Dragonmech
| Designer(s) | Joseph Goodman |
|---|---|
| Publisher(s) | Goodman Games, Sword & Sorcery Studios |
| Publication date | 2004 |
| Genre(s) | Steampunk,fantasy |
| System(s) | d20 system |
Dragonmech is a steampunk/fantasy campaign setting for d20 fantasy developed by Goodman Games and Sword & Sorcery Studios. It centers on giant mechs, powerful war machines powered by steam, clockwork, magic, or slave labor. Characters in this setting are engaged in epic conflicts in a world of ancient ruins, mighty mechdoms and towering city-mechs.
Dragonmech is set in a world where the moon is quite literally falling apart, resulting in regular meteor showers across the planet's surface. Lunar magic has started finding its way onto the planet below, along with lunar creatures including lunar dragons, which only vaguely resemble their terrestrial counterparts. Built to combat these new threats are the DragonMechs, specially designed for combat with large creatures. Also created were the city-mechs, huge mobile cities that can support not only a large population, but its own ecology.
The main continent in the setting is Highpoint, an unusually altitudinous continent broken into several levels of elevation, with the lowest area of it being a desert that is knee-deep in seawater for half of Highpoint's 250-odd day calendar. A major feature is the 'Endless' River, which runs through a large section of the continent and, in fact, runs for about half its length through the Underdark, and serves as the most important trade route on the continent. The Endless river exits the underground as a large waterfall from the side of a cliff. Highpoint's largest city, Edge, is actually built on this cliff and around this waterfall, and a thriving local economy is in large part based on the transport of people and goods up and down the cliff. Trade in Edge is so lucrative that even the drow have a trading enclave there, and all its members are under strict orders to be civil and polite to everyone who comes to do business.
While in many d20 campaigns, there are inevitable tensions between the races, in DragonMech these tensions are magnified to levels of almost xenophobia. One of the defining characteristics of this setting is then it is NOT humanocentric; the single most successful and powerful core race of the planet is in fact the Dwarves.
Dwarves- Many other campaigns characterize the dwarves as a dying breed, a race for whom many of their ancient and legendary strongholds have been overrun, with little hope of recovery. But in this campaign, while they have suffered disastrously from refugee invasions, their innovation has in fact made them able to rebound dramatically, catapulting them into a level of political and social power rarely seen. As the creators of a technology that is capable of reversing the fortunes of those living in this world, they control the largest and arguably the safest sections of open land in the world of Highpoint. They also control the most city mechs; the five city mechs of Nedderpik, Durgen-lok, Lokag, Thuron, and Goria form the core of their military might, as well as the centers of their political power. Together with Duerok, arguably the Core of Dwarven civilization that remains underground, these five City mechs form the Stenian Confederacy.
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