Arcanepunk Ether-Opera! Help?

[Logos&Eidos]

Arcanepunk!
After much research meditation and simply mucking about I've finally found my genre. The problem is that it's so sparse and the few examples are so varied that it's hard to pen down what exactly belongs. With other genres it's easy, Steampunk Victorian fashion,high tech life through low and weired tech means much of which is powered by steam,maybe a little bit of magic and definitely goggles!

With arcanepunk however it's the wild west, when it comes to tropes,genre conventions and audience expectations. I'm open to any advice on the issue,but i'm especially interested in is the tech side. For in my opinion that influences the feel of a world because,tech is something that we all deal with while magic if real is completely removed from the life of the average person.

 

[WooHooMan]

I think the trick is that you can't see it as having its own unique set of conventions but instead it's borrowing conventions from fantasy and cyberpunk.
As far as I can tell, it's straight fantasy but placed in a futuristic setting rather than a historical-based setting. Perhaps you can through in some post-Apocalyptic elements? Destroyed civilizations is nothing new in fantasy.

I was actually playing with the idea of a fantasy version of the internet. I guess that would be an arcanepunk concept.
Trying to blend magic and technology rather than keep them distinct elements would probably be the way to go. Like instead of "magic + technology", you just have "magitech".
So, to do this, I suppose you'd have to decide what is "raw magic" and what can be made out of it. Or how it can work with man-made elements.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

I think the trick is that you can't see it as having its own unique set of conventions but instead it's borrowing conventions from fantasy and cyberpunk.
As far as I can tell, it's straight fantasy but placed in a futuristic setting rather than a historical-based setting. Perhaps you can through in some post-Apocalyptic elements? Destroyed civilizations is nothing new in fantasy.

I was actually playing with the idea of a fantasy version of the internet. I guess that would be an arcanepunk concept.
Trying to blend magic and technology rather than keep them distinct elements would probably be the way to go. Like instead of "magic + technology", you just have "magitech".
So, to do this, I suppose you'd have to decide what is "raw magic" and what can be made out of it. Or how it can work with man-made elements.

Well the sources for Arcanepunk are,Eberron,Iron Kingdoms , Torchlight and Escaflowne; maybe The Powder Mage trilogy. They are all good but are modeled on the 17-18-19th centuries respectively, plus magitch.
I'm not exactly sure which century is a good model for my setting; which brings the issue of just how schizo should tech be?

As for magitech, psitch might be a bit more accurate, the native magic of the mortal races is closer to psionics than the now iconic Image of a mage with staff grimoire and pointy hat. Though a kind of "sheet music" consisting of 49 characters was to develop, to record instructions on how perform specific talents; best for spells that I could find.

Trying to find the right flavor for a psionics like magic system is tough and ongoing.

Anyway, I know that in the best all the ancestors to modern civilization were driven by magictech, then a planer incursion happen and the eldritch beings that came through all posses a natural counter magic, an evolutionary adaptation to living In a fluid mercurial world they can push back against changes in their environment. This render magitech unreliable and forced the rapid development of mundane tech to compensate. After the war mundane tech remained in position of prominence because it was cheaper and easier to mass produce.

 

[Penpilot]

Why must you contort yourself into a genre? Does it matter? Write the story with the elements that interest you, and let the agent/publisher/etc. put you in a box, because, well, it doesn't matter what genre you think you're in, they'll put you in a genre where they think the book will sell. Eg, this isn't scifi, it's a techno thriller. It's not horror. It's suspense. This ain't fantasy. It's magical realism.

And genres aren't as easy to pin down as you think. There are plenty of stories that mix elements and can be categorized as either-or. Sure you can write stories that are dead center with all the tropes typical of the particular genre, but again, why worry about if the lines are blurred? And why limit yourself to only what's typical and expected of a genre?

 

[Asura Levi]

I would definitely mention The City of the Dead Sorcerer. In 201x the russians managed to discover a particle that is present everywhere, dubbed mana. Soon the world began to experiment on it.
By the time of the story (I think it is 204x, not sure) the magic is so entangled with technology that you download specific app in your mobile that allow you to use a given magic.

(Just picture you targeting someone with your smartphone camera and FIREBALL)

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Why must you contort yourself into a genre? Does it matter? Write the story with the elements that interest you, and let the agent/publisher/etc. put you in a box, because, well, it doesn't matter what genre you think you're in, they'll put you in a genre where they think the book will sell. Eg, this isn't scifi, it's a techno thriller. It's not horror. It's suspense. This ain't fantasy. It's magical realism.

And genres aren't as easy to pin down as you think. There are plenty of stories that mix elements and can be categorized as either-or. Sure you can write stories that are dead center with all the tropes typical of the particular genre, but again, why worry about if the lines are blurred? And why limit yourself to only what's typical and expected of a genre?

Because imposing limitations on myself have proven to be a big help in my creative process. My mind tends to spin off in a thousand different directions, good for brainstorming bad for actually writing something down. And following genre conventions can sever as shortcuts in the creative process.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Emotional and thematic resonance are according to some of the things that I read and writing podcast that I've listened to. Which is why I'm trying to build in elements from genre of arcane/dungeon punk, it's the closest genre, when combined with elements of planetary romance and space opera, to what I see in my head.

Which is why I'm crowed-sourcing,what fits what doesn't how do and should things fit, how dark how whimsical? The exchange, the interaction are big spurs for my creative process,which is why I and I suspect many others are here to experience that exchange.

 

[shangrila]

Well, robots, or wargolems as that page says, would be a big part of this genre.

As far as a time, maybe the flintlock era? Something like when Napoleon was around. I don't see a lot of fantasy books with that kind of setting and I think it'd make a good time for magitech.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

Well, robots, or wargolems as that page says, would be a big part of this genre.

As far as a time, maybe the flintlock era? Something like when Napoleon was around. I don't see a lot of fantasy books with that kind of setting and I think it'd make a good time for magitech.

Ah Flintlock Fantasy. Genre blending is much more common in Anime/manga and Jrpgs, from what I've heard western fans like preference to their genre fiction well defined and segregated; so that's why we don't see much magitech in genre fiction, in my opinion.


I'm not shore what time this setting would be based on, late nineteenth to early twenty for the most part, with maybe arcades and a primitive internet like information network.

What are your thoughts on animalistic as opposed to humanoid mechs, because I'm considering on using beast likes because of uniqueness(that style of mech isn't used that often) and plausibility, four or more legs are stable than two and the shape might sacle up better. Also on psion(mage) guild/kabals that operate more like crime syndicates.

 

[Logos&Eidos]

I need a little bit of feedback, how to give magic the flavor of a mystic discipline instead of the more common magic as an academic pursuit?

In truth I'm kinda lost on this, the scholastic style of magic is so ubiquitous in fantasy that's it's flavor and style is easily grasped. The mystic discipline style I've not seen to much of, the only ingredients that I've grasped thus far are, meditation, mind-altering drugs, a kind of moving meditation perhaps like yoga and with possible ties to a mystical martial arts. elements of asceticism or ecstaticism. Lots of crystals.