Probably because people don’t see it as fantastical enough. Nevermind that gunpowder can be made out of naturally occurring materials just out and about in nature, so unless you’re saying this particular world somehow doesn’t have saltpeter, charcoal and sulfur laying around anywhere, there’s really no excuse for it.
I suppose an argument could be made that they haven’t figured out what saltpeter or sulfur is because alchemy isn’t that far advanced yet, though.
And one of the first ever guns was a cannon on a stick!
Eh, the first use of gunpowder weapons we know of dates to the 10th century, and that’s artillery stuff. Rifling, aka the development that stops personal firearm shots from basically being a crapshoot is from the 15th century.
Depending on where you put “medieval”, it’s not particularly egregious for gunpowder weaponry to not show up.
I suppose you could always use it for bomb-making?
Valid point. I think part of the issue is that the lore, as well as actions, are based on what the author finds cool at the moment.
See above. If M had done that, then even if the detective did the tests and chose to save Sanja, neither M nor N would’ve gotten hurt and there couldn’t have been the “injured” scene. And that–literally–is the reason why the sewer scene went down as it did.
But that’s the thing–A can get shot in b1 and he bleeds. So it’s not like vampire skin is impenetrable. They can get hurt. Hell, they get hurt fighting thralls at night, when they’re at their strongest. They bleed there. When they fight Murphy, all Murphy does is knock hell out of them and not only do they get hurt, but they can barely manage to get up!
So, obviously, they can take physical damage. In which case it makes no sense to have them immune to firearms. In order to have it make sense, the lore would need to be changed in some fashion–like saying that they heal quicker than a bullet can pass through them–but, if that’s the case, then the vamps wouldn’t be hurt against the thralls or against trappers.
I have an OC for a novel that is immune to pretty much everything (think Unbreakable) and if he’s shot, it hurts like hell (which means you can disable him if you open fire in a big way) but it doesn’t break the skin. Something like that seems like it would be more fitting to why firearms can’t hurt the vamps. Though, even then, it hurts!
Not if it’s actually shown that their was is freaking sick, which it is. Those cage things really piss me off. But, then again, I hate it when people try to take the high ground by doing something like that because “we don’t murder people.” I really wish they’d all get out and go on a killing spree. The blood would be on the hands of the Agency and their asinine rules.
Right, this is another thing that makes me laugh. Three people can’t agree on a damned restaurant for lunch half the time, and you tell me that every supernatural that works for the Agency agreed on this shit??
This would make a great deal of sense, which is why I am 99% certain it won’t be the case.
When I say I almost choked on my water laughing at this. Holy crap, lol.
Inconsistencies is a big pet peeve of mine. So much so, I’ve driven myself out of (imo) awesome ideas, because I could not make it work “right”.
I prefer to set some rules, and if need be (as a last resort for something to happen) bend them, but try really hard not to break them. Sometimes it’s better to not set hard rules in the first place, not because you’ve not figured them out, but rather just in case that hard rule will stop the story from progressing in a meaningful way.
Like in a project I’m working on, there is a character that is bulletproof, BUT they are not immune to physics. Hit them with a .50 cal or 12 gauge, and they’ll feel it. All that energy has to do something or go somewhere. For instance, look at this video of someone shooting a steel plate rated to stop a .50 cal. The plate is fine, but it goes flying because all that energy is still there.
No, I agree. I absolutely agree. It’s silliness that you can have everything from hyper-industrial dwarves to ships in the sky, but a gun is where we apparently draw the line.
Now I’m just imagining how A would fare taking a burst from a Ma Deuce. Honestly, i feel like that’d just piss them off since they’re a supernatural brick shithouse
Speaking of this, how in the hell did Rebecca get away with obstructing and sabotaging a murder investigation let alone be assigned to the case after it got to Wayhaven? Her conflict of interest only made matters infinitely worse. Sure the woman at the beginning was before we even knew what was happening but the kid that was killed? Gross negligence at best and incompetence and corruption at worst and her punishment is riding a desk for a few months. And then there’s the whole not showing the detective who Murphy was. Just put out a BOLO on the guy and someone would have had eyes on within two or three days since he was moonlighting at the hospital. Don’t even have to mention anything about the supernatural. Just here’s the murderer, put an APB out, if anyone sees anything then they’ll call it in.
Guns change the tone away from the whole sword+sorcery vibe that most fantasy games are going for and give you more of a Three Musketeers thing. Changes the whole aesthetic of the game.
I’m not sure that Wayhaven was ever intended to have a sword+sorcery vibe. If it was, it certainly didn’t achieve it through the demo. (Especially since guns feature rather prominently if you’re just looking at the demo.)
I’m talking more about fantasy games in general with that comment.
Wayhaven’s just a straight up case of “author doesn’t like guns and doesn’t want to include them”, which means that she just shouldn’t have ever included them so that the main character doesn’t seem like an irresponsible idiot who’s always misplacing their service weapon.
As far as jumping in on the case goes, that one is fairly true to real life - ABC agencies have the power to step in on local investigations if need be, especially those with global jurisdiction like the agency in Wayhaven presumably has, and Murphy was a suspect the agency was hunting, so it did fall within their jurisdiction. Still a shitty move, but that part, at least, makes sense. So does assigning their own agents to the investigation, whether we like them or not.
The rest of it, though? Absolutely, Rebecca should have been pulled in by her bosses and run up one wall and back down the other. Conflict of interest, gross negligence, definitely obstructing, because she was purposefully keeping the local detective in the dark when they should be working together, and definitely sabotaging the cooperating police force by not only hiding information from them, but purposefully having Unit Bravo be as obtuse and unhelpful as possible on top of that (Although they probably would’ve been obnoxious like that anyhow because two of them didn’t like having to work with the detective in the first place).
But then, the agency pulled its own crap by dragging this same poor detective into their affairs, despite knowing their relation to Rebecca, AND THE KNOWLEDGE THAT THEY DID THE SAME THING TO THE PREVIOUS WAYHAVEN DETECTIVE WHO WAS KILLED IN ACTION, WHO WAS ALSO DIRECTLY RELATED TO REBECCA. Talk about not learning from history, huh?
Ok, so, your problem is that you’re mistaking the Agency’s priorities. Protecting people and supers from each other is number TWO on their to do list, not number one. Number one is to keep the existence of the supernatural world secret from the population at large. Everything else takes a backseat.
Also remember, not!Murphy has been killing people around the world. He didn’t start in Wayhaven, and the Bravos were already on his trail all that time (as you can point out to A, not very well. You definitely should point that out to A. I certainly do. Every time. With great glee). Rebecca and the Bravos working a case that involves her child is because they’re the only one already familiar with the case, and, possibly, because Rebecca’s the only agent they’ve got that’s already famiiar with Wayhaven.
I think i could have better explained myself in my comment so i apologize for that. What I meant was the Agency could have very easily dressed notMurphy up as just being a regular murderer with a penchant for mad science experiments and very easily got the police and public on board. They wouldn’t have to mention anything about the supernatural or anything like that. Just post his face on the news or at the very least show the police and tell people to report any sightings.
As for Rebecca and Co. involvement, i have no issue with the team being involved since they were the main ones tracking him but Rebecca at the very least should have been put in an advisory role to another handler who take over the case once it reached Wayhaven. Still close enough to see what’s going on but not in a position to making bad judgement calls.
Definitely one of the bests parts in book 1. Plus one of the only times we can really stick it to A
As a fantasy writer myself, I’m going to have to come to the genre’s defense here on the whole “why doesn’t gunpowder exist” thing. Generally, most authors are aware that gunpowder would’ve realistically been invented once the various civilizations have been around long enough. The reason it’s not used is because it would mess with the worldbuilding and stories we want to tell.
Now the idea of a fantasy world set in say, the Colonial era does sound cool. It’d even be fun to see some urban fantasies where magic, elves and such isn’t some niche thing but a part of society. Bonus points if it’s still a fictional world instead of the real one (not that I mind that either). But that’s another matter altogether.
Some fantasy writers just want to write about wars between elves and dragons without raising questions like “Why don’t the dragons just build bombard cannons and fire at them from above?” or “A cavalry charge? It would be much more efficient to whittle away at them from a distance with firearms.” It’s generally just not the type of thing we’re wanting to write about in that particular story. The addition of gunpowder technology opens many doors and creates many questions. There’s a reason its advancement changed the face of our world.
The elves of Lotr for instance, probably would’ve reached the moon by the time of the Third Age. Or when Sauron returned the Men of Gondor would’ve met his advance with primitive tanks and machine guns. Which is obviously not what JRR Tolkien was going for. (Though he did consider making Numenor a steampunk nation once. He scrapped the idea).
If you pressed me on why gunpowder’s not a thing in my fantasy worlds I’d honestly probably say something like: “You know what? All the things needed for gunpowder don’t exist! Some fictional equivalent of them does. It can do everything the original can except for being used to make gunpowder.” Would that be a cop-out on my part? Absolutely.
All that to say. Gunpowder fantasy sounds interesting. But it’s not what a lot of authors are going for and would mess up what they are trying to do. But that’s just my opinion on it.
Ed Greenwood says gunpowder isn’t a thing in Faerun (it has the much more unreliable blackpowder instead, which has a good chance of blowing up in your face or not at all) because the god Gond literally doesn’t let it happen. Even if you can mix all the components perfectly (and good luck with that, because Gond is a god of pranks), nothing happens because Gond goes “lol no”.
Makes sense to me, sometimes having guns and gun powder would mess things up for your story. As I said above, make your rules and stick to them and anyone who complains is, in my opinion, just nit picking to have something negative to say.
It doesn’t have to make sense by real world logic as long as it makes sense in your worlds logic.
