Steampunk Lord of the Rings

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Just an idea that's been rattling around in my head, maybe for a TOR campaign. Steampunk Middle Earth, but use a WWI-era Europe with some kingdom changes:

Frodo & Co. accompanied by Magitech Engineer Gandalf cross a war-torn Europe during the period of the first Magitech War to cast the Lord of Time’s Watch of Power back into the fires of the factory in the Ruhr from whence it came.

Start in a village (the Shire) west of London (Bree), by steam train and boat to France where they pause in Paris (Rivendell) before having to attempt tunnels through the Alps to avoid the Western Front, pausing in Bern (Lothlorien) for a respite before moving on (Gandalf having fallen to a Steam Golem). The party splits; Merry & Pippin captured by Austrian orcs and taken east while Frodo & Sam continue north toward the Ruhr (Mordor). The Nine Pilots are abroad; having been defeated in their cars by the channel crossings, they are now in magitech aircraft, while the Zepplin assault on Muenchen (Gondor) is forming up in the Rhineland. Aragorn rescues the hobbits while taking Austria out of the picture, and raising the Bohemians come to the aid of a beseiged Muenchen whilst Frodo and Sam reach the outskirts of Frankfurt ...

 

[Dioltach]

Why München? As in, why not a French city, for example Verdun?

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Why München? As in, why not a French city, for example Verdun?

Needed them to travel farther and tunnel through the mountains, plus have a city backed by mountains to beseige. Verdun was just a bit too close. But rearrange some ideas and geography and many things could work.

Russia as Mordor is another idea, with Poland as Rohan and somewhere else as Gondor (Prussia/Koenigsberg?), but would be a little less WWI.

 

[ilgatto]

Perhaps you're already aware of this, but you may want to check what influence WW1 had on Tolkien's work here and here (wikipedia links). The first even has this map:

Source: Ian Alexander, in Wikipedia

 

[aco175]

I would play in that campaign.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

“Why can’t we just take the ornithopters to Mordor?”

Also, in one homebrew, I reskinned Warforged as something akin to Star Trek’s Borg or Doctor Who’s Daleks and Cybermen- the brains of psionic dwarves housed in constructed bodies. The same type of reskinning could be done for orcs, considering their origins as Elves warped to evil ends.

 

[Jolly Ruby]

“Why can’t we just take the ornithopters to Mordor?”

Also, in one homebrew, I reskinned Warforged as something akin to Star Trek’s Borg or Doctor Who’s Daleks and Cybermen- the brains of psionic dwarves housed in constructed bodies. The same type of reskinning could be done for orcs, considering their origins as Elves warped to evil ends.

The orcs could be elves mechanically warped into something else, so we can call them Cyborks.

 

[Homicidal_Squirrel]

Well... another campaign I'd like to play in that I don't have a group to play with.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

The orcs could be elves mechanically warped into something else, so we can call them Cyborks.

That’s what I’m talking about- Warforged being Elves and/or Orcs made into half-organic/half construct pawns of evil.

Maybe there’s even a ritual that transforms any sentient prisoner into a biomechanical minion, like the Borg & Cybermen.

(I wish I’d thought of “Cyborks”, though!)

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Legolas uses a magiitech repeating long rifle, and wears an "elf eyes" monacle that gives him far sight.

Gimli is a mechanically enhanced dwarf with clockwork axes that lengthen, contract, and can combine to make a two-handed battleaxe.

The hobbits all wear top hats, except for Sam, who has a leather cap and goggles. He's Frodo's driver.

Shadowfax is a clockwork horse.

The fell beasts are steam-powered monoplanes.

Galadriel's swan boat is a steam-powered paddle-wheeler.

Balrogs are magitech-clockwork flame forge entities.

Rohirrim are nomadic expert mechanics who travel in cross-country armored vehicles, steam-powered, others pulled by clockwork horses.

Ents are mechanically-enhanced trees.