I'm certain history would have the answer, should one but look deep enough.

[History that he has, in all likelihood, lived through in one form or another. But that hardly means he has been keeping abreast of every single thing to occur across the whole of even a single shard, much less the Source itself.]

Precisely so. Where magic will not avail them, they turn instead to technology to find an edge against those who would seek to oppose them. And to aid in surviving the frozen realm they call home.