The Dragon Hunters (Steampunk)

[teh bunneh]

Just started up a new FtF Steampunk game, set in the world of the Kandris Seal.

The Cast:
Savannah Leblanc - Beautiful shootist from Louisiana, with a knack for trouble and action.
Morden Yazimoff - Jewish geomancer and student of the occult.
ADEN - Artificial clockwork man who serves Master Yazimoff with a upper crust demeanor.
Alicia Keen - Vertically challenged Italian mystic and seer with an air of mystery.
Thackary Hartwell - Young British Savant (mad scientist) specializing in weaponry and explosives.

[teh bunneh]

The first adventure is called The Great Road Rally!

--------------------
The heroes have all spent the last several months in training to be a Dragon Hunter, under the tutilige of a man named Pascal del Giatto. He is a middle-aged man, with graying hair and a pronounced limp, assisted by a gold-tipped cane with an elaborate, dragon-like head.

Mr. Giatto is a hard-edged fellow who didn’t tolerate shenanigans while the heroes were in training, but now that they’ve passed he seems to have mellowed out a bit. However, he is still emphatic about the seriousness of their mission. He has taken on the duties as the head of the Dragon Hunters, but he has made it clear that he is only the interim director, and is actively searching for a replacement.

(The previous head of the Dragon Hunters, John Smith, vanished a few years ago during a mission to the Himalayas).

Mr. Giatto summoned the heroes to the London Chapter House to tell them about their mission.

“For the past several weeks,” he explains, “The local broadsheets have been advertising the Great Road Rally. It is an 800-mile endurance challenge, to see who has the best design for a motorized auto-mobile. The prize is 10,000 pounds sterling, and dozens of competitors are expected to attempt the grueling run.”

“They've just published the racecourse,” he continued. “The race begins in London, goes to Cambridge, then to Peterborough, then Leicester. Then it breaks off and heads SW to Swindon. Then it goes back north through Gloucester, Worcester, Birmingham, and back to Leicester. From Leicester, it goes straight back to London, then from London to Worcester, back to Cambridge, and finally ends at Swindon.”

As he spoke, he drew out the course on a large map of England. It didn’t take long for the heroes to note the pattern that emerged – it was an enormous pentacle!

“As you can tell from this unusual route, something funny is going on,” Pascal said. “We don't know who is behind this, but we have the strong suspicion that something terrible will happen as soon as the race is complete – this much advanced machinery following a course with occult significance, while the eyes of the world are watching, it's a recipe for disaster.

“The mission you are to undertake is two-fold. First, we need to find out who is sponsoring the race and for what purpose (and, if possible, to stop them from achieving their goal). Second, we need you to make sure that none of the competitors cross the finish line – who knows what evil they'll unwittingly unleash if they do.”

Since time was of the essence, the Dragon Hunters immediately split up to accomplish a number of tasks. Alicia and Savannah headed to the offices of the Daily Mail to ask questions of the reporters. Thackary went to the edge of town, where the race would begin, to question the racers themselves. Morden and ADEN bought train tickets to Leicester to scout out the first stopping point of the race.

Alicia and Savannah found the Daily Mail without any problem. They wandered around through the offices for a while, trying to get someone’s attention, but everyone just ignored them. Finally, they found the Editor-in-Chief’s office and walked in. At first, the Editor was stunned at the audacity of these women. But they explained to him that they were employed by a large insurance agency and were required to find out who the sponsor of the Great Road Rally was.

The Editor directed them to a novice reporter named Kent. Kent, flustered by the women, told them that he didn’t really know who the sponsor was, but that the prize money was guaranteed by the First Bank of Ireland, and the man in charge of disbursing the cash was a solicitor named Mr. Barry Brogan, esq. Kent even gave them Brogan’s address, an office in the north part of the city.

Meanwhile, Thackary went to the start of the racecourse to see what he could learn of the competitors. He spoke with a gangly and geeky racer whose “Algernon-mobile” would (in Thackary’s professional opinion) never make it to the finish line. Algernon told Thackary that there were five “racers to beat” in the competition of some 30 or 35 racers. They were:

• Les Frères de Grognard, two French brothers.
• Herr Maximilian Schenk, a German Savant.
• Colonel Blestonov, a Russian military man. He is driving a vehicle not of his own design, but under the flag of the Czar of Russia and built by the Czar's small army of engineers and Savants. This vehicle doesn't have a name, only a number – 37. No one knows what happened to the first 36.
• Lucus Hatfield, an American inventor who has created an amazing vehicle – it runs on legs rather than wheels (he was showing off to the other racers earlier that day)!
• Professor Patricks is the British favorite. The specs and details of his vehicle have been kept top-secret for months, but that hasn't stopped the press from speculating about it.

Algernon thought this was unfair, as all of the top competitors were already well-known in engineering circles (except perhaps Hatfield), and they all had top-notch workshops and many trained assistants to help them.

Meanwhile, Morden and ADEN took the train north to Leicester. They immediately rented enough rooms for the rest of the team when they got there (as rooms were filling up fast with people coming to see the race).

Morden took some time to study the race course. He felt certain that this was designed to be some sort of summoning spell, but summoning what? And who would want to do such a thing? He also thought that whatever they were summoning would most likely appear somewhere directly in the middle of the pentagram. But according to the map, there wasn’t much of anything there – just some insignificant farms and manors.

He then rented a carriage to drive down the road to Swinton a few miles. He learned that as soon as you were out of the Leicester city limits, houses and farms grew farther and farther apart. He decided it wouldn’t be hard to sabotage the race course – perhaps eliminate a bridge here, block the road there, that sort of thing. It might not stop the race, but it would certainly slow it down.

ADEN went to the first finish line to see what he could learn. He discovered that security was fairly light. Each competitor was expected to provide his or her own security while their vehicles were parked. The race sponsors’ only duty was to check the cars in as they arrived, to log their time. ADEN learned that there were several checkpoints along the racecourse. Each competitor has to be clocked in at each checkpoint or they would be disqualified for cheating (no shortcuts!).

Furthermore, ADEN learned that there are few rules and no referees along the racecourse, so the sponsors expect things to get rough out there. They fully expect most of the racers to not be able to finish – either due to irreparable damage to their vehicles, or injuries (possibly even deaths!) among the drivers. The young man ADEN talked to seemed rather callous about this, suggesting that “Everyone knows there aren’t no rules. You pay your 20 quid, you take your chances.”

ADEN asked if there was any medical service for injured competitors, and the man shrugged. ADEN sensed a possible way to disrupt the race. “Who would I talk to about providing said services?” he asked.

“Oh, you want to talk to Mr. Blacksmith. He’s in charge of mapping out the course and putting up the checkpoints. We expect him to be here in the morning.” ADEN took note of this and immediately headed to the telegraph office to call the others.

He spoke with Thackary, who had already convinced himself that he needed to join the race in order to keep an eye on things from the inside. The young Savant was already hard at work putting together an electric car, fueled by lightning, ground friction, and the static electricity generated by dozens of cats.

ADEN then contacted Alicia and Savannah and told them what he had learned. Alicia agreed to get on the next train to Leicester, but Thackary wanted Savannah to be his co-pilot – in case things got rough on the racecourse, he wanted someone there who could shoot!

Things were starting to fall into place. Tomorrow, the Great Road Rally would begin!

[clsage]

Just started up a new FtF Steampunk game, set in the world of the Kandris Seal.

The Cast:
Savannah Leblanc - Beautiful shootist from Louisiana, with a knack for trouble and action.
Morden Yazimoff - Jewish geomancer and student of the occult.
ADEN - Artificial clockwork man who serves Master Yazimoff with a upper crust demeanor.
Alicia Keen - Vertically challenged Italian mystic and seer with an air of mystery.
Thackary Hartwell - Young British Savant (mad scientist) specializing in weaponry and explosives.

Will we have the pleasure of seeing the character sheets at some point ?......Please and thank you.

-Carl-

[SSgt Baloo]

He spoke with Thackary, who had already convinced himself that he needed to join the race in order to keep an eye on things from the inside. The young Savant was already hard at work putting together an electric car, fueled by lightning, ground friction, and the static electricity generated by dozens of cats.

That image alone makes me wish I were playing in that campaign.

[teh bunneh]

Will we have the pleasure of seeing the character sheets at some point ?......Please and thank you.

Eventually, yes, once everyone has them finalized.

[teh bunneh]

The Dragon Hunters
Welcome to the mythical 19th Century! It is a world of wonder, of adventure, of magic, and of strange technology and amazing (yet unlikely) inventions. The Kandris Seal is a universe in which the great demon lords and their evil servants are attempting to devour our world. Those who stand against them – an order of mages known as the Thaumaturgia – keep our dimension safe from their threats. This is the world of the Industrial Age as it truly was, envisioned by those far-sighted luminaries and savants who looked beyond the feeble limitations of man and created a world in which science, technology, and logic triumphed over the mundane physical limitations of the Universe.

This is an age that never was, filled with radium-powered flying machines, clockwork automata, and steam-driven computers. It is an age of dark magic, sinister secrets, and unholy cults. It is a time in which the world teeters on the edge of chaos, where the enlightened scientific mind battled against ancient superstition and ignorance, in which the souls of all mankind hung in the balance.

What is Steampunk?
Steampunk. The word itself conjures extravagant images of great clanking engines of brass and steel, churning cogs and hissing steam, clockwork men and machines that fly on wings of leather and gossamer, fantastic devices the likes of which the world would never – and could never – see.

The Victorian era gave birth to what we know now as science fiction. Visionaries who wrote during this time period gave us our first glimpses of a world run by (or, in some cases, over-run by) the marvels of science and engineering. Mary Shelley showed us that scientists could create life without the need for women; H.G. Wells showed us the dangers of tinkering with man’s moral and social frameworks; Jules Verne took us under the sea, around the world, and into the center of the Earth. Ripping good yarns, all... but what if the worlds they described were real?

The Steampunk age is an era in which modern technological conceits appeared much earlier in history, built on the science and industry that existed in the nineteenth century. It is a world in which the Industrial Revolution brought with it more than just the spinning jenny, the flying shuttle, and the steam locomotive – it brought walking war-machines, radium furnaces, difference engines, and time machines.

The world of Steampunk is a world in which these outlandish marvels of science, industry, and technology (and many others, besides) are real. Steampunk shows us the Victorian Age as we imagine it should have been, instead of as it really was.

The Rise of the Savants, 1850-1860
In 1850, there were scores of brilliant engineers in England, Continental Europe, and America, all working on expanding mankind's knowledge and understanding of the universe in which he lived. By 1860, that number suddenly ballooned into hundreds. Colleges and Universities couldn't keep up with the demand, turning away scores of qualified applicants. Many of those who were turned away sought funding from entrepreneurs and investors, founding their own factories and forges, and often taking on their own apprentices to train.

And what wondrous creations they built! Where once engineers were satisfied with increasing the speed or the power or the range of a locomotive, these new geniuses laughed at the limitations of their predecessors. They built machines undreamt of by previous generations, defying all the known laws of physics. They explored places of the world previously unseen and untouched by the hands of man. They were more than mere engineers; they were Savants.

The City of Glass, 1860
In 1860, a brilliant Savant by the name of Cardinalè – known today as Le Pilote Fou or the Mad Pilot – realized his lifelong dream by building the greatest invention ever seen. On the outskirts of Paris, he created an entire city out of crystal and brass, powered via enormous, coal-burning steam engines, which he dubbed La Ville du Verre, or the City of Glass.

It was truly a wonder to behold, a carnival of delights. Every piece of the city was automated, from moving sidewalks to stairways which effortlessly transported people from one level to another. Doors opened automatically; giant fans provided a constant cooling breeze over the whole city; great clocks chimed on the hour, filling the city with music the likes of which the world had never known. Even the natives of the city were automata – tiny brass clockwork birds sang in the silver-leaved trees, wind-up dogs frolicked and did tricks, and steam-powered puppets danced in every window for the pleasure of their audience.

Cardinalè invited the crème de la crème of European society to witness his creation's unveiling. Dukes, princes, and archbishops roamed the streets of his City for an entire afternoon, marveling at each new sight. That evening at dinner, Cardinalè boasted that what his audience had seen so far was nothing, and that nothing on earth could prepare them for what they were about to see.

The Savant turned to a control panel and pulled a lever. The entire city began to thrum and vibrate, and then, to the shock and delight of the people, the City of Glass rose off the ground. It was flying! An entire city, in defiance of the laws of gravity, powered by steam and the vision of one man, was flying!

The city moved westward, powered by jets of steam and giant propellers. Cardinalè announced that he was going to land the City of Glass at the edge of Besançon, where the Exposition Universelle (World's Fair) was being held. He would prove to the entire world that France was the greatest nation on the Earth, and that none could stand up to its technological prowess.

The City traveled the length of France in a single night, moving at tremendous speeds. But as it approached Besançon, disaster struck. Nobody knows what really happened; eyewitnesses claim that an explosion crippled one of the great propellors keeping the City aloft. The City shuddered and slowly, ponderously began to tilt to one side. Then, another explosion and more propellors stopped turning. The pilot of the ship – many today assume it was Cardinalè himself – tried heroically to keep the City in the air, but it was no use. Without the miraculous propellers spinning, the City plummeted like a brick, plowing through the World's Fair and the city of Besançon itself.

Hundreds of citizens were killed as the City of Glass plowed through their homes. Scores of scientists and engineers who were attending the Fair also lost their lives. And perhaps most telling, all the passengers and crew (including Cardinalè) on the City of Glass died. Governments blamed the disaster on anarchists – filled with the cream of European royalty, it was a tempting target for devils such as they. Too late, the great nations of the world realized the power that the Savants had been allowed to play with, unchecked. The Time of Waiting was over, and despite claims of many futurists, it did not bring about a golden age of wonders. Instead, the Time of Turmoil had begun.

The Time of Turmoil, ~1861-1870
Even before the City of Glass shattered, trouble was on the horizon. Political and economic pressures were building like steam in a teakettle, just looking for an escape valve. The destruction of the great palace of brass and crystal and steel – and the deaths of so many important people – set off repercussions that reverberated throughout the western world. Governments realized that they could no longer afford to allow the Savants to continue their work unsupervised and unchecked. At the same time, they came to discover the potential of these new inventions as tools for trade, for policy – and for war.

There were dozens of wars, large and small, fought throughout this period. From the frontiers of America to the greatest cities of Europe to the palaces of Russia to the most uncivilized corner of Africa, no place was safe. War took on a brutal cast that had never before been imagined – amazing new instruments of destruction rained fire down over enemy and innocent without discrimination, and the battlefields were littered with the wreckage of machinery and the bodies of mankind’s best and brightest.

It ended nearly as suddenly as it began. It seemed that humankind, exhausted from the brutality, finally learned to live with one another in peace.

The Gilded Age, ~1870-present
The Gilded Age is when technology truly came into its own! This is an age of great things, when the horrors of the Time of Turmoil were over and done. It is a period of great development – economic, political, social, and of course, technological. Peace reigns throughout Europe, and American is expanding westward, fulfilling its Manifest Destiny.

The Gilded Age is defined by a virtual explosion of commerce and industry – supported by the rapidly-developing technological advancements which came ceaselessly from the factories, forges, and foundries of the Savants. The Patent Office granted a hundred times as many patents during the Gilded Age as they had throughout the entire previous century. The technology available to the common man was finally beginning to catch up to the extravagant developments that Savants had made in the 20 years prior.

This is when our game begins…

[teh bunneh]

Character Creation
The game will begin in eighteen ninety-something. The heroes have all been recruited into a secret organization known as the Dragon Hunters. Much like the BPRD (of Hellboy fame), the Dragon Hunters are “The ones who bump back.” They deal with menaces – of both the supernatural and the super-scientific types – that no one else is prepared to deal with.

But the Dragon Hunters recently had a setback. Their leader, a man called John Smith (sometimes known as “The Luckiest Man Alive”), disappeared a few years ago during an ill-fated mission to the Himalayas. It seems his renowned luck finally ran out. Since then, the Dragon Hunters have been in turmoil. No one is sure who will take charge now that Smith is gone, but one thing is certain – things will never be the same again.

Types of Characters
Players can choose pretty much any type of character that would’ve been around in the late 19th century. A Victorian Lord, a Russian Princess, an American Cowboy, a French Legionnaire, a Perspicacious Consulting Detective, an Adventuress… pretty much anything from history or the literature of the time. Play someone with a Heroic motivation who can work well with a team – no Victorian Wolverines or bowler-hat-wearing Punishers, please. =

There are three other options available as well. The first is a type of character known as a Savant.

A Savant is a scientist stirred with an engineer, mixed with a lot of genius, and blended with a just touch of madness. They don't perceive the world in the same way that others do; they see a universe rife with possibility. They view scientific facts and physical laws as mere stepping-stones to something that others cannot understand. To them, ordinary scientists are nothing more than children playing a game of Pin-The-Tail-On-The-Donkey, blindfolded and spun around, groping for the truth but unable to grasp its significance. The Savant, on the other hand, has his eyes wide open. Where others see madness, he sees potential – and he uses his genius to develop that potential into objects of power and wonder. Any engineer can repair a locomotive. Any scientist can understand the principles involved in the operation of an incandescent light bulb. But only a Savant can make the laws of physics, biology, and chemistry sit up and beg.

A Savant is a type of mage, but he does not use ancient spells and alchemical formulas to work his miracles. He uses iron and brass, crystal and mother-of-pearl, clockwork and steam. With the precise applications of (admittedly, rubber) scientific principles, he creates devices which should not work, and yet miraculously do. Most Savants don't believe in magic, and would vehemently deny that what they do is anything more than cutting-edge science. If other engineers fail to make their devices work as well as his do, it is because they are lesser minds, not because of any hocus-pocus or mumbo-jumbo.

The second option is a Mage. Occultism was very trendy in the Victorian era, with mediums and fakirs who claimed to be able to speak with the dead, summon spirits, and even place curses on their enemies. Most of these so-called sorcerers were outright frauds, but in fact there are real mages out there – geomancers who harness the power of the earth, wizards who study carefully-researched spells, diviners who can catch glimpses of the future, alchemists whose concoctions can create miraculous effects, and dark sorcerers who truck with demons to gain their powers.

The third option would be the result of either super-science or mystic sorcery. You could create an artifact of science, like an Automaton driven by clockwork springs and gears which somehow developed sapience; or a Patchwork Man, stitched together by a master surgeon and brought to life via occult means; or something along those lines. Victorian science fiction is filled with such creatures, from Shelley’s Frankenstein to Ellis’ Steam Man.

[matrix3]

Yes! Another campaign log from teh bunneh!

[input.jack]

Im curious to hear how the game plays.

[teh bunneh]

Im curious to hear how the game plays.

Yeah, me too.

[Major Tom]

Me, I want to see how the business with the Catmobile turns out.


Major Tom
12 more to go...

[Lonewalker]

Im curious to hear how the game plays.

As a player in the game, I predict an excessive amount of explosive mayhem - some of it even intentional.

- Lonewalker

[pinecone]

Me, I want to see how the business with the Catmobile turns out.


Major Tom
12 more to go...

It went GREAT!...Umm, and then we drove past the school where they do Shutzen training...(A particular type of dog training, mostly Rotweilers and Shepards)....we went fast, but it wasn't great...

[Major Tom]

It went GREAT!...Umm, and then we drove past the school where they do Shutzen training...(A particular type of dog training, mostly Rotweilers and Shepards)....we went fast, but it wasn't great...

That's what you get when you rely too much on p**** power instead of
good-old-fashioned horsepower...everything goes right into the litterbox.



Major Tom

[Major Tom]

As a player in the game, I predict an excessive amount of explosive mayhem - some of it even intentional.

- Lonewalker

The Stormguard (the PC group in the Champions campaign I was in) had a
similar (non-intentional) predisposition toward mayhem of that sort, but
the worst thing that we managed to do in the campaign was to wreck the
Lemurians' WMD -- the Mandragalore -- much to the consternation of
the Time Police.



Major Tom
10 more to go...