#D&D PowerFist: The Campaign By @M4Numbers
##Foreword
"Cogs, Steam, and puppy dog's gears; that's what makes an automaton"
~Children's Rhyme
Welcome to the future-past world of London through the 19th and 20th century, except, something's a little different about the town...
This is the world of Steampunk, where electicity really was just a fad and the true power of steam has been unlocked and harnessed, putting cities centuries ahead of where they are now, yet also a fair few years behind.
The general rule of Steampunk is that you think of something we have now (say, for example, a plane, something which was able to transport people through the air), and think about how someone in the 19th century would have envisioned it (in the example before, maybe a steam-powered jetpack or something similar).
The term itself is a derivative of the 'cyberpunk' genre (which bases itself on a 'machine versus corporation' legacy of 'high technology, low living standards'). Steampunk has seen itself become a genre used by such authors as Jules Verne and H. G. Wells (along with some of the more recent authors: Phillip Reeve and Steven Baxter).
A number of games have been based on the genre too, including some recent titles such as Bioshock, Dishonoured, and Bloodborne (We Happy Few is a new game coming out which is also in the genre, and is also delightfully creepy). These games tend towards a horrific undertone as the genre lends itself to a creeping unease.
Think of it as the Uncanny Valley effect in part. This is a world which is almost exactly like our own, yet has subtle differences that sets it apart somehow. In the case of Bioshock, this comes out in part as huge hulking machines that seem to lumber around without a care in the world.
Perhaps there's also an idea in there somewhere that this shouldn't be possible. It's physically wrong to be doing this and that this isn't right. There's no way that something build out of primative materials such as bronze and steam should be capable of that!
But the main thing to remember here is that Steampunk is just an extension of the industrial era where steam power grew to be viewed as the only way to do anything and everything. It became more advanced, and, when clockwork was added to the mix, everything only became better.
This is the year 1902, and the machine of steam is still rolling on.
##Introduction to the Campaign The PowerFist campaign is a module for Dungeons and Dragons 5e with a steampunk twist. At some point in the future, or the past, steam became the way to do everything.
"What's that? Old man Phil? You want your sink fixed? Lemme just fix that with my steam ratchet."
You probably already get the picture just from that.
And it's what leads us here, to our campaign.
In addition to this script, the supplement to this campaign should also be kept on hand due to the additional classes, monsters, and item descriptions that are held within (or you can leave it out and try to invent it all, if you feel lucky, punk).
Of course, all this pre-script is kinda pointless when I know the exact characters that are going to be in the campaign... Let's just say that this is all fluff from here until the introductory session...
##The Campaign
The campaign is going to be split up into sections that should hopefully give the DM an idea of how long each part should take, and allow them to structure their schedules accordingly. It is assumed that one session will last between 3 and 4 hours.
These are the following sessions that the party will have to traverse (each section is assumed to last between 3 and 4 hours as previously stated):
- Introductory Session: Down and Up We Go
- Second Session: It's a Big City, the Capital
- Third Session: The Wilds Suit You, Sir
- Fourth Session: The Last Wildling
- Final Session: It's Warm Down Here