jian's latest activity

Not really, it’s generally defined as around 1870-1900 so firmly late Victorian. It was much more an American thing than British, of...

A couple of friends of mine have had much more enthusiastic reactions to the phrase “I fenced for Oxford” than was justified.

Of course, one of the amusing things about playing sport, in my case rugby, to University level is when you talk to Americans and...

The Gilded Age was startlingly similar to our own era - which is basically cyberpunk without the readily available prosthetics, pity, I...

The Steampunk era was still about the Great Empires. Mercantilism was a thing hence Robber Barons but the East India Company was still...

Steampunk evokes the traits of the actual Victorian era, and that was a time of great empires and political machinations. Corporations...

The biggest issue is that a lot of time steampunk settings and stories forget that the word includes "punk"

I think quite a few steampunk settings do have megacorps (or at least their Gilded Age equivalents, robber barons and their feudal...

Dude, I consider Winchester to be up north!

Yes, it's an excellent ingredient. I grew up using a lot of it as a condiment on steak, but then I grew up and stopped eating my steak...

UPDATE: I’m tracking down my spices. The 2 Indian groceries closest to me have almost all of the spices I need, but juniper berries...

The way it covers actually quite a long period of time (five years or so?) with occasional long breaks is quite realistic in a certain...

Honestly Worcestershire sauce is not great as a general condiment (or at least I don’t use it much) and I tend to only keep it as an...

Sadly I found Dragonmeet rather soulless last year with its change in venue. Yes, I know, great for vendors but it now feels...

Having played Spectaculars at a con, I'd heartily recommend it. It's an elegant system, really know how to deliver comic-book-style...