Technology¶
The sources say little about the general state of craft and engineering in any Age. What they do record is a lost peak, the machines of the Dwarrow, that the dwarves twice rebuilt and twice lost; the scavenged contraptions and potent draughts of the Silek; Silek airships and their devices in the Rift; Sancturi road law; and the ships of the sea-peoples. Forges and the working of metal are on Materials & Metals; the magical devices that manage Mithis, such as the Vigils, belong to Magic and Artifacts.
The Dwarrow inheritance¶
The highest technology Terrun has known was the Dwarrow's. In the newer account they were "a race of super-intelligent, technologically advanced earth elementals (fae creatures)" who fought "genocidal wars that raged for 1000s of years" against the "highly magical Eldritch" (S529). The early dwarves, the First Ones, "were armed and trained with Dwarrow technology" and used it "with great efficiency to wipe out the now isolated Eldritch". But "very few Dwarrow remained to teach the new dwarves the secrets of their technology", and as the last of them died "and their creations returned to dust, much of knowledge surrounding the dwarrow technology was forever gone."
The dwarves "were innovative and reconstructed much of the Dwarrow technology during the Golden Age of Kahun'Darahl", and lost it again: "with the fall of Kahun'Darahl and the loss of the majority of their population and cities during the first demon wars, the dwarves faced another major technological setback" (S529). Who the Dwarrow were is on Dwarrow and the wars on Eldritch-Dwarrow Wars.
Earlier accounts: the 2014 phylogeny makes the "Dwarro" a non-magical offshoot of the Ventari, who "built a civilization around technology which has never since been rivalled. Their machines enabled them to stand toe to toe in conflicts with the Lothim and Ventari" (S525). The same document says trolls are "descendants of genetically enhanced Dwarro warriors", and that "legend tells that the first goblins were the result of some Dwarro technology gone terribly wrong."
The Silek¶
The Silek are scavengers of other peoples' engineering. "As the inheritors of many dwarven halls and relics, they have reworked and repurposed old dwarven technologies for their own purposes" (S025). Their own outline rates them in six crafts:
| Field | Rating | What the source says |
|---|---|---|
| Magic | 2-4 | The upper castes are "almost entirely of Mithis Casters (Warlocks, Witches, Daemus)", practising Demonic Mithis; shamans are heretics. |
| Engineering | 2-4 | "Very clever, but also very sloppy", their short lives breeding an impatience that "does not lend itself well to grand or detailed creations"; "well known for their diabolical, if short-lived, contraptions and inventions". |
| Crafting | 1-3 | "Nearly exclusive use of slaves for stoneworking or woodworking"; metalwork mostly by dwarven or duergar slaves; "a purely minimalist approach to crafting". |
| Construction | 1-2 | "Some say that the Silek don't build things"; they find what they need in the ruins of past civilizations "and need only minimal modifications". |
| Agriculture | 1-3 | Scavenging and slave-worked farms, "especially with old dwarven farms". |
| Medicine | 3-4 | "Expert alchemists and fair surgeons", and expert at using poison and disease as weapons, being "mostly immune" themselves. |
The source gives no scale for the ratings.
Goblin-draughts¶
"Goblin-draughts have been popularized across Terrun as powerful elixirs (but usually with significant negative side-effects)" (S025). They are the best-known product of Silek alchemy, and the only Silek craft the source says has spread to other peoples. The side effects are tabled in the rules as burns, unconsciousness, coma, insanity and death. See Alchemy and Witchcraft.
Airships of the Rift¶
In the Rift of the Fifth Age the Silek, whom humans call Guhvils, fly. The war camp of a Guhvil cult in the Into the Rift campaign kept a "Small Guhvil Airship" and a "Large Guhvil Warship" (S010). They are dirigibles, lifted by balloons; the smaller carries a cannon, and a party without a Guhvil to work it "none of them know how to use" (S011). An unguarded light airship is flown with a control rod, "held by courier" when not in use (S010). Prospectors in the Rift keep airships of their own for supply runs, and pirates sail ships between its islands (S046). See Into the Rift.
The Rift has its own devices, of Guhvil and other make (S046):
- Jumpers, "bracers (Guhvil origin) that allow blink like capabilities only in the Rift", at the cost of a temporary "molecular disorder"; jumping near a full rift-gate "will suck you in".
- Temporal Stabilizers, which "allow normal people to live in the Rift", so long as they spend at least ten hours a day within range or suffer rift-sickness. Gravity is near normal around them, so that "Rift-Dirigibles can't fly near stabilizers".
- Jumpstones, which the pirates of Urdhar use to move between their castle and their hidden ships.
These are described on Rift-Gates.
Roads¶
The Sancturi political structure illustrates its lawmaking with a transportation law of the Infrastructure Council (S323). All roads between major imperial cities must meet three minimums: four carriages abreast, "regular patrols of at least 1 Justicar per mile of road", and a surface on which "a loaded wagon with 2 tons of goods in working order should be able to travel the road without getting stuck or being damaged". The law passes the Great Council 13 to 12; the council grants part of its budget to the High Prefects, and from a year after its passage non-compliant roads are fined "100 Suns (gold pieces) per mile per month", paid by the house landholders, since it is illegal for the prefects to pay fines from their budgets. The source marks the example "TODO FIX THIS". Through the ashes of Vael'Dorais, burned in 688 SM, the Sancturi keep only "a few roads crossing through the area that are well protected and maintained" (S326).
Ships¶
The Aesean longship is the most closely described craft in the sources: "small, long, low and narrow with several short/retractable keels for stabilization", covered with leather "tent-like coverings to keep storm water out", rowed as well as sailed, with "numerous sails, which are easily adjusted from many sails in good weather to few in stormy conditions" (S372). The Danari are "well known craftsmen and builders, building some of the finest Human structures and ships", among them "large, multi-deck galleons" (S372). The Imperium's navy, marines and seamen, is the Darkwater Legion (S314); see Sancturi Military.
Works of Proturas¶
Proturas stands in a cavern that was once flooded, "before the dwarves emptied it", and its trade climbs out of the lower city by a dam: caravan goods are "ferried across and shipped up the dam" from the warehouses of Spillwater (S103). The old dwarven quarries beneath Spillwater are still worked. Nothing more is said of how the dam or the drained cave were made.
Among the Boreal Elves¶
The Boreal Elves craft "weapons, tools, and armor from natural resources such as wood, stone, and animal hides" (S100).
Gap
No source describes the general technology of any Age: printing, gunpowder beyond the one Guhvil cannon, clockwork, mills, sanitation, or medicine outside the Silek. The Dwarrow machines are named but never described.