Steampunk / Time Travel / Alternate History / Post-Apocalyptic
Victorian and 19th century American refugees and figures from throughout history flee a future-ending cataclysm, escaping back in time to settle in prehistoric Pangaea. There, they struggle for survival in a wild wild world of dinosaurs, astonishing discoveries, and inescapable human conflict. Armed with intrepid steampunk technology, strange Ether-awakened abilities, and an adventuresome spirit, the kaleidoscopic and talented remnants of humanity must either unite to forge civilization anew, or allow anarchy and avarice to destroy what the ultimate cataclysm of time and space could not. In the past lies the future, and deep in the heart of the ancient supercontinent Pangaea a more perfect Union may yet be born.
Please Review All Top Contenders!
Now that we're getting down to the wire and the top contenders for selection are becoming apparent, I heartily encourage the entire Swarm to PLEASE REVIEW ALL TOP CONTENDERS.
Regarding This Union Pangaea, I've noticed that folks either seem to really love it (thank you, love you back), or really don't (thank you for being honest). I wrote it intending that it be exciting and evocative, and so I'm not surprised that it generates strong reactions, depending on whether or not it is your particular cup of tea.
But please, Please, if you've given a strong rating (either in favor or opposed) to any of the top contenders, do right by the Swarm process and cast a vote for all other top contenders with similar honesty. That way, when all the information is compiled the voting will best reflect the preferences of the Swarm.
I don't think that's enough.
Everybody who has put a seting online has put a lot of work and effort in his setting, no matter if it was perceived as good or bad, and thus I think that everybody also deserves a fair review for the work. So please, review every setting, not only the ones currently in front in the competition.
Another sample Character/NPC for this setting
"The Spartan" - Displaced Warrior
The cold-eyed soldier referred to as simply "the Spartan" might just be the most vicious and competent melee combatant of all the fighting men of what remains of humanity. Dragged back in time to an alien, dinosaur-infested wilderness by (those he views as) a weak and undisciplined people, a disapproving scowl never seems to leave the Spartan's battle-scarred face. But given the choice between even an imperfect civilization or the troglodytes of the hills, the Spartan protects his fellow man willingly and sates his bloodlust by zealously slaughtering anything not human which gets in his way. His unmatched skills with sword, shield and spear have made him a valued pillar of the settlement's defense and a folk hero among those refugees who came from simpler times and cultures. The Victorian court has recently increased efforts to woo him into their service - ostensibly to serve as guard and protector, but some suspect to be employed as the Queen's own assassin.
Another Sample Character/NPC for this setting
"E.P." Huxley - Ace Dirigible Pilot
The mirth of the skies, E.P. (Elspeth Patricia) is well-regarded for showering her allies with smiles and convenient rescues and raining fire down upon her enemies. Ace pilot and tenacious protector of the nimble hyper-dirigible Ingenia, E.P. is a master of improvised repairs and has resurrected her beloved airship from several "sub-optimal descents" (crashes) with little more than foul language and a bent crescent wrench. She is the proud big sister of her baby brother Aldous and eagerly anticipates the formation of a proper air-corp to protect him and the rest of humanity from the monsters in the skies and the all-too-dangerous jungle below.
More Comments! More Reviews!
If you haven't given a review of Union Pangaea or commented on anything you like or don't like, please do so!
Question to the Swarm: What do you think would be a better title for the setting? "Union Pangaea" or "This Union Pangaea"? Or something slightly different...?
Sample character/NPC for this setting.
T. Edison Colt - Expedition Leader
A deadeye shot and seasoned explorer, T. Edison Colt has led more successful expeditions into the dangerous primeval jungle than any other person, escorting prospectors and scientists as they comb the wilds for vital resources. Reluctant heir to the wealth of bullets of the Colt Armory, the young Colt eschews the family business except when acquiring supplies or trying out the latest experimental weaponry from the mischievous Gatling Brothers. Stubbornly idealistic, he detests and avoids the treachery of camp politics by heading off into the wilderness at every opportunity, hoping each time that when he returns humanity will be more good and sane if only he can get them what they need and buy them time against the monsters attacking from without.
EDIT: push up the date of Exodus to 1895 or so
I've been looking at historical dates and important figures in steampunk literature, and I think it would be too limiting to cut off our historical figures at 1865 as previously mentioned.
True fact: In 1895, "The Time Machine" was first published by H.G. Wells. (my big idea: ...with complete diagrams for precisely how to build such a machine.) Perfect.
I still want 1865 to be one of the 'key dates', when we bring back a big chunk of refugees from both the American Civil War and mid-Victorian England. But there are just SO many awesome historical figures in both America and England (and other countries, of course) during the late 1800s, so I want to make sure we can include them, too. Nikola Tesla, Mark Twain, Thomas Edison, H.G. Wells, Jules Verne, Jack the Ripper, and many more.
So let's plan on a healthy number of refugees coming back from 1895 as well - so late 1800's are fair game.
but what about the meteor
but what about the meteor that kills all the dinosaurs?
It's not a problem, it's a feature.
Good point - the time and place of Rendezvous might have been chosen at a time when paleontologists were not as certain as to why the dinosaurs had died off - maybe nobody knew about the world-kill meteor/asteroid.
Possible solution: once they discover this "oversight" and new impending doom, characters must organize massive "Armageddon"-like expedition to land on asteroid and blow it up with TNT (and maybe fight the meteor-men who inhabit it). Would make for a GREAT special module!
Another alternative
The dinosaurs existed for millions of years, so there's plenty of a time window there for a human colony to survive. Human civilizations has really only prospered for less than 10,000 years or so, and there's been a lot of technological progress in that small snapshot of the various dinosaur eras. The Mesozic era (consisting of the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods when the dinosaurs dominated) lasted for 180 million years.
It could be interesting though to have one human colony that believes - based on scientific calculations - the date of the meteor to be soonish (next few years, maybe few decades) and are preaching that man is destined to die regardless of what they have done to try to survive. There could also be interesting plots of mistakes in human belief that are discovered due to humanity's ability to directly observe the dinosaurs.
Don't worry about meteor / doom cults are fun
Mikeb is correct - there's plenty of time to worry about the meteor. Humanity could rise and fall ten times before it ended up showing up and destroying things (again). Not a big deal.
I'm a big fan of apocalypse cults, and I think the setting could be rife with alarmists, crazys, or zealots who believe that DOOM will still find humanity for their sins. You can pick almost any historical or cultural background for your cult - go nuts.
I'm sure more than one zealous leader of a cult believes that they will be the 'chosen people' and the 'true' new future of humanity - if only they can escape/kill/convert other nonbelievers and sinners. Or maybe they want to finish the job, judging humanity to be unworthy.
Eras
This also brings an interesting thought to mind for me at least. Are we going to attempt to be historically correct and choose one era and only have the dinosaurs from that era be in the setting, or is it going to be something like this. The archeologist looks up to be greeted by the colossal jaw of a T-rex dripping with saliva. Backing away in fear, the archeolgist mutters, "you, you aren't supposed to be here yet, not for another 50 million years!" Then the archeologist became a part of the fossil record as the T-rex devoured him. Maybe when people were traveling back in time, their ships damaged the time-line a little and brought some creatures from the near future into the past on accident? Or maybe some time-traveler thought it would be funny. Thoughts?
Don't be accurate - Be awesome!
Strict archaeological accuracy would be a major buzz-kill. To heck with that. The purpose of the game is NOT realism. Mix dinosaurs from all eras, mammoths, wild ape men, go for it.
There are any number of reasons we could use to justify why the "real" fossil record is wrong and/or why the characters run into all sorts of things that theoretically should be millions of years apart. The time-space continuum is all f**ked up due to the temporal super-bomb. Time travel brought stuff forwards, backwards, or the Ether mutated things into showing up early.
No matter what the justification is, I say that when in doubt, include it. Don't worry about accuracy - just be Awesome!
psycho religious faction that
psycho religious faction that first undershot the selected time and place, prospered but were much closer to the meteor gained the ability to travel back again and brought things with them this time overshooting the original point.
haha I like that cuz there's
haha I like that cuz there's always someone preaching "the end is near!"
Open-ended
What I probably like most about this idea is it's potential for open-ended game play and progression. Assuming you are one Age, culture, and class you would affect the culture in such a way that it would be drastically different by end game then that of another Age, culture, and class
Good - I'm glad you like that
Good - I'm glad you like that aspect. I figure that there is a lot of potential for political and social roleplay as characters may choose to focus their energies on shaping the new course of humanity in terms of government, morality, ideals, culture, etc. This could be a game that makes for a wonderfully versatile petri dish for social engineering -- maybe the characters want to champion a true democracy, or maybe they fall in with theocratic Church of England loyalists who elevate Queen Victoria to a state of godhood, or maybe they defend true anarchy and dare to risk everyone's lives as masterless men. We can envision a lot of possible end-games, and later editions could explore the infinite What-Ifs for what Union Pangaea looks like in 50 years...
Or, if you just want to just go ride dinosaurs and battle ornery mutant cavemen, that will be an option for game play, too!
Where You've Been vs Where You're Going
As far as defining the wide range of possible characters by specific splats (pre-defined character classes/roles), I would like to see a system that can acknowledge what they used to do before they came back in time (perhaps just through discretionary stat-allocation), but more importantly a system that does not pigeon-hole or limit a character to being the same thing in play that they used to be in their previous life.
Both thematically, story-wise, and mechanically, This Utopia Pangaea should be a place where people can reinvent themselves. Maybe they just don't want to be a soldier any more. Maybe they don't want to be a dilettante any more. The problems and adventures of the New Past will have the force to change people drastically, and for me part of the beauty will be looking forward - who will you become?
I completely agree with you,
I completely agree with you, I don't like the idea of locking players into what they were makes them what they are. What I was thinking of was more of a template design for the Age, Culture, and Job they used to have. This doesn't mean that they have to stay that way, but their past experiences might give them bonuses in some ways. For example:
Ages
-Bronze Age: +2 to Str, -1 Int and -1 to Wis. +4 to survival checks
-Victorian Age: +2 Wis, -1 Char, -1 Str. +2 to fast talk and bureaucracy checks
Cultures
-Roman: +2 to diplomacy checks
-Aztec: +2 to Spirituality Checks
Jobs
-Soldier: Any one combat feat
-Scientist: May choose between any one skill feat or receive a +10 to any one knowledge skill.
These are just a few examples of what I meant, and I based them off of BRBs. I was wondering if a template for each character background would help (for example, someone who wanted their character to be a former Roman Legionare, would be Bronze Age, Roman, Soldier) while still being generic enough to allow specific types of roles the characters had in their old lives without requiring tons of templates for each. Also, I agree with you that the players shouldn't be locked into what they once were. Let's say a former Greek warrior wanted to become and engineer. With the template idea, their past experiences in combat would still show up mechanically, but as their character progressed, their skills in engineering would begin to emerge. Just a thought, I know we aren't to mechanics yet, but your setting inspired me, so I thought I'd ask you if that might be something you had in mind.
SW
Check out the Savage Worlds system for some more ideas about how "race" can affect traits and skills.
Character Creation - Age/Culture/Job ... Past/Present/Future
I dig it. I think what you've proposed makes a lot of sense, since Age, Culture, and prior Jobs would have a good deal of impact on what capabilities a character has.
I think a lot of this will depend mostly on what system ends up being chosen by the Swarm, and what character creation looks like in that system.
One idea that I had floating around would be to ask every player to fill in something for their character in 3 important fields named "Past", "Present", and "Future". Past would be where your character came from, what they did, and what they left behind. The mechanical influences of their past Age, Culture and Job could come into play there. Present would be the character's current role and daily-used skills and talents in the here-and-now of Union Pangea and game-to-game exploring, working, and adventuring. Future would be very important for personal story - what the character wants (either consciously or subconsciously) for their own future... this could be "I want to make the valley safe for our people", "I want to rule this land", or maybe "I just want to make it through the day without dying, oh lordy."
Someone asked: What is Steampunk?
This one image says a thousand words for me:
Steampunk Lincoln
Seriously, just do a Google Image search on "Steampunk", and you'll get a lot of good, iconic images. I just did that, and I'm incredibly pleased with how it jives with the images in my head about that a rag-tag population of time-traveling pioneers armed with ether-technology might look like (while fighting dinosaurs).
Other people have said it better than I could, so I'll cite instead of rehashing further. Below, I have included some links that I draw from when wondering aloud - What is Steampunk?
theclockworkcentury
wikipedia
etheremporium
Personally, I love the look of Steampunk. It's a way of asking - when cultures of the past dreamed of the future, what did they think it would look like? It's a paradigm of invention and adventure. I think it is something that has both been popular in the past, and has momentum now as a movement, and could thereby get a lot of positive attention in terms of both contributors AND consumers.
There is definitely a lot of
There is definitely a lot of attention around steampunk right now which is why I'm considering having some elements of it within After the Flood. Dwarves with steampunk submarines sounds really fun, and it wouldn't be necessary that all the races have access to steam technology.
Steam Punk Questions
Hey there, I really like your setting, but I admit that I don't know much about steam punk and was wondering if you could explain a bit of it to me (I understand some of the basics, but my understanding of it is still rather incomplete).
Also, I like the idea of there being a lot of different types of people from different times, but from a mechanics perspective (I know, its too early to be thinking about this much, but I'm curious), would there be a unique 'class' or 'type' or 'job' that different people would have? Or maybe have some some sort of definition of the age the came from, the culture they came from, and the role they played in that culture, and would these effect the character mechanistically (ex. early man (ancient Greek maybe) might have been stronger because of the constant need for physical activity, but due to lack of good nutrition, they were rather short and lived short lives compared to Victorian aged people. Likewise, a person from the Victorian age might not be as strong as the earlier ages of man (unless they worked in a mill or something), but lived longer lives and as a whole tended to be more intelligent. Then you get down to the culture level were the Spartan's had better warriors where as Holland was known for its sailing. Then finally you get to the character's former occupation such as being an engineer, a soldier, a priest, a nobleman, etc.). I'm just curious about it, but I do think it would be cool if there was some mechanic distinction between the ages and cultures and jobs in addition to the role-play aspect.
Re: Steam Punk Questions
Although I'm still thinking over this setting as a player, I was really grabbed by Zack's point about differences between people across the timeline.
From what I've seen so far in discussion the aim for accuracy, at least as far as what dino shows up where, is not something that should trump game play. I'm wondering how that would play into character creation as far as the timeline goes. Say for example, someone wants to play the 'ancient Greek.' Role play wise they could capture that however they wanted. But from a mechanics perspective how would they compete with a civil war veteran? I imagine part of the fun would be different groups clashing or working together, but it could fall short without strong story, role play, and game mechanics.
Regarding character creation,
Regarding character creation, I would prefer that a person's background/culture/age not strictly limit what they can be, but it would be fine to provide broad suggestions and very low-impact mechanical benefits depending on background/culture/age if that's what is desired by designers.
What I would very much like to avoid is a situation where the mechanical benefits for choosing a particular background/age/culture skew the choices players will make, in the interest of mechanical advantages. Part of the fun should be the freedom to tell the story of oddballs that either adapt particularly well (or particularly poorly) to the diverse temporal mish-mash, without feeling pressured to choose differently because of mechanical optimization.
For the characters, coming to Pangaea is not just a chance to survive, but also a chance to reinvent themselves. So while a character's past will always be with them, it is not as important as their goals and their future.
I think the published setting and written NPCs that we would create can establish the essential stereotypes by example, which can either be based on "reality", or simply storytelling conventions (high-tech scientists are all from cultures of learning, mostly modern; ancient peoples don't take up firearms very well; cavemen refugees are really strong and tough, etc).