Technology and Eras in Fantasy

[D. Gray Warrior]

So, most fantasy settings seem to assume a vaguely mediaeval (or arguably Renaissance) level of technology. There are castles, knights with plate armor, trebuchets and long swords.

However, this kind of setting has been done to death, and the real world provides us with tons of examples of other cultures and historical eras, like the Stone Age or Bronze Age. One of my earlier, now defunct projects was loosely based on the Iron Age.

I'm wondering how one should approach historical eras and tech levels in fantasy?

Since it's a fictional world, the setting doesn't need to follow the same trajectories our world took. They might not even fit neatly into any IRL era, instead being a mish-mash of various tech. That's one of the things I always liked about post-apocalyptic settings. They often feature a world with an inconsistent level of technology do to societal collapse, loss of knowledge and infrastructure.

If there's magic, then that throws a wrench into things, since there is now magitech. Alternatively, magic delays the progression of technology since the magic can do a lot of stuff technology in our world can do anyway. Why invent firearms when you can just yeet a fireball at your target instead? Or, instead of inventing the automobile, you could just cast teleportation on yourself.

How do you approach technology and time periods in your setting when worldbuilding?

 

[ThinkerX]

Technological and social change is a key element in my 'Empire' series. It began with Emperor Fabius, who encouraged the innovative artisans of Equitant and the learned sages of Carbone. This resulted in a slew of clever clockwork mechanisms, telescopes, the invention of the printing press, and a network of semaphores that eventually spanned the Empire.

Later emperors understood these devices as a threat to their authority and sought to suppress or confine them. The mechanisms became toys for the rich, and printing presses were confined to the church and state alone. But the innovations continued in Equitant and Carbone. Experiments with food preservation and crude vaccines. More experiments with electricity.

Then came the Demon War, which put the empire in a drawn-out death match against a rival backed by Lovecraftian demons. To survive, the empire pulled out all the stops, including the blocks on technology. Troops pedaled to the battlefields on bicycles. Catapults hurled explosives. Balloons floated overhead. And millions of people across the empire had a front-row seat.

The empire triumphed - barely. Faced with a million unpaid soldiers and an empty treasury, the emperor awarded all the veterans with land and citizenship, increasing the middle class tenfold overnight and sparking a social revolution, one that traditionalists resorted to extreme measures to suppress. They failed. The transformations continue in later books. Crude steam locomotives. Still and motion cameras. Simple lightbulbs. Legal and social reforms. One giant glorious mess.