Are you going to do the Steampunk thing?
- Thread starter Krug
- Start date
Black Omega
First Post
Sure, but in a League of Extraordinary Gentlemen way and probably using Hero 5th edition. Not sure if this will be my next campaign or not but it's definitely one of three on my list.
TheAuldGrump
First Post
Joshua Dyal said:Auld Grump -- does this campaign have a website?
Alas no, my web design skills are poor to nonexistant.
I have only run this setting three and a half times.
The first time ended because the players didn't like gunpowder.
The second time ended with a TPK. (Wierdest reaction I have ever seen to the party being killed: 'That ruled!' The party died when one of the PCs tried to shoot a bundle of dynamite out of the hands of the big bad guy... The party died, the bad guy died, and the house was left a smoking crater. This was on the last day of the summer camp I was running it at, and I have to admit it was pretty climactic...
The third time everything went smoothly, then I put it away for a while.
The one half being when I used it for Vermin a d20 game from a few years back. Using the same bad guy as a side plot with a massive black rat being the true villain for the story. The rat ended up becoming the familiar of the aforementioned bad guy. I wish Vermin was still around, I still have the HTML files, but it's just not the same...
When creating the setting the biggest difficulty was the social class structure. Starting funds havig a great deal more to do with social class than anything else.
Wizards, Paladins, and Druids are upper class, along with Aristocrats.
Most Fighters, Clerics, Sorcerers, and a few Rogues are miile class or blue stockings, along with Experts.
Most rogues and some fighters are lower class, along with Commoners.
I swiped a great deal from Cthulhu by Gaslight in regards to prices and other setting information.
Reading up on Victorian London was... disturbing. People died faster than they were being born, yet the city kept growing due to the constant influx of people moving to the city.
Cholera and typhoid were significant dangers. Dietary dificiencies were the norm for much of the population.
Between 25 and 30 percent of the populace was engaged in ilegal activities for at least part of their livlihood, with prostitution and theft being the most prevalent.
At evening and dawn the sky was a vivid red from the coal smoke and foundries. The London Underground, that massive subway, was already in use, the engines steam powered, and fueled by anthracite in an attempt to keep the smoke under control.
For the upper classes the story is completely different, withLondon during the Season being the high point of the social calendar. Of course the upper classes had houses out in the country when the sulfer laden fogs rose from the Thames, colored a sickly yellow green from the posons they contained. (Source of the term 'pea souper'.)
All in all a rather bleak, but compelling setting.
There are some truly great books about Victorian London and its underworld available.
The Auld Grump
A'koss
Explorer
I had run a campaign not-so-long-ago that could have been labelled Magi-punk. But it was the PC races that had to try and fit into advanced socieites on a world ruled by various monstrous races that had taken over. The beholder nations, the giant kingdoms, atropal ruled necropoli, illithid and aboleth subterranean realms, and so on. Many of the weaker races had long been decimated.
Humans who weren't enslaved (or were adventurers) lived in underground cities, far, far benieth the surface. Created with the aid of the few remaining dragons, they were the last freeholds/sanctuaries for humanity. These cities were linked by well-protected portals and far from the underdark regions.
These cities had lots of "magi-punk" elements as well - worker golems, astral projection devices (so you can experience life outside the cavern-home-prison), vast illusion generators that made the surrounding caverns look like a pastoral surface scene, with a sun rising and setting, etc...
It was a cool diversion for a while, but it was like a sugar rush that wore off in time. Too much magic in societies, too advanced civilizations just seemed to... take something away from the PCs. When we heard this new settting is coming out our whole group just went "bleh". We had our sugar-fix already.
Cheers,
A'koss.
Humans who weren't enslaved (or were adventurers) lived in underground cities, far, far benieth the surface. Created with the aid of the few remaining dragons, they were the last freeholds/sanctuaries for humanity. These cities were linked by well-protected portals and far from the underdark regions.
These cities had lots of "magi-punk" elements as well - worker golems, astral projection devices (so you can experience life outside the cavern-home-prison), vast illusion generators that made the surrounding caverns look like a pastoral surface scene, with a sun rising and setting, etc...
It was a cool diversion for a while, but it was like a sugar rush that wore off in time. Too much magic in societies, too advanced civilizations just seemed to... take something away from the PCs. When we heard this new settting is coming out our whole group just went "bleh". We had our sugar-fix already.
Cheers,
A'koss.
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