Arcanum 2 Never, So Why Not Check Out This Samey-but-Also-Opposite Steampunk Fantasy Setting of Mine?

[cyborgboy95]

Tired of waiting for an Arcanum 2 that may never come? Sick of the way Bethesda handle Fallout franchise with their theme-park approach that doesn't hold up lore-wise?? You've came to the right place then. I myself harbor the same feeling, so I decide to step up and create a setting of my own that can hopefully fill in Fallout and Arcanum's shoes, a steampunk fantasy post-nuclear-apocalypse setting.

I know I know, you are probably thinking "too much tropes/genres crammed into one setting" or something along the line, but please hear me out first. After all, Shadowrun and Arcanum prove that combining Tolkienesque fantasy with other genres can work if done right. I think I may have something here, but I would like top hear others' thoughts about it first, so here is the introduction to my setting:

"In a run-of-the-mil fantasy setting with dungeon, dragons, mages, elf, deities and the likes; there was a period where the the force behind every spell disappear or at least severely weaken, forcing civilized races to stop relying on magic and develop techonology instead.

By the time magic finally return, the world was already at the Steam-age. It was then that people discoverd that that magic cost significant less mana than usual when used in conjunction with steam-powered tech and later hydroelectricity-powered and even nuclear reactor-powered tech (because from what I understand, A nuclear reactor is basically a more complicated steam engine, people in my setting can use magic to deal with the 'complicated' parts). As for why, lets just handwave that the water of this world is special, shall we?

With the aid of low-cost spells/wands/scrolls that especially designed to elevate those kind of tech, they manage to soon mass produce and commercialize pretty out there inventions that our modern world can still only dream of (robots, advanced AI, power armor, steam-engine vehicles that float or ran as well as modern real car, vv...), while maintaining the Victorian aesthetic. Oil is pretty much worthless in this world though, people there never has a reason to look at or develop diesal-fuel tech like our world.

However, the civilized races of my setting try to use this kind of technomagic to build an artificial god that can analyze and even predict the future, with a super-AI as an important part of this god, which trigger the nature-born gods and lead to a war between their followers and the builders -> nuclear holocaust (yes they have nuke like our world for reasons mentioned above)

The builders want an artificial god that is wholly on mortals' side and maybe capable of overthrowing other natural-born deities just in case, I think this reason is quite believable, given that the temporary disappearance of magic earlier may have something to do with civil wars between the natural gods which caused great damage to the world (though not to the extent of the nuclear war later on)

After the nuclear war, most natural-born deities are dead, the world become cursed and irradiated, which explain why the radiation cause fantastical mutation like in Fallout instead of just cancer IRL. It also ensure that the existence of magical anomalies in my setting make more sense than in Stalker.

The magic of my setting become twisted as well. Back before the nuclear war, the only people who can cast spell effectively are those who are born with innate magical talent (which require appropriate training to fully utilize its potential also) , or clerics who worship the natural-born gods. After the apocalypse, anyone can use magic... at the risk of becoming more radiated and mutated further.

Those who are born with magical talent still exist after the war that ends the world. For them, the price/risk of using magic (irradiated, mutation) is less than normal person, or they can just transfer that price/risk to someone or something else.

In my Victorian Tolkienesque post-apocalyptic fantasy setting, legendary weapons with special effects exist, and unlike Fallout 4 there is a good reason for it: magic can be imbued in normal objects or weapons like sword, armor, guns as well; it is just that the cost of mana and level of spell to do such thing are high, which explain their rareness.

Last but not least, the civilized races of my setting are: human, elf, dwarf, orc & goblin (barely civilized), half-elf, half-orc."

So what do you think? This is just the most general idea about my setting, I intend to do research and develop it more in my spare time long-term, could be fun having it as a setting of a tabletop rpg campaign, and who know? Hopefully one day, this world of mine may serve as the basis of a new crpg... Until then, any input would be appreciated, thanks for reading this far. Cheer!

 

[Poseidon00]

World ending events are old hat, why not go with a more historical background for a steampunk setting? The various races of the world had their own separate economies that had various specializations and got by on mutual trade. A guild system had aspiring craftsmen or specialized laborers apprentice to a master and go off on their own.

The guild system was eventually abolished when one of the races began the process of industrialization, out-competing everyone else and throwing once-great craftsmen into the factories to slave away for the forces of greater production.

You could also explain magic artifacts and weapons as the work of the skilled craftsmen of the guild system, whose knowledge has lost since been lost. Although they were able to create greater works, they were still unable to compete with the power of mass production powered by industrialization. One warrior with a great magic weapon still can't beat an army with a near-limitless supply of tools of war and the capacity to make them.

The end result being the massive, chaotic urban sprawl of the typical steampunk universe, run by whatever uncaring oligarchs have currently enslaved the once-enchanted world to industrialized labor.

Failing that, give us something different for the end-of-the-world event. Nothing generic, change it up somehow. Even better if a path to restoration either exists or is mythologized.

 

[cyborgboy95]

World ending events are old hat, why not go with a more historical background for a steampunk setting? The various races of the world had their own separate economies that had various specializations and got by on mutual trade. A guild system had aspiring craftsmen or specialized laborers apprentice to a master and go off on their own.

The guild system was eventually abolished when one of the races began the process of industrialization, out-competing everyone else and throwing once-great craftsmen into the factories to slave away for the forces of greater production.

You could also explain magic artifacts and weapons as the work of the skilled craftsmen of the guild system, whose knowledge has lost since been lost. Although they were able to create greater works, they were still unable to compete with the power of mass production powered by industrialization. One warrior with a great magic weapon still can't beat an army with a near-limitless supply of tools of war and the capacity to make them.

The end result being the massive, chaotic urban sprawl of the typical steampunk universe, run by whatever uncaring oligarchs have currently enslaved the once-enchanted world to industrialized labor.

Failing that, give us something different for the end-of-the-world event. Nothing generic, change it up somehow. Even better if a path to restoration either exists or is mythologized.

Well i just realize that a good setting need to strike a balance between a sense of familiarity and a sense of novelty, I need the players to become familiar with my unique Victorian technomagic world first before subverting the many tropes introduced in that world by adding a "post-nuclear disater" twist.

Maybe instead of the whole world got nuked, I just limit it to one country that is easy to get in but difficult to get out, that way I can focusing on introducing my Victorian technomagic world first in the source book before put that one specific irradiated country in the limelight in an adventure pạth somewwhere down the road, basically the Pathfinder way.

Guess I"ll drop the whole world-ending event shtick like you said.

 

[banana]

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Shitposting aside, do you have some subtly or not so subtly racist explanations for goblinoid and orcine crime statistics, or are you going the Tolkien route where they're English urbanites?

Maybe instead of the whole world got nuked, I just limit it to one country that is easy to get in but difficult to get out, that way I can focusing on introducing my Victorian technomagic world first in the source book before put that one specific irradiated country in the limelight in an adventure pạth somewwhere down the road, basically the Pathfinder way.

Guess I"ll drop the whole world-ending event shtick like you said.

Single-biome nations/worlds and "we gotta save the world" plots are JRPG tropes, if you're going for a Eurojank RPG then you should limit the scope of your story to something more reasonable like not-British Isles or the Unholy Roman Empire. You can do the former, but you have to lean more into characters, relationships, exploration,the battle system, what have you.

As for your choice of Steampunk, technically even nuclear reactors are steam punk. We just put all the steam punk stuff around our power generators, and rely on better scaling tech for transporting the power. If you are doing distributed steampunk, then you need an explanation for why this is more efficient/cheaper/better than centralized steam power generation. Explanation could be the magic making it easy to make light & tough but easily worked metals, magical force fields, magical water, magic power sources, wizards fighting constantly making centralized power too much of a pain in the ass, centralized magic power generation tearing a hole in reality as in Discworld sourcerers, undead or cthulu or warp rape daemons being attracted to concentrated sources of power, magical poisoning/insanity/criminality being a result of centralization, maybe something like mako poisoning in Final Fantasy 7 PS1, and so on.

 

[Oreshnik Missile]

An artificial god? You've triggered my Pillars of Shiternity PTSD, and I am unable to comment further in a rational manner.

 

[banana]

World ending events are old hat, why not go with a more historical background for a steampunk setting? The various races of the world had their own separate economies that had various specializations and got by on mutual trade. A guild system had aspiring craftsmen or specialized laborers apprentice to a master and go off on their own.

The guild system was eventually abolished when one of the races began the process of industrialization, out-competing everyone else and throwing once-great craftsmen into the factories to slave away for the forces of greater production.

You could also explain magic artifacts and weapons as the work of the skilled craftsmen of the guild system, whose knowledge has lost since been lost. Although they were able to create greater works, they were still unable to compete with the power of mass production powered by industrialization. One warrior with a great magic weapon still can't beat an army with a near-limitless supply of tools of war and the capacity to make them.

The end result being the massive, chaotic urban sprawl of the typical steampunk universe, run by whatever uncaring oligarchs have currently enslaved the once-enchanted world to industrialized labor.

Failing that, give us something different for the end-of-the-world event. Nothing generic, change it up somehow. Even better if a path to restoration either exists or is mythologized.

Ackshooually this is the opposite of a world-ending event. It's a description of a new technology or technique that opens up new avenues to explore, and the resulting power struggles for control of that... which could result in a world ending event.

Maybe one side breaches the bantu goblin/orc containment zone and unleashes a horde of darkies greenskins on his enemies when they defeat him with their new-fangled technology.