Eternal Volta

In the Age of Enlightenment, scientists work to discover the Laws of Nature… and to warp them.

A setting for Fate Core [https://www.faterpg.com/].

This document is maintained in git at https://git.trueelena.org/worlds/eternal_volta/about/ ; precompiled versions are available as:

html: https://eternal-volta.trueelena.org/

pdf: https://eternal-volta.trueelena.org/EternalVolta.pdf

epub: https://eternal-volta.trueelena.org/EternalVolta.epub

Contents:

Introduction

Game Mechanics

Skills

People

Alessandro Volta

Teresa Ciceri Castiglioni

Places

Practical Information

Measures

Travel

Credits

License

Eternal Volta is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0

This work is based on Fate Core System [http://www.faterpg.com/] and Fate Accelerated Edition , products of Evil Hat Productions, LLC, developed, authored, and edited by Leonard Balsera, Brian Engard, Jeremy Keller, Ryan Macklin, Mike Olson, Clark Valentine, Amanda Valentine, Fred Hicks, and Rob Donoghue, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license [http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/].

Most artwork comes (or is derived from) public domain books; attribution details are in the source repository [https://git.trueelena.org/worlds/eternal_volta/about/] for this document.

Indices and tables

Index

Search Page

Introduction

In the late 18th century scientists around Europe were busy discovering the Laws of Nature; what if they had been able to warp them?

In this setting, they are! Imagine a place where devices like the remotely controlled electro-flogo-pneumatic gun 1 aren’t just experimental prototypes, but they get a practical use in a tongue-in-cheek context rich in excitement and adventure!

1

An actual device invented — and named — by the real world Volta

This manual is centered on the area around Como, in the Duchy of Milan / Cisalpine Republic / Kingdom of Italy / Kingdom of Lombardy - Venetia (and a couple more entities in between) where Alessandro Volta lived, discovered the secret of eternal life 2 and founded an important centre of research that attracted scientists and aspiring scientists from all around Europe and the world.

2

or at least the means to prolong his own life and health indefinitely.

The time range covered by this manual starts in the 1780s, with the establishment of a centre of research in Como (rather than accepting the post at the university in Pavia, as in the real world timeline) and reaches the mid 19th century, when a Volta recognised as immortal oversees the birth of the steampunk computer (with Electricity and small explosions in the UI).

Of course, Volta wasn’t alone and all european countries (and armies) had access to their own scientists, so nobody gained an undue advantage and the political history of this timeline follows more or less that of the real world timeline… except where it doesn’t. This means that the players have a chance to get involved in such events as the Napoleonic wars or the Italian indipendence wars.

Game Mechanics

Contents:

Skills

Science!

Default skill list

Skills

This setting uses mostly the default skill list [https://fate-srd.com/fate-core/default-skill-list] from Fate Core, plus the Science! skill detailed here.

Science!

The Science! skill is about researching the laws of nature and warping them.

Actions

Overcome

You can use Science! to research new scientific facts; note that this doesn’t include reading already discovered theories, that would be Lore (but Lore can be used to Create an Advantage for a Science! Overcome: having a good background will help a lot in discovering new things).

Create an Advantage

Science! will give a lot of opportunities to create advantages: inventing new devices, reverse-engineering existing ones to be able to use them or even to improve and turn them to new uses.

Attack

Science! is probably not directly used to attack, unless a player gets really creative.

Defend

Science! is not directly used to defend, either, barring exceptional creativity.

Lore stunts

Default skill list

See the Fate Core manual for details on the default skills; these are a few setting-specific notes.

Crafts

This involves all traditional crafts and mainteinance of “modern” machinery, but obviously not the invention of new ones, as that’s in the scope of Science!.

Drive

For simplicity, this skill applies to all kinds of moving things including riding animals, horse-driven coaches / carriages and self-propelled creation of Science!.

If relevant for your game feel free to split this into multiple skills as needed.

Lore

Lore involves all aspects of knowledge and education that are not related to scientific research, including the humanities, but also passive knowledge of scientific discoveries.

Lore also defines what languages a character speaks and writes.

Terrible (-2)

just the most local and least prestige language of the place they live in, and no literacy; e.g. in Como this would be spoken Western Lombard.

Poor (-1)

all of the local languages of the place they live in, with limited literacy; e.g. in Como this would be Western Lombard and Italian.

Mediocre (+0)

as Poor, but including reading and writing at a reasonably competent level.

Average (+1)

the above, plus French (the common language of commerce, enabling conversations with an international audience).

Fair (+2)

the above, plus Latin (the language of scientific publications).

Good (+3)

the above, plus a number of European (plus Hebrew and Arabic) languages; these can be decided during the game, as they are needed.

Great (+4)

the above, plus a number of reasonably accessible non European languages (e.g. Hindustani or Chinese, not the language spoken by an insulated tribe somewhere in Amazonia)

Superb (+5) and above

the above, plus any exotic language the player may come up with.

People

Contents:

Alessandro Volta

Teresa Ciceri Castiglioni

Alessandro Volta

Teresa Ciceri Castiglioni

Places

Practical Information

Contents:

Measures

Travel

Measures

Travel

Credits

This manual is designed to work with the Fate Core System [https://www.faterpg.com/] and of course would be very different if that didn’t exist.

The Tempio Voltiano [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempio_Voltiano] in Como is where I saw the Electro-flogo-pneumatic gun, and its guide booklet was the first thing I browsed when inspiration struck.

The idea of Mad Scientists! warping the laws of nature owes at least something to the Girl Genius [https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/] (web)comic, altough I believe that this has taken a pretty different approach on the basic concept.

Last but not least, the book collection at archive.org [https://archive.org/details/texts] has been invaluable as a source of public domain books from the relevant era, both as inspiration material and as a source of artwork; detailed attribution for the latter is provided in the source repository [https://git.trueelena.org/worlds/eternal_volta/about/] for this document.

Index

C | D | L | S

C

Crafts

D

Drive

L

language

Lore

S

Science!