If you are familiar with the old ‘Penny Dreadful’ publications, or the ‘Penny Dreadful’ TV series on Show Time, then you have a fair idea of what this campaign is about. It is both a Horror Story and a Mystery Story. If these things appeal to you, come on in!
BUT, let me be clear as to what this campaign IS NOT. It is NOT a Steam Punk game. Although weird science and strange inventions may appear, they are not a primary theme of this campaign and as a player you should not expect Steam Punk gadgets, fashions and so on. Also, this is not a Sim of the TV show. Although there may well be themes from the show (since the writers hit most of the major creature stories it will be hard not to!) none of the characters, as portrayed in the show, will appear.
Further, if you are a player that enjoys high level characters that lob powerful spells and level mountains and crush castles, you will not like this campaign. Though magic exists it is a low key affair that is rarer and weaker then a normal AD&D game.
Finally, if you are a ‘rules lawyer’ or a stickler for historical accuracy then you might want to look elsewhere. The game system we will be using is more or less a home brew, mish-mash of several systems, though it is mostly AD&D, and to some degree a work in progress. And while I strive for historical accuracy in my campaigns, I also twist, bend and break the record as needed to make the plot lines work or smooth over play problems.
This game is my newest and the one I am most focused on getting started. It is a ‘Home brew’ system that is the bastardized child of AD&D 1st, 2nd and 3rd along with elements of GURPS, Call of Cthulhu, other GM’s rules and my own twisted ideas. The game uses Classes, levels and experience points. There are changes from the traditional D&D classes and a new class has been added as well.
It is primarily intended to be played online, either by email or chat. It is new, so prospective players be warned, you are play testing as we go!
I have set up a Discord server for Victorian Dreadful (and my other games) and plan on using that for online chat/play sessions, so contact me for an invite to the server.
Also I am using groups.io for handling some email posts and chat, so membership, while not essential, will be useful if you prefer writing your posts.
I will (most likely) run email/post games separately from the Discord sessions.
Anyone familiar with the old Yahoo Groups will feel comfortable with io. (It is free!)
To join the io Group
https://groups.io/g/VictorianDreadful
To register with Groups.io
Oh, and one last caveat. If you have issues with the fictionalization of real world religions, faiths and beliefs, you might want to move on.