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”.




