Wolsung: Steam Pulp Fantasy

The universe of Wolsung is a different version of our world from the turn of the XIX and XX century, presented in the way known from adventure novels, action movies, video games and comic books. It contains many familiar elements, so you won’t feel out of place, and at the same time, enough charm and surprises, to make exploring the world during your gaming sessions fun and worth the effort.

“The world is changing rapidly. After the Great War a new kind of magic emerged – the Magic of Steam. Recent developments in science and technology brought us the most amazing of all inventions, the steam engine. It is the proud symbol of our times.

With the first giant factories the age of mass production began: nowadays cheap products of high quality are available for everyone, not only the rich, popularizing the recent achievements of science. Beautiful steamobiles zoom on the streets. The sky is filled with majestic airships. The Metropolitan Rail trolleys move constantly both in underground tunnels and on over-passes. The railway network entangles the whole globe, and luxurious streamers provide a comfortable way to reach the overseas colonies. The infrastructure of great cities provides the standard of living unavailable for our ancestors. Gas lamps light up our houses, while the pneumatic mail enables quick communication between any addresses within the city. Metropolises use great networks of crystalographs instead.

Magic has entered universities and schools, no more a plaything for the chosen, and became a working tool for every educated person. Thanks to the work of geomancers, buildings are constructed in such places and from such materials, that their natural energy flow promotes the building’s purpose – the parks make you more relaxed, the ill recover faster in hospitals, and schools improve your learning capabilities. Alchemists have moved from their cramped workshops to modern laboratories and factories and golems are utilised more and more extensively. Cabalists and numerologists created first mechanical calculating machines.

These are the brave new times.”

Excerpt from „Know your nation” – textbook for the first year of the common school.

“I believe that this omnipresent optimism is premature at least.
The scars left behind by the Great War are much more serious and grim, than the authorities are willing to admit. They seem to underestimate the fact that an enormous stretch of land along the wotanian-aquitanean border, where the greatest battles of the conflict took place, is totally and irretrievably destroyed. During the final stage of the War, this area suffered radiation of intensity exceeding 700 thaums, and 20 tons of shells where dropped on each square meter! Taking into consideration the death of thousands of soldiers, one should not be surprised by disturbances in the structure of the Astral, that warped those places. Most of the lands in question does not, and probably never will, have any vegetation. Disruptions in the energy flow are so big, that even the regular airship lines won’t fly over those lands, which lengthens the journey by more than 100 miles. (…)”

Excerpt from a controversial book „The Lands of Havoc” by sir Jonathan Glimpshire

Technology and Magic

Amazing inventions, devices created with the use of New Magic are nowadays something common for Vanadian people. On the crowded streets, the last carriages are giving way to noisy shining steamobiles. The cities are full of life, growing; skyscrapers compete with factory chimneys in the race towards the sky. And the sky itself is crossed by majestic airships and small but maneuverable postal wyverns, while mine shafts, tunnels, sewer systems and geomantic chambers cut deep into the ground.

Behind the scenes

The technology in Wolsung is based on magic, so some of the inventions may deny the laws of physics as we know them. The technology level has a lot more in common with the roaring 20s, than the XIX century. Machines are powered by magic and steam, but still are close enough to modern devices, to use them not worrying about anachronisms.

The rules are simple:

• there is no internet or computers, there are mechanical difference engines;
• there are no telephones, there are crystalomantic transmitters;
• there are no planes, there are golemic wyverns;
• there is no electricity, there is mana (magical energy);
• there are no chemical elements, there are classical elements (fire, earth, air and water);
• there is alchemy instead of chemistry, engineers are called technomancers, mathematics is supported by numerology, and the most common way to study and describe the Space is astrology.

Seas are filled with military leviathans, transoceanic palace-ships, mana extractions rigs, transport steamboats and yachts of the wealthy. Even the underwater world has less and less secrets, as modern bathyscaphes constantly break new records of submersion. With every shipment of iron, every new steam engine, civilization enters colonies. The world is tamed.

Thanks to the efficient postal and crystalograph services, information circulates between continents faster than it used to between cities before the War. Gas lamps illuminate the streets and houses. The power of steam heats and fuels the everyday machinery in our houses.

Behind the scenes: the retro–communication crib

What to say during the game if you want to:

• call from a mobile phone? – „I’m sending a pneuma”, „I’ll send a messenger”, “I’ll send a crystalograph”;
• lookup something online? – „I’m going to library”, „I’m browsing the morning newspapers”, „Alfred, bring me the encyclopedia”;
• watch TV – „the radio shows starts within an hour”, „let’s go to opera”, „a famous archaeologist is giving a lecture in a Ash&Oak social club”;
• listen to music – „let’s go to philharmonic”, „I’ve heard you’re playing the piano beautifully”, „lets try out my new gramophone”;
• go to cinema – „lets drive to Lyonesse, to cinema”, „I have invited to our mansion a touring cinema”, „I would love to see a new film, I’ll be happy to to fund your new project”.

Lyonesse had a rich history, and now, after over two millennia, it’s the greatest metropolis of the world. Just look at the glorious palace of Queen Titania, or at the Tall Tom near the Houses of Parliament,or at the skyscrapers in Tintagel District and, but please, avert your eyes from the other side of the river. There’s nothing to look at in Bridgebank, just decay, poverty and fog.

The capitol of Alfheim is a city of universities, museums, art galleries, textile workshops, docks, forges and factories; it’s a centre of cinematographic industry and the last harbour and new home for thousands of immigrants from all corners of the earth. It is a city of commerce, art and crime, ostentatious luxury and extreme poverty. The city of contrasts. The city of wonders. The City of the Cities.

The City in the Fog.

Behind the scenes

Lyonesse is designed as the universal, archetypical city. It’s siblings are Terry Prattchet’s Akh-Morpork, Nightcity from Cyberpunk 2020, New York depicted in Marvel comic books, and, most of all: Victorian London. It is the default setting for steampulp adventures in an urban environment. If you want to play in a city, choose Lyonesse.

We described only some of the districts – the rest is yours to create. If you need a unique scenery, some bizarre location, or a secret society just drop it somewhere. We are sure, it has always been there, you’ve just never got out of the Tube on this particular station.

Tintagel District is the City of London mixed with pre-war Manhattan. Where, the inspectors from Alven Yard investigate all the major crimes. And the Fog, in Lyonesse it is a magical phenomenon; not only people get lost in it, sometimes even whole houses disappear in this thick pea souper.

Characters

The keywords for characters coming from Lyonesse are Progress and Empire.

Lyonesse is the most progressive of cities and the heart of vast colonial empire. You can travel half the world and see less, than what you will see in a year living here. Growing up here cannot be compared with anything else. In this city mere street ruffians witness wonders, that would never occur to even the most educated Wotanians.

It’s hard to find more open-minded people than those living in Lyonesse – and more self-reliant. Well, If you encounter, day after day, those endless riches form all over the world, you do not just have trust in the Empire, you know it’s power.

Here are some character concepts for heroes from Lyonesse:

• Alven Yard inspector, born in Dekan and specializing in ethnic crimes.
• Halfing actress during the day, a burglar with a thousand faces at night.
• Troll, hunter and engineer, hunting monsters in the Tube’s tunnels.
• Elven artist born in the royal family, with a great talent and a knack for scandals.
• Retired air ace, member of the Ash and Oak Club.
• Orkish martial artist, adopted daughter and heiress of an influential Lord.

Story seeds

Daring – a fierce competition between river taxi companies. Halflings form scylla fighting orkish triads. Aerial duels above the Tall Tom watchtower. Evil mastermind constructing giant steam golems in the forges of Stableton. Giant ape an the run from the city ZOO. Breaking and entering a manor inhabited only by an old troll. Saving the Queen. Bank robbery in Tintagel District. Rush-hour omnibus chases.

Exploration - Lost in the Fog. Mapping the Tube’s tunnels. Nocturnal escapades to the pubs in Uldnesse, culinary journeys through ethnic restaurants. Experiments and invention at the University. Looking for lost artefacts in the Archaeological Society’s storerooms. Hunting ghouls at the communal cemetery in Bridgebank.

Investigation – mutilated bodies of the Butcher’s victims. Luddites conspiring against the industrialists and the gentry. Crimes of passion on a Belville movie set. Clandestine cults in Old Ipswitch, kidnappers and pickpockets in Bridgebank. Gnomish mysteries in Svart Thule, stranglers in Yakshatown.

Society – the Buckinghind Palace and intrigues on Her Majesty’s secret service. Clubs for Ladies and Gentlemen: Griffon Club, Ash and Oak. Charity balls organized by Duchess Nimblewist, romancing on the ice rink in Abbot’s Gardens, betting on Winledon tennis courts, gossiping on the Fairy Pond golf fields, duelling in Ferret Forrest.

Living in Lyonesse

In this city people talk all day long in every language possible. They whisper in the docks at night, declaim in university classrooms, sing over glasses of ale and stout, gossip over gin and pickled eggs, testify in courtrooms, chat in clubs over brandy and cigars, flirt in theatres and ballrooms.

It is said that the eleven bridges over Tether is not enough, that there are some amazing goods comming straight from the colonies at d’Arrots and that the new Golemic Museum is soon to be opened. Lyonessians complain over the constant flow of immigrants, the press caricatures make them laugh and they drink for the Queen.

Nobody mentions the hundreds of thousands of homeless, the poor housing conditions in the industrial districts, strange disappearances in the docklands or the underage crime, drunkenness and prostitution. Nobody frets that after all those years the Alven Yard still haven’t stop the Butcher. Nobody questions the idea, that absinth, black lotos and laudanum are really such wonderful cures for the big-city melancholia.

Places of interest

Treecoven – the Royal Astrological Observatory is located near the dockland area, exactly on the Prime Meridian – which makes it a perfect place for performing magic rituals.

Comedians End – part of Uldnesse (the old city) widely known for it’s night life. You must visit the New Theatre, the Moon Theatre and the world famous Hand and Mask Pub.

Ethnic Districts – in Lyonesse the strangers stick together. Everyone knows that Svart Thule is the gnomish ghetto, immigrants from Dekan live in Yakshatown, dwarves from the continent never leave Stableton and that. Quirinale, famous for it’s halfling restaurants, is openly called Little Scylla just as Pothill is the oriental Shang Town.

Clairvale – the most expensive district is where the gentry live. This part of the city is full of manors, lavish gardens, hidden affairs, hushed scandals, dangerous habits, all kinds of eccentricity – and elves. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that the iron is banned in all Clairvale.

So this is our steampulp world… Looks pretty familiar, doesn’t it?

The world of Wolsung is our Mother Earth in disguise and, frankly speaking, we are really glad it is this way. It makes stepping into this world so much easier.

To start an adventure you don’t have to wade through hundreds of pages filled with descriptions of unknown lands. You just gather your friends and say: Today let’s play in Lyonesse. It’s like London from that Sherlock Holmes movie, but we got elves in tophats and magic really works. That’s it. You start playing and everybody knows, more or less, what the setting is about. You can focus on your characters and contribute to the story without asking your GM every other minute about some irrelevant trivia.

We tested the “it’s like… but” approach on many convention games and introduced dozens of players to Wolsung this way. It worked each and every time. So…

• Let’s go on safari in Lemuria. It’s like Africa, but we’ll be hunting gryphons.
• Let’s search for lost cities in the jungles of Atlantis. It’s like Amazonia, but the natives are orks.
• Let’s find that gold mine in Vinland. It’s like the Wild West, but the Independence War didn’t go as planned.

You may ask, why bother? Why just don’t play in our world, in the real 19th century? The answer is this little but, that makes even the wildest adventures possible. But that deserves separate post. Stay tuned.

P.S. Here you have some more maps to use in your games. Enjoy