Steel and Gunstones

[Puck]

A long while ago while I was GMing RQ III, I began writing out a game world. Eventually I wrote a whole new game system to go with it and was hoping some day to publish it. Well, it has been collecting dust for the better part of 15 years. While looking for some ideas for the Green I began to dig stuff up and realized I had more of the writings for the game world left then I thought I did.

Some of it is pretty bad, kind of out of fashion and cliché, other parts are fragmentary and since I re-wrote it a lot I believe that there is stuff that doesn't really made sense or mesh very well with other parts. Non-the-less I think that there may be stuff that may be kind of fun for others to read and possibly even inspire a few ideas. It may possibly work as gated world or a anchor point for other parts of the shared world. I am afraid though, that world itself and particularly the history and philosophy behind magic and races is a little too all encompassing to be adopted into the shared world. As is I think it would intrude on other peoples ideas.

I thought I would put little bits of it up on the wiki as I glean through them. I am afraid I have a bad habit of stealing other people's names and ideas without realizing it and will need to make some minor edits before I post them. (The worst of which is calling gunpowder "dragonsdung" which I borrowed from the Fantasy Trip and then forgot I had done so. Much to my surprise, when I flipped through my old copy of said game I realized my error).

The game was going to be called Steel and Gunstones (Kind of corny I know). Everybody used to ask me about the use of the word "gunstones".....Well, I wanted guns to seem foreign and slightly weird. I got the word from Shakespeare's Henry V and thought it had a nice ring to it.

[badcat]

I'm reading the book 'Sharpes Tiger' right now, and notice that one term for Napoleon era muskets was 'firelock'.

How about 'Steel and Firelocks'?

[Puck]

Mmmm, interesting. I think I read that a while back. Was that the one where Sharp is in India and trying to capture a mountain fortress?

I do not recall what the firelocks were. Where they Matchlocks? The guns that were available in the game were matchlocks and wheel-locks. Matchlocks were big and clumsy to use, not much good to adventurers and wheel-locks were very expensive and relatively rare.

Steel and Firelocks....does not seem have the ring to it that I was looking for, but that has always been the problem. I never was able to find anything that seemed quite right. Back in the day, after the players got through with their comments and jibes, they started calling it Steel and Gunstones and it stuck.

[PK Games]

Mmmm, interesting. I think I read that a while back. Was that the one where Sharp is in India and trying to capture a mountain fortress?

I do not recall what the firelocks were. Where they Matchlocks? The guns that were available in the game were matchlocks and wheel-locks. Matchlocks were big and clumsy to use, not much good to adventurers and wheel-locks were very expensive and relatively rare.

Steel and Firelocks....does not seem have the ring to it that I was looking for, but that has always been the problem. I never was able to find anything that seemed quite right. Back in the day, after the players got through with their comments and jibes, they started calling it Steel and Gunstones and it stuck.

Why not just FireLock or Gunstone?

[badcat]

The terms are pretty much interchangeable, that is, guns with locks go by several names which share the basic function of using some sort of lock mechanism to ignite gunpowder. The muskets in 'Sharpe's Tiger' are flintlock muskets. Wheelocks and flintlocks, and earlier designs, were all 'firelocks'. Another name for that type of firearm was 'fusil', as in 'King's Fusileers'.

Firelocks and fusils.

Have a culture that is based on an advanced Hellenic setting, you could call it 'Fusils and Falcatas'.

[Puck]

Another name for that type of firearm was 'fusil', as in 'King's Fusileers'.

I like that term a lot. Familiar and just different enough. I may use that later. I think for now though I Will just keep the thing called Steel and Gunstones because that is what is familiar and I have already posted that. The setting was really not ever finished and I do not know if it really ever can be but it might fire up some intrest among people and hopefully generate a few Ideas. It would be great to put together a truely collective work. I will try to post more a little at a time. I love to hear your input though.

[Puck]

Is Steel and Gunstones worth continuing? Is anyone finding this interesting or worth reading at all, should I continue posting stuff or should I just scrap it?

[Trifletraxor]

Please continue on! Ideas like this are always useful!

SGL.

[Puck]

Cool. I tend to second guess myself a lot. I was afraid that I may have been accomplishing nothing but cluttering up someone else's forum with this stuff. I will continue to post as I dig through the old files. Thanks.

[rust]

Is Steel and Gunstones worth continuing?

Of course it is !

Sorry, I am just quite busy with things not related to roleplaying, and there-

fore visit the forum not very often, and also do not often give feedback.

However, rest assured that I do read the material, and hope you will continue

to post it.

[Puck]

Thanks. Part of my fears are that I personally find long text, without pictures and images kind of hard to read for enjoyment, especially when there is such a vast array of good source material already on the market. I am a little skitterish about the Steel and Gunstones stuff because a wrote it such a long time ago and I am sure it is probably treading over well worn ground. Most of it is simply bits of western civilization and world history mashed together. What really made me drag it up is that I was aching for an outside fantasy world to possibly interact with or act as a backdrop for the Green. Particularly with the human element. Anyway, I will keep posting stuff and I hope some can enjoy it or use it to generate ideas for their own worlds. Thanks

[rust]

While I have no problem at all with long texts without illustrations, I have to

admit that I would welcome some map or sketch of the Steel and Gunstones

setting - it would make it much easier to comprehend the text.

[Puck]

Yes, definately, when I wrote this I assumed the map would be in front of the person reading it, and even then I think I refered to the map too much. I have an old copy of the original map (I kept changing it in later years). I will attempt to place it in the images section.

[Puck]

I though up a couple of pics of the old map in the Gallery. I tried to use photoshop to write in some of the more prominent place names. Hopefully you can make out what is going on.

[rust]

Thank you very much for the map !

There are currently four unexplored systems on the edge of my setting's

Demara Sector, and I am toying with the idea to use your very interes-

ting Steel and Gunstones setting as the native civilization of a planet in

one of those systems, unless of course it becomes a part of the Shared

World and is on the same planet as The Green.

[Puck]

It seems like a strange choice for a sci-fi hookup as Steel and Gunstones is pretty much a high fantasy, but with adjustments it might be interesting. I was seriously toying with the idea of using the Steel and Gunstones setting as the outer world around the Green. There is going to be a lot of common ground between the two: Trogod, Many other races and creatures, several societies, and particularly historical background and magic. There is not reason the two cannot be separated though and maybe have common traditions and myths do to an ancient common colonization or commerce between the two worlds. Feel free to adjust them to fit your campaign's need.

[rust]

I am having second thoughts on my first idea ... :eek:

Now I think that it might be better to have the Steel and Gunstones setting

on the same world as The Green, because the existence of these two diffe-

rent settings on one world would make that world a bit like the planet Tschai

of Jack Vance's Planet of Adventure series, which I like very much - and whe-

re I could easily "borrow" some good adventure ideas.

Just in case you do not know Tschai: Planet of Adventure - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Once they found the way to the planet by spaceship, the spacefarers would

still have to find The Green on this world, in order to locate the portal and re-

contact the Mamprusi, and the Steel and Gunstones setting could be a very

good (and unexpected) place to have them start that search.

By the way, where in (or near) the region of the Steel and Gunstones map do

you imagine The Green to be ?

And: I just now realized one of the reasons why I really like this map - its sty-

le is quite similar to the maps of the AD&D Birthright setting, which I enjoyed

very much. In fact, in a way my Pharos IV setting is a kind of "Birthright in

Space".

[Puck]

I have never read Jack Vance but his name and Tschai seems to come up a lot. I must add Planet of Adventure to my reading list but it may be a while before I get to it. I did order another LeGuinn book from the library but it has not arrived yet.

That map is an old one and the Green is not really on it. I was thinking of placing it in the southwest corner of the map and cutting it off from the deserts by that row of mountains. I think it can be seen on the larger map. If I am going to spend and serious time on Steel and Gunstones I may have to re-draw the world map. Summer is coming soon though and I should have a lot of time on my hands.

I have heard of Birthright, but cannot remember ever really looking at it. I think it came out after I left the D+D scene. I know I changed the name of the Desert region from Karah Chur to Kaharah Char when a D+D supplement of almost the same name was released. >:->

I will try and get more stuff posted up tonight. It takes more work than I thought because I am finding different versions of each write up. I kind of like stuff from both and then try to jamb them together and it doesn't flow well. They are also laced with game mechanic stuff that I am trying to take out.

The piece that holds all this stuff together is the history write up, but it was also the first piece I wrote and it is really shoddy and needs a lot of work. I have not got around to fixing it up yet.

[rust]

Thank you for all the work on your settings, and please keep the results

coming !

[alairduk]

I quite like the term gunstone, which I'd never heard before. I can easily picture a gunstone beng the flint used in flintlock muskets to create the spark that ignites the powder to fire the gun.

Matchlock muskets had a continuous burning match that the firer applied to the powder pan to ignite the powder.

This was obviously clumsy and prone to going out, being dropped etc so various methods were tried to replace it. The were variously called firelocks, fusils and flintlocks. (they didn't all have flints, the baltic pattern snaplock used by the Swedes in the 30yw had a metal on metal strike in place of the flint on metal). By the "time" of Sharpe they were universally called flintlocks so I'm a bit surprised the term firelock was used in the book.

[Sunwolfe]

I quite like the term gunstone, which I'd never heard before. I can easily picture a gunstone beng the flint used in flintlock muskets to create the spark that ignites the powder to fire the gun.

Just a wee clarification...

When young Henry, fifth of that name, may he be blessed, was dressing down the French ambassadors for the Dauphin's "mock" (a box of tennis balls) sent in response to Harry's demand for his French rights, the king said,

And tell the pleasant prince this mock of his/ Hath turned his

balls

[the one's in the box, you naughty boys] to

gunstones

, and his soul/ Shall stand sore charged for the wasteful vengeance/ That shall

fly

with them; for many a thousand widows/ Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands,/ Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down;/ And some are yet ungotten and unborn/ That shall have cause to curse the Dauphin's scorn.

Thus were the gunstones, according to context, most likely not so much the flint as they were the ammunition...and more precisely, according to the footnote in my Signet edition of "Henry V", cannonballs--Bah-bah-boom!