Ancient Technology / Super Weapons
Oct 31, 2017 16:20:25 GMT
joatmoniac and DM Lord Neptune like this
Post by 00dlez on Oct 31, 2017 16:20:25 GMT
Background:
In my homebrew setting, there was once a great "First Age" which was a time of peace, prosperity, and great technology. Eventually, the hubris of mortals lead to a downfall and plunged the world into a "Dark Age" that lasted multiple millennia. The Dark Age began to wain when a civilization, referred to as the Mechkanans, recovered some of this lost technology and was able to harness it into extremely powerful superweapons, both on a personal level as well as a large scale. After a world altering war was won by the Mechkanans and their technology, they seemed to just... vanish.
Behind the DM screen:
The civilization "vanished" due to a willing disbanding. The technology the harnessed was scary powerful and had served its purpose, but it was feared that continuing to use it would eventually deliver it into the wrong hands and perhaps cause a relapse into the Dark Age. Much of the technology was destroyed and those who were knowledgeable of it's development formed a secret society to protect the secrets and work to ensure that First Age powers were not brought back to light... unless absolutely necessary. I'll be drawing a lot of inspiration from things like the Knights Templar and their supposed knowledge/possession of the Holy Grail and other relics. A secret, world wide network of those sworn to not only protect the secrets of the weapons, but also those who are prepared to bring them to light should a great evil ever arise again.
So what exactly are these weapons?
I've gone back and forth quite a bit on this, but I think I've finally nailed down something I am comfortable with. As I mentioned above, these weapons range from personal augmentation to city-ending devastators. I had originally wanted to make them akin to Battlemechs from the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe , but I've recently played through a video game (I'm on PC, but its on consoles as well) called "Valley" and I think it's more in line with what I want. Basically, you are given a bare-bones exo-suit (called LEAFs) that let you run/jump/swing/etc better faster stronger. The suits draw energy from nearby life forces and the player can drain life from plants and animals to power the suits. Video below. I think that this improved mobility along with some physical or arcane buffs would make fine "personal" level suits that would indeed take any trained army from formidable to absolutely dominating.
No spoilers gameplay/trailer:
Moving up the scale, full on battlemech type machines, powered by the same sort of technology just on a larger scale, could be deployed as well. Then there are the "city-ending" scale weapons - giant canons and/or bombs that have massive infrastructure built around them to support their function.
Rather than specific "life energy" like in the Valley game, where you draw it from plants/animals (or little energy orbs that float around), I think I will instead let it tap into arcane energy - either drawn from the surroundings or into specialized battery packs that can harness and store the energy from special "nodes" around the world.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I'd love any input - questions, comments, or ideas - to help me flesh it out a bit more. No real system at this time (3.5, pathfinder, 5e... Undetermined) so I don't need specific stats, but generalities can be helpful to conceptualize.
In my homebrew setting, there was once a great "First Age" which was a time of peace, prosperity, and great technology. Eventually, the hubris of mortals lead to a downfall and plunged the world into a "Dark Age" that lasted multiple millennia. The Dark Age began to wain when a civilization, referred to as the Mechkanans, recovered some of this lost technology and was able to harness it into extremely powerful superweapons, both on a personal level as well as a large scale. After a world altering war was won by the Mechkanans and their technology, they seemed to just... vanish.
Behind the DM screen:
The civilization "vanished" due to a willing disbanding. The technology the harnessed was scary powerful and had served its purpose, but it was feared that continuing to use it would eventually deliver it into the wrong hands and perhaps cause a relapse into the Dark Age. Much of the technology was destroyed and those who were knowledgeable of it's development formed a secret society to protect the secrets and work to ensure that First Age powers were not brought back to light... unless absolutely necessary. I'll be drawing a lot of inspiration from things like the Knights Templar and their supposed knowledge/possession of the Holy Grail and other relics. A secret, world wide network of those sworn to not only protect the secrets of the weapons, but also those who are prepared to bring them to light should a great evil ever arise again.
So what exactly are these weapons?
I've gone back and forth quite a bit on this, but I think I've finally nailed down something I am comfortable with. As I mentioned above, these weapons range from personal augmentation to city-ending devastators. I had originally wanted to make them akin to Battlemechs from the Battletech/Mechwarrior universe , but I've recently played through a video game (I'm on PC, but its on consoles as well) called "Valley" and I think it's more in line with what I want. Basically, you are given a bare-bones exo-suit (called LEAFs) that let you run/jump/swing/etc better faster stronger. The suits draw energy from nearby life forces and the player can drain life from plants and animals to power the suits. Video below. I think that this improved mobility along with some physical or arcane buffs would make fine "personal" level suits that would indeed take any trained army from formidable to absolutely dominating.
No spoilers gameplay/trailer:
Moving up the scale, full on battlemech type machines, powered by the same sort of technology just on a larger scale, could be deployed as well. Then there are the "city-ending" scale weapons - giant canons and/or bombs that have massive infrastructure built around them to support their function.
Rather than specific "life energy" like in the Valley game, where you draw it from plants/animals (or little energy orbs that float around), I think I will instead let it tap into arcane energy - either drawn from the surroundings or into specialized battery packs that can harness and store the energy from special "nodes" around the world.
-------------------------------------------------------------
I'd love any input - questions, comments, or ideas - to help me flesh it out a bit more. No real system at this time (3.5, pathfinder, 5e... Undetermined) so I don't need specific stats, but generalities can be helpful to conceptualize.
