Fisk Arlatto

Making some Think concerning androids, constructs, and cybernetics.
Intricate systems are prone to overloading in areas rich in natural mana, but mechanical parts work just fine. A cybernetic prosthetic would function just as well in a mana depleted tech zone as in a mana rich magic zone, give or take some phantom pain. A cybernetic eye, on the other hand, would go blind in a magic zone.
Androids exist in a variety of shapes, sizes, and purposes, ranging from large workers designed for manual labor with no autonomy or individuality, to clerical workers meant to process data at high speed with limited autonomy, to personal companions with full autonomy. It's a bit tragic that androids can essentially never leave the cities where they were built, because rich ambient mana would fry their systems and kill them. There is a possibility for mana to crystallize inside the shell of a dead android and form an artificial soul, but mana crystallization is extremely rare.

I'm going to try focusing on more of the tech side of the setting, since I've almost exclusively worked on magic stuff. They're both equally important parts of the world, I just. Personally find magic more interesting? Likely to do with it being further removed from our reality. Science fiction is cool, lasers and robots and space and junk like that, but magic fascinates me.
Anyway, back on subject, I'm going to try filling the map with more tech-oriented nations. I have a few concepts pinned down already, including but limited to: solarpunk city in the Plains of Glass; hypermilitant technocracy that plays antagonist to every world power; neon megalopolis. No I dont have names for any of these places, I dont even have a name for the setting at large yet.

I've mentioned before that technology in this setting can be pretty advanced. There are cyborgs, sentient androids, functioning mech suits. Technology can reshape the land and create artificial life. The internet has a presence in the Astral Sphere! (And it's terrifying, btw) But this technology is fundamentally opposed to the very nature of the world. The world is magic. Every living thing is literally made of magic. And in bending the laws of nature this way, the world is slowly eroded as mana depletes instead of cycling naturally back into the sphere. The worst of tech society views this as a goal to be achieved, as the act of ultimate subjugation and conquest. The best of tech society is apathetic, unwilling to give up the luxury technology has provided and turn to what it views as primitive living.
There are engineers and scientists from the latter part of society who have chosen to work or even live in Elmgarde to build technology that works alongside magic, rather than directly against it, but magitech is still very new to the world. The fact that these people are even trying, though, should be proof enough that tech society isn't inherently "evil," but its cultures are largely misguided.

To address the question of why there aren't mechs and jet fighters and bombers invading magic-based nations: the answer is that an abundance of mana interferes with the instruments of these machines, meaning that at best they would be flying blind and at worst their vital systems would fail. This is a danger cyborgs and androids also face venturing into magic nations, so they tend not to if their lives literally depend on those systems. This also explains why there is no space program despite the advanced technological development of these nations. The atmosphere itself is made of mana, the moon emits mana, trying to send something like a shuttle up would be a death sentence for anyone on board.

Not all civilizations embrace magic. A handful of nations developed in another direction, harnessing the power of science and chemical reaction to build the foundations of their great cities. Where magic society understands the principles of mana and how to live with it, tech society chooses to dominate and control it by different means, burning mana directly from the land to create energy that fuels factories, homes, and countless modern marvels that are anathema to the magical world. The natural mana in these lands has been depleted, and these societies must search farther and farther afield for new resources, but their development in this direction has been rapid.
People born in tech societies are still born with their own mana, but they are raised ignorant of its use. Should they travel to a magic nation, they may still learn to become mages. With the mana of the land depleted, however, working magic within these tech nations proves taxing. And the intricate technologies of these societies do not play well in mana-rich environments, ambient energies wreaking havoc on electrical systems, radar and sonar readings. Combustion engines, on the other hand, work just fine, though an abundance of fire-aspected mana may cause them to explode.

It might not be the most clear from this post, but there is significantly advanced technology in these tech civilizations. Like, modern-future tech, hyper-modern cities with densely packed population centers, energy weapons, functional mecha, fighter jets, energy shielding. Functionally, magic and technology are able to directly counter each other, because they cannot function together. Ambient mana provides chaotic nonsense readings to sensors and overloads circuitry, mana deadzones and energy weapons and shielding stop magic dead in its tracks. Wars have been fought to a stalemate between magic and tech nations, and borders are places of tension.

Not all civilizations embrace magic. A handful of nations developed in another direction, harnessing the power of science and chemical reaction to build the foundations of their great cities. Where magic society understands the principles of mana and how to live with it, tech society chooses to dominate and control it by different means, burning mana directly from the land to create energy that fuels factories, homes, and countless modern marvels that are anathema to the magical world. The natural mana in these lands has been depleted, and these societies must search farther and farther afield for new resources, but their development in this direction has been rapid.
People born in tech societies are still born with their own mana, but they are raised ignorant of its use. Should they travel to a magic nation, they may still learn to become mages. With the mana of the land depleted, however, working magic within these tech nations proves taxing. And the intricate technologies of these societies do not play well in mana-rich environments, ambient energies wreaking havoc on electrical systems, radar and sonar readings. Combustion engines, on the other hand, work just fine, though an abundance of fire-aspected mana may cause them to explode.