This has been brought up before I believe, but I could not find my question of interest in there: Do steam engines exist in any manner? Or is Amia and Faerun strictly short of knowledge of fossil fuels and how it can power steam engines?

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My rule of thumb is that magical steam artifice is the cutting edge of mechanical technology, personally. I believe both Mulhorand and Lantan make use of steam engines.

Steam and clockwork exist, though in what levels, I'm not sure.

Technology questions are always hard to answer because Magic is very much a form of technology in FR, by definition of technology being the application the rules of a Universe for practical purposes. It's a mechanical, testable, repeatable feature of the FR reality. So it's not like people set aside Magic and what we call technology, because inevitably, they combine Magic with physical world just like we would with our understanding of electrical and nuclear forces. We still have fully mechanical systems (gears, pipes, etc) and we still have completely electromagnetic systems (circuits, telecommunication), but we still call both technology likely like FR people would consider both an aqueduct or a meticulously created Warding spell "technology."

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From what I understand there is some steam work existant but its by no means like...Steampunk or anything. In fact there have been issues with people who tried to introduce steam punk-esque things to the setting and they got shut down. I think its also safe to say that steam power on the scale of like, steam powered ships and the like does not exist in any form.


As a side note, from what I was told cannon do exist in our setting, but are rare and universally of the variety that tended to explode as often as they successfully fired.

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Sir Taelar Ardelyn of Wiltun
Winner of the Razor Tongued Award 2015!

Kira "Penny" Sigers
Better than Boulderdash!

There are microwaves to cook your food in halruua.
There are robots and sentient machines in nearly every dungeon.
Teleporting machines in many cities.
There were floating cities previously (netheril) Much like the ones in starwars.

By some standards - The forgotten realms far surpass our modern technology.

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As far as I am aware, the highest form of steam technology in existence on Faerun would be, as said before, the Mulhorandi steam pumps used for irrigation of their fields. Such would probably be jealously guarded as a gift from Thoth. As far as DnD in general? I could easily see advanced steam and other technologies in use in someplace like Mechanus, but few places otherwise. Remember, most settings have deities of knowledge, such as Oghma, who would control the spread of such things, and would block the spread of technology that they'd deem dangerous.

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....BioShock:Netheril? lol


Yeah the amount of magic does allow for things that are beyond modern technology as we know it, but that doesn't mean the technology is actually advanced. The cities flew through largely magic means, not through mechanical application.

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Sir Taelar Ardelyn of Wiltun
Winner of the Razor Tongued Award 2015!

Kira "Penny" Sigers
Better than Boulderdash!

D&D through out its history has been full of worlds with widely varying degrees of technology, with magic blurring and confusing the lines even more. Lanten and Mulhorand have the most advanced mundane technology though clearly magic makes mundane technology pale. Many races are infamous for their techo-mancy, steampunk, gearmagic whatever you want to call it. From Gnomish gadgets to the clockwork replacement limbs crafted by drow.

Looking at real world history much of the technology we presume came about during the Renaissance was simply a rebirth of lost arts developed during the classical period. So in that comparison not all technological ideas we consider new are new at all and the same applies to a fantasy setting. At least in my mind it would.