I’ve been asked numerous times,“So Mike, what is your world about?” And I typically give the same run down ofhow I have a world where gods no longer exist, magic and technology mingle andcivilization was almost wiped out. But no one wants to hear that. At some pointI’ll get asked about the genre and what other games Ave Molech is similar too,which leaves me with the following conundrum. If I say my game is Fantasy,people ask me about the guns, airships and petroxolin, but if I tell them itssteampunk they question me about the swords, magic and psionics. To which Ireply, “Well. It’s Steampunk Fantasy.”
Now I know what you’re thinking,“So what in the flying F-BOMB is Steampunk Fantasy?” Good question. Typically weknow fantasy as a genre that uses magic among other supernatural aspects as aprimary element plot, theme or setting. A common example of this would be someof the more popular books by Tolkien or Margaret Weiss & Tracy Hickman. Onthe other side we have Steampunk, where the world is set in an era or worldwhere steam power is still widely used. However, when people think of steampunkthey often associate it with speculative fiction, a style that explorers thenature of unproven entities or occurrences within a specific time period. Thus,they imagine a Victorian world where everyone is running around in top hats andspeaking with English or Scottish accents. While much fiction is written aroundthis particular, it shouldn’t by any means pigeonhole the genre.
So why make up the term SteampunkFantasy? Simple. It works. I take a world populated by mostly humans, thoughother races exist to give flavor and let you know you’re not in Kansas anymore.Then we add in the monsters, which can be found in the less populated areas,which in Ave Molech is almost everywhere. Next we make weird technologypredominant in the land, but it runs off of gas and steam. But we don’t stopthere, for now we have magic, ruins and artifacts that past populace had andstill use, though perhaps not as prevalent as the airship taking you across thesea.
Tags: Steampunk Fantasy Fiction
