Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura is a 2001 role-playing video game, developed by Troika Games, and published by Sierra On-Line for Microsoft Windows.
Steampunk and Victorian era games are bizarrely rare for how popular steampunk was in nerd communities in the 2010s and how popular Victorian literature and aesthetic is in general. I personally have never cared for either (always been more into Edwardian era literature and aesthetic), but I was really, really obsessed with this thing. Kinda cringe but whatever.
Theme
The major theme of the setting is the tension between old magic and new technology, old kingdoms and the rise of the middle class, and uncivilized peoples and civilization. The allusions to real world racial conflicts and ideologies were a little on-the-nose, but the scale and consistency of this Victorian world was engrossing. I'm not sure we've seen such a fully-realized city like Tarant again in gaming, outside of text-based roleplaying games like Avalon-rpg.
One of the composers, Ben Houge, explains how this tension between ages was brought into the music:
The first thing I was told about Arcanum was the central conflict of the game: magic versus technology. This idea was so interesting and unique that I considered carefully how to best reflect it in the music. I presented a couple of ideas to the guys at Troika, and we finally settled on a sort of musical anachronism: a score centered around the styles and textures of Renaissance, medieval, and early music, but performed by a characteristic ensemble of the Victorian era, the string quartet. This dichotomy is most evident in the main Arcanum theme, but it shows up more obliquely in the chant-like melodies and motives that recur throughout the score, as well as in the texture and motion of the individual parts. (For example, notice the main theme of "The Caladon Catacombs" and the "Towns" music.) In my writing, I've avoided the virtuosic ornamentation and extremes of tessitura that characterize much Romantic-era string quartet literature, turning instead to the counterpoint and phrasing of early polyphony. Obviously, some of the pieces stray from this original conception, usually for dramatic reasons, but it served as a fruitful point of departure.
...
One very important aspect of Arcanum is that the player may choose to follow a path of good or evil. For this reason, I purposefully avoided writing a sweeping, heroic title theme. Instead, I tried to make the theme morally ambiguous, almost tragic (for Arcanum can be a world of hardship), yet epic (which truly describes the vast scope of Arcanum). I've tried to suggest several things without committing to a single interpretation. I also think a slower, more pensive theme is appropriate to the thoughtful nature and pace of a role-playing game.
(http://benhouge.com/arcanum.html)
History
The Panarii religion has been the favored religion for 1500 years, since the Age of Legends and has been the favored religion for 1500 years. Before, there were many religions and gods, and each race had certain gods that they prayed to.
There were 12 pagan gods: 8 lesser gods (one for each of the races), three greater gods, and the All-Father. They are categorized as the Noble Lesser Gods, the Neutral Lesser Gods, and the Darker Lesser Gods. Offerings were made to the gods in hopes of getting blessings, and each god demanded a different offering,
There are still pagan altars and worshipers, like the Order of Halcyon and the cult of Geshtianna. Most are in ruins now, though.
(Professor Aldous Buxington, The Pagan Gods of Arcanum)
Party Members
- Virgil - He is straight up a Yuu Watase love interest, like Tamahome. He's the first guy you meet, he insists upon serving you, he quickly has a heroic moment when thugs show up to hurt you, and he is revealed to have this complex and dark backstory he struggles against. Pure shoujo.
- Magnus - He is so real. He is a dwarf who insists upon all these dwarf traditions to your and his detriment, and he's constantly lecturing you on his dwarf culture. Then you meet his parents, and he's just a modern city boy who did all the normal stuff everyone else did in his neighborhood. If you gain enough affinity with him (difficult, tbh), you can read his book in his inventory - it's about all the dwarf stuff he talked about, but it's written by a human researcher! Poor guy is really trying to base his whole identity upon his race when he clearly has no connection to his ancestors. I definitely have met guys who try to lay claim to everything they've read about their race, relatives or not.
- There's like an underaged, half-dressed elf girl. She has almost no personality. For a game with male characters with unusual depth and realism for the genre, the girls sure are shallow lol. What happened there?
- Sogg Mead Mug
Plot
The story feels straight out of a tabletop campaign (usually has lots of alternative paths, opportunities for truly immoral behavior) instead of a standard videogame story (assemble everything so you can fight the bad guy). I had just watched some Critical Role to see if it was as bad as people say (aren't the players supposed to be celebrities? these guys were nobody internet influencers who seemed to know nothing about the game or lore), and Arcanum's story is nearly one-to-one the first couple of Waterdeep: Dragon Heist videos. There's like a bunch of bandits after you whom you learn are involved with a cult because there is always a special marking on their corpses, you track down info about the marking, etc. Super weird. Made me wonder if there was some copying going on, either of each other or of some older work.
- MC was riding in the zeppelin IFS Zephyr when it was taken down by ogres operating fighter fliers but emerges unscathed. The dying gnome Preston Radcliffe gives her a ring to return to the boy who will know what needs to be done. He did unspeakable things but had no choice. There's so few left but the work is almost done. He's coming back to destroy everything and everyone. Tell him I escaped..
- Virgil recognizes MC as The Living One
- Follow Virgil to Elder Joachim in the Shrouded Hills to straighten everything out.
- Left dead bodies of conspirators and a note to Virgil. He recommends you run to Tarant. He left a telegram there.
- Elder Joachim's telegram apologized for not staying to meet Virgil, but he's investigating the assassins. He wants you to go to the Bleeding Rose Inn in Stillwater and to speak with the Inn Keeper.
- Met Magnus, a dwarf investigating his clan. All he has to go by is an old bracelet linked to P. Schuyler & Sons. He'll travel with you once you are strong enough.
- The employee at P. Schuyler & Sons is difficult and will not talk about the gnome's ring. Magnus said he treated him the same way when asking about his bracelet.
- There's crypts under P. Schuyler & Sons. The Schuylers explain they use the undead dwarves to dig for jewelry - but the jewelry isn't even good, and they melt it down to remake anyways. They ask you to keep silent in return for information about your ring. They direct you to Gilbert Bates.
- Gilbert Bates reveals the gnome Preston Radcliffe was actually the Black Mountain dwarf Stennar who shared the steam engine technology with him. He also identifies your assassins as the Molochean Hand, or at least people using their logos.
- Bates wants you to investigate the Black Mountain clan because they disappeared after he brought steam technology to humans.
- The Black Mountain mines is empty, save Gudmund Ore Bender, who left the history of that day on the Pillar of Truth. They were exiled by the Wheel Clan after the crime of sharing technology.
- Gilbert Bates is guilty and wants you to investigate their exile in the Isle of Despair. In Ashbury, Edward Teach can take you to the Isle of Despair.
- The only dwarf on the Isle of Despair Thorvald Two Stones is from the Wheel Clan from unrelated reasons. He sends you to the Wheel Clan to learn what's going on.
- The Wheel Clan wants you to bring your news to King Thunder Stone.
- King Randver Thunder Stone wants you to find his father Loghaire in the Dredge
- Loghaire Thunder Stone sends you to Stillwater to find Qintarra.
- Mirthe tells you where Qintarra is
- Raven tests you by having you remove the humans from Falcon's Ache
- The Silver Lady tells you riddles
- It seems you need Horror Among the Dark Elves, which, according to a book in the Tarant Library, has a surviving copy with Victor Misk in Caladon.
Religious Terms
- Alberich
- Arronax
- Bolo
- Geshtianna
- Gorgoth
- Halcyon
- Helion
- Kaitan
- Kerlin
- Makaal
- Mazzerin
- Moorindal
- Nasrudin
- Panarii
- Progo
- Shakar
- Ter'el
- Torg
- Velorien
Races
Places
- Ashbury
- Black Mountain mines
- Blackroot, Black Root
- Caladon
- Cumbria
- Dernholm
- Jailer's Hump
- Isle of Despair
- Morbihan Forest
- Morbihan Plains
- Qintarra
- Razor's Point
- Roseborough
- Serpentspine
- Shrouded Hills
- Stillwater
- Tarant
- Weeping Maidens
Characters
- Charles Brehgo