Victorian Era D&D

[Derfud]

After much pain trying to create an interesting D&D campaign I finally came up with the revelation that I suck at creating medeival adventures.

Let me start from the beginning. Yesterday, as I was walking home with a friend, we met his sister on the way, she wanted him to carry a mirror home for him for some reason. So being the nice guy that he is, he took the mirror, and after some joking around, he ended up attaching it to his belt loops, so now he had a mirror hanging from his crotch. To cut a long story short, we used the intense concentrated reflection of the sun from the mirror to discover that the device had quite an impressive range. Then I had an epifany, remembering all the cool technological guns in arcanum, I came up with the idea of making a "sun cannon", a relatively simple device involving mirrors, and magnifying glasses. The idea of this weapon, and other cool ideas like it were just too awesome to not do anything with.

When I finally got home, I came to the conclusion that I would transfrom the shitty campaign that I had done virtaully no work on, into an extrodinary victorian adventure. Involving cowbows, gold mines, zombies, card games, and all that good stuff put together. I have decided to not follow Arcanum's model with having tech vs. magic, but instead letting the 2 be combined.

Anyways, I need some suggestions for weapons, special items, or anything in general fitting to the victorian era, or atleast shortly before that I could include in this campaign. This can include political issues, stereotypes, fashions. Even plot suggestions. My mind is flowing right now. It feels great to be a DM today.

[TekDragon]

Read about 5 dozen (preferably more) novels on the genre your looking to base your campaign in. Those will give you all the plot twists you need. The best DM's i've ever played with were avid readers. You can pull ideas from a dozen different books and have an awesome campaign that'll last a year and keep a half dozen people in it begging for more every time the session ends. I know from experience of playing with DM's and being a DM myself. Until you saturate yourself with novels in the genre, your campaign is going to be flat and one dimensional.

Oh, and when i say novels i don't mean retarded ass books like the Ice Wind Dale series or the Halo series. I mean real novels written by real authors.

[TekDragon]

As for suggestions...

I suggest the "Magic of Recluse" (by L.E Modesitt Jr) series for political interactive ideas. "Sword of Truth" (Terry Goodkind) for broad military ideas and also some monster/item ideas. The "Shannanara" series (Terry Brooks) has some good ideas on magic. "The Dragon" series (by Robert Jordan) has a whole slew of ideas, but the entire series is well over 10,000 pages. Finally I suggest reading Harry Turtledove's "Darkness" series for some VERY keen political insights as well as some broad military ideas, becarefuly though: his books have over a dozen point of views each, following multiple people in multiple countries in a medieval fantasy WW2 parallel.

[Fragmatic]

That sounds pretty cool Would like to get into d&d, but don't really know too much.

Victorian era sounds fun though, I could just imagine it -

Jenkins - "Forsooth, there be a dragon in my path jeeves, destroy that bumbling scaled monstrosity!"
Jeeves - "Right away sir"
*THWACK, BOOM KAPOW!*
Jenkins - "maybe I should give Jeeves a hand by shooting the dragon with my pistol!"
*BANG!*
Jenkins - "JEEVES! Give me a hand reloading this blasted contraption will you!"
Jeeves - "I would help sir, but you seem to have shot me."

There could be some cool characters, like -

Little Timmy the Chimney Sweep with a +10 brush of soot.
Johnson the factory owner with the monacle of eternal vision.

Ok, I'm going overboard, sorry, got nothing better to do.

[Onizuka-GTO]

Originally Posted by Fragmatic

Ok, I'm going overboard, sorry, got nothing better to do.

..............



your not the only one...

[Manitou]

Harpsichord of Planar Travel
-Quest Item
By playing a certain chord or tune on this item you enable a small portal or rip in the time-space continuum through which your hardy adventurers, if they so choose, may travel to different planes of adventure. By using a small magically imbued tuning fork they can recreate the sound once for the return trip, if needed. But don't loose that tuning fork! It is magically tuned to the harpsichord they used to travel with originally and the exact tune can never be recreated by another fork (as far as they know).

Loom of Cartwright
-Quest Item
This loom was originally created by Cartwright the inventor for the Queen. But he held back his original creation as he felt it was too powerful an item and was worried the King would take it for his armies and tip the balance of power in the Land. The original loom, the fabled "Loom of Cartwright" had tremendous magical properties. Using the right fabric and combining the right ingredients he had been able to manufacture robes and silk clothing items that were of very high value as well as had magical armor properties. He ferreted it away and hid it where nobody has ever found. His list of ingredients and the type fabrics to use were also hidden but in different places to keep anyone from taking advantage of this invention. Cartwright died without ever actually revealing the location, but there is rumor of a map or a set of maps.

Faraday's Folly
-Magical Item
While working on his electro-magnetic contraption, he stumbled across an odd effect the simple machine had on the armor of the soldier standing guard nearby. When the machine was set in motion, the guard's armor began to heat up and attract other metallic items in the area. He postulated that he could design a mobile one of his little machines that could be inserted into the lines of the enemy that would cause their armor to heat up and attract an enemy army's arrows and guide their spear and sword thrusts towards the armor. Its range was small, but very effective within that range.

Boole's Boredom
-Spell
While studying logic, Boole found that by repeating a string of logical thoughts aloud anyone within a 10' radius immediately became lethargic and, if the incantation was able to be continued, the people in the area would fall sound asleep.

The Voice
-Spell (elixir)
Although nobody knows how this spell was contrived, its ablities are well known. By combining the right ingrediants in a cup or bowl, the magic-user is enabled to have a magical enhancement upon his voice that gives him an amplitude addition and also the ability to sway the thoughts and feelings of those nearby. If able to continue uninterrupted, the speaker may actually convince even enemy soldiers to lay down their arms or even attack their fellow soldiers. Deaf soldiers aren't affected, and the speaker must be able to speak in the tongue of the enemy for this to work.

These are just a few ideas I threw together for you Derf. Have fun!

[AztecWarrior]

The era spans from 1865 to 1893. A lof ot historical stuff happens, but I'm far too lazy. Here's the weaponry:

WEAPONRY:

Swords and bows are out, gunpowder is in, except for calvary, which has sabers that are used only during a charge, they usually carry pistols or repeating rifles.

The first revolver pistol was invented in 1836 by Samuel Colt. All normal-sized pistols in the campaign should be revolver-type. Auto-loading pistols have yet to be invented.

Pocket pistols (like the Derringer) I think sometimes had multiple barrels, but were extremely small and almost useless at a range.

Rifles are a different matter. By the end of the era, turnbolt rifles (like the German Kar 98, where you fire then manipulate a bolt to load a new round) begin to appear. But for the majority of the period, rounds are inserted manually, making rifles single-shot. I belive the rifle cartridge is invented during this period (putting a bullet and gunpowder into one package), making the whole musket-type loading sequence unnecessary. However, a new invention was the repeating rifle (as seen in The Last Samurai) where you fire and then push forward a recharging assembly connected to the trigger to load the new round.

Machine-guns were mostly of Gattling type (multiple barrels, one man loads, then aims, while another cranks the action to fire), heavy, and probably should only be used by a team of two people, but when they get firing, they can mow down nearly everything. By the end of the era, some more modern machineguns appear, but they are still very heavy and require two people.

[Bighoss]

Oh man I'd wanna play it. We could stop the giant mechanical spider being driven by the cripled guy from destroying the north!!!

Questions:

Would it take place in like a real world type setting like with America and England, or would it just be a weird world with parts of the world developed enough to be like the Victorian era?

I think making up a new world would be cool, that way you could throw in any weird and crazy civilization you wanted AND we wouldn't have to wear those doofy hats.

[Dharkbayne]

Gnomes and Dwarves. Populate your campaign with 'em. That's the only advice I can give.

[Derfud]

Thanks for all the great ideas so far. As for the world, I am planning on making it myself. It would sort of be a fusion between fantasy, and history. Combined with many metaphorical references. Also some references put in just for fun (I plan on starting the players by entering a town, then going to the saloon, to find some cowboys playing Texas Holdem, of course there will be no Texas in this fantasy world.

[NoSurrender]

dude i so want to be a guy with a Gattling Gun ( kinda of like a barbian) ohhhh man.