Far East Steampunk Inspirations

James Ng’s Imperial Sheriff

When people visualize steampunk they usually associate it with Victorian England. However, since the main gist of the genre is Victorian-era futurism, there’s a much wider spectrum of world cultures that can be looked to for inspiration.

As SteamCon II’s theme was, “Wild, Wild, West”, this year’s Nova Albion Steampunk Exhibition is going with the theme, “Wild, Wild, East”. And by this they mean the “Far East” (as called in Victorian times) and not “New York” (some people I talked to actually thought this was the case).

Since Nova Albion is coming up at the end of March, this gives me about a month and half to put together something for the event. Considering my last project took about two weeks of busy nights and weekends I think if I want to do anything ambitious I better start now.

At SteamCon I picked up a professional-quality pair of grey hakama at SteamCon II, so that’s a good starting point.

Wrinkled hakama, but you get the idea

I also have a white under-kimono and possibly a dusty green over-kimino (if I can find it). Going with this basic clothing premise, the obvious choice would be: steampunk samurai! However, a full set of steampunk samurai armor would be rather… ambitious in such a short period. A more practical goal might be an armored arm gauntlet with oriental dragon ornamentation? I steampunk-inspired mempo (although a helmet would look a bit odd without the rest of the armor)?

Empire of Bone: The Power of Death

In the Empire of Bone, death (and undeath) is a tangible force that imposes itself on the world in various ways:

• The Restless Dead – Once a living thing dies, they don’t always stay dead. There is a chance they will come back to life in an undead state: as a revenant, a zombie, a skeleton, a ghost, or as an animated “thing”. While many are quite civil about it, many also go about bothering the living with their undead state.
• Death Rot – The world is awash with entropic energies, causing everything to warp and rapidly. Everything appears to be in a twisted and dilapidated state and drained of color.
• Dead Sky – The sky has entered into a perpetual twilight, casting a pall on everything. The sun and moon both cast a dull light through the dead sky, with grey days giving way to a thick darkness on moonless nights.

This force of death can be controlled in various ways with those with the right knowledge:

• Grave Gifts – Every restless dead possesses a special power when they come back from the grave. Usually it is related to the method by which they died.
• Necromancy – Necromancy means “divination through communication with the dead”. Necromancers can do that and much more with the spirits of the dead.
• Reanimation – Through creative surgery and applied necro-science, talented surgeons can create mindless undead servants.
• Funerary Rites – The Black Church possesses certain powers over the dead, and indeed watches over the resurrection process.

This covers a fairly wide range of “dead powers” to work into story and player abilities!

Empire of Bone : The Big Bad

Back on the Empire of Bone project…

We have a defined setting premise: during the early Victorian era, there was an occurrence that changed the nature of the world so the dead came back from the grave. While some undead went about the nasty business of slaying the living, many were rather civil about it and took up their old lives again. Fast forward a few decades and you have a slightly altered mid-Victorian society where the living and the dead co-habit London.
This brings to mind a number of story possibilities, but the biggest is probably the hardest to answer: who is the “Big Bad” of the story, and why do the players care about it? Some ideas:

• The Undead Problem – Aside from being a bit icky to the living, perhaps the whole world-transforming rise of the dead has a farther-reaching and more sinister element to it. Maybe it’s a pre-cursor to some manner of world-destroying nastiness associated with it – possibly something that was engineered and has yet to reach it’s conclusion. The real trick is making it so that even the undead players have a reason for wanting to stop it – since it could mean the end of their existence if they succeed.
• Class Struggle – Things have really become upset since the dead rose, and are only really starting to settle down. Now that the living and the dead have gotten used to their new roles, how is it going to play out? There is an underlying class struggle in Victorian society – add the additional complication of the undead and it becomes an interesting tangle of politics to unravel.
• Outside Threat – Perhaps there is a threat originating from outside the Empire itself - perhaps a foreign power bent on conquering and/or destroying the Empire. Maybe the Prussians have come up with a new manner of applied necro-science that has given them a combat edge and are pressing the advantage.

Of course, the answer could be “all of the above”, but I’m trying to narrow down the options a bit in order to nail down the plot points. Ideas abound!

Steamy Endeavors, Part V

I hoped to post this before heading to SteamCon, but time did not permit. Here is the final results of my thirty-six-shooter.

Sadly I did not get a great hi-resolution close-up of the shooter, but I’m sure some will show up on the web sometime!

Steamy Endeavors, Part IV

Work proceeds apace! Got a large chunk of the detail work done tonight, just need to do some paint highlighting and glue attachment.

I wanted the arm-plate to have some sort of visual texture, so after doing some hunting around online I settled on a nice reddish-brown leather texture. After printing a color of sheets on the laser printer, I cut it to fit the plates.

I didn’t necessarily want to go with traditional gun colors, so I tried experimenting a bit. The picture doesn’t bring out the colors well, but I tried a copper rub-and-buff on the gun, which turned out really well.

I wanted the mounting bracket for the gun to look fairly sturdy, so painted that with a metallic silver.

As you can see, the silver provides a nice contrast with the copper guns.

Again, the picture doesn’t do it justice, but I added brass paint detailing on the barrel and other detail bits.

As another detail bit I added metallic edging to the corners of the top of the arm plates, which goes really well with the faux-leather covering.

As an added decorative touch I added a brass nut at the end of the barrel.

Finished up the detailing on the rest of the plates, and added the nuts to the barrels of the other guns. Just need to do the brass paint detailing on four more guns, then fix the guns to the gun mounts and test it out with the new light gold ribbon I got for it.

If there’s any suggestions for additions/revisions I have one more night to work on it. Comments are welcome!

Steamy Endeavors, Part III

After a lot of spray-painting, sealing, and glue-fixing, I think I have the base prop complete and can start building adding details…

You think six-shooters were bad-ass – taste the fury of my thirty-six shooter! Even in basic black it looks pretty cool, so with decent detailing with metallic paints and trim this should look awesome!

Steamy Endeavors, Part II

Minor update to give you a clue as to where this costume prop is going…

Yes, those are revolver barrels minus the handles, mounted on the arm plates. Tune in tomorrow as further detail work is done!