest that even though I can generate quite a lot of power and range, accuracy to any degree and consistency is something that eludes me, the same goes for almost all youtubers whom I've watched, with only one or two notable exceptions.
Replacing trained slingers lost in battle thus becomes near impossible, unless you have time to wait for the next generation to come of age.
Using lead shot for sling ammunition vastly improves it's efficacy, as was done historically.
@@orangutanjuice There is another factor in the nature of formations and the strategy of warfare as a whole. Slingers declined around the same time that battlefield tactics transitioned towards much more sense, rigid formations, and slingers require a lot more operating room than bows, javelins, etc, making them less suitable for those sorts of formations.
@kittythepet485 Contrary to cinema depictions, arrow volleys appear to have been extremely rare. Arrows were largely shot directly at short to medium-range.
Firearms are hard to reconcile with storytelling in a setting with a hard magic system that still operates under somewhat human limitations (i.e. casting a blocking spell takes time, knowledge of attack direction as well as projectile speed). In a flash-forward in The Wheel of Time, gunpowder had advanced enough for them to develop rifles, and those with the tech absolutely decimated the established magical elite.
Well while magic takes time to use, so does gunfire with early firearms. Plus as early guns were less accurate at long ranges, there is still a chance of missing. Other than armour defeating capabilities, early guns are not much different from Crossbows. In fact it can be argued that many types of Bows are still better for long range accuracy and rate of fire than early guns.
First time I've ever seen this channel and I have to subscribe from the outfit alone
If you are not into football, what are you into? rugby?
What would the gnome and halfling semi-cavalry ride?
I'm thinking big dogs, stout ponies, mountain goats or maybe mini-yaks?
You have had a lot of time to think about this 🤗
Relating to their argument of how a magic society don't need to innovate because of magic existing to which I also disagree. I did incorporate that idea of a magical society being technologically stagnant in my own writings. Where their fey and wood elf society remained stuck in the pre-medieval classical setting while other civilizations around them are already in the Napoleonic age.
I would say there are lets say, four pillars or four "forces" pushing technology forward.. IMO:
(or by the teal deer, "Its complicated")
1 - reliability: Is it repeatable? Is it stable? does it follow rules?
Hard magic says yes to all of these, thus is a form of science.. D&D and other systems, along with Full Metal Alchemist are exemples of Hard Magic (where Lord of the Rings is an exemple of Soft Magic and whimsical not-science).
2 - Range / Dispersal: or how much of a population does magic reach? how easy is it to learn (with variable effort)?
You can see it as a "how many "armed" with magic a lord can field to defend a village under them, or their own keep?"
3 - The eternal battle between attack and defense.. the spear vs the shield.
Some say crossbows demand less effort then a bow, and can have a better punch (but lacks speed).. on defense, all Plate level armors are awesome, but very expensive (also, weak vs lightning)..
A thick wall is a mighty defense.. and a catapult and trebuchet demands a lenghty siege.. a good mage, if can reach range, can crumble or reshape that wall (or allow higher walls, magicly reinforced vs trebuchets)...
4 - Access control: Who can have magic?
Similar to how metal armors and weapons were limited by nobility, does magic suffers from any kind of limitation? is it restricted by blood (like the wizarding world)? is it restricted like weapons were (in European and Japan Feudal times)? or can a magic user roam freely (be a wandering priest/shaman, or an adventurer/hero)? is it restricted by education, similar to priesthood and nobility (be a wizard, sorcerer or cleric) or are there exceptions for the common folk (druids, rangers, warlocks)?
How these interact will answer if the discovery of "fire dust" / "flash powder" (gunpowder) will be used for fireworks.. and latter on camera flashes and dynamite (for mining).. and maybe cannons and smaller guns.. or where such "progression" will halt because magic is either safer, more accesible or more efficient in dealing with the same problem.
One could also include a point of how metal or even technolocy interact with magic.. does one interefere with the other? does wearing Plate armor dampens ones Mana? or does Spellcastin have side effects (fire spell igniting nearby "fire dust" (either near the caster or who it hits)? In a broader sense, does a Mana rich land jinxes any research on technolocy or usage of tech? does having many tech gadgets working on an area dampens Mana and a magic user capability? These can also cause or expand a rift between magic and tech and shift the balance and some point in time.