Science Fantasy

A few years ago, around the time I transferred this site over to its own domain name, I was messing around with the idea of creating my own RPG system/setting. It never went anywhere, mostly because it was too large of a design project for one person. Especially if that person is me. Here's the basic setting description though, which I have mixed feelings about now, looking back at it.

About 500 years ago human colonists came to this planet. The planet is many times larger than earth and flourishing with life, with a breathable atmosphere. Unfortunately it lacks certain elements human technology has become dependent on.

Sulfur, Silicon, and Uranium are some of the most important things lacking. No gunpowder. No computers, except those they colony modules had to start with, some of which have been recycled for better use of the silicon. A dwindling supply of nuclear power.

There are new things here, however. Like a strange, sparkling sludge that holds energy in ways that have made people rethink quantum physics. And the ruins and writings of an ancient race, which indicate a sort of ritualistic magic similiar to witchcraft or sorcery, Except that it works.

Not to mention enough earthquakes and energy storms to make founding cities nearly impossible, if it weren't for new technologies that can stabilize a small region. All you need is a few gallons of energy sludge, an enormous field generator, and about a dozen psychically gifted individuals to graft irremovably into the machinery. And did we mention the radiation? The previously undiscovered radiation that has funny little interactions with human DNA.

And of course the feudal tribes of outcasts and malcontents living outside the cities' energy fields. Or the abandoned mining tunnels under the city, brimming with the homeless and the criminals. A couple hundred of them are rounded up by the City Guard every day, but there always seem to be plenty more. At least there's not many mutants down there, with wings and tentacles and such. Most of THEM have decent jobs.

Don't worry, though. If you should happen to get hurt by a giant jungle-worm, or some mutated livestock, or an exploding tree, or a raiding party, you can always just inject yourself with some handy, helpful repair nanites. Assuming they haven't been subverted by a rogue biomechanist who wants to assimilate your circulatory system into his newest arm, of course.