Zistorwal technology level?

[Paradus hithili]

Greetings everyone.

I'm thinking of using The gloranthan city Zistorwal as the main setting for an rpg at my gaming club and was curious on more details regarding its technology level.

I.e Compared to todays era where would you say their technology is saturated around? -15th century, 17th century etc

Also did they have guns, electricity, wirelines, gaslines? It is said to be a factory/fortress city so how advanced is the place?

What about their streets, are they cemented, paved, similar to ours, etc?

cheers.

 

[Simulacrum]

There was a supplement for mrq1 called The Clanking City. I presume you can now pick that up cheaply and it will tell you everything you need to know.

 

[PhilHibbs]

There was a supplement for mrq1 called The Clanking City. I presume you can now pick that up cheaply and it will tell you everything you need to know.

A lot of that information is superseded by The Abiding Book, as well. It doesn't go into as much detail as Clanking City, but also the information is significantly different. Clanking City was described as "um... flawed" by Loz.

 

[soltakss]

There's a lot of clockwork. The metamagic stuff from Clanking City was interesting.

In our Third Age game, we had Godlearner relics which smacked of cybernetics, so the Clanking City implants made sense to us.

I'd have it as a cross between Dark Satanic Mills and a Futureworld Theme Park, full of soulless sorcerers and mad scientists.

 

[PhilHibbs]

I think it's also important to remember that God Learner "technology" isn't technology in the sense that we think of it. Physics is very different in Glorantha, magical principles (similarity, contagion, etc.) work at a physical level. This is why Common Magic is so common. So, looking for a "real world" analagous level of technology is impossible.

 

[Deleriad]

As said, The Abiding Book is a lot more faithful to the source material than Clanking City. The Clanking City source book appears to be a case of the author making it up as he went along. That said, if you like fantasy cybernetics then you would enjoy the book.

In my personal opinion the general technology in the Clanking City is about the same level as Rome at its height. There is one exception which is that Zistorwal is all about defending itself while making Zistor in some way therefore all the creativity, expertise and effort goes into this. So there's a massive force shield over the city and all sorts of stolen dwarven artefacts that labour unceasingly. At first glance it probably looks very advanced by the advancement is along very narrow, defined line.

More importantly, the creation of Zistor is an act of devotion, worship and sublimation of the self to something greater. That is a technology of prayer wheels, chanting, and repetitive action. So I think of it as looking something like a Buddhist version of Metropolis. The devotees of Zistor approach unity through work...

In a sense, every invention which might have increased technological advancement has instead fed Zistor. So I imagine the citizens living in some squalor, every ounce of their being feeding Zistor through grinding labour. What they feel they get out of it is some sort of transcendent unity and beauty yet their lives are misery and poverty.

That's my take on it.

 

[richaje]

As said, The Abiding Book is a lot more faithful to the source material than Clanking City. The Clanking City source book appears to be a case of the author making it up as he went along. That said, if you like fantasy cybernetics then you would enjoy the book.

For Greg's and my take on them, the Zistorites are well described in both the "Middle Sea Empire" and the "History of the Heortling Peoples".

Key to understanding the Zistorites is their use of "combinatory wheels" by which they attempted to purify and remake Glorantha. Such wheels were common amongst Reconstructionalist Malkioni, but the Zistorites took the spinning combinatory wheel and turned it into a tool to master the Law. To turn their countless wheels, they built engines of gears and pipes and furnaces to tireless operate them.

As a byproduct of their quest to build mechanized combinatory engines, the Zistorites developed other machines. Mechanized war engines such as amphibious fire turtles (domed and armored ships that could walk on land), repeating catapults and ballista, the mechanized giant that the barbarians mistook for Zistor itself, magical charges that exploded when approached, devices that could fly (copies of the iron eagle that Palangio the Iron Vrok had ridden five centures before), and weapons and armor that could exploit the magical energies of the place.

But all of that was merely to defend the Great Machine, the collective efforts of countless combinatory engines that would destroy the Everything World and recycle it into its true components, sorting and distributing power and matter to increase the Core Runes. Once done, Danmalastan would be reproduced and the whole world brought to Solace. This was the City to Be, the remanifestation of the First City that ceased to exist in its primal form after the Third Action.

It was spectacularly successful, until it failed.

Jeff