Cortex Steampunk Game 1 OOC Discussion

[IsabellaRose]

This is for Group 1, consisting of @MagnificentBastard, @WickedCadrach, @Chiyako, @WritesNaughtyStories, and @StarlitSiren.

We're still working from the basic setup premise as described in the original "Interest Check" thread:

"My favorite game system is Cortex, or more specifically, the Cortex Drama system originally developed for the Smallville RPG, improved with suggestions in the Cortex Hacker's Guide, and then brought all together in the latest version of the system, Cortex Prime.

I'm considering running a dramatic game centered around a small group of PCs and their connected NPCs set in an 1880s wild west / steampunk / weird science world. Imagine someone combined the works of Jules Verne, Mary Shelley, Edgar Allen Poe, HP Lovecraft, and HG Wells, added in a dash of Nikola Tesla, a pinch of Indiana Jones (without the Crystal Skull nonsense), mixed in Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp, Calamity Jane, Wild Bill Hickok, Annie Oakley, Doc Holliday and all the wild west tropes you can imagine, maybe added a bit of mad scientist and supernatural weird west nonsense, and dressed it all up in steampunk finery... and you're looking at the general idea for the setting. There will be over-the-top villains, square-jawed heroes, and buxom babes a plenty. Obviously, given our site, there were be lewd content and a deviation from the more buttoned-down, puritanical ways of the colonial western expansion and Victorian era, and I expect most characters to "get some" on a regular basis. In fact, I intend to add a mechanic that will make it imperative that you keep your honey pot stirred or your wick well dipped regularly in order to keep functioning at your highest level."

 

Let's start with the basics of worldbuilding. Working from that original description:

1. Write down anything that YOU WANT to be in this game, concepts, set pieces, species, tech, etc., for you to enjoy it. If you want there to be Automaton's write it down. If you just think they'd be cool, but you don't really care one way or the other, don't write it down. This is the list of "I want this to be in the world!"
    
2. Write down anything that you DO NOT WANT in the game. If zombies will ruin the setting for you, let us know.

Once we get input from everyone, we'll move on to the Pathways system.

[MagnificentBastard]

I am a little swamped with work this week, but once the weekend comes I'll edit this with my take.

@IsabellaRose

Thank you for all the work you have done with this.

 

[WritesNaughtyStories]

I've said it before: I want Prudence to have existed in our past and to have left her legacy of defending love in all its forms. With that comes the oppressive social and religious pressure that drove Prudence to condemn her lover.

Beyond that, gunfighters in dusty streets, airships, and government agents in luxury train cars with odd, clockwork and steam-powered gadgets are welcome.

I think it's worth talking about the First Nations, the US Army and what frontier forts look like and how they act on the world around them.

[StarlitSiren]

Seconding @MagnificentBastard, We appreciate you @IsabellaRose

I'm a dummy, @WritesNaughtyStories- can you tell me what you mean by Prudence?

I'm in for Everything writesnaughtystories says. Obviously the character premise I started out with very much leans into that steampunk inventor/tinkerer concept. If this is a bit more of an Alternate history than a full on imaginary world (going by your post above) then that does open up very fun premises and opportunity for reference. I'm good with both.

To clarify, I'm also not against magic being a thing in the setting in the right, mystical, unobtainable doses (The big bad dabbling in something they don't understand and we won't either) but I'm also not expecting or asking for it. I just thought I should address the fantastical since the other thread leaned that way a lot

 

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Prudence is the woman from Isabella's Anamnesis playthrough:

It is very western, very steampunk and feels very rooted in this setting. She was a judge/executioner who condemned her lover, and herself, because they were both women. At the end of the tale, she transforms herself into Ashborn,

Quote

I will carry this destruction with purpose. No more whispered judgments in darkened halls, no more zealots hiding behind scripture and scales that tilt only toward cruelty. I will protect those who are dragged into the circle, bound and condemned for who they are or who they love. I will be the one who burns the gallows before the rope can tighten, who tears down the pulpits where intolerance is preached.

I am vengeance, yes. But I am also devotion reborn, not to a church, not to a law, but to the women whose voices are silenced, whose love is called sin, whose bodies are bound in chains. My lover’s ruin will not be in vain. It will be the lightning that follows, the sudden blaze that leaves no shadow untouched. My life may no longer be my own, but I will wield what remains of it like a storm.

Isabella's epilogue:

Quote

The Manifesto of the Unbound

I was Prudence Lawton, judge of your laws, servant of your scales, voice of your verdicts. I carried the weight of your scripture, the lash of your zeal, the hollow mercy of your courts. I condemned, and I was condemned. I loved, and for that love I was broken. You buried me beneath your stone, you chained me to your Devil, you carved my name in the dust of your graveyard.

And yet I rose.

I am shattered and remade. I am the ruin of your false sanctuaries, the fire that devours your lies, the storm that scatters your order to ash. You cannot bury what you cannot bind. You cannot silence what has already burned. From this ruin I declare a new truth: that no love is forbidden, that no body is unworthy, that no woman shall kneel before your zealotry again.

My faith is not your faith. It is not written in books that rot on altars, nor spoken by men who weigh the world with tilted scales. My faith is written in the laughter of women who love freely, in the touch of hands unshackled, in the voices raised without fear of your judgment.

I am the woman who will burn your pulpits, break your chains, tear down your gallows. I am the storm that shields the meek, the flame that protects the scorned, the ruin that stands as sanctuary for those you cast out.

Know this: your laws cannot hold me, your prayers cannot bind me, your fire cannot consume me. I have already burned.

Your halls have fallen. From their stones, I build a new temple, not of walls, but of arms wrapped around each other; not of scripture, but of truth spoken plainly:

Love is not a sin.

Desire is not a crime.

To be yourself is holy.

Let those who have suffered find me. Let those who fear find me. Let those who burn for another woman, or who have been judged unworthy, walk in my shadow and find safety.

I was Prudence Lawton, but no more. That name and the woman who belonged to it are dead. I am ruin and rebirth.

I am Ashborn, rising from the ashes of what your piety burned. I am The Counterweight, The Broken Scales that can no longer balance the tilted judgment of zealots. I am the First Flame, but not the last. I am Unbound, free of your chains, bidding all to join me. I am The Voice of Love, Protector of the Forbidden and Forgotten. Some call me Mother Ashes, for from my ruin, others will be reborn. Others call me the Scarlet Bride, bound not to your God, revering not your saints, but bound to the love you forbid, married to the chains that once bound my love. I am The Bride of Chains, The Widow of Fire. 

I have many names, but I carry none of them. I am your reckoning, and I promise you this: the scales will balance, but not by your dogma, not in your courts.

 

[StarlitSiren]

Oh that's good

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Yeah, that's why I really want her as part of our history. I really want to play a monk of the Daughters of the Unbound. I love the idea of someone like Kwai Chang Caine being the champion of her message of love, acceptance and caring (and being kind of a slut about it, because they love everybody).

[StarlitSiren]

I'm into that. Millie, of course, will think it's an old timey cooky religion.

(until they get in on the kind of being a slut about it)

[Chiyako]

I would like to see automatons, or at least clockwork cybernetics of sorts.

And/or maybe some minor supernatural stuff. More classics like werewolves, vampires, etc. Or, if people want to play something with, say, bunny ears for example, perhaps having been created by some sort of experimentation. Not a one-off, so multiple people could go down that track, but probably a limited amount in the world. I imagine they would be, at best, treated like freaks or below Human by a majority of the populace, if not at least feared.

I haven't completely decided what I will make yet. It will depend on what sort of rails we want to set. I fine with any of these being objected to as well, if anyone feels it wouldn't fit. That said, the three ideas I do have in mind are:

• Vampire mad-scientist sort trying to also adapt to the new rapidly developing age. If there are hybrid experiment things then I wouldn't mind her having been part of that process, whether it be as the scientist in charge, an assistant, or what not.
• Clockwork living doll. Automaton essentially but not fully metal. Designed to appear as real as possible. Could have been just some tinkerer's life work or fun side project, or a military project.
• Gunslinger. Maybe gunslinger on the run, especially if we do use the experiment not-so-Humans. Or some sort of partial automaton limbed gunslinger who lost something during a war. Dunno yet. Either wandering sort or a law bringer.

[WritesNaughtyStories]

11 minutes ago, Chiyako said:

some sort of partial automaton limbed gunslinger who lost something during a war

I love this idea. Maybe not a war wound - maybe a gunfight they barely won? Either way, this is gold, in my estimation.

I figured out a way to create the mostly human kind of fur-folk Warning was hoping for. I think the idea of the Army performing horrific and unethical experiments to better combat the First Nations should be included, But that particular thought does not seem to resonate for some reason.

[IsabellaRose]

13 minutes ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

I love this idea. Maybe not a war wound - maybe a gunfight they barely won? Either way, this is gold, in my estimation.

I figured out a way to create the mostly human kind of fur-folk Warning was hoping for. I think the idea of the Army performing horrific and unethical experiments to better combat the First Nations should be included, But that particular thought does not seem to resonate for some reason.

Honestly, I could see this working as an almost Jekyll/Hyde formula type thing. 

Injected with "Essence of Bear" for strength, "Essence of Wolf" for tracking/pack hunting, etc. The effects are initially temporary as the experiment begins, a boost to the soldiers for a single offensive, something that wears off. At the same time, the effect is designed to be used as a gas, dispersed over a large area to affect multiple targets at once. But these were things more like a drug, designed to weaken their opponents... "Essence of Tortoise" to slow them down, "Essence of Rabbit" to make them skittish and more likely to run than fight. 

Obviously there are unintended side effects. Effects last longer than predicted, subjects display physical transformation characteristics instead of just abilities, subjects of the predatory strains become violently addicted and desperate for another "fix" of the essence that gives them powers, subjects of the prey animal strains develop defensive traits of their source animals... 

And then one of the lab assistants steals the research for a rich, land baron zoophiliac and tries to create a harem of animal hybrid women for his own pleasure. Details of the research details are returned to Washington where actual test begin on other variants - aquatic soldiers, avians, large predatory cats... but the experiments are shut down, the soldiers euthanized amid a flurry of human/animal rights protests that end with them becoming a protected subspecies of humanity, or perhaps hybrids deemed "too dangerous" are rounded up and put into camps or preserves. Hybrids become folk legends, some feared as monsters, some exoticized as curiosities, some romanticized as tragic heroes. 

Traveling circuses and sideshows exploit them, billing them as things like “the Wolf-Man of Wyoming” or “The Mermaid Girl of Mississippi.” Prejudice mirrors racism and xenophobia of the time... like laws barring hybrids from towns, signs outside saloons that say, “No Beasts, No Natives, No Irish.” But it's not all negative. Some settlers and tribes believe hybrids are skinwalkers, spirit-kin, or a form of divine punishment. Cults arise worshiping hybrids as totem spirits reborn in flesh. Hybrid communities themselves splinter, some embracing their animal natures, others struggling to “cling to humanity.”

Predatory hybrids addicted to their essence seek out smugglers or rogue scientists for a fix as the “essences”, now perfected into something more tolerable by humans, become contraband and are sold like opium or whiskey, used by outlaws for short bursts of power. Rival powers (European empires, secret societies) race to steal samples or recreate the formula.

Some hybrids begin to breed true, even if mating with full humans, passing animal traits to their children, even if weaker or unstable. Others mutate unpredictably, creating feral, monstrous forms beyond what the scientists intended or ever imagined. Is it disease? Evolution? Or something stranger that the “essences” unlocked in human nature?

 

Okay. I'll shut up now. Sometimes my brain goes just a little bit too far. 

[WritesNaughtyStories]

Here's a different, brilliant take. I like it, Izzy.

[WickedCadrach]

Hi, everyone! I'm alive. Sorry I wasn't around most of the week, but I'm back.

Okie-dokie, first up, I want: 

• Airships : aesthetically, I would prefer zeppelins and hot air balloons over anything more scifi or fantasy.
• Automatons : I think it could be neat to treat automatons the way trains are often treated in Westerns. They are emblematic of the blight of progress, pushing out simple folk and making their lives harder while the wealthy robber barons control their manufacture and use from distant cities. I'm thinking *The Octopus* but with clockwork track-layers, coal shovelers, and even steam-driven oxen pulling Union-Pacific branded plows while the simple farmer behind on his payments to the land baron can only watch in dread at the technology in the next field slowly tilling him under with every row. The tension with Automatons can also go into John Henry veins and even spur Luddite groups to acts of sabotage and explosive, dynamite-fueled arson to fight back. 
• Gunfighters in dusty streets : particularly if their spurs jangle, their cigarettes are hand-rolled, and their calloused hands are surprisingly gentle (at first)
• The Invisible World : A la Lovecraft's From Beyond, I like the idea of a strange, alien dimension overlapping with the material world. As is the case in the story, perhaps some weird-science steam-tech has created a way to use the dimension for fuel, scientific study, or even the first stirrings of worm-hole travel (naturally drawing the attention of the wealthy railway barons eager to silence and bury the tech before it undercuts their monopoly). It could be that the folk magic of the era or the exploding Spiritualist movement of the late 1800s is actually tapping into this invisible world without realizing. Speaking of...
• The Fox Sisters - Crowley - The Spiritualism of the late 1800s : I don't mean to include these figures literally, but I do think that movements and figures akin to them add a presence that brings a certain spookiness to the Weird West that contrasts nicely and adds depth to the clockwork, steam, and steel. I also think that while there are surely a heavy number of hucksters and charlatans, it would work in the setting to have the general content based in some reality (minor supernatural stuff, as @Chiyako put it). 
• Gold : We could use the almost magical ore mentioned in the original thread (coal that doesn't burn or burns with supernatural efficiency), or we could use actual gold, but I think having some resource rush (or the aftermath of one) gives us interesting tension points with desperate prospectors, sketchy land claims, and people who stand to win or lose fortunes on how quickly they act on whispered rumors. 
• Missions : It's classically Western to have the Padre at the old Mission, and while we may want to eschew real world Catholicism, having an in-world religion that acts as both a refuge to the simple folk of the land as well as a source of pain and contention to the native cultures and folk magic traditions feels right. Whatever form it takes, some sort of religious outpost (perhaps devotees of the Ashborn?) would help round things out a little more. 

Secondly, I'm intrigued, but have caveats: 

• Monsters : Chiyako mentioned minor monster stuff, and I think if could be fun to have monsters in the classic Universal Monster sense. What I mean is, there's not packs of werewolves in the canyons, but there's THE wolf man who haunts the old swamp. The government's official stance is that vampires are folklore, but people still hang garlic wreathes and draw crosses inside carriage doors because they know Colonel Widdershins in the old plantation house consorts with the dark powers. And the creature that's half-man half-fish dwells in the Rio Grande, ready to pull unsuspecting bathers to its subterranean grotto. I'm ok with them not being strictly 'evil', but think it works best if they are decidedly 'monstrous'. 
• Minor Supernatural Stuff : I'm in favor of folk magic so subtle that most people (particularly city-folk) don't believe in it anymore, but it is very much real. The gris-gris the old rootworker gives you isn't just a placebo, it actually keeps ghosts away and might steer that bullet meant for you into the steel flask in your breast pocket.

Thirdly, things I don't want:

• Full furries : I could get on board with there being a specific, small group of unique people who were experimented on with potions, surgery, and weird science to give them kemonomimi features and abilities. I think @WritesNaughtyStories idea of a military program to counter First Nation's seemingly 'supernatural' guerilla warfare tactics makes sense. I could see scientists from that program going rogue or independent as well. However, I feel like it stretches the setting if we have large groups of fully anthro furries out and about. 
• Real Historical figures : I'm ok drawing inspiration, but I feel like it would (personally) take me out of it to have literal Abraham Lincoln showing up in the newspaper, things like that. 

 

Ok. I might think of more, but that's all I have at the moment. 

14 minutes ago, IsabellaRose said:

Honestly, I could see this working as an almost Jekyll/Hyde formula type thing. 

First impression, I like it a lot. I would gladly play this version if the group's on board. 

[StarlitSiren]

I like this group