Alternative realitys so what is your's ?

OK, I'm still fiddling with this; but there is another thread about an alternative reality, and I didn't want to mess with that one, But I'm sure that there are many different versions of how a Steampunk World would have come about.

In mine; set in the Republic of California.... the Confederacy won the American Civil War (that doesn't mean that they conquered the Union, just that they got to succeed.)... I have a lot of it figured out, (I may write and post a comix story about it later.....), but there is still a quite a bit that I have to write out, just to make sure it all "fits" and I get it kinda right......

SO.... If you have an alternative History, ....Basically, what is it ? Just a summery.... lets not get these too long or overly detailed.... (even though we know a lot of good stuff about "our" World.....)


OH Yeah... can you tell that I use to be a DM ?

Is it a "real world" alternate reality or could it be another planet? 'cuz I got both.

I guess my "regular" alternate reality is similar to yours...all I really got to was that the Confederacy remained and that British Columbia never went on board with Confederation, going from independent colony to independent Dominion and a Pacific power...

I also have somewhere details on a fictional planet that was colonized by Imperial Powers from earth, mainly Britain, and then abandoned, developing along lines similar to earth but with some fantastical elements thrown in...thats a whole 'nother story though...

Nah, feel free to post something there. As a former DM, I'm sure your input would be appreciated.

Also, that one isn't my only alternate reality I base my games in. Just the one I'm currently working on. I've done ones with the British Empire having control of most of the world, the US included; ones with the Confederacy winning the Civil War, or with America never coming together as a country after the revoultion, splitting it into The Northeastern States, the South, the Republic of California, the Republic of Texas, and many others; ones that have included the US dominating over most of the world; and all sorts of crazy ideas.

The one I posted about just happens to be my favorite. Although I still have a special place in my heart for the Divided America games I've played..........Good times.

Yeah... thats kinda the idea.... if you have more than one alternative reality, you can post that also....

I guess the only "rule/guideline" would be that it should be Steampunk.....

My alternate reality is just about as all encompassing as one can get. Every time somebody mentions something that seems interesting, I try to incorporate it in.

As a matter of fact, I still have the framework I put together with inspiration from Captain Gearthertz, and several other Brass Goggles regulars.

I never got around to pinning down countries or politics, I just started populating the world with interesting stuff. I suppose with regards to countries, looks like the world of the 19th century, with more stuff wedged in, including several additional continents.

Anyway, this was it:


-The Old World -
From the west enlightenment has spread like the light of a new dawn spilling back across the continent carried by the might of benevolently applied mad science. Numerous republics flourish alongside monarchies, both constitutional, and absolute, while some regions are held by tenacious Genius-lords who zealously defend their protectorates, for good and ill.

From the western most tip of the continent serene and dreamlike canal cities rise up from calm azure waters of secluded bays. Gardens hang from rooftops and trellises, spilling over, and even reaching down into the waters that nurture and give life to all who dwell there, while airships hover in the sky like lofty clouds. Out at sea, domed settlements have begun to crop up on the ocean floor, while great cities hang ponderously in the sky held aloft by some miracle of science or sorcery.

Inland, industrial cities are more common. Some have transcended the filth and pollution of manufacturing to become gleaming brass and stone edifices reaching ever higher, sustained by steam and marvelous clockwork contraptions, composing everything from amusing trinkets, to wind up servants and laborers, to giant mechanisms. Great universities dot the landscape churning out ever greater scientists while uncovering deeper truths of physics and philosophy, even extending their study into the occult, and alchemy blurring the lines with the older schools of magic nestled high in the great mountains, and all seek to uncover the secrets of the strange cults of the Old Ones that have been discovered in recent years. Some of these scholars even say that vampires lurk in all the great centers of civilization, and that werewolves prowl the wild lands, while ghosts and other frightful supernatural entities invisibly clog every settlement.

Pushing North East past quaint farm country and the unspoiled forests where creatures of legend still dwell, the land is not so golden. Dark and grim, lacking some crucial element of the west, industrialization seems to have brought more woe instead of prosperity. Many of these cities mimic the architecture of the steam cities of the west, but covered by a patina of soot and verdigris, these towers take on a sinister aspect, and seem to cast longer shadows, blocking more of the precious dim light from the perpetually smog ridden overcast skies from filtering down the desperate people who need its warmth.

To the South and further East to the ocean, are exotic lands, separated by daunting mountain ranges, and chains of islands possessed of their own strange arcana, only recently introduced to the rest of the world after long ages of isolation. From these lands, silks, spices and ancient wisdom have begun to flow into the west carried by steamship and zeppelin.

-The New World -
To the west of the Old World, another rich continent, a land both new, and yet infinitely old, colonized by the Old World progressively for hundreds of years, yet possessing its own ancient history. Past the eastern edge of the continent, an almost perfect copy of the Old World, mirroring it in nearly all things, beyond the parochial farms and settlements of brave pioneers, lie boundless wilds where even the natives cannot always guide with certainty. Great forests of incalculable age and magnitude, ever rolling plains, monolithic mountains, vast empty deserts.

Those seeking knowledge have begun to flock to these lands, from the hallowed halls of Mistakonic University in the Allied Territories, to the voodoo occultists in the Independent Territories, and beyond the frontier, where the bones of long extinct behemoths lay buried by time.

Farther still in the bleak heart of the desert explorers claim that deep underground in a sprawling network of caves lit by bioluminescent moss and plankton, there lies a massive cavern that contains the ruins of a vast underground civilization, now curiously absent. Many say the city calls to them, and while others pursue the secrets of the strange books left behind.

-The Lost World -
The Terra Incognita, another continent seemly untouched by human hands. Dense, impenetrable foliage guards its boarders, and conceal its secrets. Bizarre and undocumented creatures populate the jungles, teeming with life of fantastic diversity. Some come to study them, others to hunt for the ultimate trophy. From those who have ventured deeper, ever more outrageous stories are told. Some say that lost civilizations can be found deep in the jungle, nestled high in the boughs of mammoth trees. Some even claim the creatures that made the colossal fossils of the New World still live in this primal land.

-The Deadlands -
East of the Old World, lies a large fractured island, cluttered with the remains of a long lost civilization. Gargantuan hulks cover the landscape; wreckage of a technology so advanced, its power, and its purpose are incomprehensible to even the greatest minds. Many have traveled there seeking to understand and claim these technologies for themselves. In this lawless land, strength and cunning are the keys to success, and survival. Whether braving the perils of poisoned air, radioactive contamination, the degenerated rabble that populate the land, or even the mutated zombies who skulk in some of the ruins.

-The Cradle -
This inhospitable land is filled with gigantic stone monuments left by the oldest of the known civilizations, massive tombs and shrines, most were long ago plundered though many are rumored to contain ancient treasures and wisdom yet still hidden.

-The Sea-
Under the waves lies another world alien to human eyes. Life that strains imagination fills the depths, but even here humanity has built outposts and begun to explore the endless dark sea. Cities protected by great shells of steel and reinforced glass dot the ocean floor, and marine engineers push submersible technology hard to reach greater depths. Some seek the solitude of miles of oppressive water surrounding their bubbles of life; others seek to study infinity of marine life, the great leviathans, and kraken. Others whisper ominously of an impossibly deep canyon where there lays a sunken city of cyclopean proportions, built of staggering non-Euclidean angles, awaiting a dire prophesy.

Despite the proliferation of airships, much trade is still conducted by steamships and even some old masted relics, though in this world of constant change and adventure, piracy remains a constant threat of varying degrees despite the best efforts of the world’s nations. Near developed ports naval vessels are common and offer a great deal of protection. Some even patrol shipping lanes, both above and below the waves, but most of the worlds oceans are wild untamed, uncharted, and undefended.

-The Sky-
Mirroring the sea, the sky is home to many great and strange creatures; beautiful birds of all sizes and colors, and of course the infamous Air Kraken. Here too the dwellings of mankind can be found. Some held aloft by gasses like enormous zeppelins, others by magic, stone ripped from the ground and set to float in the sky above, some are like kites carried by the wind in their grand sails, some dominate nature with massive engines of incredible power.

Airships are a common sight in the civilized world, offering the truest freedom to travel the skies over the entire planet, but just as pirates prey on ocean going vessels, now they prey upon airships too. As below some shipping lanes are patrolled, but air piracy seems an unstoppable hazard of taking to the skies.

-Other Worlds-
Many of the great nations stand on the brink of sending specially designed vessels beyond, into space and to other planets, some to plant the flag of imperialism, others to find resources and riches, some to find new technology and perhaps even other life. Regardless of motivation daring adventurers and explorers are queuing up to be amongst the vanguard of the stars.

Magister, that's amazing. I absolutely love it.

Incorporating whatever I thought was cool at the time is kind of how my current work in progress got started. That's why some of it isn't as well planned out as other parts.

Still, awesome.

Mine is one of those alternities where noone can figure why it happened, sort of like the entire planetary population were brainwashed into becoming consumerist zombies and noone realised that the world was becoming so industrialised there was no nature left, such that a character looks around one day and wonders whiskey tango foxtrot? How did the whole planetary surface get like this? as he surveys 40k-Cities of Death- like buildings as far as the eye can see, massive machines stuck in everywhere, and a dark sky of pollution. Underneath the apparent surface there is a whole lot more - it soon becomes apparent that the current city was built on top of previous cities, and noone knows how far down it goes any more!
Not that operational industries work the whole planet over, some places are still wild-well, feral, anyway; only the sea remains uncovered and is more like a deeper swamp than a sea, a terrible, ruined place where wreckage juts out of the water all over and only the most horrific, toughest beasts survive; then there are the junk zones, areas covering whole countries where the beasts of industry are disposed of, that noone could be bothered to scrap, and just dump there; and whole cities that lie abandoned and are the domain of gangs, rodents and scavengers.
Once a character recovers from the shock and despair it takes them a while to realise how many of the people around them are not alive, truly. Most are lifeless zombies, some are shopping zombies/consuming zombies, some live only to prey....

But even so, they would be surprised how many of these are not just apparently dead, but literally died, just didn't see much point in going to sleep forever when there is hungering for blood and souls to be done!

My alternate reality takes place in the American west around the 1880's.
Modern technology is cutting edge but geared to the remedial times with an injection of fantasy.
Jet trains, hover horses and desert sailing schooners.

The weapons of choice for the day are repulsor rifles and mystic-firing pistols as well as the contemporary single-action lead-firing weapons of that era.

Time travel and inter-dimensional travel are common to adventurers, alchemists and governments and are utilized for both good and evil.

I had alot worked out for my other planet reality...but I never thought to write it all down like magister! impressive, to say the least. maybe I should write things down to remember them...

I said something like this on another board, but you might like it:

The Earth is very large and hollow. The inside just might be inhabited.

As a result - there are air krakens, air whales, and a whole air ecosystem

The magnetic poles are north and south with two minor poles east (in Egypt of course) and a yet undiscovered west pole.

Large size means more continents, more seas and more air...

There are non-human sentient races - my favorite are the very large tiger like creatures. They have opposable thumbs and regard humans highly for inventing the slide guitar.

The various empires are held together with varying degrees of skill, diplomacy and sometimes brutality (Russians and Belgians come to mind).

The recent development of airship diplomacy averted a huge and nasty war in Europe and recent advances in airship navigation have started an exploration race...

If this isn't enough to set a story in... well... email me for more details.

Elisha Rush wrote:They have opposable thumbs and regard humans highly for inventing the slide guitar.

I love you for this.

My alternate history changed not at the United States Civil War, where it seems most alternative chronotherists place their Changes, but rather a few years earlier, triggered by adventuresome pork. In our world, the San Juan Islands War, also known as the Pig War, proved ultimately to be much ado about nothing. Indeed, the pig in question was the only fatality of this forgotten conflict between the United Kingdom and the United States in 1859. In my world, however, no one forgets it. Indeed, "Remember the Pig!" would prove to be a famous battle cry amongst American troops over the first three years of the war.

You see, in my world, Rear Adm. Baynes didn't stand up to Governor Douglas, and sent the marines the Governor asked for, attacking the American troops and launching a third major war betwixt the US and UK. This war, considered by both sides to have been caused by an unprovoked attack by the other, flared rapidly from the islands between Puget Sound and Vancouver Island to a major conflict wherein the United States again found themselves invaded by the forces of the British Crown.

For a period of three years, the United States held her own, only to be betrayed from within in 1862, when the states of Missouri, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas concluded treaties with Great Britain on their own, seperate from the government in Washington City. The United States Senate and President refused to ratify these treaties, but the United Kingdom was willing to. This lead to a rapidly-assembled "Alliance of Independent American States", which Great Britain rapidly recognized as a legitimate government, and provided military aid to the newly-formed nation, seeing it as a chance to land troops near Washington City unopposed, there to launch an attack against the US capital and dictate terms to President William Seward. Many people hold to this day that refusing the right of the Alliance states to conclude their own treaties spelled the doom of the United States, and history read by an impartial observer would seem to establish this as valid, as HMS Damocles lead a British force of thirty vessels up the Potomac River to Washington on December 17th, 1864, meeting there with a joint British-AIAS force marching north from Richmond, Virginia under the command of Alliance General Robert Lee. After seven days of relentless shelling from both the land and the river, President Seward surrendered to British and Alliance forces on Christmas Eve of that year.

The treaty ultimately forced on the United States reaffirmed the right of Great Britain not only to the San Juan Islands, but to the entirety of Washington Territory, which would to an observer from our world include the lands we know as the states of Washington and Idaho. As this land was near enough to the joint administration of James Douglas over the Crown Colonies of Vancouver Island and British Columbia, it was added to his rule as the Crown Colony of British Oregon. Once again, after nearly half a century of flagging fortunes, new life seemed to have been breathed into the British Empire.

For the United States, however, the picture was not nearly so rosy. The war against Britain had been supported by a majority of her citizens, but the secession of the Alliance had changed that view. Tired of being a battlefield in three different wars, the New England states concluded their own secession, forming the Union of New England in June of 1865. New York, Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut formed this second secessionist league, and with so much still left to rebuild after the Pig War, the United States simply didn't have the military or political clout to refuse them their departure.

It wasn't long after this that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints also rebelled, having been, somewhat against their will, absorbed into the United States as the Territory of Utah not two decades before. On July 4th, 1865, the Republic of Deseret was refounded, consisting of the Territory of Utah and the Territory of New Mexico. (This is visible on our world's maps as the states of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona.)

During this tempestous year, the Alliance offered statehood and membership to Kansas Territory, an offer Territorial Governor Denver rejected, but the territorial assembly accepted. After a mob stormed the territorial capitol building and lynched the governor, (a mob later proven to have consisted mostly of Missourians), the Assembly's approval was considered valid, and the territory added itself to the Alliance on August 26th. On that same day, the unorganized territory between the new state and the Alliance state of Texas was split, the southern portion, that determined by drawing the northern border of Texas back eastward, was added to Texas, the remaining northern strip to Kansas.

The United States, seeing its strategy of Manifest Destiny falling apart, rapidly approved a constitution written by Territorial Governor Alvin Saunders of Nebraska entirely without input from his own territory, hand-carried to Washington City by the governor himself, which created the United States' largest state out of the Governor's territory, visible as Nebraska Territory and the neighbouring Unorganized Territory on this map: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:1860_Electoral_Map.png

With the United States now a broken power, and with no desire to join the slaveholding Alliance, the state of California declared itself again a Republic on Christmas Day, 1865. The state of Oregon, now the United States last link to the Pacific coast, accepted a proposal by Great Britain to join the Empire as a locally-administered Dominion, the first of these the Empire was to see, severing the United States' connection with the Pacific Coast on January 1st, 1866. With Alaska being

With North America shattered, the political stability necessary for technical evolution no longer existed in the Western Hemisphere, not after the attempts the next year to organize Upper and Lower Canada into a confederated dominion failed, resulting in the patchwork British Dominons northern North America of my world has today. British Columbia, British Oregon, and Oregon merged into the Dominion of Oregon in 1888, what we in our world know as the Maritime Provinces coalesed into the Dominion of St. Lawrence two years later. The remainder of what we know in our world as Canada merged into the Dominion of Yukon in order to protect the newly-discovered gold fields in the northwesternmost corner of British holdings in North America from Russian encroachment in 1898, only to have Alaska, the last Russian holding on the continent, sold to Britain later that year as the Russian crown found itself in desperate need of money. With the last of Spain's empire granted to Britain as a result of an extremely short war later that year, (one week, ended with a zepplin bombing of Madrid), the map of the world as my world knows it today was established.

The British Empire was now amongst the most powerful empires the human race had ever seen, with over half the world's population under the Crown, rather directly or through a Dominion. No nation was to pressure Britain again in the military field, as the sheer weight of military zepplins, steamtanks, ironclads, flamethrowers, and sheer numbers of manpower would make any such attack suicidal. North America's nations would shift their borders around, the ex-Spanish lands in South America would toss and turn, but ultimately, in this modern day of Queen Alice the First, it's London's smog-choked lanes and twisted alleys that all roads lead to.

Why, may you ask, is technology at the steam age level, rather than the modern? The wars of the 20th century, which served as such a catalyst to forward technological 'evolution' in our world, simply never occured. Britain's sheer political power allowed it to keep the German Empire from forming in the 1870s, and with Russia collapsing under it's own outdatedness and France lurching from failed republic to failed republic, (again, with covert British help), there was no nation in Europe able to fight against them. As such, the First World War never happened, nor did the Second. Japan formed an empire in the 1920s, but Britain simply allied with them and let them go, as long as Britain's Chinese holdings were left alone. The North American states squabbled amongst themselves, but full-on warfare never broke out, as the Alliance maintained it's alliance with Britain, keeping anyone from wanting to bother them, and none of the other nations seemed willing to bother with the issue of asserting dominance over its neighbours.

With no major wars to progress technology, the brilliant minds of the world were able to dedicate themselves to artistic expressions alongside their technological evolutions, keeping what we would know as the steampunk aesthetic in vogue for the entire Golden Age, as Brits referred to the 20th century. (And thus far into the 21st, as well.) Also, at least one major technological evolution of our world simply didn't occur, at least nowhere near as early as it did here. I refer to powered flight. Orville and Wilbur Wright never rose here. Milton Wright, their father, was killed in the Pig War, before either of them was ever born. Without them, and with the spectacular death of Otto Lilienthal in a "powered glider" accident in 1899, (in our world he'd died two years earlier in a glider accident), the general consensus of the human race became that heavier-than-air powered human flight was, if not impossible, simply impractical, given the popularity of the Zepplin. There simply wasn't any need for it.

And without the economic strength of the Gilded Age United States, oil exploration in Pennsylvania simply never happened, either, keeping my world from moving towards oil, as coal remains far more cost-efficient.

So, what does everyone think?

WOW... That is impressive.

I start my Alternative history at the American Civil War, because it's easy, and I guess because I didn't want England to be the major World power (oops, I think some of my chauvinism is showing ) .... Some, well most of my alternative history is either for a comic book story, or maybe a role-playing game, so I wanted a setting that was not stable, someplace where airship Pyrates could exist, and small scale boarder wars occurred on a frequent basis.

I'm still fiddling with some parts of my alternative history, yours is an excellent example of one that is very well thought out, I hope mine works out that well.

shadowbeast wrote:Mine is one of those alternities where noone can figure why it happened, sort of like the entire planetary population were brainwashed into becoming consumerist zombies and noone realised that the world was becoming so industrialised there was no nature left, such that a character looks around one day and wonders whiskey tango foxtrot?

Sounds eerily familiar ...

OH! Right ...

BTW, that could be a useful word: alternity, alternities ... did you coin that?


[edit] Oh, I see it was the name of an RPG some years ago.

Elisha - you might find this book -
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Strange_Manuscript_Found_in_a_Copper_Cylinder
to be helpful. I had forgotten about it, now I am desperately trying to find the copy I had read years and years and years (Really, it was in a prior millenium!) ago. I think it was (gulp) a first edition... I hope I can find it, I really do.

It was a truly groundbreaking story; de Mille has vanished under the popularity of Verne, Wells, and Haggard, but he was one of the Greats.

OldProfessorBear wrote:BTW, that could be a useful word: alternity, alternities ... did you coin that?


[edit] Oh, I see it was the name of an RPG some years ago.

How about alternality?

I rather like that one. It seems to have a couple of meanings already, in some obscure philosophical theory, and in some abstruse branch of mathematics, and possibly elsewhere, if some of the google results are not the results of typos (and some clearly are). It also seems to have the desired meaning of "alternate reality" in one or two places. Altogether a most uncommon word, though. It is evidently not in any dictionary - yet.

Silas Morgan wrote:WOW... That is impressive.

Would it surprise you to find out I literally came up with that on the fly? I'd never conceived of it prior to writing that post.

My alternate reality kicks off in the mid 1860's in terms of technology and social alteration, and by the late 1880's, the world is crawling with spies from various agencies, be they tea companies or organisations of an even more sinister nature. This is aided by the extensive (and reliable) transport vessel: the Airship (note to self: stop calling it a Zeppelin if you're in the 1880's). Many of the aristocracy own their own ships, but they are nothing compared to those owned by the military or the trading companies. This means the sky is crowded, particularly over cities like London.

The areas totally controlled by these agencies are Europe, the North of Africa, the North of India, and the Far East. North America is a mixed continent of style (in the East) and danger (in the West), and as a result, some regions are uncontrolled. South America, the rest of Africa, Asia, and Australasia are either uncharted in their entirety, or under dispute. Impromptu air-battles have been known to take place over these places. Russia, China, and Germany clash over Asia; France, Britain, and the Netherlands fight over Africa; the US and the Spanish over South America, etc.

Socially, women have the same rights as men, though etiquette has remained at a similar standard to that of this reality, though there are exceptions, especially in the world of fashion. More lively women are known to wear trousers, and women over sixteen are still permitted to wear skirts at their knees. The latter habit ought to fade away by the time Miss is middle-aged (just a suggestion). There are many women in high positions in the military and government.

The hub of Society used to be London, but now it is Berlin. London is not unfashionable per se, but it is not considered overly impolite to decline an invitation to a party there. Other major cities include Paris, which is a popular holiday spot for airship crews, and Tokyo for its advances in technology.

In terms of technology, radar is being developed, and other such devices for military purposes. The telegraph system runs successfully across the Atlantic, and the steam powered automobile is vastly popular among the middle class who cannot afford an airship.

That's a basic overview.

I like the idea of "Industrial Spys"... The world I'm working on will be mostly set in the California Republic, and I will probably use it for a role-playing game, or a comic book. Right now, I'm just figuring out the history, society, and technology available. I haven't gotten around to really thinking about womans role in the setting. I might have two "sorts" of women... those that are protected by men... the ones that fancy themselves "Ladies" and the other being the Independent women who take care of themselves (unfortunately, this might include some of the "working" women...)

My Alternative Reality is very similar to the real reality...

...except that everything is a quarter of an inch to the left...

...and everything in the world was invented by the Victorians...

...they arrived, fully-formed as a society on earth around 150 years ago, and proceeded to fill the empty world with a sufficent history...

...they built the Pyramids, stonehenge, etc., installed the remains of the Roman Empire and 'Ancient' Greece, Herbert George Wells and his Chronic Argonauts seeded the past with 'fossils' and 'ancient artifacts', Darwin acted as a consultant on the biology of the fictional past; we they taught the indigenous peoples to speak in strange 'foriegn' tongues (How else can an Englishman make himself understood anywhere in the world just by speaking loudly and slowly?); there is, somewhere, a manuscript describing this world in quite some detail, but I seem to have misplaced it...

...or perhaps it was too close to the truth, and was spirited awy by agents of the Diogenes Club?

My alternate reality?
All the myths are true...

Our ancient nightmares, the ghostly legends,
And fiendish tales, all the myths are true.
Scientists have unearthed enormous skeletons
They think we've disproved that all the myths are true.

"Year after year, science finds explanations, scientific reasons behind all the legends. They think this proves history was not as myth has
shown it, but in fact it proves that all the myths were true."

The ruined remains of an ancient city
Deep underwater, all the myths are true
Scientists have unearthed enormous skeletons
They think we've disproved that all the myths are true.

"...a giant crater is all that remains of what was once the largest city..."
"...currently all the graves stand empty. Government officials estimate damage to the neighborhood at well over $200,000..."
"...the death toll is rising, scientists are scrambling to find some way to stop the massive..."
"...dozens witnessed the attack, no one saw the attacker..."
"...a fishing schooner off the shore of Iceland, wrapping its tentacles around the hull and pulling it under..."
"...found this man to be well over 200 years old. In his cellar was found dozens of jars of frozen blood, human blood..."
"...whereabouts are currently unknown. Police warn citizens to stay away from the forest..."

Deep in the forest, half-crazed witch doctors
with their herbal magics. All of it is true.
They've found traces of neurotoxins in
the zombie's bloodstream. All the myths are true.

Ancient nightmares, archaic legends,
Enigmatic dreams. All of it is true.

Yup...that's what I want...

I am currently working on a RPG in which a "steampunk" Texas is a major player in the Americas.

Wow, I'm not nearly as detailed as some of you and the sheer amount of inspiration and ideas are all but overwhelming. Since I have been purposely obscure about some of the details of the world, outside of airships being the dominant mode of transport, I try to get into the Aether realms which I find facinating. A place that is neither Earth or Space, just a dimensional place where the ground hasn't been found, where there is the ecosystem that was mentioned earlier (air species, airwhales etc.), a place where there is night and day and clouds that hide much of the "universe."

This is where I placed my poem "Dragonfly." Its the Flying Dutchman of this 'verse.

Great thread. I guess that all of us live in similar "universes" and there really is no need for a "unifying" theory because it would seem just too confining!

Well, I've been working on a couple of worlds with steam.

One is the same as this, but alleges that some things happened that weren't recorded. Like airship pirates whose victims were never believed (if they survived), mad scientists who's work was never published or discovered, and strange powers that prefer to remain undiscovered.
I hope to use this for a sort of semi-historical action story, starting in 1860. Kind of a Conan the Barbarian type of story.

The other is more of a fantasy setting, with four or five sentient species, magic and deamons, and more of a medieval technology style. But the thing is, the two main human nations are on the verge of an industrial revolution. One, the Republic of Novgia, has discovered firearms and has started figuring out principles of flight. The other, the Federated Empire, has harnessed steam for transportation. And of course these two powers are coming close to conflict.
It's been fun drawing ideas for steam powered vehicles in medieval styles, like paddle wheeled galleys and three wheeled steam chariots. And figuring out devices and culture for the aquatic mammal people has been an fun problem.