Basically: the world of Haven has progressed technologically. The areas that have been re-contacted by the Merchant Princes all have technology that looks very victorian-steampunk. Technically, the Technology Level is 3+2, meaning that while the world has effectively a tech level of 5 (steam locomotion, six-shot pistols, and other 1850s-era stuff), it isn't like modern Earth of 1850. Instead the tech diverged when the original party introduced elemental magics to the world. Magic ended up producing some general-use power sources (imagine steam engines based on fire/water magic) that got wired into an ever-expanding mechanical world. There are airships, automaton servants, steam-cannon, and the like. More on all that later, but I'd love to get some ideas from y'all if you want something specific. Most people still live peasant lives not much different from the first chapter's TL3 days, but a small number of Merchant Princes ply the airways on their ships, bringing technology and change to the world from the beautiful central city of Haven, from which all wonders flow. There's still Elves (and all their mish-mashery), Orcs, Dwarves, and Humans. Halflings are rather rare, but do still exist. We'll see if they're still up to stuff. If you want, give me a basic character idea: "I want to be a rogueish charlatan who sells alchemical miracle drugs", and I'll work on an actual character point buy with advantages and an advancement plan. One of the downside to GURPS is that you can be anything, which means you have to figure out what you want to be. The characters will all be crew of a small airship. Hopefully, there will be people to play the trad roles - captain, pilot, engineer, medic, etc. The game borrows heavily from firefly, cowboy bebop, hellboy, and a couple of other unnamed sources (I don't want to give the plot away toooo much yet). But you should get the picture here- self-contained ship, you can kind of choose your path, rebel or imperial, explorer or conqueror. We'll see how things shake out. ----------------------------------------------------------------- You'll be starting at 150 character points, with a maximum of -75 points of disadvantages. As before, if you choose Trained by a Master or Weapon Master as an advantage, you have access to cinematic combat maneuvers. Others don't. This story will have some amount of combat in it, but I'm generally targeting less combat than the earlier chapter. Or at least how the earlier chapter was originally designed. Chapter 1 of Haven was originally conceived of as a dungeon crawl in a large dungeon. This chapter has a lot more talking and puzzles and figuring things out. There will still be fighting though, so you'll want to figure out what you do in combat. That means there will be a lot more use for things like Streetwise, Savoire Faire, and so on. Plus science and engineering rolls and stuff. There's plenty of room here for alt-technology, alchemy, and technomagery. I have some specific ideas about what I want to have happen, but am flexible if you have an idea. Alchemy in particular is a pretty common trade now. Due to the tech level and the use of elemental binding, there's all kinds of weird weapons in play - plenty of people still use swords and bows and the like, but there's also folks who use steam guns and flamestaves and so on. Generally, most people don't walk around in heavy armor, but people who are worried about fighting can get enchantments that deflect bullets and so on. I want to limit all starting players to no higher than Magery 1 at the start of the game. It will be possible to improve Magery during the course of play, but the practice of Magery in general is actually quite constrained. True spellcasters (rather than technicians who build or use binding runes) are rare and tend to get shuffled off to the White Rock Academy when they show their talents. There, they get converted into NPCs for the most part. Any spellcaster would have to hide their talents in public *or* work with me to have a compelling backstory. Of course, being a rogue mage on the run certainly fills a particular slot on the party roster. As before, no teleportation spells are allowed. Don't break the world! All players have the option of buying (with points) a sidekick robot automaton. Many wealthy people have them, and they come in all shapes and sizes. They end up functioning like animal companions, spirit familiars or what have you, except they're steam-powered. Many attempts have been made to build truly independent automata, but they've all failed. Each person can really only have one, and the automaton is an extension of the person's will - they stop functioning when the person is incapacitated. There will probably be a whole thing about this - kind of like a wand store / sorting hat kind of thing - the automaton chooses you, and it says something about you if the big burly stevedore automaton chooses you. I'll share specific points on that later. If you want to peruse some GURPS PDFs, you can find them here: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B-07hGckDLM5a0tYaGlJZWtUelk&usp=sharing -----------------------------------------------------------------