after discussion with Steve Martin, and collating the ideas on the Digest, and thinking on...
I reckon that Leonardo the Scientist came through a dimensional rift from Michael Moorcock's world of Hawkmoon
I recall they had all kinds of weird machinery there, Ornithopters being the only one I can recall for certain after a literary gap of 15 years or more!
Perhaps there were flame cannons/lances as well?
Other sources of info (as pointed out by Steve) are just too dangerous or obscure (Jrusteli/Mostali/Machine Ruins), and the idea that he is simply such a genius that he thought them all up himself simply by observing naure and a limited exposure to mechanical/sorcery theory just seems (to me) to lack depth when thinking about him
Since he is such an exception and enigma, and with a noted aversion to the 'deities of the day' and their worth, the idea that he comes not only from a different culture, but also a different world rings true (once again IMHO)
gives him carte blanche against Mostali copyright too In fact I'm going to bog off to the library later and get as many of the Hawkmoon books as I can and see which faction he was in, and how he escaped from that world, and who was after him etc etc
I would like to add that inserting persons from other worlds is not something I like to do, having only previously with 3PCs from the Young Kingdoms because we were leaving that campaign and starting RuneQuest. For Leonardo it rapidly seems to be becoming the only thing that fits
Ian
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