Ok, here is the thing: Most Steampunk is our normal, regular world, but with changes brought by different steam-powered technology.
Rokugan has magic that is actually working. So I asked myself the question: What should the effects be on everyday life?
Now, compared to a lot of other fantasy, Rokugan magic is fairly limited:
- No spell reaches farther than the horizon, and few last longer than a scene, which may be an hour.
- Regular magic items are almost unheard of. All that exists are nemurania, which are ultra-rare, and cursed Artifacts of Jigoku, which are bad for you.
- Compared to mages other fantasy worlds, shugenja are somewhat hesitant to perform their invocations, as that is calling in favors from the kami, not just using your magical powers. So they would not just pump out their spell slots to feed and heal the poor before going to bed.
Still, I think having access to magic should be seen in SOME parts of society. So I try to come up with ideas where that might by, to give the world some additional sense of wonder:
- Long-distance communication is a major problem in all pre-modern societies, and the roughness of Rokugan's terrain adds to that. Messages would take weeks to get from Dragon lands to the wall, if not months. While no long-distance telepathy, Sending, teleport, Palanthir or Speaking Stones or Mirrors exist, Shikigami would make a believable way of quicker communication: If a shikigami dragonfly travels as fast as a regular one (18 mph, www.speedofanimals.com/animals/dragonfly), since it literally has the Tireless advantage, it could fly for 24 hours, which could cover up to 400 miles in a day. Always in danger of being intercepted or soaked by rain or blown away by wind, of course. But still, at least possibly a fast way of communication for important information. And the Dragonfly isn't ever very fast for an insect, some butterflies and moths fly 30 mph.
- With The Rushing Wave being a simple Rank 1 invocation that can be performed 1x/scene and lasts for 1 scene, very important travellers, messangers and transporters by boat could have a shugenja on board to double their rate of travel.
- As we have no illness mechanics and thus no disease healing spells, the hospital and healing system would be not as impacted as e.g. in a D&D world with instance healing of any disease. Still, the ability to remove Seroius Wounds by magic would at least have some effect on the healing systems.
(I think it is best to gloss over the options to remove they Dying condition, as that tends to open questions like Why Do Emperors Die etc.)
- The ability to Commune with the Spirits and the facts that talking to the equivalent of minor gods actually works should have an effect on things like harvest and agriculture productivity, but as that isn't really quantified, it is not very visible outside of narrative scenes.
Any other ideas how the existance of kiho and invocations could affect everyday life at least of the upper class (except for all the ways to die, of course)?
Edited by Harzerkatze