Co-op Worldbuilding

[Ludwig Beilschmidt]

Okay, so you guys have puleld up some awesome things that need a little more detail, and i'm not always the best at it, so I'm gonna give you a little more detail about my head canon and you guys can bounce ideas back at me. this is mostly me jsut free-writing, so if something doesn't make sense to you, point it out!

Nothing is Canon until I add it to the Setting & Plot threads.

YEAR: people who care may notice that in Lud's profile his military portrait is dated 1889. he's been a captain for at least a year, so it can be assumed that the official date is around 1890-92

Rome is the 3rd Hetalian Emperor. The first one was great, the second one was a puppet of his advisors and the third.. expanded their territory, made trade agreements and treaties and has been in general pretty freaking bad-ass and politically wily since he took the throne in his own early 20's. he's got at least 2 20+ plus grandkids by now and hasn't been assassinated yet, so the empire's been pretty stable for a while.

Fashion: I think victorian and edwardian dresses are gorgeous, particularly edwardian. (jackets! and bustles! and prettty) as this is an AU and only rich people can really afford to change their clothes every fashion season anyway it would make sense to have a range of styles. Also pulling the growing middle class, access to cheaper travel and technology would have grown it even faster.

this probably pushed up some cultural revolutions, but it's still terribly scandalous to see a women's leg much past the calf, especially bare, oh my! if you want you female character to be able to move easily, think split skirts (aka riding skirts, basically really wide open leg trousers that look like a skirt when standing) or sufragette style 'bloomers'. as of course this is an AU and people like playing with costume design, don't feel too restricted by this.

As for men's clothes... well, honestly they don't change that much.think more formal for city wear, though there were even jeans and flannel and casual clothing during this time in the wild west and laborers throughout history have always worn more relaxxed, basic clothing. look at some of the links in steampunk inspirations and go wild. though men had a lot more accessories available to them- hats, gloves, various ascots and cravats and bowties, pocket watches. have fun!

Money: bronze, silver, and gold peices feel too rpg'ish to me, but i can't think of anything better right now. there's definitely paper money and bank notes, and probably terminology for the money related to the emperor, steam, gears, whatever. think about the money slang you've heard.
just remember 400$ in the victorian era bought a hell of a lot more than it does today and could be some people's entire yearly income.

[Ludwig Beilschmidt]

TECHNOLOGY: forum stalkers may have noticed bela added that she had , for all intents and purposes, an Auutomail leg. Prussia has a gunblade. (remember, player knowledge does not equal chara knowledge) Not everyone's going to have the latest technology, but this is the industrial revolution gone mad and a big part of what makes steampunk steampunk.

We still have swords, of course for the swash swash buckle buckle, but what kind of technologies and philosophies may have come up? how do the airships work? if everything's steam powereed, it's much more likely that indoor plumbing is common.

electricity isn't totally standard yet. (expensive, an oddity, not totally trusted.)

[Ludwig Beilschmidt]

secret society of airship mechanics/ engineers. like the Masons but not lame. EXPLAINS SO MUCH.

Y/Y?

[Francis "France" Bonnefoy]

I'm really glad that you mentioned that we shouldn't feel too restricted about the skirt length, because I was going to ignore it anyway! *100 watt smile* Sorry, Pock, I just like my women showing a little leg. Even if this is the Neo-Victorian era. (And the possibilities for stockings! Oh my GOD!)

(I would also like to warn you mention, at this point, that it is 2:30 am and I am slightly drunk very tired, so if I speak incoherently am a little hard to follow, I apologize.)

I personally, when I am thinking of steampunk, like the idea of focusing on the NEO Victorian aspect of it. You have this anachronistic feel of an older society that has been propelled by a new revolution - it's a reimagining of a time that never was. So you can reinvent modern ideas with a retro feel. And you can also take antique technology and re-invent it.
I think that's why things like auto-mail legs and gun blades could fit smoothly into this sort of story setting. It has some room for flexibility.

As far as the steam ships themselves go, I don't know. I have been thinking about this myself. I am a huge dork, so a lot of what drew me into this is not just the fact that it's steampunk, it's the fact that it's pirates. (And it being STEAMPUNK PIRATES just made it the best thing ever.) So honestly, my inner geek would love it if the pirate ships look similar to traditional pirate ships that would be in water, but *reinvented* in the image of steam-powered sky-vessels. So, like a regular ship, but retrofitted with a steam engine and turbine wheels. Like this or this or even make a ship/zeppelin hybrid like this.
The ships need to be filled with things like this.
(If most of them could go in the water as well as the sky, that would be so bad ass.)
Also, the military should totally have some zeppelins thrown somewhere in there. (Since reading 'You Can't Take the Skies From Me', I will always associate Ivan with zeppelins. XD )
Urgh, had a little trouble finding military steampunk ship references, but here's one idea here. (I had another, but the site went down. ORZ )

As far as money goes, even if coins are cheesy, I think this works at least with the idea of the pirate settings. (There's nothing like slamming a stolen coin down on the bar for a beer, after all.) Although this would lead to all the characters carrying coin purses, instead of wallets. Such a minor detail, I know, but I am a freak. Coin purses would also work with the pirate setting. But the creative part of me can't help but think it would be more fun to have steampunk wallets or carry-alls with important papers and documents and money in there. (Though maybe there is a compartment for coins, and a compartment for papers? One of the joys of steampunk is having little straps, buckles, and buttons to keep all your little knick-knacks in place.)


It would also be awesome to really push the steampunk setting to play with anachronistic concepts, like this amazing steampunk phone concept or the notorious steampunk laptop.
I wouldn't think we would use something like the laptop, but you get the idea. I think a punch-card based data system could be really interesting, though. Having one of those phones might be too much of a character advantage, but what if, say, the military keeps punchcard data files and uses this crazy teletype-looking gear-powered computer reader where you load in metal cards to read the info on a manual output screen or something.

Things like that are what I mean about really pushing the NEO Victorian aspect of it.


And I will have to get back to you on this secret shipbuilding society when I am more lucid. Though maybe you could elaborate on the idea a little?

[Ludwig Beilschmidt]

re fashion: i just love the whole ' oh noes, that woman has LEGS, shield your chillen's eyes!' exaggeration of victorian middle class morals, and the complete double standard there was for the working class. (though child labor laws were conceived somewhere in here. ...1938 for the first fed regs to be passed? god americafails)

re ships: what, you mean like the FF style one that was in my first banner?
Fyeah. big envelopes, gondolas, catwalks, risky maneuvers across the envelope, rock it all. ( that pagoda-ship is amazing OMGWTFLIBBLE)

crack version of secret society: "Why are all the engineers the damn mute or near-mute characters? geebus! They should get together for coffee and share significant glances. Sweden would order for them since he actually speaks a little, and when they leave the notes for nuclear fusion would be left on the table."

non crack version: you know they would. they'd meet up and talk shop and design new things even if they were on pirate crews that hated eachother's guts. there'd be professional courtesy of course, you don't steal someone else's work and you don't bug the military about their technology- But they get together for the greater good and advancement of Lighter Than Air Science.

oooh, i have an idea to suggest to guppy and berwald and hong now

[Ludwig Beilschmidt]

let there be short silent films.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cinema

[Yong Soo Im]

If the date stated is correct, then if i may put it, we are in the middle of the Victorian era. If that is the case, which I suppose it is, then I propose that something like that of a random event to occur coinciding with the people in that era. There was massive poverty in London's streets at the time, and riots were common place, to which the random event could help push plot lines along. Its just a suggestion though.