Need advice

[Inshadowsidream]

I have seven chapters of a Supernatural/Harry Potter crossover on another site. I am getting next to nothing in feedback, so I thought I would post it here as well. I don't have a beta, and the readers here have never been shy about offering constructive criticisms. I am half way through the eighth chapter and realized I have a huge problem, at least it is to me.

You see, the fic is a request where I was asked to find away to blend the two worlds, but place them in a setting such as can be found in the game, Diablo. If you are unfamiliar with the game, let me explain a bit, before getting to my problem.

Diablo is basically about hunting down demons. There are no guns or cars, and no electricity. You come across a lot of ruins and abandoned places in which you fight zombies, demons, and demon spawn. There is also the occasional evil spirit. Everyone knows about demons.

However, Dean would not be Dean without the Impala, Sam would not be Sam without his laptop, so I tried making the setting less archaic. 

So here is my problem. Large stretches of land is barren of cities or farms. Humanity is huddled together in cities or what is essentially groups of farmers banding together. Here and there you will find villages. You can't buy gas, only a synthetic fuel. If cars and laptops exists, would cell phones? 

I don't want to loose the feeling of desolation, and I am unsure if something as sophisticated as a smartphone, would require more in the way of technology than would be plausible. Building a car wouldn't take a lot of technology. Computers could be simple devices used solely for information. The smartphone has me stalled in my tracks. Any words of wisdom on this?

 

 

[JayDee]

I now have a mental image of the Diablo 2 Sorceress’s lightning powers being harnessed towards charging a smartphone.

*Hits chain lightning*

*Phone explodes Samsung style.*

“Whoops! Too much juice there….”

 

[Inshadowsidream]

That made me spew juice all over my cat, and now he is peeking out from under the coffee table glaring at me, fluffy tail just a swishing.

I can just see Seamus doing that, lol.

[BronxWench]

As a Diablo player, why not have the smartphone as an artifact, something which landed along with the angel (as per Diablo 3)? Holy artifacts are always a good way to explain tech..

[Inshadowsidream]

Good idea. I had planned to leave angels in the back ground, but after talking to a friend, I decided to bring Castiel in. Someone else suggested that maybe the world was post apocalyptic, with the manufacture of cars, phones, and computers being among the few technologies that survived. That rises the question for me if maybe instead of a smartphone, they had just the ability to make calls. 

[Sinfulwolf]

Possible to have them as artifacts, but with such isolation and desolation, they may not work very far outside those little areas of gathered people, because upkeeping the cell towers would just be too damn dangerous. Hell, getting signal could be such a relief because you knew you were close to a pocket of civilization. 

[InvidiaRed]

15 hours ago, Sinfulwolf said:

Possible to have them as artifacts, but with such isolation and desolation, they may not work very far outside those little areas of gathered people, because upkeeping the cell towers would just be too damn dangerous. Hell, getting signal could be such a relief because you knew you were close to a pocket of civilization. 

“Oh god, We’re gonna die.” Said Pam bleedingly heavily.  The pack of Wendigo had been a nasty surprise. The sun was setting and somewhere in that dark forest those things waited.

“But look on the bright side. We have full bars.” Jon stated morbidly content as he showed her his phone screen though cracked to hell in back the bars were fully visible

“Nobody’s dying tonight ya dipstick.” Came a third voice.

“Thank god your phone still has those third-party apps installed.” They both turned to see a group emerge looking wary but unbowed. The End had come and gone and they remained.

“Jon, You owe me a keg even at the end of the fricking world your bad taste in apps saved us.” 

[Inshadowsidream]

I scared the crap out of my cat when I read this, because I just burst out laughing. I wish I could write something like this. Unfortunately, my humor doesn't make it well when crossing over to the written word. I am now left scratching my head and thinking ugly thoughts about my muse, as she got me into this mess. Yeah, I blame her. She came bursting awake, shouting "Oh Yeah!" like a demented version of the Kool Aid man, and planted the idea in my head.

Now, I can't see phones being an option. Computers could be something like a traveling library on demons that updates itself in each town, but there is the deal with batteries. Solar maybe? I don't know what to use to replace phones. Radios, walkie-talkies and other like items have too limited a range. Owls carrying packages and letters works for wizards and witches, but what about Muggles? 

I have people waiting on an update on the other site, I am waiting to post here until I do some editing, but now I am snagged on this. 

Edited June 4, 2019 by Inshadowsidream

[BronxWench]

I can’t remember if Diablo has the equivalent of the D&D mephits—wee demons that use various elemental attacks like fire, acid, electricity… I know Diablo 3 has those desert serpents that possess an electrical attack. Maybe they could be harvested to recharge things?

Phones are just damned puzzling, though. I can’t really thing of an equivalent method of long-distance communication that works in a Diablo-like setting.

[JayDee]

Diablo 2 had those fucking lightning beetles in the desert. A way to harvest them as cruelly as possible would be fine by me.

[Inshadowsidream]

In The Lord of the Rings, they had a crystal ball like thing in which Sauron and Sarumon communicated with. I don't know why this popped in my mind, but I thought that maybe the angels could have scattered something similar about, but they worked as transceivers instead of direct communication. Not sure if this is plausible, but maybe phones are the results of humans improving on the original means of communication?

I hated those lightning beetles. They killed me more than anything in the game other than the bosses. However, I can see them being used as a source of energy. Maybe they are confined, and computers at least, can be charged by placing it on the cage, for lack of a better word. 

[BronxWench]

That’s possible… phones could be a form of communications portal… I like it!

[InvidiaRed]

On 6/4/2019 at 5:48 AM, BronxWench said:

I can’t remember if Diablo has the equivalent of the D&D mephits—wee demons that use various elemental attacks like fire, acid, electricity… I know Diablo 3 has those desert serpents that possess an electrical attack. Maybe they could be harvested to recharge things?

Phones are just damned puzzling, though. I can’t really thing of an equivalent method of long-distance communication that works in a Diablo-like setting.

Its depends on the setting.

But people don’t realize that D&D, pathfinder. They wouldn’t ever develop phones. Because it would be redundant and not nearly as effective as what they have now.

Yes. Technically the magic casters technically have social media. (complete with sound and sight.)

All you’d really need is a minor artifact to power a main hub and just start selling books on how to connect your mirror to it and bam. instead of phones, they’d have compact mirrors. For adventurers and the nobility. The fact that its never brought up is a failure of imagination. 

[InvidiaRed]

On 6/4/2019 at 12:30 PM, Inshadowsidream said:

In The Lord of the Rings, they had a crystal ball like thing in which Sauron and Sarumon communicated with. I don't know why this popped in my mind, but I thought that maybe the angels could have scattered something similar about, but they worked as transceivers instead of direct communication. Not sure if this is plausible, but maybe phones are the results of humans improving on the original means of communication?

I hated those lightning beetles. They killed me more than anything in the game other than the bosses. However, I can see them being used as a source of energy. Maybe they are confined, and computers at least, can be charged by placing it on the cage, for lack of a better word. 

The Palantiri would have made the war much simpler. There were seven but Sauron had acquired one. Stopping everyone on middle earth from utilizing them.( Since putting your mind into direct contact with evil incarnate is a dumb idea but then we aren’t talking about Denethor the 2)

Without that one. The LOTR would have been a single book and over halfway because long-distance communication is OP

[BronxWench]

6 hours ago, InvidiaRed said:

Its depends on the setting.

But people don’t realize that D&D, pathfinder. They wouldn’t ever develop phones. Because it would be redundant and not nearly as effective as what they have now.

Yes. Technically the magic casters technically have social media. (complete with sound and sight.)

All you’d really need is a minor artifact to power a main hub and just start selling books on how to connect your mirror to it and bam. instead of phones, they’d have compact mirrors. For adventurers and the nobility. The fact that its never brought up is a failure of imagination. 

Oh, D&D definitely wouldn’t need smartphones, I agree. A complete waste of time for the gnomes who’d have designed them, and the followers of Oghma and Shaundakul who would design many of the apps for the devices. Nope. Wizards are faster and much more efficient.

(Then again, in the webcomic Rusty & Co., someone did have a smartphone. It used Andruid...)

[InvidiaRed]

17 hours ago, BronxWench said:

Oh, D&D definitely wouldn’t need smartphones, I agree. A complete waste of time for the gnomes who’d have designed them, and the followers of Oghma and Shaundakul who would design many of the apps for the devices. Nope. Wizards are faster and much more efficient.

(Then again, in the webcomic Rusty & Co., someone did have a smartphone. It used Andruid...)

Always assumed Deneir with his metatext was the closest to what is essentially coding. It would be Cyric and Vecna developing viruses. For sure and Bane with the rest of the Dead Three causing chaos.

And giving  Mystra another notch on her belt of regret for giving mortals magic. Haha.

[Inshadowsidream]

In The Lord of the Rings, they had a crystal ball like thing in which Sauron and Sarumon communicated with. I don't know why this popped in my mind, but I thought that maybe the angels could have scattered something similar about, but they worked as transceivers instead of direct communication. Not sure if this is plausible, but maybe phones are the results of humans improving on the original means of communication?

I hated those lightning beetles. They killed me more than anything in the game other than the bosses. However, I can see them being used as a source of energy. Maybe they are confined, and computers at least, can be charged by placing it on the cage, for lack of a better word. 

[Inshadowsidream]

Okay, you have completely lost me, I haven't played D&D in well over a decade, and all I know about it now is that it has changed drastically. My 14 year old nephew was trying to tell me about a campaign he had just joined and I just sat there going wft? I had to ask if he was sure we were talking about the same game.

[BronxWench]

1 hour ago, Inshadowsidream said:

Okay, you have completely lost me, I haven't played D&D in well over a decade, and all I know about it now is that it has changed drastically. My 14 year old nephew was trying to tell me about a campaign he had just joined and I just sat there going wft? I had to ask if he was sure we were talking about the same game.

I still get mentally stuck back in Edition 3.5 myself. Elderspawn plays regularly and I’m just as lost with what Wizards of the Coast has done to my beloved Seldarine...

[Inshadowsidream]

You say Wizards of the Coast and I think Magic the Gathering. I am sadly out of date in that area as well. I suddenly feel so stuck in the past.

[BronxWench]

I started playing D&D in college, when there were no editions. We “borrowed” probability dice from the math department, and we had legal pads and pencils.  There was no Internet, no pdfs of rulebooks, nothing. I swear the DM was making it up as he went along, but it was insanely fun, and as a bonus, if you died, you could wander down the hall in the student center and see if the vets had any wine. 

[Inshadowsidream]

I can't remember exactly when I started playing. However, I do remember pouring over books, rolling dice that seemed very odd to me as I had only seen six sided dice until then. The DM had only one character sheet so everything had to be copied onto loose leaf paper, and I agonized over what sort of character to make. I ended up making a druid and a cleric. One of the other players kept barging into rooms, and although the DM was going easy on us until we learned the ins and outs, this guy didn't seem to learn. He barged into a room and a grey ooze dropped on his head. He was our first casualty, and I was hooked. After that, if it had oddly shaped diced, and characters with attributes, I was in. Some of my fondest memories are of playing D&D or one of its spin-offs. Being able to print things out just isn't the same as browsing the books and other needed items at the hobby store, at least in my opinion.

[InvidiaRed]

On 6/9/2019 at 6:59 AM, BronxWench said:

I still get mentally stuck back in Edition 3.5 myself. Elderspawn plays regularly and I’m just as lost with what Wizards of the Coast has done to my beloved Seldarine...

I’m a 3.5 fan myself.

Edition 4 was attempting to make the RPG too much like a video game… Without graphics. And I’m still up in the air about the edition five since all they seem to do is have Mystra get hit with a bus at the end of every edition.

[InvidiaRed]

On 6/9/2019 at 10:17 AM, Inshadowsidream said:

You say Wizards of the Coast and I think Magic the Gathering. I am sadly out of date in that area as well. I suddenly feel so stuck in the past.

Well its even more confusing now cause now.

The MTG  verse is part of the D&D with the addition of Ravnica as a plane.

[Inshadowsidream]

On 6/6/2019 at 1:32 AM, InvidiaRed said:

Its depends on the setting.

But people don’t realize that D&D, pathfinder. They wouldn’t ever develop phones. Because it would be redundant and not nearly as effective as what they have now.

Yes. Technically the magic casters technically have social media. (complete with sound and sight.)

All you’d really need is a minor artifact to power a main hub and just start selling books on how to connect your mirror to it and bam. instead of phones, they’d have compact mirrors. For adventurers and the nobility. The fact that its never brought up is a failure of imagination. 

See, this is something I wouldn't have thought of doing. I came up with the alternative to the floo system, and got as far as thinking on how someone might carry a mirror with them in case they needed to return home in a Muggle environment, but how magic users would make a call among Muggles, never got past phones.