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Old 06-04-2009, 09:38 PM   #1
quarkstomper
 
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Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: The Enchanted Land-O-Cheese
Default Steampunk Elves!

A while back in one of the solo games I run with my wife, I had her character pass through a dimensional portal and find herself in a room with Victorian Era furnishings but some odd differences; for example, the globe next to the big leather chair showed a large island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean; and the portrait of Queen Victoria on the wall shows her to be an elf.

I didn't do much with the setting at the time, but I filed it away for future reference.

When we wrapped up our most recent campaign, we discussed running a Steampunk campaign and Lute reminded me of the Victorian Elf idea.

So I'm cobbling together this background, mostly on the fly because we run the game every night and I don't have a lot of time for planning.

Lute decided she wanted her character to be a gadgeteer and a human. I had decided that there are both elves and humans in this world, with the elves largely acting as the aristocracy. (What about dwarves, she asked this evening; are there any dwarves and what are their roles? Need to think about that)

So I'm having her start out as an engineering student at an American university. My original plan was that the campaign would mostly take place in England and Europe, but I wanted to establish her character first; so I'm starting her off in college at William and Mary in Virginia.

I've decided, for the sake of variety and to help differentiate this campaign from the Castle Falkenstein game I ran a few years back, that in this world, the Revolutionary War never happened and that the American Colonies negotiated a limited autonomy under the British Crown. (Lifting some ideas there from a Harry Turtledove novel The Two Georges). I chose the 1860s for the time period, (again, for variety's sake; I've done the Late Victorian Era several times). I'm thinking that in this timeline the Civil War hasn't happened; (or hasn't happened yet. This might be a future plot).

Is slavery still an issue? That's something I haven't decided yet. Did the British Parliament ban slavery in America, or is that one of the areas where the crown is permitting local rule to determine things? Or did the British and/or Americans work out a way to gradually phase out the "peculiar institution"? I need to work that out pretty quickly.

So far I've done a few sessions of Lute's character attending college, working on science projects and being courted by the handsome captain of the College Rowing Team. I want to get her involved in some intrigue, but I'm not exactly sure where to go with it. Perhaps her beau's father, an influential Virginia senator, is involved with a cabal with nefarious political goals. I have an idea in the back of my mind involving Atlantis, which I've decided has been inaccessible for millenia due to magical guards, but I think I want to save that for a while.

Anyway, that's some of what I've come up with so far. Does anyone have any suggestions or advice?
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