Although it is possible to do just about anything magically or mechanically, very little is purely one or the other. Many times magic can serve as a hedge to augment a technology.

For example, many found that magically rewinding a mainspring was easier than using a team of horses. It was more expensive, but several magnitudes of time faster.

Magic has also been used to create to solve problems with aether flyers. Although mechanically possible to seal a ship against the vacuum of outer space, it was usually easier to have a mage cast a spell to do so. (The also has the side benefit of making an aether flyer look like it is carved out of a single block of wood.) If a ship did not need to travel through a reagent vacuum, no one would notice. Magic is also used to create artificial gravity, and even as a means of propulsion.

The mainspring was the first great mechanical invention. Romans sought to improve upon the mechanism the Greeks used in a water clock. In other words, the goal was to produce a clock that did not need large amounts of water. Leave it to an emperor to require a device intended as nothing more as spectacle that ended up changing the world.

Mainsprings have to be wound, but refinements since the ancient design have made them relatively inexpensive to create. Magic may be simpler, but it is often more expensive.

In addition to timepieces, mainsprings have served as power sources for a variety of things from weapons to automatons to aether flyers and more.

I'm one of those world builders that begins with core ideas from which to create many possibilities. Frankly, it can give me a wicked headache sometimes.

For the sake of simplicity, we'll call this universe Maderia. (It's a Spanish dessert wine.)

In Maderia, the following facts define the universe:

Sound requires a medium to travel through. It is usually air, but like our universe, it can be anything. Also, the denser the medium, the faster sound travels through that medium.

Light also requires a medium to travel through. It is the luminiferous aether. The aether has a constant velocity (thus no color shifting of stars in the sky) except where aether rivers exist.

I'd like to begin this setting as a series of rants, so I can receive some feedback before writing an actual book. This idea has been around my mind for some time, and I'll use the discovery of this site as an excuse to plasm it somewhere ^_^.

The idea is creating an RPG where the rewards come not for what the players do, but how and why they do it. The game has 8 ideals (subject to feedback), which are opposed by pairs:

Light: represents all that is honest, open and truthful. A "Light" action would be uncovering a con, telling your enemy of your plans before using against them, or telling a person that he has cancer without roundabouts. Opposed to Shadow.

The great famine of 1846 was the first indication of the coming inundation, though none at the time had the insight to foresee what would come. Indeed, the subsequent changes were so far from common experience that one can hardly blame the collected learned establishments of the world for overlooking that warning. The years following the great famine were so marked by political tumult and social upheaval that further warning signs were likewise unheeded, at least for a while. By the stormy summer of 1854, the problem could no longer be ignored. The inundation of Venice and catastrophic failure of the Dutch seawall brought the issue to the clear attention of the European powers, while similar catastrophes worldwide, though most notably in the lowlands of India and the southeastern United States, gave a clear indication that this was not a problem limited by geography. Everywhere, the seas were rising.

"O brave new world, That has such people in't!" William Shakespeare

For reasons that should soon become very clear, this game is very unlikely to ever be published, for in order to make a fully in-depth setting I'd have to violate all sorts of copyright regulations. I'm not too keen on doing that, but I'm happy to share the ideas with you.

The setting is Earth. Well, apparently it's Earth. To the best of your memory this is the planet you've always lived on, all your life. It's just that you don't remember it quite being like this.

I mean, the planet looks the same. The cities, the streets, everything looks like Earth should look like at the beginning of the 21st Century. It's just - well, it's just that your memories of the world never had so many famous people. Not just famous people but famous dead people. And fictional characters. It's like someone took every great icon of the 20th century and stuck them all in one place. And maybe a handful of the centuries either side.

I've been attracted by the idea of 24 hour games, and yet I've never really got the time, what with sharing my life with a girlfriend, our kid and 40 hours of work a week it's not an easy propsect, especially since the home computer is a piece of shit without any real design applications on it.

But I digress.

This is an experiment - I've got an idea or two, I'm going to get it out of my head whilst my girlfriend drinks wine at the neighbours, and I've got 'Shaun of the Dead' on in the background. I figure I've got maybe a couple of hours.

This should be fun... :-)

(see link below for the actual game I came up with, unless you like your Conclusions confusing)

Aside from the anti-religious bent, the games setting is fairly standard space-opera scifi.

Technology is advanced enough that it recedes into the background - computers are hidden servers with voice query rather than towering difference engines or huge banks of flashing lights.

Laser guns look like video equipment. Small ones are all but indistinguishable from modern camcorders, larger ones would be like whats used in a professional studio. Knives and short swords are popular as most people can't afford/acquire ranged weapons - and the lasers have a tendency to cause collateral damage.

OK Lab Rats! I know I should have probably signed up on Errin's blog, but I am taking the opportunity now to post my entry for his Hallowe'en 2007 RPG Challenge. It is a simple one page narrative game of mad scientists attempting to create a monster to unleash on the world. It is also a One Page RPG, so it can go down for that challenge also.

I'm not sure whether It Lives!! meets the requirements for Errin's current challenge, but I'll leave that up to him. After all, it's his challenge.

However, as they say in the Monster Club: "To the greatest monster of all - Man!"

As discussed in this recent blog, we are starting a RPG-making challenge for October for those that want to participate.

The challenge is to make and submit a Halloween-themed RPG here at RPG Lab by or on October 31st. The RPG you make should either be available for download in pdf form via blog here at RPG Lab, or be in e-book form here. Pdf form would be prefered, as then you could include spooky artwork in your Halloween-themed RPG.

By 'Halloween-themed', I mean any horror type RPG that will fit in with the Halloween spirit. There is an additional parameter to this challenge, though, in order to add a twist and throw a curveball to the RPG makers participating. The parameter is that RPGs submitted for this challenge CANNOT be about standard monsters/horrors such as zombies, vampires, werewolves, skeletons, etc. Instead, you should pick an unconventional or little known monster/horror to be part of your RPG. None of the standard monster fare... you must find an obscure monster or make one up. Of course, it doesn't necessarily have to be a 'monster'... anything that ties into Halloween/horror and is different than the more common themes will work. I'm sure the people here will be able to think up quite a few possibilities. Also, besides unconventional monsters, there is a variation for this challenge in which you can make a RPG with conventional monsters put into an unconventional situation. The point is to add some sort of twist which makes the RPG a challenge for you to make.