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Victoriana
Welcome to 1867
It is the year 1867 by the calendar of the Roman Aluminat church. It has been over three hundred years since the age of magic ended with the thirty- year war. It is an age of unprecedented achieve- ment. Men fly through the skies in balloons, travel overland by train faster than twenty horses! For the Humans, Dwarves, Eldren & Gnomes of Europe, there would appear to be no limit to their achieve-ents, but at what cost?
The entire economy of the civilised world relies on exploiting the lower class and using foreign work forces as slave labour. This is commonly accepted by the lower classes as the way that things are. The inhabitants of conquered lands are not so forgiving. Revolutionaries plot the downfall of European society, a sweeping away of the social cancer. Right or wrong, the revolution comes – but what is it against?
Victoriana is set in a fantastic ‘alternative’ to our own world, and much of its history is the same as our own – but sometimes the two differ. For example, in Victoriana magic and mediums are very real, and fantasy races co-exist with man – the real world, is of course less… interesting.
Fantastic magic and races aside the world of Victoriana shares much with our own world of the 19th century, the divide between the decadence of the rich and the exploitation of the poor being a good example. The real life 19th century was melting pot of change, where gradually the old regime and centuries old tradition gradually gave way to the modern world, and so it shall be in Victoriana.
Gutter Runners
In Victoriana your character could be a wealthy aristocrat, a revolutionary, a medium or sorcerer, or a perhaps simply a poverty stricken labourer. Your goals could be anything from ‘global domination’ to (the perhaps more reasonable) ‘ridding the rookeries of London from the threat of a necromancer’.
Regardless of your characters origins, or their goals, we assume that you will all have one thing in common – desire for change, fuelled by a firm knowledge that the social structure your char-acters live in is corrupt and wrong.
Those who realise this fre-quently become ‘gutter runners’, unafraid to do what needs doing regardless of the social system, regardless of hierarchy, and regardless of law. Often they are urban mercenaries, sometimes killers for hire, or thieves – they are always expendable, their desire to live outside social convention also excludes them from social protection. Gutter runners value personal freedom more than the society around them, they feel a need to be in charge of their own lives, make their own mis-takes, choose their own Romances and make their own fortunes. Many Victoriana middle and lower characters share much in common with (or are) criminals, mirroring the cyberpunk era ‘edgerunner’ ethos, making the best of a bad situation, doing what needs to be done to rise above the stink of a grim life in a dark reality, maintaining your individuality against a depersonalised and dehumanising world.
However, in Victoriana some of you may have upper class characters, and when a character already has the world on a plate, what else does he need? Well, upper class characters certainly have money – but they don’t have freedom – some upper class characters turn to drastic measures to bring their futures under their own control, and thus they fall in with the other gutter runners who also attribute the same value to personal freedom.
The simple fact that your character has a 20th century brain (you) behind his every action makes him a perfect gutter runner – you will disagree with at least some of the following: arranged marriages, sweatshop exploitation empire building, social murder, sexism, racism, slavery – but if your character does then by 19th century standards he’s a rebel, and in short, he’s a gutter runner.
What does my character do?
Depending on the type of game your gamesmaster is running you might be hired as detectives, bodyguards, or for criminal activities, there’s no shortage of employers who need com-petent agents who know how to be discreet.
Magic is also a major part of Victoriana. A great conjunction of the planes approaches, and many cults and sorcerers are racing for ancient knowledge and power to wield in a bid for power when the time is right. If any of your characters have magical ability the pursuit of magical power itself will form many adventures as you quest for long forgotten and suppressed spells and lore.
Often adventures will revolve around the characters themselves and their relationships with their friends, contacts and the society around them. When the other local residents are threatened in some way will they turn to the authorities – or will the characters be a better choice? For lower class neighbourhoods the characters will frequently be a better alternative than the corrupt legal system. Your characters capacity to create change will also be a frequent issue, from the back streets of London to the Mau Mau concentration camps in Kenya; there is much to do. Does your character have the heart, or the inclination to stand against the way that society treats women? Will you stand for political change in the cities of Europe? Stand against the merchant armies in the east and the way that they rape the coun-tries they occupy? Is he a pawn in the secret war between Order and Entropy over control of the world?
- Visit the Heresy Gaming website.
- Download the 653KB here: Victoriana Preview PDF.
