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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by Puck

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.