-wondrous items capable of impossible feats

-made of rare hard-to-obtain material components from the remotest of places deep undergound, secured with slave blood sacrifices

-hundreds of lifetimes worth of man-hours of virgin recluses learned in obscure ways goes into designing and engineering each component

-must be assembled in exactly the correct order by masses of people and machines moving in precise, pre-arranged rituals

-complicated symbols and rituals required for startup, maintenance, and usage

-always goes wrong in unexpected ways and has horrific ramifications for society

nope, no magic here, no sir