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.
Contents
Key Themes
- Belief and faith
- Heroism and risk
- Teamwork
Key Elements
- Fringe science
- Gods, devotion, and religions
- Interdimensional adventuring and dungeoneering
- Magic and the paranormal
- Physical transformation (e.g., a human turning into an orc) (not necessarily body horror)
- Robots, androids, and artificial intelligence
- Secret societies and conspiracies (including evil corporations)
- Spirits and souls (e.g., death, afterlifes)
- War profiteering (e.g., arms sales, mercenaries)
Occasional/Possible Elements
- Abuse (e.g., child abuse, domestic violence)
- Addiction (especially substance addiction)
- Animals in danger or harmed
- Body horror (e.g., radical physical transformation)
- Bugs (including spiders, swarms, and human-size or larger bugs)
- Children or teenagers in danger or harmed
- Devils and demons
- Disability (e.g., lost limb)
- Extreme weather or natural disasters (e.g., earthquakes, floods, hurricanes, tornadoes)
- Family traumas (e.g., loss of a parent)
- Fires
- Historic traumas (e.g., races that previously endured long-term slavery)
- Insanity (e.g., psychopathy)
- Law enforcement (e.g., police, trials)
- LGBTQ2IA+ representation (e.g., a gay NPC) and discrimination
- Mental illness (e.g., anxiety, depression) (excluding insanity)
- Nanites (including grey goo)
- Neurodiversity (e.g., autism)
- Nuclear technology analogs (e.g., magitec reactors)
- Organized crime (including street gangs)
- Outer space (e.g., exposure to vacuum)
- Piracy
- Racism
- Reptiles (e.g., lizards, snakes)
- Sexism, misogyny, or women in danger or harmed
- Sexual assault
- Slavery (including freeing slaves)
- Street crime (including drugs and prostitution)
- Refugees (including aiding refugees)
- Undead
- Vermin (e.g., rats)
- War machines (e.g., colossal stone creatures)
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. Magitec has long been part of Edgewar, including Adintech like the metabiotic crystals that Changed several members of the team. Gempunk is a strong part of the Artificer class and Eberron in general. (Edgewar is a kinda like Eberron plus 100 years.)
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)
