While I can appreciate most forms of magitech, it all just seems

>>55264154
Joints, gears, springs, et cetera should all require greasing or oiling, their power core should be volatile and highly dangerous when damaged, they can have a tendency of going rogue perhaps

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>>55264154

There are two distinct faces when it comes to magitech.

The front side is the clean side most people see, an easy to use and somewhat intuitive interface that allows you access it's power.

The back in is a mess that needs to be meticulously maintained by extreme measures. Punch cards made of special paper with carefully stamped holes so that the machines can read the incantations perfectly to help maintain spells at certain intervals.

Exorcist have to remake seals and wards to keep out spirits drawn by the power of said machiens and drive out magical creatures. The wizard technicians have to carefully monitor the various ruin circuits because even the slightest damage can offset the balance of a machine that may as well be a Rube Goldberg device designed to repeat in a predictable fashion.

You may complain why Wizard techs get paid so much but if you can go several sleepless nights to help a maintain a containment circle because some jackass didn't put the punch cards in the right order and accidnidently summoned a demon then you can see why the pay in justified.

The first concept is to do the whole life = mana = magic idea, in which case magitech devices might leak blood or viscera.

Another is to make the effects of the magic less clean and more prone is disaster or spreading, if that makes sense. Maybe all magitech uses bottled up creatures and spirits, which often leak out or cause havoc. Maybe the devices radiate mutating and chaos-bolstering magical energies when used, even containment plating isn't perfect.

Another idea I've always liked is the idea of some kind of magical pollution that is more ephemeral. It seeps out of the devices and is sent up into the air, but you can't see it. Everyone can FEEL it though. Either something that makes the world more dreamlike and less reliable, or the opposite if the magic is being drained as it is used. For example, if you left a magic generator on inside a house the house would quickly get all the properties of a normal 'haunted house', with weird sounds and footsteps and maybe ghosts appearing. Maybe it gets worse as time goes on and the whole house's spatial dimensions start to warp or become convoluted. Maybe objects come alive, etc.

If you use the generator outside the magical pollution is just being dispersed into the atmosphere which means its effects aren't felt quite as much, but it's still polluting the world.

>>55265194
I kind of like the idea of spirits/entities being used as power sources. Like the daemon engines in Warhammer and such.

>>55265194
My idea is to have mana be unpredictable, if mana is not given direction in a spell or enchantment it may react on it's own and burst into flames, turn into a swarm of insects or any other number of things. The more mana there is in any given area the more likely it will be set off so the only safe way to use it is either in very small amounts or enchanting stuff and by mixing it with tech you can get away with using less of it.