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R UNE P UNK ™

Written by Sean Preston

Edited by Jodi Black with Sean Preston

Layout by Preston DuBose with Sean Preston

Cover Art and Map by Adam Shaw

Character Sheet by Aaron Acevedo

Interior Art by Adam Shaw, Stephen Sheperd, and Kevin Harthun

Savage Worlds Consultation by Clint Black

Adventure Generators by Barry Green and Sean Preston

Special Thanks to My Friends and Family.

This game uses the Savage Worlds rules available from Great White Games. Savage Worlds, Smilin’

permission. Some material is adapted from other official GWG sources, so thanks to Shane Hensley,

Simon Lucas, and Paul “Wiggy” Wade-Williams for their inclusion.

RunePunk: Steam and Shadow, Reality Blurs, and all associated trademarks and logos are copyright

2004, Reality Blurs; Author: Sean Preston. All rights resevered. This material is protected under the

artwork contained herein is prohibited without the express written consent of Reality Blurs.

steam & shadow

C ONTENTS

Introduction ............................................................3

An Introduction of Sorts .........................................................3

Player's Section ........................................................4

Worldview ................................................................4

The Lay of the Land ...............................................................4

The History of ScatterPoint .....................................................5

The Inhabitants of Scatterpoint ..............................9

archetypes ...........................................................................9

Character Creation ...............................................................10

Andari ...............................................................................12

Ferren ...............................................................................13

Humans .............................................................................15

Malakar .............................................................................17

Overwrought .....................................................................19

The High Laws of RunePunk ..................................22

Common Knowledge ........................................................... 22

New Skill Explanations ......................................................... 22

New Hindrances ................................................................. 23

New Edges ........................................................................ 23

New Powers for Arcane Backgrounds ....................................... 33

Chemistry ......................................................................... 35

Demonology ...................................................................... 35

Gear and Goods ..................................................................41

Setting Rules ...................................................................... 49

ScatterPoint Specifics .....................................................................53

A RunePunk Primer ............................................................ 53

City Slang and Lexicon ........................................................ 60

Game Master's Section ............................................62

The Game Master's Guidebook ...............................62

Game Mastering RunePunk ................................................... 62

Race, Place, and Station ....................................................... 63

Runestorms, Witchgrass, & Bribery ......................................... 64

Jobbing It: Employment in the Big City ..................................... 67

ScatterPoint Encounters ........................................................ 73

Secrets of Scatterpoint ............................................78

City Districts ..................................................................... 78

The Barrens ....................................................................... 84

The Saga of the City ............................................................. 88

Savage Tales ......................................................................105

Adventure Hooks ...............................................................123

Beasts and Beyond ................................................127

Creatures & Creations .........................................................127

Citizens & Denizens ............................................................134

Entities & Oddfellows .........................................................145

2 R UNE P UNK

I NTRODUCTION

An Introduction of Sorts

RunePunk was conceived in 2004 after I decided I want-

ed to write for the Savage Worlds system. I wanted to

create something unlike anything that had gone before

and I wanted to do it quickly. Let’s address those points

in turn. RunePunk was going to be a world in which

the arcane developed parallel with technology. Wherein

there was a viable reason why one did not eclipse the

other, a world where factories belched forth filth into the

air and slime into the gutters while mere streets away

demonologists toiled over ancient rituals to summon

forth demons to do their bidding. I wanted high fantasy

in an urban environment. I wanted to give my due to

works of fiction that had profound effects on my youth.

While many pay tribute to Lord of the Rings, my heart

ached far more for the exploits of Elric and his black

blade. While some loved the epic tales of adventure that

stretched across the realms of a mundane landscape,

I loved the mystery and wonder, the grime, and the

filth of the city spun out by Leiber with the beloved

Lankhmar far more. I enjoyed the political intrigues of

Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast and was overwhelmed by

China Mieville’s Perdido Street Station, which brought

back a sense of amazement for me and redefined modern

fantasy. While I’m giving nods to influences, I cannot

leave out Neil Gaiman who unknowingly taught me to

challenge myself, to draw upon the myths of the past,

pay homage to what has gone before, and try to add a bit

for the future.

Getting to the second part of my design parameters,

I wanted to quickly develop my setting. I opted to limit

my environment and confine it to a city, but I wanted

my city to be able to handle anything I came up with,

so it ended up being a huge city. To this, I must give a

wink and a nod to all the Judge Dredd comics I read in

my youth that have influenced this work as well as the

artistic visions of Tim Burton. Fully fleshing out my cul-

tural influences, I must say such movies as Dark City and

Labyrinth played with the ideas of what was right and

proper in a fantasy work. Finally, the computer game

Arcanum fascinated me from the outset with its blending

of disparate genres.

So, when I’m asked, ”What is RunePunk?”it’s diffi-

cult to give a hard and fast answer, as it is impacted by

so many influences on my life. If pressed, I say that it is

dark steampunk fantasy, but it’s not solely steampunk in

the traditional sense and the fantasy is not the stereotypi-

cal dragons and the like, but wanders farther afield. In

effect, RunePunk goes far beyond the fields we know

and into a realm of possibility and wonder, which is what

any good fantasy should do. Hopefully, I’ve managed to

capture the essence of this to some degree, but a game

setting, unlike a story or novel, is not truly alive until a

group of people comes together to explore its nooks and

crannies.

Is it possible to enjoy RunePunk without any of these

literary conceits or cultural references tucked away

in your memory? Of course it is. ScatterPoint is a city

comprised of many people and is an amalgam of many

times and cultures. While it is sometimes a waypoint

for people slipping between dimensions and dreams, it

is far more. Against the backdrop of a thriving industrial

age powered by magic and steam, desperate people take

desperate measures to ensure their survival. Life is a

commodity like any other and the gears of the city grind

down hard. Everyone is replaceable and knows this,

so some strike out to make their fortunes. Hardbitten

mercenaries with runic arms and armor implore passing

merchants for employment while chemists leave their

labs and take up the mantle of adventurer. Humanity

forms the core of the city’s populace, but it is not alone.

Ghosts and demonspawn are a familiar sight among all

levels of society. Mechanized men powered by technol-

ogy and magic trade their souls to support their families.

Ratlike folk go where the others cannot and keep the

complex mechanisms of the city running smoothly. The

shadows and the steam contain many secrets. Read on

through the history and the races of this place. Imagine

the grit beneath your feet and the grime pervading

the air. Imagine this is your life and - know this- the

only way to get ahead is to somehow be extraordinary.

With that challenge, I welcome you into the streets of

ScatterPoint and encourage you to make ScatterPoint

your own. Everywhere there is a story desperate to be

told. Tell yours.

Best Regards,

Sean Preston

R UNE P UNK 3

W ORLDVIEW

The Lay of the Land

P LAYER ' S S ECTION

Welcome to ScatterPoint

I’m Cipher and I’ll be your guide. Look for my symbol to

see character creation tips, important notes, and to desig-

nate Wild Cards found in the GM’s Section. By the way,

I don’t expect to see any of you players creeping around

the GM’s Section. That’s strictly off limits and I’d hate

to send you off to rot in some cell in BlackShackle before

you’ve even had a chance to see the rest of the city.

and there is little law to be found. Tribes of Malakar

wander across the ancient rubble and take shelter in the

shells of crumbling buildings. Runestorms strike with-

out warning, providing little opportunity for rebuilding

these areas.

The City Districts

Thirteen major districts exist. Chief among them is

GreyMesa: the center of ScatterPoint, its bureaucracy,

and the residence of the Autarch. Each district has its own

distinct character but shares the common element of a

tall centrally located runetower. Each district consists of

a downtown, midtown, and uptown area and is further

divided into the political subdivisions of boroughs.

A complete listing of the districts is found in the City

Guide section of the RunePunk Primer.

The City as a Whole

ScatterPoint is the name for the city in its entirety. It

spans hundreds of miles in all directions from the cen-

tral point of GreyMesa, the ruling district. Beyond the

boundaries of ScatterPoint are mists and constant storms

referred to as Zurvan’s Veil. Any that have dared venture

into the Veil have never been heard from again.

The Barrens

Nine barrens exist and are the broken bits of the city

where no runetowers exist and lawlessness rules. The

barrens are the homes to outlaws, Malakar tribes, and

the legendary Demon Lords, the Talus. Some of these

areas have been reclaimed by what passes for nature;

witchgrass forests and tanglevine covering over what

might have been a great mansion in centuries past. The

barrens evoke the sense of great age as monolithic ruins

abound and the uneven ground still speaks of lost great-

ness.

A complete listing of the barrens is found in the City

Guide section of the RunePunk Primer.

Districts and Barrens:

Two Parts to One City

The city consists of two main divisions: districts and bar-

rens. Each district is a metropolis in its own right with

upwards of a million people typically working within a

block of their residence. Buildings tower hundreds of

stories into the air. A central runetower in each district

protects the people from the runestorms and provides a

constant energy supply upon which the city is dependent.

Each city district is physically connected to another by

rail lines that run through the barrens.

The barrens are the unsheltered parts of the city

where pockets of civilization attempt to make a living

4 R UNE P UNK

The History of ScatterPoint

The End of One World

Begets Another

Once the jewel of a star-spanning empire, the city is now

a crumbling macropolis held together by ancient runes

and lost technologies fighting against the entropic push

of chaos. The city is now the world.

The skies shudder with the runestorms that power the

very city. Most never see the sky, however, and instead

dwell forever in the factory-towers spending bone-crush-

ing days maintaining the city’s needs.

Trees are legend. Flowers are forgotten. Demons walk

the streets in human guise and ancient Andari, once men

themselves, rule over the remnants of humanity. Ferren,

ratlike creatures from another plane, have carved out a

niche of their own. The most poverty-stricken and crim-

inal elements of man have surrendered themselves to the

city and let themselves be recreated into living tools - the

Overwrought - who toil in the most difficult and danger-

ous conditions for little wages and less thanks. Beyond

the flickering lights of the city districts lie the barrens,

abandoned lands where the half-demon Malakar wait to

lay waste upon any that venture into their territories.

How did things become this way? Once upon a time,

ScatterPoint was the greatest metropolis in the Empire.

The runecasters and scientists that governed the city

lived in relative harmony until such time as the scientists’

“Great Breakthrough” promised to shift the balance of

power. A fearful group of runecasters used more magics

than the world had ever seen and crushed the scientific

revolution with their runestorms, sealing the city’s fate.

Arcane energies creased the sky in an array of un-

earthly colors while the great Stabilizers, towers of

science, stood untouched and unharmed. Finally, an arc

of the ancient magics struck these massive towers and

amplified these magical energies a hundred fold. Law

and Chaos howled in unholy unison as the world went

black. The very fabric of space and time was torn. This

pivotal moment became known as the Severing.

During this time, ScatterPoint was shaken to its

foundations and all but the most powerful of towering

buildings toppled to the ground, killing millions. The

runestorms swelled and ebbed and each wave of reality

washed people through from different times and places

and each wave took them away again. The people called

this period the Time of Madness and few, if any, thought

they would survive. That is, until the Ferren came…

Aftermath: The Rebuilding

For a hundred years, the people lived like beasts; scrab-

bling and fighting for scraps of the past, for food, for

protection from the relentless storms. The areas nearest

the Stabilizers were the least affected, so people from

outlying areas began congregating near them in what be-

came known, in later years, as the city districts. These

sanctuaries were not without trouble. Tyrants arose and

drove people into slavery. The dark ages had arrived

upon the city.

The outlying areas fared far worse. Some of the Talus,

ancient Demon Lords, found themselves trapped upon

this unknown plane, as helpless to leave as the rest. They

howled and gnashed their teeth and began to set up petty

realms, breeding with the stock of man to create their

brood, the Malakar, to set upon the city districts. The

storms bent reality and broke the boundaries between

dimensions. Creatures and things were cast from one

continuum into another. Most became victim of the

Talus’ insatiable appetites or their pets, but a handful

became the saviors of man.

Some Ferren, a clever ratlike folk, fell victim to the

grasp of the great runestorms and were pulled through

from their world to the city. They were the first to call

the city ScatterPoint, the place between places. They

helped assess the situation and set to work on establish-

ing some anchors so the city would not tear itself apart.

A humble engineer named Tanryn, a human, with a host

of his men, aided them in their efforts in converting

the Stabilizers into what became known forevermore as

the runetowers, the great shadowmetal towers of con-

joined magics and ancient technologies. Thus Tanryn the

Builder found his way into the archives as the Founder.

The storms became less frequent as the runetowers

absorbed the energies, and the factories and foundries,

dormant for a century, began to come alive. People be-

gan journeying up the high plateau of GreyMesa looking

for work.

R UNE P UNK 5

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