Airship Pirates!, The rum is gone because we travelled time... Options

[CanRay]

Yes, the band Abney Park has an RPG. The year is 2150, and the world as we knew it is not the world as we know it. With no living knowledge and tolerances against dictators, a militant hippie comes to power when the world is hopelessly populated and polluted, and restores balance to man-and-nature. Perhaps people should have asked a bit more carefully how he was going to handle the overpopulation problem...

There's the Neovictorians of the Empire, dedicated to cleaning the Earth of all taints of humanity save those in the "Change Cage Cities", megacities kept in Victorian-era technology and culture enforced by clockwork "Peeler" automations, and the threat that looms above everyone: The Change Cage, where any bit of outlawed or illegal technology or culture is thrown into, never to be seen again (Including the scientist/artist!).

Then there's the Skyloft, the free people who escaped the human culling of the Empire by lofting their cities into the sky and anchoring them to mountaintops. They have a massive airship arsenal and an anachronistic stew of technology, depending on which city you're going to. Ranging from the trader town of Helios which makes the world's standardized currency (Based off Helium!), to High Tortuga the Pirate Freeport that Jack Sparrow would be at home in! "CAPTAIN Jack Sparrow." Oh, right, sorry.

Finally, the Neobedouins (It's steampunk, they like Neo-stuff. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) ), a bunch of Mad Max-esque gypsy nomads roving the post apocalyptic world of the surface of Earth, filled with toxic waste from the time when industry and overpopulation ruled the world, and the genetically designed and re-introduced creatures that literally have a taste for human flesh built into the core of their being. With their bright armoured carriages and their lovingly restored and maintained motorcycles used as outriders, these people laugh, sing, and dance at a world that is literally trying to kill them from the first heart beat to the last.

The game system is similar to Shadowruns, where the Dice Pool (Yes, they use that term too) is D6s, and 1s and 6s are successes. Rather than decrease the dice pool for difficult tasks, "Black Dice" are added into the roll, which take away successes from the regular dice. Easier tasks are given additional dice.

It's a world where traveling circuses, musical groups, scientists, and other ne'erdowells are branded "Pirates" and actively hunted, where your airship might have a diesel engine assisting the normal steampunk engines, and muzzle-loaded cannon sit next to lightning guns and gatling guns. Where the man or woman beside you might be a time traveler, an escaped factory worker, a tribal warrior, a drunk pirate, or not even human at all...

Described by one friend as being "Warhammer 40K-Level of Grimdark" and "Are you seriously telling me that there is a rock opera steampunk goth band that has their central plot revolving around a time traveling pirate airship?" ;D

Honestly, Shadowrunners are one blue police box away from being dropped into the mix of the world... And, if the PCs get a time machine themselves (They can), they may even make the world Shadowrun!

[Synner667]

Sounds interesting.

I've seen stuff about this floating around, but few details about the game.

[CanRay]

The base game suggestion is working as one of the "Pirate" groups (Which could mean you're Pirates, Mercs, or Traveling Entertainers) on an airship that's made by one of the skylofts in order to help with their overpopulation problem (Pirates of all types tend to not live long, but those that do bring in phat lewt which helps the economy!) fighting against the Empire in any way possible.

Typically, by bringing outlawed entertainment to their masses, stealing resources harvested in carefully organized and defended areas, researching new and interesting ideas of all types, searching dangerous ruins of ancient cities looking for lost technology, and general thuggery.

[Stahlseele]

Don Karnage

[CanRay]

Only not fury. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Of course, with all the pollution that comes out of the Neovictorian Factories, there are mutated humans that could pass... What? You thought just because he was green the Emperor pay to have the factories emissions and pollutants be handled safely? Nah, the lower-class people are cheap and replaceable! Even with the draconian "Two-Children Per Family" limit.

[Stahlseele]

Teh Emprah ain't green.
Dem Orkz, now DEM iz green!
Also, if there are things like were's, why not have a cat-like were become a pirate/smuggler?

[CanRay]

You know, 40K troops landing on the "Uncharted Planet" might also fit the universe as well.

Especially da orkz!

It's that kind of game.

[hermit]

Actually that does sound like a steampunk'd 40K Imperial world. Which is okay, since the Imperium has a certain neovictorian touch anyway.

I tend to play sistahs or space marines (sistahs are a poor man's marines), though, so it'd be more like "BURN PURGE DESTROY" for me.

Or ... just use it for a 30K campaign. Conquer this planet with your primarch of choice! that would be even nicer. Hrm!

[CanRay]

Also, just a taste of things to come.

[hermit]

He sure does dump men overboard in Chad a lot, for whatever reason. It's not like being kicked out of an airship anyplace else is less lethal.

[CanRay]

Well, it's either that or risk a mutiny for taking ships full of nuns and orphans. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) Can't rightly loot them, now can you? They don't have anything.

[CanRay]

OK, started my Airship Pirates campaign, and am still working through ideas in my head. So far, I got Neo-Victorian Cities and Neo-Bedouins that are described in detail in the book, but the Skyloft Cities were left pretty unexplained except for some far-away shots.

So I'm aiming at the low-tech and poverty of the Neo-Victorian Cities, the struggling Airships of the skies (Both the free peoples and the Imperial Air Navy that's trying to destroy them, the Neo-Bedouins, and the Skylofts), the Gypsy-like Neo-Bedouins fighting to survive in a land filled with animals with a genetically engineered taste for human flesh, and finally figured out how to work the Skylofts: I'm picturing as being rust-bound noir-esque Dieselpunk myself. So we've gone from stolen souls and knowledge, hopeful souls struggling with whatever can be had, fearful souls that cling fitfully to their caravans and fires at night, and finally the hard-working souls just trying to keep whatever they can of their glorious former past.

It's not Shadowrun or Cyberpunk, in some ways, it's even worse.

[CanRay]

Just to make things worse, I had the group last night run into one of the machines designed to help build the Neo-Victorian Cities that Emperor Victor I decreed should be built.

The group found out that one of the ingredients of the mortar used in the city for the walls and buildings was...

Human Ashes. And then the chairs they were strapped to started to move towards a doorway that opened and a crematorium furnace light up nice and hot. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/vegm.gif)

Thanks to the Mad Scientist's invention of the Pip-Lad (A steampunk version of the Pip-Boy 3000A), they were able to escape their situation when he realized he could make notes absentmindedly. (It has a flip-up flap that holds a pencil and notepad.). They didn't even lose any nameless crewmembers, except for poor Bob that was sun burnt and lost the hair on one side of his body.