Settings and StyleTM Written by PHIL MASTERS Edited by NIKOLA VRTIS Illustrated by PAUL DALY and RAMÓN PÉREZ Additional Material by JAMES L. CAMBIAS, JO RAMSAY, and WILLIAM H. STODDARD GURPS System Design z STEVE JACKSON Chief Executive Officerz PHILIP REED GURPS Line Editor z SEAN PUNCH Chief Operating Officer z SAMUEL MITSCHKE Assistant GURPS Line Editor z JASON “PK” LEVINE Executive Editor z MIRANDA HORNER GURPS Project Manager z STEVEN MARSH Marketing Director z RHEA FRIESEN Production Artist and Indexer z NIKOLA VRTIS Director of Sales z ROSS JEPSON GURPS FAQ Maintainer z Page Design z PHIL REED and JUSTIN DE WITT VICKY “MOLOKH” KOLENKO Art Direction and Prepress Checker z NIKOLA VRTIS Reviewers: Roger Burton West, Douglas H. Cole, S.A. Fisher, Vicky “Molokh” Kolenko, Jason “PK” Levine, Christopher R. Rice, William H. Stoddard, and Antoni Ten Monrós GURPS, Pyramid, Warehouse 23, the all-seeing pyramid, Settings and Style, and the names of all products published by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated are trademarks or registered trademarks of Steve Jackson Games Incorporated, or used under license. GURPS Steampunk 1: Settings and Style is copyright © 2016 by Steve Jackson Games Incorporated. All rights reserved. Art on p. 18 by Richard Doyle; from the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA, LC- USZC2- 480. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this material via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal, and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage the electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated. STEVE JACKSON GAMES Stock #37-0339 Version 1.0 – October 2016 ® CONTENTS INTRODUCTION ......... 3 Quick and Dirty Steam-Tech... 27 Going Pulp . 39 What Is Present . 3 Neo-Steampunk Futures....... 27 Hysteria, Fainting, Publication History . 3 Steampunk Inventing . 29 and the Vapors . 40 About the Author . 3 Wild Technological All Is Lost!.................. 41 Malfunction Table . 30 Scandalous Victorians . 42 1. DREAMS OF STEAM.... 4 magIc and psychIc poWers . 30 dressIng the part . 43 What Is steampunk? . 4 Clockpunk Alchemy .......... 30 Georgian Costume ........... 44 sources . 4 Victorian Magical Practices.... 31 Victorian Costume ........... 44 Period Fiction................ 4 The Victorian Paranormal . 31 Edwardian and The Steam Age and Punk . 5 assemblIng the elements . 32 Pre-WWI Costume . 45 Mayhew’s London Labour Period vs. Punk.............. 32 Steampunking Other Genres.... 45 and the London Poor . 6 Combinations and Period Punk and Proto-Steampunk............. 8 Permutations............. 33 Raygun Gothic . 45 The First Years of Steampunk... 9 The Mob Has Spoken!......... 33 etIquette . 46 Historical Fiction . 9 Formal Manners............. 46 “Maker” Culture . 10 4. HOW TO BE More Scandalous Victorians.... 47 The 21st Century: STEAMPUNK ....... 34 Putting Some Punk on It ...... 48 Goths Discover Brown . 11 the spIrIt of the steam age . 34 A Flawed Era? . 35 GLOSSARY ........... 49 2. THE INSPIRATIONAL Maybe It’s All Just Show? ...... 35 FURTHER READING ERA ............ 12 The Numbers Game . 36 AND IEWING the age of romantIc Social Class................. 36 V ...... 52 Masters and Servants......... 37 scIence . 12 INDEX.............. 56 Revolutions, Political What Social Status Gets You . 38 and Otherwise ............ 13 The Long 19th Century .......13 The World in 1789...........14 The Napoleonic Wars . 14 ABOUT GURPS Late Georgian Days . 15 Steve Jackson Games is committed to full support of GURPS players. Our An Age of Exploration........15 address is SJ Games, P.O. Box 18957, Austin, TX 78760. Please include a Crime and Police............16 self-addressed, stamped envelope (SASE) any time you write us! We can also be the early VIctorIan era . 16 reached by e-mail: [email protected]. Resources include: A New Kind of World........16 Go West! ..................17 New supplements and adventures. GURPS continues to grow – see what’s new Imperial Expansion .........17 at gurps.sjgames.com. Mitteleuropan Cool, Warehouse 23. Our online store offers GURPS adventures, play aids, and sup- Prussian Villainy? . 18 port in PDF form . digital copies of our books, plus exclusive material avail- able only on Warehouse 23! Just head over to warehouse23.com. the long afternoon . 18 Pyramid (pyramid.sjgames.com). Our monthly PDF magazine includes new New Technologies . 18 rules and articles for GURPS, systemless locations, adventures, and much more. Steam in the West . 19 Look for each themed issue from Warehouse 23! The Looming War . 19 Internet. Visit us on the World Wide Web at sjgames.com for errata, updates, The Fashoda Incident ........20 Q&A, and much more. To discuss GURPS with our staff and your fellow gamers, The Scramble for Africa . 20 visit our forums at forums.sjgames.com. The GURPS Steampunk 1: Settings Edwardian Twilight .........21 and Style web page is gurps.sjgames.com/steampunk1. Non-Western Steampunk . 21 Bibliographies. Many of our books have extensive bibliographies, and we’re 3. STEAMPUNK AND putting them online – with links to let you buy the resources that interest you! Go to each book’s web page and look for the “Bibliography” link. GAME WORLDS ..... 22 Errata. Everyone makes mistakes, including us – but we do our best to fix our subgenres . 22 errors. Up-to-date errata pages for all GURPS releases, including this book, are Modes ....................22 available on our website – see above. The One Big Difference .......23 Moods ....................24 Rules and statistics in this book are specifically for the GURPS Basic Set, Technological Bases.........25 Fourth Edition. Page references that begin with B refer to that book, not this one. What’s Wrong With Airships? ..26 CONTENTS 2 INTRODUCTION Steampunk is a literary genre – a subgenre of science fic- this is convenient, but reordering and revising that material. tion and fantasy – which appeared in the tail end of the 20th Specifically, it adapts material from GURPS Steampunk and century, with a lot of references to earlier material. It quickly GURPS Screampunk, and non-setting-related material from became a commonly recognized form for novels, short stories, GURPS Castle Falkenstein. Other than those couple of thou- and roleplaying games. The original GURPS Third Edition sand words, this is a new supplement. treatment of the subject was William H. Stoddard’s award-winning GURPS Steampunk (2000), which was followed by supporting material such as Jo Ramsay’s GURPS Screampunk and Stoddard’s GURPS Steam-Tech (both 2001), as well as by the The real 19th century was an age of related GURPS Castle Falkenstein (2000). These books are still available, in electronic PDF amazing inventions and discoveries – format, from Steve Jackson Games’ Warehouse 23 online store. However, since those supplements but these accomplishments inspired appeared, not only has GURPS moved on to a new visions of even greater achievements. edition, but “steampunk” also has evolved. Steam- punk novels and movies are still being created, but Jules Verne’s fictional odysseys and alongside them, steampunk has become a style – a H.G. Wells’ scientific romances took street fashion movement and focus for costume cre- ators, with a number of steampunk artists, sculptors, contemporary readers on a journey and rock bands. This series reflects all these developments. It does into the realms of possibility. At the not replace the GURPS Third Edition books, which same time, inventors such as Charles are still highly recommended. Neither does it sim- ply update their numbers and game mechanics to Babbage and Nikola Tesla proposed Fourth Edition, though there is some of that. Rather, this new Steampunk series updates and extends the new technologies as radical as those in GURPS treatment of the topic to fit the new century. fiction, from steam-powered mechanical computers to wireless electric power. WHAT IS PRESENT This first volume in the new series takes a new – GURPS Steampunk look at steampunk settings and games through a 21st-century lens. The first chapter is a brief overview and history of steampunk, suggesting sources that anyone interested could seek out for further reading along the way. The second chapter is a brief history of the “Steam Age” – the era which inspires both stories and the aes- ABOUT THE AUTHOR thetic, and which provides the settings for many steampunk Phil Masters is a GURPS author of long standing, who campaigns. This chapter provides details to ensure that pro- claims partial responsibility for the adaptation of Castle tagonists and adventures stay true to the genre. Falkenstein to its GURPS manifestation, and for writing the The third chapter concentrates on general game concerns, steampunk-related GURPS Castle Falkenstein: The Ottoman first defining some game-relevant terms and concepts and Empire and GURPS Infinite Worlds: Britannica-6. He was then looking at steampunk gameplay and how to use GURPS the author of both editions of the Discworld Roleplaying for this purpose. This chapter gives the players and GM a Game, GURPS Thaumatology, and many other GURPS mutual starting point for understanding the parameters of a books. He collaborated on yet more, including the Hellboy new campaign. The fourth and last chapter shifts the focus to Sourcebook and Roleplaying Game and GURPS Banestorm. the heroes, discussing the mindset, behavior, and costumes He is the Transhuman Space line editor. that make a steampunk protagonist. The supplement then Phil has worked on several other companies’ game wraps up with a brief glossary and bibliography/filmography. lines, including Ars Magica, Eclipse Phase, and Mage: The Sorcerers Crusade. He also wrote and self-published The Small Folk, an urban fantasy roleplaying game (available in PUBLICATION HISTORY digital form from Warehouse 23). He still lives in Britain with This volume draws on and references earlier GURPS treat- a wife and a small array of computers, none of them powered ments of steampunk, repeating some of their contents where by steam.