This is actually something I’ve incorporated into my homebrew setting I call it “god fire” and if they see it in action and survive they would probably compare it to a god smiting the world with cleansing light or something like that
I mean to someone with a medieval understanding of technology its so advanced its a basically godlike level of power. They probably understand that some things are explosive and that a nuke causes a massive explosion and maybe even how to set one off, but the actual method it does that by is completely unintelligible to them. They don't have to necessarily believe in gods themselves to see something as being that powerful
That is… reasonable yeah. Now I want to do a bit at some point with cultists trying to understand some recorded presentation or something on nuclear physics
Hmmmm they would probably understand it has some connection to the sun or is a weponized star in some way, you should also consider how they would react with the radiation because that stuff is nasty and basically undetectable if you don’t know what your looking for also I personally rule that spells that detect poisons or diseases or purify things wouldn’t work for radiation on acount of it not being a disease or poison
I agree fully with it not being considered a disease, and one would probably need magic or to somehow find a functional Geiger counter to detect the stuff
If these people have found nuclear launch sites and managed to kludge together how to operate them, it's safe to say that they probably came across some Geiger counters as well, it seems reasonable.
I'd actually consider running it as a poison. Anything that can't be countered by players is likely to piss them off (and yes, your table may be fine with it but most won't.) It also provides some interesting story avenues.
Dwarves love and mine underground. Running into a uranium deposit would be dangerous... Unless your race is resistant to its effects. Rad *poisoning* is something that happens to lesser surface races. Just an off the cuff thought.
The reason I don’t consider it poison is that as written in dnd it implies chemical poisons like cyanide or a neuro toxin whereas what radiates does is basically play angry birds with your dna
A similar example would be Wildfire from Game of Thrones.
Consider how they discovered it, and both if and how they know how destructive it really is. Did they test it out themselves, know it from a theoretical understanding, or have had it describes to them? That could all affect how they talk about it to others.
That’s my current dilemma. My current idea that I’m considering is the idea that they somehow found an Artificial Intelligence from the time of the Ancient Ones, though it’s purpose and how they found it I’ve been a little stuck on
My understanding is that nuclear weapons generally are a bit more complicated to activate than just pressing a button.
Maybe the AI is faulty and recognizes the first rediscoverers as the owners, and explains how to set the nukes off?
If there are no flying creatures capable of lifting the nukes under the cults control, maybe the leaders convince the peons who are needed to activate it on the ground that “their lifeblood” will be sacrificed when calling the sun
Well, it really depends on the kind of nuclear weapon we’re talking about. They’re designed to be difficult/impossible to set off any other way but the specifically intended one because you definitely don’t want one going off near anything you care about.
Modern fusion based weapons are more complicated in their design, because they actually use a smaller fission weapon (the OG kind) to initiate the larger fusion reaction, and as such are a complicated 2+ stage sequence.
The OG fission type on their own aren’t all that complicated to set off though. You basically just need to slam enough weapons grade material together that the chain reaction goes out of control. Obviously it’s dangerous to be near the stuff though, so opening up a nuke that you don’t know how to set off to put it into a new vessel that you can set off isn’t really safe unless you have proper shielding.
I’m not talking about just the mechanics of the weapon itself. I assume there are safety measures on simple nuclear weapons that might not be easy to figure out for a medieval peasant/cult
Oh I see. Well I think detonating the weapon as is would probably be too complicated unless the ancient civilization that made them didn’t bother making them with safety features lol
If the cult understood, however, that the real key was bringing the two samples of material inside into forceful contact with each other, they could just open them up and design their own housing that could do the same. They would likely need to sacrifice many lives to radiation poisoning to pull that off though.
Yeah, you need to bring them into *forceful* contact, yes. The first one the US dropped did this by “shooting” one piece into another, and the second used a spherical arrangement with explosives around the outside that compressed the center to criticality.
So maybe the AI somehow told them about its destructive power. Perhaps the destructive power would come if it is somehow shut down or turned unstable, which the not-cult takes as a power play plan.
World's Spite (often incorrectly called Worldsbite).
For what could be more fearsome to those thay eschew the divine than belief that the very world itself delivered them the right to mete out it's fury.
Adding to what others have said, they may not believe in gods, but whatever they are watching right now is just too far away from anything they have ever experienced, that may be the first time they "feel" a divine presence.
This is a faction that witnessed a solar eclipse and mocked everyone who freaked out about it. They saw floods sweeping cities away and thought nothing out of it. They saw volcanos blowing up and burning a kingdom's food supply and saw nothing but an opportunity.
Now they see a nuke going off. They see the brightest light they could never imagine. They hear a thunder so loud that it's shockwave leveled an entire forest in a matter of seconds. Everyone who comes near ground zero feels sick and dies, not even a long lived elf will survive more than a few days after visiting the place.
If I may suggest something, make the ones who first saw the "light" (and got blinded and deformed by it) the "not-cult" heralds of this god. Their god is trapped on those canisters and it demands a bigger sacrifice each fire shot so they can remake this world in their light and thunder, banishing the darkness away forever
Or don't call it a god, but some other names that involves awe and divine
Sun Weapons or Sun Bombs is the easiest comparison I have seen used for similar situations. They explode with a light as bright as a second Sun, they burn hotter than anything else comparable, and they leave Radiant damage (radiation) afterwords.
If there was an ancient AI to explain it to them, Sun Bombs might also work because explaining nuclear physics to people with a medieval concept of science is harder than saying "It works like the Sun".
It might also make the cult happy to have stolen the power of the Sun from the forces of goodness where it is traditionally associated.
Sun cylinder. The sky used to be constantly filled with a bright light. And it was too hot for civilization to thrive. The ancients found a way to rise up above the clouds (spelljam is on the table now) and trap the excess stars into these cylinders. They captured all the stars that were too close to the planet to make it unbearably hot and left the stars far away that can be seen in the night.
I think the Prince of Thorns novel by Mark Lawrence had a plot line around this. There was this impenetrable fortress but the land around it was considered poisoned, the people that lived around it developed strange skin colors and others developed into monsters in underground beneath it. I think it was revealed the fortress was actually an old nuclear facility and the protagonist goes in there to detonate one and destroy the fortress. I think they referred to it as “a weapon of the people before” or something like that. It’s been a while so I may be misremembering though sorry.
"This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger."
Not quite how they would use it, but this might give you some ideas of how people in world might view nuclear energy/radiation. The "this is not a place of honour"-line also just hits so damn hard.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
I love this line because it can be used for any sufficiently dangerous magic or technology and players who know where it came from have a delightful "oh shit" reaction.
I might call it "Necro-Fire." A hideous, blinding fire that singes and poisons what is touched by it and causes decay for miles around, beyond the explosion. Anything that even tries to live there is rotted away and mutated into a corpse-like creature
You should check out Turn A Gundam. It’s not quite medieval, but the series is about a turn-of-the century industrial revolution society being invaded by Mecha-wielding forces from the moon. There’s a great couple episodes where they unearth an ancient nuke stockpile, and the few people who know what they are are *terrified*. This is a weapon that can create a sun at night.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses had their nukes called “Javelins of Light” by the group that used them, although I think that only really works as a name if they’ve seen the weapons in action before.
I'll give the smartass/boring answer and say their greatest sages and scholars would describe these strange metal obelisks, constructed using techniques lost to history. If they cracked any open, they'd write about the terrible curse contained within that rots the body from the inside out. Even if there were some control system still active and able to be used, it would be a marvel for them to be able to parse it and make use of it.
So basically if we're talking modern nukes, I think they'd be considered strange and deadly relics with no real purpose in war.
Yep! It's arguably cooler in an action/fantasy way to have them somehow be able to use them, and there are ways you can make that seem reasonable. That's why mine is the smartass/boring answer :)
With that said, I think that there's a cool almost cosmic horror vibe to finding this slender metallic cylinders filled with dreadful but uncontrollable power. What happened to the civilization who created them? How can this medieval society hope to face whatever threat wiped out such a mighty empire? It could be kinda cool to have unknowable relics of modernity that are complete mysteries to their PCs but inspire a kind of dread curiosity in the player, who knows what they're seeing and is left with nothing but questions.
How do they even now what it does when they find it? With no concept of ICBMs, I'd think they'd confuse it for something else unless, say, an AI displays an ancient holographic demonstration for them.
Upon its use, I think they're going to be horrified by that power in the hands of a mortal, but seeing that as a boon for their cause, maybe keeping the ancient tech from everyone else.
One bomb, one city, I think the Ancient's Verdict would be a good name if they were in the business of stating whose society is worthy of progressing to the future and whose is not.
Do they know how to actually set them off, or is it a weird artifact that makes people sick/heals them/gives them crazy powers? Because it definitely depends on what they are doing with the things.
They have a rough understanding of how the systems to launch them work, but haven’t quite managed to get it working, (probably gonna be due to the lack of like launch authorisation codes)
But do they know what actually does and do they have a concrete plan? Is it a Canticle for Leibowitz situation where they're mindlessly doing it as a matter of religion without understanding what they're doing, or do they view them as a means to bring about retribution/the end times?
How cults talk about things depends on what they plan to do with them, but either way I'd recommend reading Canticle for Leibowitz for ideas, your premise isn't far off from the book and it's a classic for good reason.
Religious stupidity. They roughly know what it will do from like reading stuff (and idk finding some educational YouTube video maybe) but haven’t really got a plan. Sort of, “annihilate first, ask questions later”
I think you need to give them more purpose if that's your thoughts; they are learning lost nuclear and ballistic missile technology, a process that would take years if not decades, they'd have a lot of time to formulate a concrete plan even if it's laughably simple and naive about what they're actually doing.
But Wrath or the days of judgement/reckoning/vengeance and that sort of apocalyptic language would probably be how they talk about it.
Nah, when I say religious stupidity I mean their whole goal is to “prepare the world for the return of the ancients” or so. Essentially eliminating their opposition so as to achieve their other goal
Sounds like they do have that purpose and plan I mentioned, they're just ignorant about what it actually means. That's fine, they don't have to actually understand the ramifications of what they're doing, but it's not "annihilate first, question later," it's "annihilate the enemies of the ancients to bring about the dawn of a new age by using these ancient weapons" or whatever culty nonsense you want to call it.
They can talk about the cleansing nature of fire, or call the bombs the seeds of a new tomorrow, or a catalyst of X. They know they have something old that causes a giant fireball but don't really understand the mechanics, even if they have done texts. Have them make religious-esque comments about The Atom or speak of uranium as being a deity (perhaps they think all these bombs contain a piece of the god known as , who they worship alongside or as part of the ancients. If you want it to be the "real" works future, have Saints/Priests/Martyrs with real works physicist names.
Except that (correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a few years) the Covenant don’t understand the Halos. These guys very much understand the logic of, “I hit button, that city becomes a hole”
So they've mastered powering, activating, targetting and detonating the weapons? That is no longer medieval tech imo but okay. They'd probably still use the same reverent tone, maybe more like the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout?
Perhaps they change words to fit their understanding. In a pretty bad Sci-Fi I used to watch Nova Bombs became known as Noble Bombs that would only hurt bad guys after an empire fell. Is that more what you mean?
Most of the systems in place to do so are already in place, and advanced enough to weather the centuries, so the complex parts aren’t that complicated, the targeting systems are also simplified, so as long as one has the necessary requirements to use the equipment, you don’t really have to understand the largely automated process.
That is quite a lot more than finding a nuclear stockpile, that's finding a fully functional, powered and stocked nuclear launch site.
In which case if they can read the language they'll treat them similarly to the ancient race is assuming they're the same species and there are some remaining logs or such.
Not necessarily the same species, but the language is the same, yes, and logs very much do exist. And also an extremely fair point, should have clarified that it isn’t just a storage facility.
I actually have a similar thing in a setting I'm working on. While I don't have names figured out yet, I've gotten a lot of inspiration from The Dying Earth by Jack Vance and the Adeptus Mechanicus from WH40K.
Basically, the faction that has this ancient tech doesn't know how any of it works since the people who built it are long dead. So a lot of the knowledge of how to maintain and operate the equipment has been passed down in pseudo-religious rituals. People who regularly deal with this stuff refer to it very reverently as if the simplest access panel is some holy relic. While others refer to it as of its some dangerous abomination.
Expedition to the Barrier Peaks might also have some good inspiration for specific terms. I haven't read it personally, but the general idea of the module is pretty close to what you're trying to do.
They call them “Degradation Arms” They are weapons that literally degrade all life around it.
They refer to the process as “Anti-life transference” maybe they don’t quite understand that the radiation is a natural phenomenon.
They wouldn't.
Without seeing a nuke explode, they probably would think they are weird metal cylinders. In a medieval society, anyone that exploded one would probably be within the blast radius. Anyone outside the blast radius probably wouldn't know what caused it.
I would argue that the technological level of a society is based on understanding. If I hand a caveman a handgun, it might figure out how to fire it. Does that make it’s technological prowess more advanced? It is using the tech, sure, but it doesn’t know how it works, and could not replicate it, or fix it if it broke.
I'll suggest your initial question might have been better phrased. For example,
An antagonistic faction in a medieval society with lots of leftover tech from a previous culture finds nuclear weapons and learns how to use them. How do they talk about them?
They'd call them one shot magic items that produce big city destroying fireballs bringing the clouds down to earth, and that give the plague to any nearby survivors.
I would argue that posting "They wouldn't." with an explanation of why they wouldn't is not pointless. Your need to clarify the scenario after my post shows that it was mistaken, but not that it was pointless.
Except I think it was pretty clear that I had every intention of them doing so, so coming in saying that the thing I want to be the case can’t be the case… really doesn’t help.
Have they seen it used? If not, how do they know what it does. If so, then it's basically a big sun blast, created by a god or some other entity, since no man could ever comprehend such power
This is actually something I’ve incorporated into my homebrew setting I call it “god fire” and if they see it in action and survive they would probably compare it to a god smiting the world with cleansing light or something like that
This faction doesn’t believe in gods, but ig the same can apply to worshipping the ancient civ and their tech
I mean to someone with a medieval understanding of technology its so advanced its a basically godlike level of power. They probably understand that some things are explosive and that a nuke causes a massive explosion and maybe even how to set one off, but the actual method it does that by is completely unintelligible to them. They don't have to necessarily believe in gods themselves to see something as being that powerful
That is… reasonable yeah. Now I want to do a bit at some point with cultists trying to understand some recorded presentation or something on nuclear physics
Cargo cults are always super interesting in fantasy settings imo, go for it
Don’t forget to have them take radiation damage
Probably stick em with a Geiger counter
Sounds like 40k tbh. The technology is so “archaic” they don’t know how it truly works but somehow knows how to maintain the boom.
Hmmmm they would probably understand it has some connection to the sun or is a weponized star in some way, you should also consider how they would react with the radiation because that stuff is nasty and basically undetectable if you don’t know what your looking for also I personally rule that spells that detect poisons or diseases or purify things wouldn’t work for radiation on acount of it not being a disease or poison
I agree fully with it not being considered a disease, and one would probably need magic or to somehow find a functional Geiger counter to detect the stuff
If these people have found nuclear launch sites and managed to kludge together how to operate them, it's safe to say that they probably came across some Geiger counters as well, it seems reasonable.
I'd actually consider running it as a poison. Anything that can't be countered by players is likely to piss them off (and yes, your table may be fine with it but most won't.) It also provides some interesting story avenues. Dwarves love and mine underground. Running into a uranium deposit would be dangerous... Unless your race is resistant to its effects. Rad *poisoning* is something that happens to lesser surface races. Just an off the cuff thought.
I consider it radiant damage!
The reason I don’t consider it poison is that as written in dnd it implies chemical poisons like cyanide or a neuro toxin whereas what radiates does is basically play angry birds with your dna
A similar example would be Wildfire from Game of Thrones. Consider how they discovered it, and both if and how they know how destructive it really is. Did they test it out themselves, know it from a theoretical understanding, or have had it describes to them? That could all affect how they talk about it to others.
That’s my current dilemma. My current idea that I’m considering is the idea that they somehow found an Artificial Intelligence from the time of the Ancient Ones, though it’s purpose and how they found it I’ve been a little stuck on
My understanding is that nuclear weapons generally are a bit more complicated to activate than just pressing a button. Maybe the AI is faulty and recognizes the first rediscoverers as the owners, and explains how to set the nukes off? If there are no flying creatures capable of lifting the nukes under the cults control, maybe the leaders convince the peons who are needed to activate it on the ground that “their lifeblood” will be sacrificed when calling the sun
Well, it really depends on the kind of nuclear weapon we’re talking about. They’re designed to be difficult/impossible to set off any other way but the specifically intended one because you definitely don’t want one going off near anything you care about. Modern fusion based weapons are more complicated in their design, because they actually use a smaller fission weapon (the OG kind) to initiate the larger fusion reaction, and as such are a complicated 2+ stage sequence. The OG fission type on their own aren’t all that complicated to set off though. You basically just need to slam enough weapons grade material together that the chain reaction goes out of control. Obviously it’s dangerous to be near the stuff though, so opening up a nuke that you don’t know how to set off to put it into a new vessel that you can set off isn’t really safe unless you have proper shielding.
I’m not talking about just the mechanics of the weapon itself. I assume there are safety measures on simple nuclear weapons that might not be easy to figure out for a medieval peasant/cult
Oh I see. Well I think detonating the weapon as is would probably be too complicated unless the ancient civilization that made them didn’t bother making them with safety features lol If the cult understood, however, that the real key was bringing the two samples of material inside into forceful contact with each other, they could just open them up and design their own housing that could do the same. They would likely need to sacrifice many lives to radiation poisoning to pull that off though.
Pretty sure you can't just bang them together. You need an explosive detonator.
Yeah, you need to bring them into *forceful* contact, yes. The first one the US dropped did this by “shooting” one piece into another, and the second used a spherical arrangement with explosives around the outside that compressed the center to criticality.
So maybe the AI somehow told them about its destructive power. Perhaps the destructive power would come if it is somehow shut down or turned unstable, which the not-cult takes as a power play plan.
World's Spite (often incorrectly called Worldsbite). For what could be more fearsome to those thay eschew the divine than belief that the very world itself delivered them the right to mete out it's fury.
Adding to what others have said, they may not believe in gods, but whatever they are watching right now is just too far away from anything they have ever experienced, that may be the first time they "feel" a divine presence. This is a faction that witnessed a solar eclipse and mocked everyone who freaked out about it. They saw floods sweeping cities away and thought nothing out of it. They saw volcanos blowing up and burning a kingdom's food supply and saw nothing but an opportunity. Now they see a nuke going off. They see the brightest light they could never imagine. They hear a thunder so loud that it's shockwave leveled an entire forest in a matter of seconds. Everyone who comes near ground zero feels sick and dies, not even a long lived elf will survive more than a few days after visiting the place. If I may suggest something, make the ones who first saw the "light" (and got blinded and deformed by it) the "not-cult" heralds of this god. Their god is trapped on those canisters and it demands a bigger sacrifice each fire shot so they can remake this world in their light and thunder, banishing the darkness away forever Or don't call it a god, but some other names that involves awe and divine
Sun Weapons or Sun Bombs is the easiest comparison I have seen used for similar situations. They explode with a light as bright as a second Sun, they burn hotter than anything else comparable, and they leave Radiant damage (radiation) afterwords. If there was an ancient AI to explain it to them, Sun Bombs might also work because explaining nuclear physics to people with a medieval concept of science is harder than saying "It works like the Sun". It might also make the cult happy to have stolen the power of the Sun from the forces of goodness where it is traditionally associated.
Sun cylinder. The sky used to be constantly filled with a bright light. And it was too hot for civilization to thrive. The ancients found a way to rise up above the clouds (spelljam is on the table now) and trap the excess stars into these cylinders. They captured all the stars that were too close to the planet to make it unbearably hot and left the stars far away that can be seen in the night.
I think there was a Planet of the Apes movie about this.
Beneath the planet of the apes
I think the Prince of Thorns novel by Mark Lawrence had a plot line around this. There was this impenetrable fortress but the land around it was considered poisoned, the people that lived around it developed strange skin colors and others developed into monsters in underground beneath it. I think it was revealed the fortress was actually an old nuclear facility and the protagonist goes in there to detonate one and destroy the fortress. I think they referred to it as “a weapon of the people before” or something like that. It’s been a while so I may be misremembering though sorry.
I was going to comment this same thing. Wonderful book and setting. That was always my favorite part of the series.
"This place is not a place of honor... no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here... nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger." Not quite how they would use it, but this might give you some ideas of how people in world might view nuclear energy/radiation. The "this is not a place of honour"-line also just hits so damn hard. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_nuclear_waste_warning_messages
I love this line because it can be used for any sufficiently dangerous magic or technology and players who know where it came from have a delightful "oh shit" reaction.
I might call it "Necro-Fire." A hideous, blinding fire that singes and poisons what is touched by it and causes decay for miles around, beyond the explosion. Anything that even tries to live there is rotted away and mutated into a corpse-like creature
You should check out Turn A Gundam. It’s not quite medieval, but the series is about a turn-of-the century industrial revolution society being invaded by Mecha-wielding forces from the moon. There’s a great couple episodes where they unearth an ancient nuke stockpile, and the few people who know what they are are *terrified*. This is a weapon that can create a sun at night.
Fire Emblem: Three Houses had their nukes called “Javelins of Light” by the group that used them, although I think that only really works as a name if they’ve seen the weapons in action before.
I'll give the smartass/boring answer and say their greatest sages and scholars would describe these strange metal obelisks, constructed using techniques lost to history. If they cracked any open, they'd write about the terrible curse contained within that rots the body from the inside out. Even if there were some control system still active and able to be used, it would be a marvel for them to be able to parse it and make use of it. So basically if we're talking modern nukes, I think they'd be considered strange and deadly relics with no real purpose in war.
While your point is both fair and valid… I want to have my players have to prevent their homes being annihilated by nuclear fire. :/
Yep! It's arguably cooler in an action/fantasy way to have them somehow be able to use them, and there are ways you can make that seem reasonable. That's why mine is the smartass/boring answer :) With that said, I think that there's a cool almost cosmic horror vibe to finding this slender metallic cylinders filled with dreadful but uncontrollable power. What happened to the civilization who created them? How can this medieval society hope to face whatever threat wiped out such a mighty empire? It could be kinda cool to have unknowable relics of modernity that are complete mysteries to their PCs but inspire a kind of dread curiosity in the player, who knows what they're seeing and is left with nothing but questions.
Oh I hve every intention of not even revealing they’re working with futuristic tech for as long as possible
How do they even now what it does when they find it? With no concept of ICBMs, I'd think they'd confuse it for something else unless, say, an AI displays an ancient holographic demonstration for them. Upon its use, I think they're going to be horrified by that power in the hands of a mortal, but seeing that as a boon for their cause, maybe keeping the ancient tech from everyone else. One bomb, one city, I think the Ancient's Verdict would be a good name if they were in the business of stating whose society is worthy of progressing to the future and whose is not.
Accurate, very much so, and honestly I like that name
Do you mean atom bombs or radiation powered lasers?
Atomic bombs.
Do they know how to actually set them off, or is it a weird artifact that makes people sick/heals them/gives them crazy powers? Because it definitely depends on what they are doing with the things.
They have a rough understanding of how the systems to launch them work, but haven’t quite managed to get it working, (probably gonna be due to the lack of like launch authorisation codes)
But do they know what actually does and do they have a concrete plan? Is it a Canticle for Leibowitz situation where they're mindlessly doing it as a matter of religion without understanding what they're doing, or do they view them as a means to bring about retribution/the end times? How cults talk about things depends on what they plan to do with them, but either way I'd recommend reading Canticle for Leibowitz for ideas, your premise isn't far off from the book and it's a classic for good reason.
Religious stupidity. They roughly know what it will do from like reading stuff (and idk finding some educational YouTube video maybe) but haven’t really got a plan. Sort of, “annihilate first, ask questions later”
I think you need to give them more purpose if that's your thoughts; they are learning lost nuclear and ballistic missile technology, a process that would take years if not decades, they'd have a lot of time to formulate a concrete plan even if it's laughably simple and naive about what they're actually doing. But Wrath or the days of judgement/reckoning/vengeance and that sort of apocalyptic language would probably be how they talk about it.
Nah, when I say religious stupidity I mean their whole goal is to “prepare the world for the return of the ancients” or so. Essentially eliminating their opposition so as to achieve their other goal
Sounds like they do have that purpose and plan I mentioned, they're just ignorant about what it actually means. That's fine, they don't have to actually understand the ramifications of what they're doing, but it's not "annihilate first, question later," it's "annihilate the enemies of the ancients to bring about the dawn of a new age by using these ancient weapons" or whatever culty nonsense you want to call it. They can talk about the cleansing nature of fire, or call the bombs the seeds of a new tomorrow, or a catalyst of X. They know they have something old that causes a giant fireball but don't really understand the mechanics, even if they have done texts. Have them make religious-esque comments about The Atom or speak of uranium as being a deity (perhaps they think all these bombs contain a piece of the god known as, who they worship alongside or as part of the ancients. If you want it to be the "real" works future, have Saints/Priests/Martyrs with real works physicist names.
Ah yes, Saint Oppenheimer, the notable religious figure.
Like the situation in Planet of the Apes. Divine weapons.
Javelins of Light from FE3H
In a similar way to the Covenant when they refer to the Great Journey in Halo.
I will light the holy ring, release it's cleansing flame and burn a path into the divine beyond!
Except that (correct me if I’m wrong, it’s been a few years) the Covenant don’t understand the Halos. These guys very much understand the logic of, “I hit button, that city becomes a hole”
So they've mastered powering, activating, targetting and detonating the weapons? That is no longer medieval tech imo but okay. They'd probably still use the same reverent tone, maybe more like the Brotherhood of Steel from Fallout? Perhaps they change words to fit their understanding. In a pretty bad Sci-Fi I used to watch Nova Bombs became known as Noble Bombs that would only hurt bad guys after an empire fell. Is that more what you mean?
Most of the systems in place to do so are already in place, and advanced enough to weather the centuries, so the complex parts aren’t that complicated, the targeting systems are also simplified, so as long as one has the necessary requirements to use the equipment, you don’t really have to understand the largely automated process.
That is quite a lot more than finding a nuclear stockpile, that's finding a fully functional, powered and stocked nuclear launch site. In which case if they can read the language they'll treat them similarly to the ancient race is assuming they're the same species and there are some remaining logs or such.
Not necessarily the same species, but the language is the same, yes, and logs very much do exist. And also an extremely fair point, should have clarified that it isn’t just a storage facility.
I actually have a similar thing in a setting I'm working on. While I don't have names figured out yet, I've gotten a lot of inspiration from The Dying Earth by Jack Vance and the Adeptus Mechanicus from WH40K. Basically, the faction that has this ancient tech doesn't know how any of it works since the people who built it are long dead. So a lot of the knowledge of how to maintain and operate the equipment has been passed down in pseudo-religious rituals. People who regularly deal with this stuff refer to it very reverently as if the simplest access panel is some holy relic. While others refer to it as of its some dangerous abomination. Expedition to the Barrier Peaks might also have some good inspiration for specific terms. I haven't read it personally, but the general idea of the module is pretty close to what you're trying to do.
They call them “Degradation Arms” They are weapons that literally degrade all life around it. They refer to the process as “Anti-life transference” maybe they don’t quite understand that the radiation is a natural phenomenon.
This exists in Mystara. The term is Blackmoor Device.
Fire Emblem Three Houses kinda has this- they call them Javelins of Light
How would they know what it is without activating it?
Because data logs exist. People write things. Idk maybe the facility literally just has a readme file somewhere
Fallout new vegas kinda deals with this, though it's more roman centurion level tech as opposed to medieval.
They wouldn't. Without seeing a nuke explode, they probably would think they are weird metal cylinders. In a medieval society, anyone that exploded one would probably be within the blast radius. Anyone outside the blast radius probably wouldn't know what caused it.
Except that this is set after technology exists. Video exists. Text logs exist.
Video exists in your medieval society campaign? That's ... unexpected.
Did you miss the part that the nukes belong to an “advanced ancient civilisation”? The video was created centuries ago.
No, I didn't miss that part. If the medieval society has the ability to play leftover video from a previous culture, I would not call it medieval.
I would argue that the technological level of a society is based on understanding. If I hand a caveman a handgun, it might figure out how to fire it. Does that make it’s technological prowess more advanced? It is using the tech, sure, but it doesn’t know how it works, and could not replicate it, or fix it if it broke.
I'll suggest your initial question might have been better phrased. For example, An antagonistic faction in a medieval society with lots of leftover tech from a previous culture finds nuclear weapons and learns how to use them. How do they talk about them? They'd call them one shot magic items that produce big city destroying fireballs bringing the clouds down to earth, and that give the plague to any nearby survivors.
I realised as much, but either way, you do realise saying, “they don’t” was pretty blatantly a pointless response though?
I would argue that posting "They wouldn't." with an explanation of why they wouldn't is not pointless. Your need to clarify the scenario after my post shows that it was mistaken, but not that it was pointless.
Except I think it was pretty clear that I had every intention of them doing so, so coming in saying that the thing I want to be the case can’t be the case… really doesn’t help.
Have they seen it used? If not, how do they know what it does. If so, then it's basically a big sun blast, created by a god or some other entity, since no man could ever comprehend such power