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

[WritesNaughtyStories]

1 hour ago, WickedCadrach said:

Airships : aesthetically, I would prefer zeppelins and hot air balloons over anything more scifi or fantasy.

Absolutely, I concur. Zeppelins.

1 hour ago, WickedCadrach said:

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.

This precisely gets to the kind of technological tension and kind of struggle to forge a better future in the frontier that I most associate with westerns.

 

1 hour ago, WickedCadrach said:

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.

Leaning so heavily on Izzy's Prudence Lawton as my character concept does, I'm voting this is whoever Prudence broke from. Are the Unbound analogous to the early Protestants and Unitarians? How violent is the schism?

[StarlitSiren]

-Balls; I love the idea of that divide between the fringe or frontier, and the civilised folk or even those trying to emulate them on that same Frontier. The working men and women contrasted with the rich land and business owners holding events like they're in the centre of civilisation, far from the frontier.

-Heists?- a complicated plan with little to no chance of going off correctly.

-Horses; Maybe unnecessary to add, but the Frontier can't be all trains and zeppelins (though I love them both, especially with our aesthetic.) I imagine civilisation being incredibly reliant on the technology and industrial side, while the frontier/fringe likewise uses it mingled with old timey wild west things. Work horses and steeds for riding would be important.

-Gadgets; As Millie, I'd love some freedom (within reasonable bounds) to cobble silly gadgets and such together with that steampunk aesthetic. Depending on how the story goes she might not be taking anything like a workshop around with her, so the ability to tinker on the move would be appreciated in a way that wouldn't break the tone.

 

[Chiyako]

Whew. Busy day over.

I love both takes on how we could get slightly animalistic featured peoples in this setting. They should be limited, at least to some extent, and leaning into the exploitation and prejudice against them (and possibly reverence in certain cultures) is definitely a great idea. Even if they are a very small population that still allows multiple players to take on that role, should they wish. It would make more sense after all that a small population facing prejudice from the rest would try to stick together when they do find one another, after all.

As far as airships goes in a steampunk setting I'd always visualized them more as zepplins and such regardless. Airships could actually be pretty tough to bring down, especially once they moved more towards using helium. Boost it with steam tech. They should be the cruise vessels of the sky. Even with airship technologies, there are still limitations for each major travel technology which justifies the survival and widespread use of others.

• Airships, for example, are still pretty beholden to weather and limited landing points. While they are capable of traversing across terrain features with limited issues (for example, they still have to be careful around things like mountains which can have unpredictable weather, especially in these sorts of early days of technology when weather wasn't really as well studied as it is today), they are also limited in speed. Those sorts of airships really didn't move very quick, nor did they have incredible carrying capacity.
• Airplanes. At their highest tech level they might be bi-plane or tri-plane type designed aircraft: capable of single or dual piloted flight but also very risky, still limited in terms of speed, generally more limited in terms of armnaments and flight distance, and much frailer. They weren't really getting off the ground very well until the early 1900's. With steampunk technology a case could be made to include them (maybe at best technology wise something like what is found in Porco Rosso). Could be a neat thing to include, and at this time period they would be fairly limited in number. But not something we even need to include, given they might be a little later than we are planning to focus on.
• Regular steam based ships, whether riverboat or via ocean travel, could carry a lot. Rivers are natural bloodlines for industry. However they had plenty of issues with speed, weather, and both limited travel paths and ports. And, obviously, they don't move on land, so that cargo needs to be offloaded onto different forms of travel.
• Trains were the rising king of the era. They could move very quickly and they could carry a lot. That said, setting them up took a lot of time, a lot of manpower, a lot of money, and where they could be set up was still limited by terrain features. They also had to be set from one specific point to another. Trains are excellent but still as limited as water faring vessels.
• Which brings us to the humble horse. Is it the fastest method of travel? Not any more. The safest? Hardly. But most of the land was not yet developed, and even cities which included trains still needed to shift their cargo away from the trainyard. In certain regions horses could still move more quickly than trains, since they could take shortcuts that trains couldn't, and trains were still limited in terms of speed based of technology of the time and the need to take certain sections slower (they can't move top speed around corners, after all, and there are all sorts of things that could slow a train down, like landslides or migrating herds of animals). In most places you still needed horses to get anywhere quickly. Horses weren't really negated completely until the rise of the automobile.
• Speaking of: automobiles. The earliest iterations were seen in the second half of the 1880's. It would be entirely possible for them to exist in this setting if we wanted, especially if we're using steampunk technologies. However at the time they were more of a novelty. They could move quicker than a horse, but broke down easily. Roads weren't well established, so they had limited paths to take. They weren't long distance. They couldn't carry many people. They didn't have great carrying capacity. And they were very difficult to make and maintain (mass produced vehicles, including creating mass produced parts for upkeep of those vehicles, hadn't been established yet and new parts would need to be made by hand, nor was there any sort of standardization), meaning you would need to be a wealthy person living in a city with better roads to really use it, and even then they were not very safe (seatbelts weren't really a thing initially and they weren't even widely adapted into the industry until the 1950's). They didn't really make horses obsolete until the later world wars era, which is far and away from what our planned setting is.

It really depends on what we would want or not want to use, but I think even if all these things were available to our setting none would outshine the use of horses, and all would really outshine the automobile. Personally I'd be fine with just not having airplanes, even not having automobiles (maybe steam powered automaton horse pulled carriages, wagons, and buggies take their place). Just figured I'd toss out some ideas for flavoring things, and reinforce @StarlitSiren's idea of keeping horses relevant.

I do love the idea of automatons in various industries being treated as a sort of boogeyman. If we do include automaton types of peoples I think it should be prejudiced against by at least a decent portion of the population, mostly those working in the fields where they are being displaced from their jobs. Given that the only people who could afford them would be the wealthy, and it would be a way to increase the wealth gap (as they don't need to pay people for the work), it would also work for increasing the class disparity issues found in these sorts of settings.

I agree that supernatural monster sort of stuff shouldn't be super widespread. In this age of steampunk technology and growing industry those sorts of creatures, if they do exist, would definitely be on the defensive. They would want to remain hidden if possible, and the march of technology from Humans would mean that they would probably have been culled. Some could be the results of weird scientific experiments, just as with the kenomimi creatures. Subtle magic and very rare supernatural creatures sounds like a good idea to me. As far as their being monstrous goes, they could be monstrous in nature, monstrous in appearance, or perhaps even monstrous based off rumors alone. Perhaps appearance or rumors end up creating something monstrous in nature, whether for self preservation or a culled sense of empathy. Much of it could just be people mistaken to be monsters. Different angles to go, but if we're including weird stuff I think very limited supernatural entities could work too. And probably very prejudiced against within just about every society, perhaps even moreso than the kemomimi type experiment creatures (provided we go with that). They would definitely want to keep their true identity hidden to the world.

And honestly if I made my Vampire the biggest thing would be hiding the fangs and the ears. Maybe the eyes. Fangs might not be an issue if they are the sort of vampire who can retract them at will. The eyes? They are just an albino! Don't you see the pale skin? Claws? Just fingernails! Don't worry about that. Those long ears? Errr. Well. They are from a distinct tribe found within *insert remote location that no local probably would know about, or perhaps a made up one*. You wouldn't know it. All our ears are longer and pointier. Don't worry about it!

Full furries might be an issue, but you could theoretically spin it as being a werewolf sort of creature. It could work for a circus freak sort of thing. Provided we are including minor supernatural stuff. That said, it would be incredibly difficult to hide that, and I think they would find the world a lot meaner place.

I agree that we shouldn't use real historical figures, if at all possible. For the same reason I generally don't like to do stuff with canon characters from other settings: it just feels weird.

Balls work, especially for the wealthy southern plantation owner sorts. I assume we are doing a post-civil war thing. They would still exist, just perhaps have less power than the government. But perhaps the era of steampunk has seen a rise in their power and an increase in their number? I think it helps with the class disparity thing which, again, I think works well in this setting.

Heists sound fun. How many we do I think depends on what sort of roleplay we want to do as a group. Or, rather, why we are together as a group.

Gadgets should definitely be a mainstay in any steampunk era game. How that is handled on the go again I think depends on what sort of group we are and how we get around. But if steampunk is this big growing monster in the world I'd expect to see at least one or more competing steampunk focused industries or shops or guild halls or whatever have you in every major city. Out in the smaller towns or the undeveloped west? Might be more difficult to find, and might have to cobble together some really makeshift, perhaps really unreliable devices.

Edited 6 hours ago by Chiyako

[WritesNaughtyStories]

2 hours ago, StarlitSiren said:

Depending on how the story goes she might not be taking anything like a workshop around with her, so the ability to tinker on the move would be appreciated in a way that wouldn't break the tone.

This is an important thought.

What kind of story are we thinking about telling? Are we a band of outlaws running from hideout to hideout? Are we the folk who inhabit some frontier town or or the area of little villages, small farms that have cropped up around a fort or mission? Isabella had suggested a couple of traveling groups, a circus, refugees of a caravan of settlers pushing forward into the unknown?

I personally kind of favor the idea of a slightly larger town, perhaps built up around the church, with a sheriff and their deputy, a few shop owners, two saloons and a brothel that draws in enough visitors to the town from the nearby fort, mining claims and mountain trappers that everyone knows they need it.

@StarlitSiren, would Millie have her own little workshop, over by the train station where locals come to get things fixed or is it secreted away in some mine that didn't pan out or remote little box canyon?

Part of the upside of this kind of town is that it gives enough infrastructure for the growing class and technological divides to show and gives us as players a place to get in trouble. And for there to be enough wealth that there could be balls to attend (or disrupt in a drunken ploy to win Annabelle's hand away from Beauregard's thieving hand).

The down side is it's stable, and there's a lot going on, so what kind of trouble might face this town that we'd all have stakes in fixing together? Maybe not as part of the 7 Samurai kind of defense (maybe that too) but something we might all interact with and cause is to interact with each other?

A thought I'd like to suggest is displacement creating trouble. Native tribal groups, uprooted and forced into other tribal lands, new settlers, perhaps workers forced out of jobs in big cities by automatons and relocated to the frontiers by tiny buyouts and inadequate government grants. Is there some kind of tent city?

Some of that might come out in Pathways, but it's worth at least beginning to think about now. An alternative is boom town that's grown up around lumber and gold, with a mission a few hours off and little else?

@Chiyako, a vampire scares me a little. They are, by definition, predatory which makes them very likely to be a problem for the rest of the players to "solve". Could I convince you to go with the mysterious eastern European noble, with wealth, strange manners, and albinoism who many locals think is a vampire?

Horses are a must. While automobiles exist historically in this time frame, they were incredibly rare and unreliable. I think we should have one. Maybe Millie built it, inspired by a story in the newspaper brought from New Amsterdam via the long trip of train, postal riders and the Army Captain at the fort?

[Chiyako]

@WritesNaughtyStories Truth be told if I was going with my Vampire idea I wouldn't be leaning into them actually being wealthy and such. More on the run, partially because of what they are and partially because of what they do (being a mad scientist and such, running not so kind experiments regardless of consent). Maybe dressed in wealthy garb showing signs (to those perceptive enough) of having been more hastily upkept and perhaps starting to show wear and tear. That said I do understand that them being a Vampire does mean an issue of them feeding on players (or experimenting upon them, or rather making an attempt to do so). If they are interesting enough they'd probably be a little safer from her (at least in terms of feeding and any more dangerous experiments), and if they are too strong they'd definitely be safer (why feed on something strong when it increases risk, also experimenting on something strong carries greater risk). I think players would typically fit one or both of those criteria (for the most part, it is possible for situations to shift that balance). That said she is pragmatic enough to avoid harming allies (why damage good relations with those who might offer protection or other benefits, perhaps even voluntary guinea pigs or meals if said relation is good enough). She generally underfeeds as well. In the last game she was just too focused on her experiments. In this setting it could be some of the same, perhaps combined with just a lack of opportunities (which I suppose opens up some dangers if that is the case).

All that said, if it still something you or anyone else is uncomfortable with, I could simply drop that character idea entirely. I don't really intend on playing her as just some weird looking/acting Human, as it doesn't really fit much into what I envision the character as. There are still the other ideas to work with (the clockwork automaton/cyborg experiment creation thing, or the maybe not quite Human gunslinger with a metal arm). Much less fleshed out, but that's never really stopped me before. They would just be new characters, which is fine. I'm not going to leave because of it and this is, after all, why we do these discussions.

Edited 5 hours ago by Chiyako

[StarlitSiren]

@WritesNaughtyStories

I like the slightly larger town setting. Settlers follow the 'gold' rush and the promise of new lands to colonise, and in this case it's sort of a success and the town does a lot better than most of the small settlements on the fringe. Now, this doesn't disqualify a world where a bad end means the town is destroyed/lost/we're branded outlaws, etc, and then we end up on the run, but as a baseline I like the town idea. The stability is a nice safety net to potentially begin our story depending on how it goes and if things work out in whatever which way.

In that event, Millie absolutely has a workshop. Only as fancy as anything else in a fringe town, with family in the distant City whom don't know why she's 'wasting her time there.' I'd say she's well known in town as the weird recluse who doesn't entirely know how to talk to people about anything except her craft (she's neuro-divergent coded for sure.) Perhaps the workshop built up around her initial role as an engineer on the fringe side to manage the one railway's train, checking it's mechanisms before each time it departed back for Civilisation?

I like the displacement premise, but very much would personally lean into the 'city folk' forced out of their work in Civilisation, perhaps with a nefarious end as the powers-that be from the City are trying to take monetary ownership of what's been built on the fringe.

 

[WickedCadrach]

Just want to second @StarlitSiren's ideas of Balls and Horses. A gala ball filled with frontier opulence and barely obscured debauchery sounds delicious.

And while I think planes go a bit too far, I think @Chiyako's idea a few cars as novelties of the wealthy or eccentric inventors fits well.

[StarlitSiren]

Not to be on the nose, but I'm also very on board with the tone of promiscuity as a theme throughout, in whatever way we work it with your system. The idea that that might or might not be promoted by different sects/factions of faith is equally fun

[MagnificentBastard]

I want to preface what bellow that nothing is a deal breaker for me, and what I put in sections are just personal preferences or suggestions.

I WANT

- Saloon, balls, horses, trains, these in my opinion are vital for that western feel.

- Automaton horses, zepellins, promiscuity these are things that other people have suggested and I second them, in particular I think zeppelins would be an easy way to bring characters from Europe, Asia and the like into our location, and for us to travel without much friction. And promiscuity and debauchery are my bread and butter.

- Alternative history, I think this is a good idea.

- Steampunk prosthetics and guns, these seem to me, like a natural conclusion of merging Western with Steampunk. If miners suffer a cave i and loose a limb they may be forced to take an experimental replacement, seems logical as well that a gun may be hidden inside a mechanical arm. These also seems to fit the Frankenstein/Nikola Tesla angle.

- To bring an element of the supernatural, if you think of Lovecraft his stories include either bizarre cults, ancient artifacts and/or places to be studied and I think objects of an ancient civilization or unknown origin being found in our location and because of that, people flock to the location, it's own gold rush but fir mysterious things, of course you can also gold on top of that.

- Lawlessness, I think one of the things that makes a western feel like a western is this sense of lawlessness, I think this also helps with horror and erotica. All my characters would be attracted to such a place fot different reasons. The detective because there would be a lot of work, the scientist because he could conduct experiments there, and the Crowley expy would be attracted to the anything goes feel of the place.

DO NOT WANT

- Zombies, vampires, werewolves, furries, I just dont think they fit the tone, I could the as one offs, but its not something I want to focus on.

[IsabellaRose]

10 hours ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

Leaning so heavily on Izzy's Prudence Lawton as my character concept does, I'm voting this is whoever Prudence broke from. Are the Unbound analogous to the early Protestants and Unitarians? How violent is the schism?

Prudence broke from a very harsh religion that imposed their righteousness through capital punishment of blasphemy. I think they may not be the religion that offers sanctuary, but the one many need sanctuary from. Perhaps there are at least two main religions, one old and established, seeking to bring the light of their god to the masses, including the savages. They mean well, but don't understand how oppressive they are to other beliefs, and offer sanctuary.

The religion that Prudence belonged to is a very harsh, extra double plus Puritanical version of this older religion, a group that seeks to cleanse the evils of the world with fire and blood. Maybe they have their own enigmatic "prophet".

[IsabellaRose]

4 hours ago, WritesNaughtyStories said:

a vampire scares me a little. They are, by definition, predatory which makes them very likely to be a problem for the rest of the players to "solve".

 

4 hours ago, Chiyako said:

on the run, partially because of what they are and partially because of what they do (being a mad scientist and such, running not so kind experiments regardless of consent).

 

43 minutes ago, MagnificentBastard said:

DO NOT WANT

- Zombies, vampires, werewolves, furries, I just dont think they fit the tone, I could the as one offs, but its not something I want to focus on.

 

My preference would be to lean away from vampires. A vampire implies someone who turned them into a vampire, which implies other vampires, which implies hunters, which implies more than I personally wanted to include. 

But, a note to consider: the players don't all have to be friends. They have Relationships with each other, but they don't have to be good relationships, they just have to involve strong feelings.

Consider that the original game setup for the Smallville game this system was originally designed for included pre-generated characters for both Clark Kent AND Lex Luthor. Dramatic entanglements between rivals can be even more fun. Just sayin'.

This is why I like the town idea proposed earlier by WNS. There can be a bit of everything, and everyone can have widely different relationships to the same members of the community. The mid-sized town is an ideal setup for drama and passion to mix. It can be our own little steampunk Deadwood, but further west with more dust and less mud.