Second Life Steampunk Roleplay a la China Miéville

When a finely-wrought steampunk-themed city recently declared insolvency, I wondered if it was a sign the community had reached a plateau.  Based on the reader comment, that seems to be decidedly not so -- especially with launch news of Armada, another roleplay steampunk sim, this time inspired by the works of China Miéville. 

According to an in-depth report from The Heliograph, a preeminent news source for discerning ladies and gentlemen among metaverse steampunks, Armada includes a sub-community of Mermen/women living beneath the island, and a break from the traditional business model: rather than purchase plots outright, would-be shop owners rent existing stores pre-built by Armada's owners, so they can maintain its thematic/design continuity.  More at the official blog.  Hat tip: Miss Eladrienne Laval.

Comments

[Iggy O]

I'm LOVING this news. I'm wild about Mieville's slipstream fiction. At a talk he gave locally a while back, his work has been influenced by his interest, if not participation, in role-playing games.

The Armada sim, from his novel The Scar, could be a great teaching tool for literature classes.

Mieville's imagined societies (Armada being only one of several) have some pretty well defined mores and a "feel" that would be baroque even in Steampunk terms. His city New Crobuzon makes SL's Suffugium seem like sweetness and light. I describe Mieville's world as a mash-up of Dickens, Orwell, the film Brazil, and the factionalism of Spanish Civil War.

I wonder how closely the SL residents follow Mieville's fiction in their Armada RP?

I'm going to spend some time at this Sim :)

[dreddpiratebob streeter]

Whoa! NWN?! yayyyy! Thank you sir!

(Steam)Punks not dead! :D

in response to Iggy, nice idea on tying literature in. Two of the team that run the sim ( known as The Four) are educators so this will be discussed. I'd be interested in your input.

as to how close we are following mievilles vision, well thats also an interesting dicussion to have. It seemed natural to bring in the Mers, though they are not mentioned in The Scar, especially as we have a couple within our team, but we aimed them at a darker aethetic, more scarred and rebellious. Other races are slowly being introduced as the avatars are constructed (we only started this whole plan a couple of months ago and its been full belt since just getting it open :) ).

Its also worth noting that to work within the framework of SL and the other steampunk and pirate sims we are having to allow ourselves some leaway to theme but we are sticking as close as we can without alienating anyone. One of the big problems we've had is finding folk who've read the dashed book! We know at least a dozen folk who are working their way through as we speak (and are loving them) so i think themed RP is going to be easier after that. We are planning a discussion session about the theme shortly just to get everyone involved up to speed.

If anyone is interested in finding out more, IM or notecard me inworld and i'll give you the tour.

Thank you again sir!