Dragongut Furnace
In my now four years deceased fantasy game, the castle at Yllian had hot and cold running water and central heating, as well as a large forge that were all heated by the DragonGut Furnace. Located beneath even the dungeons, the Furnace was a large thick vessel with a few entry ports that were usually closed and all sorts of ducting, flues, and pipes leading in an out of it. The vessel was surrounded by water tanks that it kept warm, which in turn kept the vessel from overheating. This produced the hot water for the plumbing. The water was drawn up to the various places it was used by impeller pumps, like are used to tap 55 gallon drums. The forge was directly above the furnace and recieved the lion's share of heat, which was used for metal working. The rest of the vents and piping lead to floor and wall grates aound the castle, pumping out hot air. Thus, the castle was well heated in the cold and wet Yllian winters.

The heart of the furnace was a portal to the Elemental Plane of Fire, and altering the size of the portal altered the amount of heat it put out. The flues and vents are adjustable, so in winter, the portal could be opened wide and the vents all opened to heat the castle. In summer, the vents would be closed, and the portal would be very very small, as maintaining an open portal is easier than opening a new one.

In Case of Emergency
Two emergencies can occur with the Furnace, overheating, and unwanted guests. In case of overheating, the portal can be easily closed, and a master valve can be opened that would drain the cisterns in the castle down into the furnace room. While the vessel itself would be untouched by water (steam bomb anyone) the works would be cooled while the portal was closed. This did happen on several dramatic occasions. The second is that portals are two way, and sometimes things can scuttle in from the plane of fire. These creatures are generally held captive by the eight foor thick, ceramic line walls of the furnace. Most nasties leave finding the vessel to tight to escape. Those that start a fuss are isolated by cutting the portal down to the minimal size and letting the vessel cool. a restricted flame creature will usually flee back through the portal when it is opened, for that express purpose. Troublesome guests are delt with by the resident Magus of the Castle. Go to Comment

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I like this idea. Go to Comment

The user added subs is what made me actually enjoy this. I was having a hard time reading this and thinking it a full sub until I read the few submissions that were put up. I like it. I have read a few books similar in thought to this. I actually based my magic system of my game off of the Four Types of Magic, technology being the fourth magic. This just brings it all together.

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Those few who wish to enter the Dragon's Furnace will need extreme environmental hazard equipment to do so. They will find that, aside from the fact that the being (presumably a deceased god, but perhaps a great dragon of super-mythic proportions) is more than supernaturally large. Those few who do wander within, including those who wish to defend the great boons of the furnace, must work their way through a great earthen cavern filled with the cryptid spawn of the entity itself. Once past the varying tribulations, those few will find themselves to the end of a rocky and crystalline cavern at the mouth of a great digestive sphincter, periodically emitting deadly acidic fumes.

Once inside, those few will find an environment less hospitable than the within a forge filled with enraged embers, despite the fact that its innards reside within the plane of fire itself. They must not only overcome the extreme heat of the great terran organs, but also the anatomical anomalies which are constantly spewed forth from the long since dead, yet still incredibly potent, reproductive systems of the entity.

Those who survive this far inwards have only just begun the journey to the heart of this magnificent being, and those who live to tell the tales of their adventures therein are scarcely received as anything but the utmost of insane. After all, nothing so great could possibly live within the Earth itself. Go to Comment

I dig it. It opens a market for high class consumers. Kind of like a combination of sailing and taking your personal helicopter across town for a bite to eat, only more fun in both respects. Especially on your way back from eating all of that exotic food.
-banks a hard left as the wind suddenly pulls him towards the wizarding academy tower..-
... I knew I shouldn't have eaten all of those snails. Go to Comment

One of my favorite inventions from an old DnD game.

Replacing the wheels of a standard wheel barrel with a magically enchanted ring allows workers to move tons of material at a time without any extra effort than simply walking. The ring is crafted mostly from ferromagnetic metals and contains veins of magically conductive crystals, which create a proxy magnetic field beneath it to repel the ring and whatever load it is bearing from the ground. Arcanists theorize that if a similar such mechanism could be replicated on a larger scale, then entire boats may be able to float above the clouds. Recent applications have enabled ships up to the size of galleons to glide effortlessly above the grass; however, galleons themselves seem to have difficulty maneuvering across anything but flat grounds. Extensive research is being done to create other means to lift heavier objects. Go to Comment

Post Script:
A friend has made a good point, and I feel that I should make a distinction. He was finding it difficult to create technologies out of magic while following the line of thought that, "if magic can do anything, then why create a device which reiterates this ability to do anything." I should first say that magic could be capable of doing anything, but in most cases it cannot do everything. That is to say, it can't do it all at once. Similarly, technologies are created as a method of accomplishing tasks not normally within the means of their application. They are used to increase the capability, or allow the capability where there is none, to accomplish a set of tasks. An example would be electricity. We cannot directly control electricity. So we create devices to do it for us, allowing for innumerable results. Like the monitor you are looking at right now. Go to Comment

Okay, starting to get my head about this one. I think I have some ideas to toss in here. Go to Comment

O.M.E.G.A.A.

One Man Enchanted Glide Assisted Aircraft

A small device, not much larger than one full grown man. It is built in a way that the top half of a pilot is completely enclosed, with their body from the lower back down resting on the platform extending out the back. The pilot is lying on their stomach as they pilot. The devices are commonly referred to as sparrows due to its silhouette.

The device itself features basic aerodynamics, but the thrust is provided by the removable crystal matrix attached to the underside. This device gets charged by having magic funneled into it via spells. The arcane energy powers not only the thrust, but the internal guidance system and various other devices withing the cockpit. The usual configuration consists of an altimeter, frontal and real viewing crystals, pitch readings, a gauge displaying the status of the crystal matrix and finally the actual controls.

This unit has a decent number of both pros and cons. Some of the pros include very high speed, respectable turning radius, and a small profile. Cons include the maximum charge capacity being 10 minutes of use, poor protection for the pilot, crashes resulting from moving at very high speed with only human reaction times and a penchant for exploding if the crystal matrix becomes halfway damaged.

Each one is made individually, and many owners have customized their individual sparrows to have additional features. Some include a smoke canister, to leave a trail, additional armoring of the crystal core, and in some cases the addition of a second core all together. In this last case, the second core can perform as either a secondary battery, doubling the max charge capacity, an energy source for spell-based weapons the user may have chosen to mount or simply as a very expensive but very powerful little bomb.


There is a growing culture around these devices, at least among those who can afford them. A number of young nobles have died racing each other through large cities, and despite attempts to restrict the sale of them the market is booming. Lords use them to run messages and spy, armies are using them as a fast aerial assault.
How will you put the Omegaa to use? Go to Comment

I know I'm in the minority here at Strolen's, but I actually quite enjoy high magic settings. Go to Comment

I'm paradoxically a fan of both gritty low magic or folk magic settings and high magic "magepunk" settings. They both have a lot to offer, with low magics strength lying in an understanding of history and high magic's in an avoidance of triteness. Little magic scooters or magic cellphones are dumb, as is any straight analogue to modern technology or anything that has the explanation of "it's MAGIC! Duh!" Stuff like detailed magic-assissted (a term that I now love) glider-planes or elemental fueled furnaces in baroque castles are COOL. Go to Comment

I like this kind of additional tool for a magic users. You are right, it is much for flavor than for effect, as you don't need these. However, it makes them convient to have and carry, so there are encumbrence and book keeping advantages to them. And it will keep potentially perishable or fragile components safe. A good tool that adds flavor.

Also you can use it as a case for "color" on the character, having a strong opinion on them...

These are not just for DnD, though that is the magic system that most notably requires material components. They are as handy as a vial of baby's tears. So really, it is useful for many magic systems.

Good Job. Bask in the gloy of your post - today.

Tommorow, go post some more. Go to Comment

Pretty good. Especially good in a low-magic world, where spell-casting is rare and the material components are rare. Also, what if most spell-casting components "went off"; e.g. "dew collected from a snowdrop in a lunar eclipse" must be used within a day of being collected - unless, of course, it is stored in a materian. This way, if you trade away (or use) your materian, you will not be able to use any of the spells that require that component unless you find or trade for another. The more time had elapsed since the event, the rarer and more expensive the materian could be. "The last leaf of a 100 year oak tree to fall in autumn" (used in, for example, the spell "alter form") would be comparatively cheap in winter, but much rarer and more costly in summer. Go to Comment

I dont know, the idea of prepackaged magic supplies seems awful modern to me. This is just my opinion, but i always imagined magic to be unique to each magician, IE no two mages can the Fireball spell in the same manner. It might be similar, but there is always a difference. Perhaps Bulgor the Embermage likes his a little hotter than most and uses two pinches of sulfer rather than one, or Randolphina the Petite prefers her blasts to be less gassy, and omits the sulfer completely.

Plus I was afflicted by the voice of one of my old players, he say's it's always best to kick a mage in his orbs. Go to Comment

Very useful-the equivilent of a magic one-shot rifle insteas of a magic musket or arquebus. Go to Comment

Updated: ô.o For some reason there were a bunch of /'s before random punctuations. I fixed every one I could find, but a few might have slipped passed my not so eagle-like eyes. Go to Comment

I like the idea of a magic currency, perhaps usable as alternate components that apply modifiers for spells. I remember an old Dragon magazine article which listed various alternate components for the various spells, and their impacts on them.

These fit more in line with the video-gamish approach to spells where consumer-goods exist and there are lot of casters in the world - so very High Fantasy.

I like it - good stuff.

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