Welcome aboard, Rhebeqah!

Fun thoughts!

It is implied, but it can be whatever you want it to be. BlackKnight's suggestion is excellent, too. I tend to sometimes run into an issue with my players (home group) and con players in which they run into something technological or "modern" and they immediately assume that the item or feature is completely foreign to their knowledge. Why? Because playing D&D for most of your life can train your mind into thinking that your character's knowledge is limited to a quasi-medieval range. Not necessarily true! I actually touch on this for a sidebar in my forthcoming adventure, The Sea-Wolf's Daughter. It's not impossible for a learned / scholarly / sagely character to have picked up some piece of information in their studies that allows them to have some knowledge of something weirdly technological or scientific. It's really up to the referee. This also plays into a conversation I had on the phone last week with BlackAdder23 (I was preaching to the choir) on why we don't have tests and feats of intelligence and wisdom. If, say, a druid in the party has acquired a radium pistol and wants to know if his character knows anything about it, I think it is up to the referee to look at the character's class, background, secondary skills, and intelligence. After considering these factors, come up with a reasonable chance-in-six to determine whether anything about this thing is known. It could be as simple as determining that yes, it is indeed a weapon. But take everything I just said with a grain of salt. You are the master of your own game!

Blackadder23 wrote:

Personally, I don't think anyone who came from a culture with crossbows would have much trouble figuring out any kind of firearm. That's how I would rule anyway.

Same here. Between that and rumors/stories of such that inevitably float around every tavern, I'm generally good on basic pistols and rifles. I don't want to spend a ton of precious game time having players roleplay discovering how what looks like a metal-barreled crossbow or metal handled blow-gun works. Maybe if we're literally talking cave men, but not professional adventurers and treasure hunters.

Chainsaw wrote:

Blackadder23 wrote:

Personally, I don't think anyone who came from a culture with crossbows would have much trouble figuring out any kind of firearm. That's how I would rule anyway.

Same here. Between that and rumors/stories of such that inevitably float around every tavern, I'm generally good on basic pistols and rifles. I don't want to spend a ton of precious game time having players roleplay discovering how what looks like a metal-barreled crossbow or metal handled blow-gun works. Maybe if we're literally talking cave men, but not professional adventurers and treasure hunters.

OK, maybe not my best example, because yes, the darn thing has a trigger and a barrel. LOL.

As an example from last week's game, the party were in a library and saw some weird star charts describing the Helios system. One chart indicated that Hyperborea is in fact a moon of Saturn. Another chart had a different orbital suggestion. Player wanted to know if his character knew anything about any of this stuff. I don't want a "test of intelligence" for this sort of thing. Your cataphract may have a greater intelligence score than the druid, who has spent his life studying the skies, but that doesn't mean he should have a better chance to know something about the charts. I prefer to consider the character and the circumstances and then determine a reasonable chance-in-six. That's what I was trying to say, gents!
 

I'm totally in favor of the simplified non-combat resolution systems, especially in just using common sense.  It's amazing to me how so-called "modern" games slow things down with a raft full of skill checks and die rolls for things that could be easily role-played or handwaved with common sense.  Adventures in Middle Earth for 5e is especially bad in this regard.  Amazing how many mechanics they burden that game with to convey what they deem the proper Tolkien feel.  I far prefer the flexibility of AS&SH wherein we can all easily establish the flavor for our own games and just create simple rulings.

As far as my campaign, as I think I noted here before, I just dropped Hyperborea into the north pole region of my existing campaign world of Krysonia.  By sheer coincidence ( dare I say shared genius?) I already had two moons in my campaign world so it made sense on that level.  But rather than the Saturn connection, I always conceived of it as alternate/parallel to our world so I never clearly established what the other planets are.  But I had already incorporated lots of Lovecraftian and S&S elements into my D&D games so when I learned about AS&SH, it was a no brainer to adapt and bolt onto my existing campaign.  Thus far it has been fantastic. 

As for timing, I portray Hyperborea as having been created by a rip in the space/time continuum so that it's possible to find technologies from a multitude of real earth historical eras.  In the later versions of Kyrsonia's chronology we have gunpowder weapons, cribbing from Warhammer, but they are dangerous and unpredictable and mostly used by dwarves, gnomes, and derro.