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View Full Version : Ruminant and Revolver: GITP's First Cattlepunk Setting



Fri
2008-11-30, 05:40 PM
Well, simply put. One day I read the word 'Cattlepunk' and thought. Holy crap, that's like the coolest word I've ever read.

I originally cobbled some things for some alternate history campaign setting contest a few months ago, but things got on the way and I never follow it.

But I'm bored, and, what the heck. What's the worse thing that could happen? So here it goes. By putting it on this place, I hope I could get some motivation to continue it, and maybe it even could attract some.. things and grow like how bread turned into those amusing things after we left them for a week behind some forgotten cupboard after a particular nasty food fight.

Or it could rot like a CR 1 goblin carcass on forgotten realm. Either way, it won't actually hurt me.

Basically, my idea was... some sort of bio-punk. Like cyber punk or steam punk or diesel punk, but instead of steam engine, CATTLE is the most important thing in this setting.

On the crunch, originally I was cobbling for-and-using d20 modern rule, but I accept nudging and ideas (especially since I already lost most, if not all, of my original work).

Right, so this was the teaser I made back then



In 1840, Aliens invaded Earth. Creatures from man's worst nightmare rained down from the sky. Panic ensues. Some people said the apocalypse had come.

Back then we didn't even know that they were creatures from outer space. We thought they were demons, or old forgotten gods. But we beat them. It ain't easy but we beat them.

Maybe we're just lucky. Maybe they underestimated us. Maybe they're just rash. Or maybe God just said that it ain't our time yet.

It's hard to believe, but our technology was actually better than them. Back then we didn't understand yet, but they based their technology on biological things. They grown their ships and guns using alien meat and wood. We built our ships and guns using terrestrial steel and rock.

And this is the funny part. Their alien meat and wood were deathly allergic to our steel.

It's funny. Maybe there were no iron in their homeworld. Maybe they never invaded a planet that had progressed beyond stone age. Well, you never thought that we're the most backward civilization in the galaxy, right? Anyway, we can theorize much, but the fact is, we wiped them out.

But not before their alien meats "pollute" our ecosystem.

They merged with some of our animals and trees, creating new species. Some of them survived, some of them died, some of them adapted.

And that's how, my son, the Cattles were born.

My idea:

What if COW is the most important thing in the world. Everything revolves around Cow. Our technologies are about cow, and cows are our technology. I got this idea from reading too much steampunk and... Pokemon. Yes.

Generally, I imagine this as an anachronistic sci-fi/fantasy setting based on the old west. With continent spanning rail tracks and great train robberies, cowboys, cattle drive, rustlers, and everything. Combined with modern techs like flight, electricity and so on. Plus monsters.

But with cow.

The alien dna and stuff accidentally and un-accidentally merged with a lot of earth's species. I imagined the aliens were something like a very crappy and cheap version of Zerg. In the end, we beat them, but they already affected our ecosystem much.

A lot of alien things, mutated animals, and genetically enginereed abomination now roams the wilderness. Not exactly apocalyptical. Just VERY annoying. Just imagine what if bears and lions and tigers and elephants breed much faster that we can't shoot them fast enough to make them extinct. And they grow much bigger. With much scarier claws and fangs. That shoot lightning and fire. A lot of people now work as monster hunter. Park ranger's job is a bit more interesting. Travels through the wilderness are MUCH more exciting and bloody.

Right, so back to the cows. What's the deal with them.

It turned out that for some reason, the alien messed with cow a lot. Or cow just turned out to be very susceptible to the alien tinkering. Now we got cow that produces methane gas VERY EFFICIENTLY. Cows that produce food much more efficiently that it replaced most other meat producing animals. Smarter and stronger oxes that can be trained and used for battle. Bulls that produces electricity. Cows that strive on desert and Cows that strive on tundra.

Cow turned out to be a very efficient and useful energy source. Crude oil and coal became redundant and useless. Now we built things around cow.

Cow powered train. Cow powered BLIMPS. Cow powered GIANT ROBOT

I haven't figured out the exact how-to though. Maybe they use the methane produced by the cow? Or they actually had methane producing cow on the train/blimps and they just feed the cow with food and the cow produces fuel on the spot. Or something like... cow that generate electricity from it's like a much less cute version of pikachu?

Like how steam powered things affect technological development in steampunk setting, Those mutant cattle also affect our technological development. Human got a lot of stuff, but some stuff didn't get developed.

Since I'm really sleepy now I'll end this opening post. I'll post more later when I can form coherent thoughts and proper english sentences again. On the mean time, post your comments and ideas.

Ascension
2008-11-30, 05:50 PM
Umm... on the one hand... I don't think that's quite what Cattlepunk is supposed to be like.

On the other hand... well, it's certainly an interesting idea... if quite... strange. I think you'd practically have to run it as a comedy campaign...

Samurai Jill
2008-11-30, 06:02 PM
I presumed it was a parody of some sort.

Faithdreamer
2008-11-30, 06:51 PM
I want to know why you think this is comedic. Haven't you ever heard of a Cat-powered treadmill running on cats locked in small cages, running on hampster wheels?

Lappy9000
2008-11-30, 06:56 PM
What if COW is the most important thing in the world. Everything revolves around Cow. Our technologies are about cow, and cows are our technology.

Keith Baker would approve.