Themes

OOC

Allow me to share some of my vision for the themes and feel of Edgewar. I try to tell a particular kind of story. I think a lot about theme.

Key Themes

1. Belief and faith
2. Heroism and risk
3. Teamwork

Frequent Elements

These elements often appear on screen. If you have concerns about these elements, then please talk with me.

1. Cults, secret societies, and conspiracies (including malign corporations)
2. Gods, devotion, and religions
3. Interdimensional adventuring and dungeoneering
4. Law enforcement (e.g., police, trials, prisons)
5. LGBTQ2IA+ representation (e.g., a gay NPC)
6. Magic and the paranormal
7. Mercenaries
8. Nanites (including grey goo)
9. Neurodiversity representation (e.g., autism, ADHD)
10. Organized crime (including gangs) and corruption
11. Physical transformation (e.g., a human turning into an orc) (but not body horror)
12. Robots, androids, and artificial intelligence
13. Slavery (including freeing slaves)
14. Spirits and souls (e.g., death, afterlifes)
15. Undead
16. War machines (e.g., colossal stone creatures)
17. War profiteering (e.g., arms sales, mercenaries)
18. Weird science

The Edge on Earth

On Earth, the story of the Edge is very cyberpunk (like Shadowrun and The Secret World). This Edge is a secret to most people and organizations. The line between arcane magic and experimental technology is blurry.

Gempunk

Beyond Earth, especially in Sigil and the Outer Planes, the existence of magic and paranormal beings isn't a secret. Rather, it's a common experience even for ordinary residents. Beyond Earth, the story of Edgewar is more "gempunk."

The attitude and feel of cyberpunk comes partly from punk: "short, fast-paced songs with hard-edged melodies and singing styles, stripped-down instrumentation, and often political, anti-establishment lyrics. Punk embraces a DIY ethic; many bands self-produce recordings and distribute them through independent record labels." (Wikipedia) Punk is a strong fit with how many adventurers and parties of adventurers behave, including upsetting the status quo accidentally or on purpose. Being Unbound is very punk.

Cyberpunk adds shadowy powers like corporations and secret agencies, powers that have much more influence than basic government. And of course cyberpunk adds cyber tech: technology verging on magic, physical enhancements, artificial intelligence, killer robots, nanotech, etc.

Now consider steampunk. Steampunk keeps a lot of cyberpunk's tropes, but the shadowy powers tend to be proto-corporations like the East India Company (or a similar sprawling mercantile company). The tech is ostensibly steam, although often with delightfully-unrealistic elements like miniaturization and physical enhancements (e.g., steam-driven limbs).

Gempunk builds on all of that, but it mixes magic alongside or in place of cyber tech or steam tech. Gempunk includes magitech: machinery, automatons, or physical enhancements driven by magic. Gempunk is a strong part of the Artificer class and Eberron in general.

Imagining Sigil

Chicago and Earth remain an important location in the Edgewar story, for reasons that will continue to become clear. For one thing, Chicago is where the Axis of Elusive Truths intersects Earth.

Sigil is also an important location. There aren't a lot of perfect touchstones for Sigil, but here's some starting places. The original creators of Planescape (the published setting that includes Sigil) used the tagline "philosophers with clubs." Beliefs and values have tangible results in the Outer Planes, like a corrupt city literally being pulled into hell.

In customizing Sigil and telling Sigil stories, here are some of my inspirations:

• Coruscant (from Star Wars): a city at the center of everything
• Citadel Station (from Mass Effect): a city at the center of everything, and the residents aren't actually in control
• Dark City: for the darker parts of Sigil, and spatial weirdness and belief effects
• Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome: for the gonzo/punk culture and the emphasis on trade
• Borderlands: for the gonzo/punk culture with teleporters and experimental weapons, and the emphasis on corporations
• Mortal Engines (both the book and the movie): for the steampunk/gempunk feel and gigantomania in design
• Inception: for spatial weirdness and for belief effects as everyday occurrences
• and most especially The Fifth Element: for the beautiful chaos of many different species and their cultures mashed together, yet it still has the mundane nuisances of our lives (e.g., drivers' licenses, advertising)

Make It Personal

The personal, as everyone’s so fucking fond of saying, is political. So if some idiot politician, some power player, tries to execute policies that harm you or those you care about, take it personally. Get angry. The Machinery of Justice will not serve you here – it is slow and cold, and it is theirs, hardware and soft-. Only the little people suffer at the hands of Justice; the creatures of power slide from under it with a wink and a grin. If you want justice, you will have to claw it from them. Make it personal. Do as much damage as you can. Get your message across. That way, you stand a better chance of being taken seriously next time. Of being considered dangerous. And make no mistake about this: being taken seriously, being considered dangerous marks the difference - the only difference in their eyes - between players and little people. Players they will make deals with. Little people they liquidate. And time and again they cream your liquidation, your displacement, your torture and brutal execution with the ultimate insult that it’s just business, it’s politics, it’s the way of the world, it’s a tough life and that it’s nothing personal. Well, fuck them. Make it personal. -Richard K. Morgan, Altered Carbon