Random Encounters: Steampunk Marketplace

Another in my series of Random Encounter posts. In these posts, I include three tables: one for the creature, one for an environment feature, and one for a surprise to be delivered during the encounter whenever you see fit. I hope that these three elements can actually generate useful random encounters for your game.

In order to be particularly useful, though, the tables have to be fairly specific. So, each post is geared towards a single genre and a single location type. Today, you can generate a random encounter in a marketplace in a steampunk setting.

Creature

1. A cloaked figure wielding a pair of long, crackling knives
2. Urchins playing football or rugby
3. A boisterous snake-oil seller
4. A corrupt law officer looking for trouble
5. A charistmatic speaker rallying an increasingly angry crowd
6. A desperate fabric vendor trying to make ends meet

Environment feature

1. Loose cobblestones can trip up the unwary.
2. A large glass and steel box houses a mechanical fortune teller.
3. A deteriorating stone fountain sprays water into a fine mist.
4. The various stalls are filled with valuables and improvised projectiles.
5. A nearby factory churns out heavy smoke that darkens the whole area.
6. Large steel gears (exposed for maintenance), turn and grind.

Surprise

1. A horseless carriage barrels through the area, heedless of pedestrians.

2. A gyrocopter crashes to the ground, its pilot injured but alive.

3. A squad of heavily armed officers burst into the area, looking for a child.

4. One of the vendors announces a huge sale, and the crowds stampede that way.

5. A mechanical bird swoops down and begins pecking feverishly at the creature.

6. The creature stops moving and begins making a mechanical grinding sound.

More Genre Mash-Ups

As I have said before, I love crossovers and mash-ups. Whether you're talking about two IPs being merged together or simply a story that calls on multiple genres. There are all kinds of great reasons to use genre mash-ups: to compare the societies of two distinct time periods (like noir and American West), to take current political ideologies to their extremes (dystopia and political thriller), or just because you want to see a cyborg hacker wielding a laser sword fighting a giant robotic monster (transhumanist, cyberpunk, space opera, and kaiju).

Some genre mash-ups are so common that they are already existing genres themselves (like epic fantasy or science fantasy or post-apocalyptic survival horror). But that doesn't mean that there isn't room to explore within those genres. If you can extricate the separate aspects of the base genres, you can recombine them in new and/or exciting ways.

With that, I present to you another collection of genre mash-ups.

Genre Mash-Ups

Vikings in Hell: Maniacal Vikings set sail for the afterlife to rescue the chief’s daughter from the Devil himself. (epic / fantasy)

Regime of Steam: Queen’s Elite were spies, until National Tinker’s Party came to power; now they’re steampunk dystopia fugitives. (political thriller / steampunk)

Web of Dreams: Outcast demigods eat lotus blossoms to enter the Dreamworld and undermine the Pantheon and its corrupt gods. (mythic / cyberpunk)

Bodies and Minds: Doppelgänger invasion is preceded by radiation burst that triggers psychic abilities in 0.01% of the population. (sci-fi / paranormal)

Achilles’ Eleven: Reborn mythic heroes must steal ancient relics from a globe-spanning criminal organization. (heist / mythic)

War of the Worlds – 65M BC: The asteroid was an attack! A ragtag team of sentient dinosaur survivors fights Venusian invaders. (alien / prehistoric)

Horror Among Thieves: The Thieves’ Guild steals relics from around the world to fight a secret war against the Old Ones. (heist / fantasy / survival horror)

Spaceships, Spies, and Spells: Near-future spies wield tech and magic against the alien invasion going on in the shadows.  (spy-fi / fantasy / sci-fi)

Diamond Mind (Download)

Good news, everyone!*

I have transformed my Diamond Mind campaign spark into a five-page campaign overlay. It is free to download in PDF format here and on my brand-new Downloads page.

If you have any feedback (including questions and constructive criticism) please contact me via Twitter or email (ThatOneGM@gmail.com).

* I hope you read that in Professor Farsnsworth's voice.

Campaign Sparks: Diamond Mind (Adventure Hooks)

To wrap up my Diamond Mind campaign spark breakdown, I'm going to present a list of adventure hooks. Ideally, any one of these hooks could lead directly into the main story about Joseph Chamberlain, Archibald Spire, and Facet. Each hook also has a question or two to spark the GM's imagination and drive the hook into a larger adventure of its own.

Adventure Hooks

The Faceless Man
A street urchin runs out in front of the PCs' cab. She claims to have been nearly kidnapped by a man with no face.
 - Who does he work for? Why kidnap a penniless urchin?

Red-Letter Day
Mouleraine Windham-Smythe is looking for someone to investigate Chauncey Whig. Mouleraine believes that the threatening letters being left in his office are the doing of Chauncey.
- Why is Mouleraine being threatened?

Nails and the Hammer
Nails is sending messages throughout the Underground looking for runners, muscle, and gearheads. Nails has a new plan, but no one else in the gang knows all of it.
- Who else might show up to work for Nails? Spies for other NPCs?

Locke and Keye
Dory Locke is planning a serious heist against a wealthy politician. Dory is looking for a team to help overcome the politician's serious security in exchange for a split of the take.
- Why doesn't Dory choose a less secure heist? What has she got against this politician?

Industrious Espionage
Chrissy Plain is discreetly look for outside talent to help with an undercover investigation of the Northern Coal Company.
- Why can't Chrissy do the undercover work herself? And why is the investigation so covert in the first place?

Writing on the Wall
Dustine needs an extra set of eyes and ears to try to catch the person who keeps leaving ominous messages on her wall during the evening rush.
- What do the messages mean? Why are they always left at the same time?

Campaign Sparks: Diamond Mind (NPCs)

Now that we have setting and locations out of the way, it's time to populate those places a bit with some NPCs.

NPCs

• Archibald Spire is an ingenious inventor with a one-track mind and no idea how to run a business.
• Chauncey Whig is a pompous man-at-arms at Parliament. He is aggressive, and he's a stooge of Joseph Chamberlain.
• Christianna "Chrissy" Plain is a tough, tall redhead with sharp mind for security. She is the head of the Queen's Most Distinguished Personal Attendants (her personal agents). Chrissy is level-headed and is a crack shot with any firearm.
• Dory Locke is a telekinetic thief with a clockwork arm designed by Spire. She is a professional thief, but she lives modestly on a few big thefts per year. Dory is generally kind, if a bit forgetful.
• Dustine Mélange is the amiable owner and barkeep of Clatter. She always seems to be surrounded by a calming aura.
• Facet is an enigmatic telepath with designs to rule over all of London.
• Joseph Chamberlain is a charismatic politician with serious influence over Parliament, but not over the Queen. He is strongly against extranaturals and wants them expunged from England.
• Martin is a poor vagrant in a shabby grey cloak. He has a knack for disappearing, and people have a hard time remembering him after he leaves. He sells information in the Underground.
• Mouleraine Windham-Smythe is a keen-eyed politician in the House of Commons. His dark skin makes him stand out, but not as much as his critical voice.
• Nails is a gritty gang leader and an excellent sword fighter. Nails is ex-military and runs the gang with precision.
• Queen Victoria is the clever and intimidating monarch of England.
• Whisper is an empathic assassin who feels the pain and fear of targets.

Campaign Sparks: Diamond Mind (Locations)

Even though our setting isn't large compared to most RPG campaigns, we still need to establish specific locations within it. Our villains need somewhere to hide, our PCs need somewhere to rest, and our encounters need someplace to happen. We don't need much detail for most of these yet; the GM can fill them out with specifics as necessary.

Locations

Abandoned Tunnels
The various tunnels between abandoned stations in the London Underground are the homes of gangs, vagrants, and rats.

Bosom of the Sea
This large, raucous pub is out among the wharfs and serves mostly sailors and laborers. Its customers are loud, unruly, and often violent, but criminals are known to meet here to make secretive deals.

Clatter
This cramped pub is located in the artisan's district, and so its clients run the range of working poor to lesser politicians. Clatter is so popular thanks in part to its inviting atmosphere and friendly barkeep.

Clock Tower (Big Ben)
The famous clock tower of the Palace of Westminster. Deep in its clockwork innards, the mysterious extranatural assassin known as Whisper keeps his lair.

The Diamond Star
This high-class restaurant is actually in a zeppelin that circles above the Hightower district. Aristocrats, politicians, and wealthy businesspeople meet here to discuss matters of great importance. Unknown to all, the powerful telepath Facet hides in the Zeppelin, slowly manipulating the minds of the most powerful women and men in London.

Northern Coal Tower
This is one of the tallest buildings in the Hightower district. It is owned by the Northern Coal Company, but many of its floors are leased out to other purposes. In fact, its uppermost floor is Joseph Chamberlain's personal penthouse.

Northern Coal Warehouse
In the heart of Whitechapel, this large building stores most of the coal burned by the many power plants in the district. It is an old building, converted to a warehouse only in the last few years, and has an entire subbasement that its workers know nothing about. That subbasement is Joseph Chamberlain's secret headquarters, where he is keeping Archibald Spire and building his Queen Victoria automaton.

Spire's Studio
This small shop is almost hidden at the edge of the Whitechapel district. This is where Archibald Spire is known to create and sell his magnificent clockwork creations. Spire is often busy working, however, so his shop is open only rarely.

West Whitechapel Plant
This is the largest of the power plants in Whitechapel. Before the construction of the Northern Coal Warehouse, it had a connection through the London Underground in order to receive coal quickly. This small tunnel, although it is blocked, is the closest connection to the Whitechapel Station.

Whitechapel Station
This Underground station was closed more than a year ago. In that time, a major gang has taken control of the station and now uses it as a headquarters.

Campaign Sparks: Diamond Mind (Setting)

Now that we've established our mood and genre (and influences), it's time to flesh out the setting.

London: City of Clockwork Science

In the year 1897, London is a glittering pinnacle of Western civilization. Horseless carriages, powered by charged gears and coils, rattle down the cobblestone streets; zeppelins, loaded with wealthy passengers, float back and forth between London and the Continent; men and women ride elevators to the top of tall towers and place projected-image tele-calls to the other end of England.

The average Londoner probably works in a power plant; she'll be shoveling Scottish coal*, cranking levers, winding coils, oiling gears, replacing cogs, or monitoring output. Other Londoners work in towering offices, routing tele-calls or calculating the cost of a Watt of power or a pound of Scottish coal compared to various global currencies.

Crime and poverty are still a problem in London, though not to the extent that they once were. Unfortunately, those people living in poverty or driven to crime are even more marginalized and ostracized than ever. They've created an underground culture (literally underground), and they're becoming more bitter by the day.

Whitehall
The governing district of London looks much the same as it always has. Government buildings are slow to change. This district is quite busy, however. London is the center of technology and culture in Europe; so the leaders in London have serious influence over not just England and the Continent, but the whole world.

Hightower
The new money and jobs of London have flowed into the so-called Hightower district like water flowing downhill. Except, in this case, it appears to be flowing uphill. The Hightower district is named after the enormous towers of iron and stone that loom over the city.

Whitechapel
This is a poor district, mostly of working-class folks. There are a number of power plants in the district, and dozens of low-rent apartments. Crime is higher here than any other district, but it is still safer than the Underground.

The London Underground
On the street, travel is noisy, but clean and quick. The low cost of winders (nickname for horseless carriages) means that nearly everyone can afford to drive or take a cab across town. The result of this is that the London Underground still operates, but it has fallen out of favor and is rarely used by most people. The lower elements of society (criminals and the poor) have mostly been driven underground: literally. The London Underground is so empty that many closed-down stations have become the home of gangs and beggar communities.

*An enormous vein of coal that burns virtually smog-free was discovered years ago in Scotland and still puts out enough coal for all of England, and then some.

Campaign Sparks: Diamond Mind (Genre and Mood)

Hopefully, you saw yesterday's Diamond Mind campaign spark. If not, quickly check it out and come back.

Good, now that you're familiar with it, I'll restate my goal: I intend to break this campaign spark down over a series of posts, and rebuild it into a fully fledged outline, ready to be statted out into your RPG system of choice.

Today, I am going to briefly discuss the genre and mood of this campaign spark. I do this first in order to make sure that everything that follows fits together and feels like it's part of the same campaign.

Genre

As I said in the original post, this campaign spark mixes steampunk and paranormal.

I'm going to define a steampunk setting, at least for these purposes, as one with Victorian values and advanced technology that uses simpler mechanisms. In Diamond Mind, the London of 1897 is know as the "city of clockwork science." It has horseless carriages, zeppelins, gyrocopters, elevators, iron warships, tanks, and projected-image telephones. I think steampunk usually also has an undercurrent of filth and exploitation, but in Diamond Mind's case, that niche is filled by the paranormal aspect.

I'm going to define a paranormal setting (again, for these purposes) as one in which magic and monsters exist alongside the mundane, but normal people are unaware of these fantastical elements. Already, in Diamond Mind I have broken this definition, but that's because the setting is on the brink of a change. Up to this point, the "extranaturals" have been nothing more then urban legends to the vast majority of Londoners, but now they are swiftly becoming a reality.

Mood

I think it's safe to say that the mood of Diamond Mind is a dark one. Not grim, like a post-apocalypse setting, but dark. After all, there exists a whole class of people who possess powers that terrify the rest of humanity, and the extranaturals, in turn, fear for their life if their powers are revealed.

But, it does still take place in a city that calls itself the pinnacle of Western civilization in the midst of an age of innovation. So, you know, it isn't all that dark.

Influences

The influences here seem really obvious to me, and I'll call them out briefly and discuss them.

X-Men: I've never read the comics, so what I'm referring to here is the first and second X-Men movies released by Fox. Particularly, the extranaturals feel like X-Men's mutants; especially if a law gets passed early in the campaign that affects the legal status of extranaturals. To that end, it's a story about a society that is learning to fear the other and/or about a society that must learn to overcome that fear and accept the other.

The Great Mouse Detective: This movie is definitely steampunk, and the main plot of Diamond Mind is stolen from, an homage to, eerily similar to that of The Great Mouse Detective. That said, Joseph Chamberlain has a very different villainous style than Rattigan, and Whisper the empathic assassin is definitely a much more serious threat than Fidget the bat.

Campaign Sparks: Diamond Mind (Spark)

I know I just shared an interesting campaign spark yesterday, but it got me thinking about other ideas. In particular, I wondered what the actual process would be for transforming a campaign spark into a full campaign outline, including NPCs, locations, adventure hooks, rewards, etc.

So, I'm going to start with a brand-new campaign spark today, and then I'll start taking it apart and filling in all of the empty spaces. By the end, my goal is to have a full campaign outline that someone could (theoretically) lay over the top of their favorite RPG system and use.

But, as I said, I'm going to start with just the simple spark itself. This one is a mix of steampunk and paranormal, and stars Queen Victoria, a psychic thief, and several sinister plots.

The Diamond Mind

In the summer of 1897, London, the city of clockwork science, prepares for Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee.  Amidst the excitement are worried rumors: extranaturals—people with psychic powers like empathy and telekinesis—are becoming more common and more dangerous.

Joseph Chamberlain, well-known politician, has kidnapped Archibald Spire (the renowned clockwork inventor) and schemes to replace Queen Victoria with an automaton.  Chamberlain employs the empathic assassin Whisper as his right-hand man.  Whisper knows nothing of Chamberlain’s full plot: to use the clockwork Queen's authority to wipe out all extranaturals.

Dory Locke, a telekinetic thief with a clockwork arm, turns to the players to help her rescue Archibald, her friend, and uncover the plot.  The scheme goes deeper than even Chamberlain realizes; he is being controlled by a powerful telepath, Facet, who plans to take unopposed control of London once the other extranaturals have been wiped out.

The Breakdown Posts

Genre and Mood (and Influences)
Setting
Locations
NPCs
Adventure Hooks

Outlaw Names

The clamor of raucous poker games, the pungency of stale sweat, the burning of cheap whiskey, the dull heat of midday, and the flash of gunfire beneath the zenith sun.  Gaming in the American Old West (or some version of it) brings a deep pleasure to many gamers.  It is so heavily ingrained into American consciousness (and into the image of America in other nations) that to pick up a six-shooter and ride into the sunset fulfills some inner cultural nostalgia for many.  It must be how the Greeks felt telling stories of Ajax, Agamemnon, and Achilles.

One of the most striking things about the setting is the power of names.  Billy the Kid, Doc Holiday, Black Bart—these names ring in our ears, embodying the very essence of the West.  If you're looking to capture that same feeling,* to fill your setting with characters whose names ring true from the Badlands to Dodge City, I've got the table for you!

This link will take you to a d20 table for generating the name of a villainous outlaw (or grim anti-hero) and a corresponding gang of nefarious ne'er-do-wells.

Here's a sampling of names in all five of the recommended formulas.

Outlaws and Gangs

• Dynamite Slim and the Bullseye Buzzard Bunch
• Bushwack Brown and the Vipers
• The Broken Tooth Bandits
• Kate and the Thunder Devils
• Lightning Jane and her boys

* With the addition of a bit of steampunk flair in places

Campaign Sparks II

Campaign sparks, for those of you that missed my original post, are 100-150 word summaries that set off an entire campaign. Each spark should contain: a conflict, a setting, 2-3 NPCs, the stakes, and a twist.

The real beauty of a campaign spark is that it could take off in so many different directions. The one I shared last time, The Village and the Forest, was actually a little constrained compared to the ideal. There should be action going on in the setting, and the PCs should be a part of it, but they should really be able to set the campaign off in any direction.

Let me give you an example, and then break it down a little bit.

The Royal Mechanized Rangers

Monsters have arisen all over the world, and England is imperiled on its own lands. Gogmagog, ancient giant of legend, is birthing giants and dragons from the northern rocky hills. Only the elite members of the Royal Mechanized Rangers (RMR) and their steam-powered MAGs (Mechanized Armored Giant) can defend Her Majesty's holdings.

Major Whist commands the RMR and secretly collects dragons' teeth and giants' blood. Frode Torson is a Norwegian advisor to the RMR, a specialist on trolls, giants, and dragons, and a spy for Bonaparte. Corineus—the half-human son of Gogmagog—hates his father.

Not only are England and her people in danger, but the RMR is itself facing dissolution by Parliament. The MAGs are expensive and dangerous, and Parliament is in favor of hiring Norwegian mercenaries, the Skjoldkriger. Worse, Gogmagog isn't just attacking at random, his monsters are laying the groundwork to summon Gogmagog's father, the titan Ymir.

Breakdown

So, the PCs are obviously Rangers in the RMR, which places them smack-dab in the middle of everything. I can see several different kinds of games igniting from this spark.

1. Steampunk Pacific Rim: Basically, the PCs pilot their MAGs and beat up a bunch of giants and dragons until they confront Gogmagog and Ymir. This game focuses heavily on the MAG vs monster combat.

2. Military Espionage: The PCs still have to fight the monsters, but they also have to deal with the subtle machinations of Major Whist and Frode Torson. This game balances combat and investigation.

3. Political Thriller: The PCs fight monsters, but mostly they're fighting to keep the RMR intact.  They have to maneuver against both the Skjoldkriger and the Parliament, perhaps garnering the favor of Queen Victoria. This game downplays combat and focuses on social interaction and political maneuvering.

4. Monster Mystery: The PCs spend a lot of time fighting monsters, but they're also tasked with tracking down their origins. They'll probably have to deal with Major Whist and Corineus, and they'll have to travel amongst the rocky hills of the north to track down Gogmagog. This game combines combat, social interaction, and exploration.

And that's not even counting any other NPCs or plot threads that might emerge from developing the existing NPCs!

This is what a good campaign spark should look like.  All the basics, and not just room to grow, but room and potential to grow in almost any way imaginable.