Steampunk
- Thread starter Gellion
- Start date
Carnifex
First Post
To copy and paste from the other thread 
As a further thing for those who *are* interested in steam punk and steam technology, here's the little bit o' blurb I wrote up for the beginning of Steam & Steel: A Guide to Fantasy Steamworks, which will be published by EN Publishing with any luck
Imagine a world where the magic of fantasy and the power of science is thrown together to create and exciting new mixture of the eldritch and the mechanical. Industrializing cities spread and grow, becoming cityscapes of roofs and chimneys, vents and smokestacks, smoke pluming upwards from the incessant toil of hundreds of smithies and alchemists and factories. Mechanics and arcane engineers assemble mighty beasts of steel, designing armoured constructs to take to the field of battle and ironclad vehicles to travel far and wide. Elves seek to defend the boundaries of their ancestral lands from the burgeoning cultures around them, bringing their advanced technology, magic and skill to bear against their foes, fighting from graceful flying airships and wielding blades and armour augmented by steamwork power. Dwarves delve deeper than ever before in their mines with massive drilling machines, their fortresses sporting massive chimneys to gout forth the fumes of a thousand machines forging weapons of war. Evil goblin necromancers craft sinister and deadly war machines that feed off the souls of the dead to fuel their engines, darkening the skies above their hordes with the smoke of burning corpses. The clergy of a machine cult spread their word far and wide, bringing with them new technologies and crafting steel prosthetics to replace weak flesh and blood. Turmoil and change grips a land that is undergoing the transition from feudal and ancient cultures to dynamic and powerful industrial nations.
This guide is aimed to allow a Dungeon Master to take a more conventional fantasy setting, a campaign rich with fantastic beasts and exotic magic, and to integrate the marvels of steam technology into it to create a world like that described above – one made exciting from the opportunities to be had from the power and possibilities of steamworks.
Steam & Steel presents rules and ideas for a DM wishing to incorporate steam technology into their campaign setting, however much or little they may desire. From small everyday steamwork devices to the massive machines employed by heavy industries, to steamwork prosthetics and deadly constructs, this guide presents a framework of rules that cover many different forms of steam technology, and explores the possibilities of meshing magic with machinery to get a unique feel for a fantasy world. As well as rules, Steam & Steel covers the impact that steam technology has in a setting, on a wider scale than just the items that adventurers can get their hands on, delving into the effects and ramifications of the changes that advancing technology brings about and the advance of industrialization.
As a further thing for those who *are* interested in steam punk and steam technology, here's the little bit o' blurb I wrote up for the beginning of Steam & Steel: A Guide to Fantasy Steamworks, which will be published by EN Publishing with any luck
Imagine a world where the magic of fantasy and the power of science is thrown together to create and exciting new mixture of the eldritch and the mechanical. Industrializing cities spread and grow, becoming cityscapes of roofs and chimneys, vents and smokestacks, smoke pluming upwards from the incessant toil of hundreds of smithies and alchemists and factories. Mechanics and arcane engineers assemble mighty beasts of steel, designing armoured constructs to take to the field of battle and ironclad vehicles to travel far and wide. Elves seek to defend the boundaries of their ancestral lands from the burgeoning cultures around them, bringing their advanced technology, magic and skill to bear against their foes, fighting from graceful flying airships and wielding blades and armour augmented by steamwork power. Dwarves delve deeper than ever before in their mines with massive drilling machines, their fortresses sporting massive chimneys to gout forth the fumes of a thousand machines forging weapons of war. Evil goblin necromancers craft sinister and deadly war machines that feed off the souls of the dead to fuel their engines, darkening the skies above their hordes with the smoke of burning corpses. The clergy of a machine cult spread their word far and wide, bringing with them new technologies and crafting steel prosthetics to replace weak flesh and blood. Turmoil and change grips a land that is undergoing the transition from feudal and ancient cultures to dynamic and powerful industrial nations.
This guide is aimed to allow a Dungeon Master to take a more conventional fantasy setting, a campaign rich with fantastic beasts and exotic magic, and to integrate the marvels of steam technology into it to create a world like that described above – one made exciting from the opportunities to be had from the power and possibilities of steamworks.
Steam & Steel presents rules and ideas for a DM wishing to incorporate steam technology into their campaign setting, however much or little they may desire. From small everyday steamwork devices to the massive machines employed by heavy industries, to steamwork prosthetics and deadly constructs, this guide presents a framework of rules that cover many different forms of steam technology, and explores the possibilities of meshing magic with machinery to get a unique feel for a fantasy world. As well as rules, Steam & Steel covers the impact that steam technology has in a setting, on a wider scale than just the items that adventurers can get their hands on, delving into the effects and ramifications of the changes that advancing technology brings about and the advance of industrialization.
d4
First Post
i like steampunk as a genre, with one important caveat:
i absolutely hate mixing steampunk with magic.
something like Space: 1889 or the works of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells -- great, love it.
settings like Castle Falkenstein, Iron Kingdoms, or others that mix the two -- no thanks, bleh.
i hope someone comes out with a d20 steampunk setting or sourcebook that doesn't have any magic in it.
i absolutely hate mixing steampunk with magic.
something like Space: 1889 or the works of Jules Verne or H.G. Wells -- great, love it.
settings like Castle Falkenstein, Iron Kingdoms, or others that mix the two -- no thanks, bleh.
i hope someone comes out with a d20 steampunk setting or sourcebook that doesn't have any magic in it.
Carnifex
First Post
d4 said:
Steam & Steel: A Guide to Fantasy Steamworks can be used to purely integrate non-magical steam technology - no magic engines or devices, just plain old steam power with no frills. However, in a normal fantasy campaign it tends to be very hard indeed to add steam technology and not have it mix in any way with the magic. It is possible though, especially if technology and magic have an innate animosity, or for instance divine or arcane spellcasters just see technology as innately heretical.
d4
First Post
ah, i don't think you quite got what i was getting at.Carnifex said:
i don't like steampunk at all in fantasy settings.
if i want steampunk, i want a pure steampunk setting with no magic in it at all. therefore, the question of the two mixing is irrelevant.
i tend to like settings best that only have one "weird" element in them. if it's magic, then i only want magic. i don't want magic + steampunk, or magic + psionics, etc.
i prefer settings that are just magic, or just steampunk, or just psionics, etc.
Carnifex
First Post
d4 said:
ah, i don't think you quite got what i was getting at.
i don't like steampunk at all in fantasy settings.
if i want steampunk, i want a pure steampunk setting with no magic in it at all. therefore, the question of the two mixing is irrelevant.
i tend to like settings best that only have one "weird" element in them. if it's magic, then i only want magic. i don't want magic + steampunk, or magic + psionics, etc.
i prefer settings that are just magic, or just steampunk, or just psionics, etc.
LIke I said, using Steam & Steel, you could add just no frills steam tech to a setting. Since the primary focus of the guide is on adding it to a fantasy setting though, most of the material in some way includes a fantasy setting. If you just want steampunk, you should probably use D20 Modern and add steam tech rules from another source (like Steam & Steel
) rather than D&D-based d20 (I think d20 Modern works well with steampunk settings).Besides which, I don't consider steampunk to be a wierd element along the level of magic or psionics. On that basis you could argue that D&D combines two wierd elements already - magic and a rather caricatured version of medieval themes.
Desdichado
Hero
Uh, those aren't even steampunk, dude. Those are Victorian scientific romances. There's absolutely no punk with that steam as you've described it.d4 said:
apocalypstick
First Post
I want my IKCS! Want it now!
And a Valium!
And a Valium!
