I've noticed that Steampunk is bigger and bigger in several upcoming games (not that we haven't had any already) but many of these games have elves and dwarves--and I'd honestly like something other than Elves and Dwarves (even my vaunted favorite the crazy Fae Sidhe sorts who sort of bend reality and are nasty elves..)
Now, what races would you use?
I'm considering, but not stuck on:
Moreau-People (from the Strange Island of Dr. Moreau, experiments earlier in the century lead to animal people, that are more stable than the book.)
Great Apes: Supersmart, have their own civilization hidden in Africa. Some factions may oppose humanity, some try and help them.
Steamforths: Steampowered robot-men. Artificial intelligence of the Victorian age made with complext clock and steam tech. Named for the first truly sapient (and accredited) member of their kind Dr. Steamforth who helped improve the process by which he was created for future generations.
Nighthydes: Not playable but freakish mutants who live in major cities, created by fallout of exposure to an aerosol bombing of Hyde-formula.
Anything else stealing from early/late era Victorian literature, or "near" Victorian literature?
What do you think? What would you do or not do?
I've never been much into steampunk. Maybe my love for the twenties and pre-WW1 20th century overwrites my quasi-modern-escapism plug?
That being said, I'd imagine frankensteins monster, less the hammer-horror bolt-in-neck kind, more the original shelly wretch., would be a shoe-in.
I'm writing up a Steampunk Reality for Storm Knights, my revamp of Torg. The following is from an earlier version of a Steampunk Reality:
Hyper-evolution, or forced evolution, involves exposing a being to aetheric energies — in patterns carefully calculated by the machina analytica — that mutates their body into a more evolved form. Animals were evolved into intelligent beings, many nearly as intelligent as humans. And humans were evolved into beings beyond humanity.
Evolution is a process of chance, of certain traits surviving and others dying out. The process was, until recently, unpredictable. In Antediluvian ruins, fragmentary records of the hyper-evolution process were discovered, including plans for the aetheric emitters which cause mutation and details of the algorithms to calculate the possible evolutionary paths of a species, then determine the energies needed to bring them about.
Using the algorithms, the machina analytica were given the task of analyzing social trends and evolutionary pressures, to calculate the most likely path of many species' evolution. Several thousand possible stages were generated for each species, and the most useful ones were selected.
The potential for future stages exists in the bodies of each member of a species. Specimens of selected species were bombarded with aetheric waves, in the specific configuration needed to force their evolution. The irradiated creatures were mutated, hyper-evolved into one of the many potential end states of their evolution.
In London, before the War, evolved great cats were servants and workers. Evolved chimpanzees and orangutans served as soldiers.
Then there were the hyper-humans, including the cogs and savants:
Cogs are the perfect laborers: slightly smaller than humans, but vastly stronger and capable of working up to a week without needing to sleep.
Savants are the perfect researchers. Though physically weak and fragile, their intellect is unmatched.
Nobles are the perfect leaders: stunningly attractive (if androgynous), charismatic, inspiring, and masters of social situations.
Brutes are the perfect soldiers: strong (if not as strong as cogs), immune to fear and pain, and relentless. They serve alongside the hyper-apes, usually as their officers.
These hyper-men are the future, the inevitable end result of human evolution. (Or so it is claimed.) Though few in number, they are influential, and each nation busied itself making ever more of them.
Savants illuminated vast expanses of scientific knowledge. Cogs increased industrial output by a factor of 10. Brutes proved effective and loyal soldiers. And nobles lead and inspired, and negotiated between the Great Powers.
Steampunk is showing up in all sorts of games. EVERYWHERE...
Its rapidly approaching the oversaturation point, like zombies. A little is fun. But every fucking damn board game and PC game and RPG and there it is, either a little, or invading every aspect.
As for races.
Elves would actually be a good change of pace as a steampunk race. Usually its dwarves or an endless parade of Dragonlance overinspired gnomes.
One game I recently was doing consulting work for (and never got payed) had a steampunk race of goats. Not goat people. 4-legged goats. Who used tech augments and semi-agile forehooves and other tricks.
Simmilar to a race of techno-magic using deer Id designed for a game. Bambi with a an unlicensed particle accelerator... heh.
Rat folk are another easy one to make a steampunk race.
Really bemusing would be an aquatic steampunk race.
Quote from: Omega;785151Really bemusing would be an aquatic steampunk race.
Atlanteans.
Quote from: Daddy Warpig;785153Atlanteans.
Nah. Atlanteans are allways crystalpunk or electropunk or even magitechpunk :cool:
Quote from: Daddy Warpig;785140Then there were the hyper-humans, including the cogs and savants:
Cogs are the perfect laborers: slightly smaller than humans, but vastly stronger and capable of working up to a week without needing to sleep.
Savants are the perfect researchers. Though physically weak and fragile, their intellect is unmatched.
Nobles are the perfect leaders: stunningly attractive (if androgynous), charismatic, inspiring, and masters of social situations.
Brutes are the perfect soldiers: strong (if not as strong as cogs), immune to fear and pain, and relentless. They serve alongside the hyper-apes, usually as their officers.
These hyper-men are the future, the inevitable end result of human evolution. (Or so it is claimed.) Though few in number, they are influential, and each nation busied itself making ever more of them.
Shades of Brave New World. Very dystopianly British, or Britishly dystopian (I've been thinking about British authors and their proclitivity towards dystopian fiction a lot lately, for a Mage: The Awakening campaign). I like it.
Races for a steampunk game? English, German, French, Italian, Russian, American.
If it's not racist to say that Elves get +1 Dex and -1 Con, then it's not racist to say that Americans get +1 Enterprising and -1 Cultured, either.
My Traveller campaign is somewhat steampunk-ish, with a fallen tech world; arquebuses and dirigibles, plus psi, strange bio-tech aliens, "wyverns" in archaeopteryx and such mega-fauna. High tech in what the players can bring with them, or sprinkled here and there brought by traders. The atmosphere is denser, allowing for easier flight, the pc's just saw a drawing of a rumpler-taube type heavier than air craft, but the nation where they are at is a decaying state of the former rulers of the world, being attacked by an upstart empire. A lot of intrigue and backstabbing with various different factions, trying to hold on to their territory, get tech uplift or vying for power.
Quote from: The Butcher;785229Shades of Brave New World.
Guilty as charged. :)
(Also, Wells'
The Time Machine. With inspiration from a short story I read in Asimov's
Before the Golden Age anthology.)
Quote from: The Butcher;785229Very dystopianly British, or Britishly dystopian
Sort of the natural end state of "blood will out" or "nobles are better bred" and the like.
Quote from: The Butcher;785229I like it.
Thanks!
Quote from: The Butcher;785229Shades of Brave New World. Very dystopianly British, or Britishly dystopian (I've been thinking about British authors and their proclitivity towards dystopian fiction a lot lately, for a Mage: The Awakening campaign). I like it.
We Brits do dystopianism well because we're aware our country and everything about it is a bit shit, and don't really try to hide it, but we have to grin and live here anyway (Not that we'd move).
Anyway.
Some sort of clockwork golem, perhaps linked by telegram service to a master Difference Engine somewhere that they have to report back to, and can download new programs and goals from.
Moreau-people sound good, but I'd probably set the game a good while after they have settled in, so you can touch issues of manufactured racism (They've been here for years, but they're now totally trying to steal your jobs, honest).
Sentient ravens (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravens_of_the_Tower_of_London), kin to the ones from the Tower of London, or some other equivalent rank. For shits and giggles, make them all enlisted soldiers, give them the same sort of privileges and respect due to royalty. Hell, drop elves and add ravens.
Cool cool ideas people. I'd like to point out that there are many many Steampunk centered games with elves. Tephra for example off hand is but one.
I know of others but I'd have to go dig up their names.
Nothing wrong with liking Elves and Dwarves--I like em, but I'd want something a little different.
Quote from: Silverlion;785279Cool cool ideas people. I'd like to point out that there are many many Steampunk centered games with elves. Tephra for example off hand is but one.
I know of others but I'd have to go dig up their names.
Nothing wrong with liking Elves and Dwarves--I like em, but I'd want something a little different.
Interesting. I've missed all these steam elves. Probably a good thing.
Quote from: Silverlion;785279I'd like to point out that there are many many Steampunk centered games with elves.
There was a steampunk elf lady on the cover of Dragon, over a decade ago. 'Twas an article on how to steampunk D&D 3e, so it had all the old favorites.
Then there was a d20 setting that was (IIRC) D&D + Steampunk + Some Cthulhu inspired elements.
There's others I missed.
Quote from: The Butcher;785229Shades of Brave New World. Very dystopianly British, or Britishly dystopian (I've been thinking about British authors and their proclitivity towards dystopian fiction a lot lately, for a Mage: The Awakening campaign). I like it.
90% of all sci fi is distopian.
If you want to create drama and tension its kind of a given.
Dinosaurs evolved from raptors.
Mole men (and the whole animal-hybrid theme).
Energy based entities basically a living ether/plasma that occupies and controls the stream punk machines (kind of trans-robotism I guess )
Octopodes.
One from a game still in development.
Doves. Militant (but peacefull) flightless bird people putter around the skies in airships (peacefully) bringing peace to other nations (with a wack up side the head with a hammer...) Groundside they team up with a vulture race who run a (not-so peacefull) militarized rail trade system across the continent.
Quote from: Omega;785157Nah. Atlanteans are allways crystalpunk or electropunk or even magitechpunk :cool:
How about in that Disney movie inspired by Mike Mignola's work? Whatever they were, they were in the same world with submarines and such a la Jules Verne, weren't they?
Quote from: Phillip;785347How about in that Disney movie inspired by Mike Mignola's work? Whatever they were, they were in the same world with submarines and such a la Jules Verne, weren't they?
Atlantis: The Lost World, I think. I like that movie, despite its flaws.
GURPS Atlantis has some pretty cool steampunk Atlanteans, IIRC.
Quote from: Phillip;785347How about in that Disney movie inspired by Mike Mignola's work? Whatever they were, they were in the same world with submarines and such a la Jules Verne, weren't they?
Magitech or superscience - not steampunk.
The explorers though on the other hand were very steampunk styled.
Quote from: Omega;785304Interesting. I've missed all these steam elves. Probably a good thing.
They basically replace the French in Victoriana (Along with dwarves for northern industrialists, beastmen and halflings for the urban poor / manual labourers, and orcs for africans).