[Game] Work Up a Steampunk Setting

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

Answer to Question 37

All of the gods and spirits from mythology are real and live in the astral plane in this setting. However, the deities are too busy protecting the universe from the eldritchian horrors that seek to end it to reliably intervene in mortal affairs. In fact, everyone reincarnates in this setting because the gods don't have time to judge mortal souls.

Uh - do we have to keep this?
IMO, the steampunk setting is interesting enough, we do not have to shoehorn voodoo-hoodoo into it. And evil eldritchian horrors have been done to death.

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Technological Marvel no. 6: The Kra Canal

With construction starting in 1900, this canal will cut through the peninsula of Siam, connect the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Siam and spare ships from the longer (more than 1.000 km) Strait of Malacca. Funded by the Japanese and Siamese Governments and backed by a consortium of international shipping lines, it faces resistance from local leaders and various colonial powers who do not like the idea that such a canal will be controlled by "the natives"

Optimists hope the canal will be ready for operation in 1915.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thai_Canal

[Dr. Beckenstein]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

Question 36

Question 35
What is the current status of Spain, and what are its relationships with the Spanish-speaking areas of Latin America?

After almost a century of succession wars and infighting, Spain is now a de-facto confederacy. Officially, it is a constitutional monarchy. it's various regions (among them Catalonia, Andalusia and Basque Country) are dukedoms who pay lip-service to king Hector-Thomas II in Madrid. The relationships with Latin America vary. While many Spanish from the poorer regions (esp. Extremadura) migrated to Argentinia and Chile, the relationship with Peru can only be described as "frosty". The Peruvians still demand the massive treasures back the Spanish took with them when they left the country and do not accept the Spanish Claim that it was "robbed by pirates".

Question 40 - Standing Question 3:
Who are the top 5 most wanted criminals of the world?

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Dr. Beckenstein

Uh - do we have to keep this?
IMO, the steampunk setting is interesting enough, we do not have to shoehorn voodoo-hoodoo into it. And evil eldritchian horrors have been done to death.

This aspect has already been kind of established as a side fact: the battles are being fought out of view of the great powers of the world, and the supernatural have a good incentive to hide from the hostile mortals.

But everyone gets their dues: unless they contradict something, answer more than they ought to, or stray blatantly from the premise, its fine. Or that's how I see it.

[Emerald Cat]

Originally Posted by ericthered

This aspect has already been kind of established as a side fact: the battles are being fought out of view of the great powers of the world, and the supernatural have a good incentive to hide from the hostile mortals.

Yeah, I intentionally wrote magic as a background element. I chose magic as powers because society/world altering abilities are expensive points-wise. Semi-justified social stigmas against mages explain why they can't reliably control governments. And mages are too busy feuding with each other to take over the world themselves.

All of this explains how magic can exist in secret while still being useful to mages.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Emerald Cat

Yeah, I intentionally wrote magic as a background element. I chose magic as powers because society/world altering abilities are expensive points-wise. Semi-justified social stigmas against mages explain why they can't reliably control governments. And mages are too busy feuding with each other to take over the world themselves.

All of this explains how magic can exist in secret while still being useful to mages.

It's not so over-the-top that it drifts into Castle Falkenstein territory (if it did, why not just play G:CF?), but at the same time if a GM wants to have a way for PCs to heal, quickly, or introduce some low-key supernatural horror, this provides a way to do so.

As for me, I'll probably use this setting in my Facets campaign, at some point. However, the magic that exists will be the RPM system I'm using for the rest of the campaign, and the mages will conceal their existence in secret lodges that, at most, pull strings from behind the scenes.

That said, as with anything in GURPS, if you don't like it, don't include it. This setting would provide a great background for Wild West adventures, or small-unit special operations in the Congo jungle using TL 5 or early TL 5+1 equipment, or air piracy across the Indian Ocean, or searches for lost cities, or organized crime campaigns in the Louisiana Confederacy, or just about anything, even without magic. :)

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by Dr. Beckenstein

Uh - do we have to keep this?
IMO, the steampunk setting is interesting enough, we do not have to shoehorn voodoo-hoodoo into it. And evil eldritchian horrors have been done to death.

Originally Posted by ericthered

This aspect has already been kind of established as a side fact: the battles are being fought out of view of the great powers of the world, and the supernatural have a good incentive to hide from the hostile mortals.

But everyone gets their dues: unless they contradict something, answer more than they ought to, or stray blatantly from the premise, its fine. Or that's how I see it.

As a general rule, I think it's important to follow the groundrules. It means posters won't feel resentment that their contributions are being overruled or judged, and it's the nature of the game to work within the limits and build on the contributions that have gone before.

However, I was thinking about this one as I was heading out this evening. I originally thought the "gods are too busy for dealing with departed souls" idea was actually pretty interesting and a good justification for magic users. But the fundamental groundrule was to generate a steampunk setting, and this idea I think just tips the balance from being "a steampunk setting with a touch of supernatural" over into "a magical fight for the universe setting with a steampunk flavour."

Now, as it was established early on that "A multitude of supernatural entities and abilities exist. None of them are world shaking and they exist around the edges of society..." (post #9), I think we should stick with that. Emerald Cat's new stuff possibly seems world-shaking, but with saying that "all religions wield it as an open secret," it pretty-much contradicts the "edges of society" fact that had been laid down.

I was thinking that steampunk-ish supernatural stuff might be atavistic animal powers, as per Jekyll & Hyde or Dr Moreau, or perhaps psionics written up as mesmerism, myself, but I hadn't put much thought into it.

Having said that, I'll see what other posters think.

ETA: Ninja'd by everyones!
It seems the consensus is keep it, but I'd still like to see the "all religions wield magic" part toned-down a touch.

But yeah, it's not like this is a published setting, so if you are actually going to use it yourself, feel free to ignore anything that doesn't personally light your buzz.

Having said that, I made a wiki with a very rough copy and paste, mainly to keep the question-answer stream in one easily navigable page.
GURPS Steampunk- Below the Horizon.

It's badly formatted and probably needs some disclaimers and attributions, but it should be useful for us. Feel free to jump on and continue pushing it into shape.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by Dr. Beckenstein

(SNIP)

Question 40 - Standing Question 3:
Who are the top 5 most wanted criminals of the world?

Partial Answer to Q40

5. Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov, also known as Lenin, is an anarchist communist agitator wanted for acts of espionage in Germany, and in the Empire of Austria-Hungary, where he played a key role in the creation of the Magyar radical group, Vörös Krizantém (Red Chrysanthemum). Allegedly responsible for the planning of bombings and assassinations in Germany, Austria, Romania and Serbia, Lenin has reportedly fled to Russia, where he supposedly has begun to organize a communist army to foment a Bolshevik revolution, ostensibly to restore order to the troubled region.

4. Fanamby Tsiraka. For the last 20 years, the Malagasy people of Madagascar have constantly engaged in poorly-coordinated insurgencies against their French colonial masters. While the French Légion Étrangère has, thus far, put down every uprising (sometimes through the use of extreme violence), the air pirate and Malagasy nationalist Fanamby Tsiraka has proven a constant thorn in France's side. In one of the earlier (and better-planned) insurgencies, Fanamby Tsiraka and his men seized a large French transport dirigible and the brilliant revolutionary quickly learned how to use it.

Usually packed with heavily armed Malagasy raiders, and now reportedly armed with several water-cooled Maxim machine-guns, the renamed Hery Malagasy targets European-flagged civilian merchant vessels throughout the western Indian Ocean. Several survivors report the pirates also threatened to drop dynamite on them, from above.

The Hery Malagasy is known to run cargoes to the Zulu via secret airfields in the Drakensberg mountains of southeast Africa, and obtains repair and resupply at various Arab-controlled islands and Indian Ocean littoral territories. Tsiraka and his crew also dispose of ill-gotten gains in local markets in various Indian Ocean territories resentful of European intrusion, and also take R&R, in many of them. Tsiraka also likely has supply caches scattered around on isolated islands, throughout his area of operation.

To the dismay of the French, their Malagasy subjects consider Tsiraka a folk-hero, and he's usually able to slip into Madagascar and deliver guns and explosives to insurgent groups, with impunity.

Question 41
What are some of the Chinese or Western Pacific indigenous resistance groups who fight the brutally oppressive occupations by the Japanese Empire?

[Daigoro]

Also, don't feel shy about adding extra questions. I've found that if there's a good number of open questions, say 4-6, different people find different questions more appealing. If there's not so many open, there can sometimes be a bottleneck, while everyone waits for someone else to answer a question they're not personally so interested in or inspired by.

[Daigoro]

Technological Marvel No. 7: The Grand Aery at Pembroke

Excerpt from the Ontario-Orion Cross-Atlantic Lighter-Than-Air Cruiser Company Summer Brochure

"… and you can wake up to the watch the dramatic coastlines and rolling hills of the Emerald Isle passing gently beneath you, then take breakfast in the forward bistro as we finally approach the isle of Great Britain itself.

You'll marvel as the morning sun glints majestically off the structure of the Great Aery at Pembroke, in St Brides Fields, our final port of call. This magnificent piece of architecture stands 1,067 feet tall, 4 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower in Paris, and is the tallest structure in the world. Yet, because of its advanced manufacture, due to the ingenuity of Britain's own Lydia Florence Watford and her theories of floating compression, the Grand Aery uses but half of the material! Alternating tensile and compressive components, the Grand Aery mimics how the human body is held together with bone and sinew, and thus appears to float up out of the ground like spun gossamer.* Functional as well as regally graceful, the Grand Aery can dock up to 20 incoming and departing airships per day.**

The Grand Aery features a cathedral-sized ballroom with a reinforced glass dance floor, suspended 500 feet above ground, for waiting passengers to while their time away before their departure. Otherwise, the two bars, four cafes or fine-dining restaurant might take their fancy.

And of course, busy passengers arriving who are in a rush to board for London may take advantage of the speedy and convenient pneumatic monorail connection from St Brides terminus to Pembroke Station, where express trains depart every hour.

And thus completes your three-day journey from Ottawa Hill to Great Britain, in style, comfort and class, for the highly affordable price of…"

* something like this
** boarding from a ring deck through the airship's nose, similar to this

----

Question 42

Lord Buggsbury strolls into his office tossing a croquet mallet between his hands. Sir Adrian follows with a bundle of files under his arm, and starts placing them on His Lordship's bureau. Buggsbury ignores this and gazes out the bay window at a vista of the Thames.
"I was just at a round of croquet with the Marquesa, you know."
"Yes, m'lord. Did she enjoy the dill?"
"The what, Sir Adrian?"
"The dill, m'lord, on the cucumber sandwiches."
"How in blazes would I know, Sir Adrian. What a ludicrous question. Now, pay attention."
"Yes, m'lord."
"The Marquesa had a very pertinent question, Sir Adrian, about guns. If we were to send our boys off to battle, to take care of one of these hot spots, what do they carry? Do we have enough of them? Are our guns good enough? She was quite concerned."
"I would imagine so, m'lord."
"And what of the Germans? Do they have good guns? So! To appease her concern, Sir Adrian, and my own, send a boy to the Chancellor of War. Enquire of him what guns we have, and if they are good enough."
"Sending a boy shan't be necessary, m'lord. You can correspond directly with His Lordship's office via the pneumaphone, m'lord."
"Excuse your French, Sir Adrian!"
"The pneumaphone, m'lord, the apparatus on the stand in the corner."
Buggsbury leers querously at the sleek, brass and teak contraption with pipes emitting from it to a fitting in the wall, as Sir Adrian continues.
"They are installed throughout the ministry. Just engage the valve, m'lord, to build up steam pressure, then you may speak."
"My man, I indeed wish to speak with His Lordship, not parboil him!"
"It is perfectly sound, m'lord, and poses no danger at all. The pressurised steam merely serves to transmit m'lord's acoustic signals as modes of vibration."
"What a ludicrous notion. Send a boy."
"Yes, m'lord."


IOW: What types of weaponry are commonly available for various country's troops? And what advanced options are there? Who has the superior armaments?