Herr_Garrett on 30/11/2008 at 13:38

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I'd rather think that a pseudo-late-Viktorian setting would work much better. Consider: Gothique structures galore, and so do steam engines, but there is electric- and Diesel-driven stuff as well. Horses and swords/crossbows are as popular as automobiles and guns. Throw in some Zeppelins, Gothique-style skyscrapers, slum areas, factions, gigantomaniac Neoclassical churches and bank-buildings. Smog everywhere. Rivers are so polluted you can walk across their surface. Mobs and gangsters everywhere, fighting for the control of the burgeoning underworld. Huge, and I mean huge Hammerite factories helping the expansion of the already bloated Empire... On the surface, it's a bright and brave future, with civil rights, respect of different cultures, but beneath it's merciless oppression, and hate and fear of strangers. The rigid mannierisms bind everyone in society, but behind the peaceful walls of the manors and castles Gods know what's going on. Add some fictional Tesla-style inventions, and there you go. It has everything anyone could wish for :cheeky:
Not to mention that women in corsets are just hot:cheeky:

Herr_Garrett on 30/11/2008 at 19:30

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Well, then around the time of WW I. Just imagine the feeling, instead of the rickety Abysmal Gale, a Bismarck-sized battleship in the dock. One? Did I say one? A whole fleet, Builder damn' it! The Docks being in size of a town. Now that's what I call exploration.
I mean, the whole City would be bloated now several times of its original size, having a population around... let's say, 15 million. But the point is, that apart from the occasional skyscraper, the profile of the City remains. Still low buildings, crowding so close to each other. The little districts of the City being intersected by blazing boulevards, with a gigantic square in the middle, in which a monstrously big Guild/City/Council Hall is situated, overlooking and dominating the City... Around the square are the most important buildings... The central part is a small galaxy of light, which gradually fades as you move towards the poorer areas. The smog is omnipresent, because the City is "beleaguered" by huge factories. The Docks are full of them, too.
On the boulevards the rich drive in their automobiles, going to parks, opera-houses, theaters, spending their... "leisure time". The Auldale park could be the size of a small district...
The Hammers have churches everywhere, with extensive areas, and the City Watch has watchposts on every corner.
I mean, just think... A Watch officer, in chainmail, with a sword for fighting in close quarters, and a rifle for the rest. The Hammerites could have headsets, and while retaining their traditional hammer, they move around the City on their business on tracked vehicles. The Pagans are a bunch of Luddists, lurking in abandoned areas/parks/sewers, conducting "terrorist" attacks against factories and such, conjuring up monsters to help them, planting plants in abandoned buildings, raising the dead. The Keepers would still be the secret "masters" of the City, having even more work on their hands. They would be back on not relying so much onto Glyph magic, but rather, pulling the strings. They could seal no-go areas with Glyphs, like zombie-ridden graveyards, or old factories where Hammer experiments were miscarried.


I could actually kick up a story in a environment like that. :cheeky: I'll think up more details when I'll have the time.

Herr_Garrett on 1/12/2008 at 18:23

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Aye, aye.
I think that the main plot could be something like... The Hammers devise a... device which would give the City and them a monstrous advantage in the war. The Pagans get to know this, and want to destroy it... Only that would take the City/the world with itself. So you have to, at the Keepers' instigation, obstruct both factions' plans, quite like. Also the different thief/gangster factions are after you after committing a master heist upon them. The City Watch wants you dead or alive, preferably dead, because you are... well, you. And behind all this looms the certainty of the City losing the war without the Hammers' machine. Add (but only as a hearsay, of course) epic battles, burning skies, Zeppelins crashing, weird arms-gadgets, etc., sprinkle it with Glyphs and magic-imbued weapons for the soliders, and serve it warm.

Among the factions I image would be something like the Assassins' Guild - I mean, we are talking about a City full of factions vying with each other -, a Beggars' Guild for the poor, and Inventors' Guild (which the Hammers continously try to stamp out), an Artists' Guild, and (I rather like this idea) a Soldiers' Guild. For in a city it is impossible to raise a standing army - but it could be done by establishing a Guild for them, which takes in all sorts, drills them, and turns them into, essentially, mercenaries. The Soldiers' Guild sends troops all over the world. Anyway.
The City could be ran by a benevolent but ineffectual Baron, and the real organising being done by the nobles, who hate each other. Therefore the City is always on the brink of destruction, but now, in the time of war, all the more. Especially since it's the nobles who try to command the Soldiers' Guild too - which of course the Guild doesn't want, and thus the army is next useless.

Hmmm... more details will come up, if anybody's interested.

muncadunc on 1/12/2008 at 19:04

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Please, though. Zeppelins are so, so played out in steampunk.

TTK12G3 on 1/12/2008 at 19:29

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You need to bring this up in the multiplayer construction project.