allgeektout

If you’ve been following my Twitter recently, then you may have noticed my recent fascination with superhero RPGs (thanks to Greywulf’s (@greywulf) Marvel RPG Week). I’ve decided that I’m going to throw my hat into the steampunk carnival ring with a superhero-themed steampunk micro-campaign setting.

Steampunk is not a very well-defined term, so I turned to the vast resources of the internet to get me a good definition. What I found that helped me the most was this quote from Uncle Bear (@unclebear):

When I think of steampunk, I think of three things: the industrial revolution, people working under oppressive conditions, and anachronistic technology.

So, keeping these three criteria in mind, and adding in some superheroes for good measure, I came up with The Empowered.

The year is 1816, and the Industrial Revolution has started to take hold in the United States. The government is looking for someone to represent the strength and stability of the new United States. Little did they know the upcoming convergence of events that would give them exactly what they wanted – and more.

A slave on a farm gets in an accident when working with a cotton gin. The county doctor proposes an advanced surgery that replaces the heart with an intricate ticking mechanism. When the slave awakens, he is endowed with incredible strength.

Francis Cabot Lowell, a few years after his return to America, learns that his memory is more than just willpower, and begins to commit to memory the plans of many devices beyond current technology, and works with some of the most talented inventors to bring them to life.

A young boy working in the factories disappears after being sick for a few days. When he returns, he has changed, no longer human, with traits similar the smog he had been coughing up.

These are just three of the nearly one thousand recorded incidents across the country. These people, the Empowered, were endowed with a wide variety of powers. And in them, the government found many allies to represent the country. They became known as the Icons, and they were used to enforce the laws of the United States Government – forcefully and with extreme prejudice, if need be.

Not all of those who were Empowered allied themselves with the government, however. Two other factions sprung up, although neither of them were official in any way. There were those who were opposed to the way the government was taking advantage of the Icons’ powers and sought to bring them down. They were known as the Rebels. Working underground, they have managed to destroy some of the highest officials in the Icon Project, including Francis Lowell in 1817.

Some of the Rebels after getting a taste of power have become corrupt, and use their abilities to gain more power. They’ve turned against all other Empowered, including other Chaotics. Because of this, the Chaotics are some of the most dangerous of the Empowered to be around. However, not all of them (in fact very few of them) are actually evil. Most believe that what they’re doing is right, that their power is what is needed to make the world a better place.

The players are Rebels, trying to bring about the downfall of the Icon Project. Though fighting for the forces of good, they often have to avoid the enforcers of the law, primarily the super-powered Icons. And amongst it all, they must avoid being tempted by their power into joining the Chaotics.