Non-British VSF/Steampunk RPG Sourcebooks: Let's create a list

[gloriousbattle]

Lady Blackbird

http://www.onesevendesign.com/ladyblackbird/lady_blackbird.pdf

I don't know that this quite fits my criteria (not a foreign nation sourcebook, rather VSF in SPAAAAAAAAAAAAAACE...) but it looks like great fun, so it gets included.

[gloriousbattle]

Masks of Nyarlathotep

http://www.chaosium.com/article.php?story_id=448

This one, of course, is well known, well respected, and has been around for a long time.  However, I think it is still worth noting in this list because a lot of very gameable places: New York, London, Cairo, Kenya, Australia and Shanghai are all briefly covered.  None of them in any great depth, of course, but enough for a one-off adventure or to get things started on a New campaign.

Also, it is worth noting that, unlike many companies, Chaosium usually makes it quite clear whether they are giving you historical or fictional information about an area.

Well worth adding to any VSF game.

[gloriousbattle]

Ravenloft Guide to Transylvania

http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/DrawingRoom/Ravenloft_Products/1st_2nd_Edition/GuideToTransylvania.html

Here is one I knew nothing about until I started this thread, and it seems like quite a find.  From a very quick look-see, it seems nicely detailed.  It deals with it's own version of our world -Gothic Earth- but so does pretty much everything else in this list.

If your VSF game is going to have some magic and horror elements rather than being just 'hard VSF' (does that even mean anything?) you'll probably have to deal with our favorite bloodsucking Eastern European nobleman at least on some level.  This seems like an excellent place to start.

As an aside, I once read an interesting intro to VSF (called 'Good Grief Carruthers' or something like that) that suggested Austria-Hungary's failure to become a real colonial power probably had a lot to do with the fact that all of their resources are going into suppressing the local vampires and werewolves.  If so, this would fit right in.

[Donpimpom]

I wonder if that one could be on that list too.

Dark Continent. Adventure and Exploration in Darkest Africa
It's not a sourcebook but a complete rpg game on itself about Africa expeditions, tons of info and rules about how to organize expeditions.
It's rpg but I think it could be useful even for campaing miniature games, to handle staff and ressources between game sessions.
It really matches the feeling for Richard Burton or Livingstone style games, it's very Victorian but would need to add the SF factor.

http://rpggeek.com/rpg/2020/dark-continent-adventure-and-exploration-in-darke
http://index.rpg.net/display-entry.phtml?mainid=332
"Dark Continent is a roleplaying game of African adventure and exploration set in the age of colonialism. Players can take the role of Victorian adventurers emulating the real-life exploits of Burton, Livingstone and Stanley or the literary fictions of Edward Rice Burroughs, Henry Rice Haggard and Joseph Conrad.
This box set is a complete game in itself, with all the rules and setting information needed to create characters and expeditions and send them into the unknown. It contains two guides for players and gamemasters, a booklet with information on Zanzibar,and two blank maps for the players to charter the course of their adventures into Darkest Africa."

[gloriousbattle]

I wonder if that one could be on that list too.

"Good Grief Carruthers"?  I wish I could find it.

Dark Continent. Adventure and Exploration in Darkest Africa

This one sounds great, and I'd love to find a copy, but it truly seems to have been expunged from the internet.

[Plynkes]

+++DARK CONTINENT SPOILER WARNING+++ +++PLAYERS MAY WISH TO SKIP THIS POST+++

It really matches the feeling for Richard Burton or Livingstone style games, it's very Victorian but would need to add the SF factor.

Not entirely. While the players' book is vanilla historical, there is a load of 'secret stuff' in the GM's book for supernatural Africa and what the game calls "the hungry night", a dark presence that haunts the continent. Both the provided adventures in the GM's book are supernatural or Sci-Fi in nature. The players' book gives absolutely no hint that the game is anything other than 100% historical in nature, so that when the GM springs this stuff on them for the first time it will be all the more of a curveball. While that is a really cool idea, I think if I had signed up for a Burton & Speke game and when played it turned out to be Jurassic Park, I think I might be a bit pissed off with the GM.  

There is nothing steampunky about it (no weird contraptions, walkers, any of that rot), but it is not a straight historical game. Unless your GM wants it to be, in which case it is. The 'hungry night' stuff is kept nicely separate in its own chapter. Everything else is history.

[gloriousbattle]

Any idea what happened to it?  I don't think I've ever seen a game that was so completely gone from the web.

[gloriousbattle]

And while plynikes is thinking about that, I'll continue with another of these Gothic Earth pieces, namely the Gothic Earth Gazetteer.

This one also seems to be really nice.  It gives a little information about the whole earth, mainly centered around a group of cabals.  However, I like the flavor of the whole thing, especially the description of such events as the Dreyfuss affair in a historical manner, but followed up by a supernatural 'explanantion of what really happened.'

http://www.fraternityofshadows.com/DrawingRoom/Ravenloft_Products/1st_2nd_Edition/GothicEarthGazateer.html

[gloriousbattle]

Heart of the Jungle

http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Chronicles-Heart-Jungle-Supplement/dp/1601252471

It should be noted that this is very much a typical D&D setting (elves with vorpal swords) rather than a colonial one, but, given the dearth of colonial jungle adventures and sourcebooks, it is probably the best you'll get.

It certainly does contain a lot of info, and a lot of stuff on lost cities, which would be pretty much the same whether the elves or the foreign legion were investigating them.

Anyway, I think it is a worthy addition to a COlonial rpg resource list.

[gloriousbattle]

http://www.amazon.com/Pathfinder-Companion-Sargava-Lost-Colony/dp/1601252552/ref=pd_bxgy_b_img_b

Also looks interesting, and from the same people.  I have not had time to give it a read, but it seems to be about a colony in a jungle area that was cut off and left on it's own.

[gloriousbattle]

The Isle of Dread

http://www.amazon.com/Dread-Fantasy-Roleplaying-Expert-Module/dp/093569630X

And while we're on the subject of jungle adventures, who could forget this grand old module?  Granted, we are now well into pure D&D land, but the isle has several things to recommend, including simplicity and an exploration style mapping system not all that unlike Source of the Nile's.  In fact, there is no reason why you couldn't put a few changes into it, such as a British outpost, to make it a bit more colonial.

[Donpimpom]

Thanks Plynkes! to be honest i never read the game entirely, I only used the ressources info chapters, but the "hungry night" idea sounds really interesting, the "empty maps" are also a fun item.
About the game itself I have no idea where to find it nowadays, was a compulsive acquisition 10 years ago in a trip to Notthingham and never seen it again in Uk or Spain stores.


One more for the list.
Les Annes Folles
http://boardgamegeek.com/rpgitem/56047/les-annees-folles-investigations-dans-la-france-de
Call of Cthulhu sourcebook of Paris, Paris 1920, not too victorian but still useful as info source for gaming session in paris, its a big box full of stuff, includes :
-Sourcebook about life in france from 1920 to 1929, laws, events, chronology, fashion, war sequels, etc
-Street sourcebook of Paris, arrondissement by arrondissement, useful infos, stores, police stations, doctors, hotels, it includes libraries and bookstores of course.
-Scenario book, some CoC adventures
-60x80cm map, facsimile of a 1900 paris map on one side, and a map of France with interesting landmarks (castles, druidic settlements, abbeys, stonage menhir, etc)
Very cool and useful to play CoC in France/Paris, but sadly I would say it has been only published in french

[gloriousbattle]

Les Annes Folles...  ...Call of Cthulhu sourcebook of Paris... ...but sadly I would say it has been only published in french

Bummer.    Still, a good addition to the list, for anyone who has that language.

[gloriousbattle]

Voyage across the north in a Zeppelin

http://www.sarkomand.de/Steampunk_Expeditionen.html

Does this really belong on this list?  Maybe not, but I think it's quite cool.

[Donpimpom]

Some more
- Forgotten Futures http://www.forgottenfutures.com/game/index.htm
From Marcus Rowland, tons full of info and good literature, and many sourcebooks for non british locations, from the Mapple White Land to the Tzar's Russia

- Transactions of The Royal Martian Geographical Society
http://www.heliograph.com/trmgs/
Very centered on Space 1889, but great source of ideas

- Space 1889
For all their non-british sourcebooks: Steppelords of Mars, Caravans of Mars, Cloud Captains of Mars, Conklin's Atlas of the Worlds, Beastmen of Mars, Canal Priests of Mars. Heliogrph reprinted them. http://www.heliograph.com/buy.shtml#HEL5811