Iron monsters!

An interesting read covers every engagement involving ironclads from Hampton Roads to the Bombardment of Alexandria.

Filled with maps, reports, and detailed summaries of the actions and vessels involved. 
I found lots of information here that I have not found anywhere else, and at 920 pages in two volumes it would be a weighty tome in paper.

Highly recommended for any fans of this fascinating period of Naval history.

Available in PDF and ebook formats from the Internet archive here:
Volume 1
https://ia700308.us.archive.org/20/items/ironcladsinacti00wilsgoog/ironcladsinacti00wilsgoog.pdf
Volume 2
https://ia600308.us.archive.org/13/items/ironcladsinactio02wilsuoft/ironcladsinactio02wilsuoft.pdf

Title
Ironclads in Action
A Sketch of Naval Warfare
1855-1895

Author 
Wilson, Herbert Wrigley, 1866-1940

Publisher 
London, S. Low, Marston and company

Date
1896

The Parasol Duel Rules!

Update September 26 2014
The first World Championships in modern times was held at Beakerhead in Calgary on September 13, 2014.
Read the report of the First World Championships here! 


The label Parasol Duelling will get you all my posts on this new and exciting sport!
For a Faux Academic piece on Parasol Duelling check out this recent post.
Here is another Historical piece this time Parasol Duelling in Prussia!
This piece is a wonderful description of a fatal duel fought under the Infamous Hungarian Imperial Rules.

Previously I wrote about coming up with some Steampunk Sports.
I have completed my Parasol Duelling Rules and have posted them below.
Take a look and let me know what you think.
We have experimented a bit with the "figures" used and they do seem to be workable, the timing is tight enough to make it a challenge. At least it is a challenge for me, all you Ladies out there who are experts at handling a parasol probably won't have too much trouble.
I have worded it in the semi archaic style of the Tea Duelling rules.
If you try them out please let me know how it goes.
Comments, suggestions and critiques are welcome!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Parasol Duelling

Jan 18’ 14

By Maxwell MacDonald-Smythe
aka Kevin Jepson

The ancient and honourable art of Parasol Duelling has gained a bad reputation in recent years. This is mostly due to the importation of the more violent and aggressive forms of the Hungarian Imperial Rules, much favoured by Ladies of the Lower Classes. There have been many cases of contusions, broken bones, many lost fingernails, and an unconscionable loss of fine parasols. In one celebrated case, this violent form of duel has resulted in the death of one of the participants by concussion.

Her Majesty recognizes the long and honourable history of Ladies participating in this noble trial of arms and desires that her subjects continue to participate, but in a safe and honourable manner.

Her Majesty has therefore decreed that within the Empire, Parasol Duelling will be conducted using the following rules which do not permit physical damage to the participants. These rules are known as the Brandenburg Variations on the Hanoverian Parasol Duelling Rules.

The Hanoverian Parasol duelling rules permitted:

Plain cuffs and Lace parasols
Minimal Ankling, that is showing ones ankles as a distraction technique.
Minimal contact!
Note that generally no Doctor, also known as an umpire, was present.

The Brandenburg Variation on these rules
(The only style permitted by Queens Regulations in Her Majesty's Dominions)
Similar to the above except that:

1. ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT IS PERMITTED.
2. No ankling is permitted (except as noted during competition).

These are enforced through the use of the initial two paces.

The three Parasol Duel "Figures" are:

1) The Plant- Parasol is held point down to the ground at the side of the player
2) The Twirl- Parasol is opened and placed across, but not touching, the shoulder and twirled.
3) The Snub- Parasol is held pointing towards the opponent and opened. The parasol must be closed before being opened again or the result is a "hanging snub" and cannot be counted as a completed figure.

There is a fine set of photos showing the figures here.

The Figure Rules

These are used to determine the outcome of a round and are similar to the street urchins game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

Plant = Rock
Twirl = Paper
Snub = Scissors

Plant > Snub
Twirl > Plant
Snub > Twirl

All Duels consist of the following proceedings:

1) Opponents stand back to back, parasols held with one hand on the handle and the other 1/3 of the way from the top around the closed parasol.

2) The parasol is held across the body at a comfortable angle that must not exceed 60 degrees from the horizontal.

3) The Doctor will ascertain if the opponents are ready.

4) On receiving an affirmative reply from both opponents, the Doctor counts One! Two!.

5) Each opponent takes one step forward for each count.

6) After the second pace the opponents turn to face each other.

7) The Doctor begins to count out loud to five and then calls out loudly "Hold!"

8) During the counting the opponents try out various figures in an attempt to beat the other person at the point the hold is called.

9) After the completed count and the hold being called, the opponents must stand perfectly still and not move from their positions on pain of forfeiture.

10) If both opponents have a completed figure the round is concluded and the winner is declared by the figure rules.

11) Should one of the opponents not have a complete figure at the hold, the combat is decided in favour of the completed figure regardless of which figure it is.

12) Should neither opponent have a completed figure, or the figures are the same, the round is considered a draw and will be re-done.

 

The Types of Parasol Duel under the Brandenburg Variation of the Hanoverian Rules

Games!

Everybody likes games and competitions, after all sports drive much of today's mainstream entertainment.
Next month in fact, we will again be witness to a massive smorgasbord of winter sports during the Winter Olympics in  Sochi Russia.

So that got me thinking about Steampunk games and sports. There are not a lot of them out there frankly. Recently there has been interest in Tea Duelling in our area which is fun. The Honourable Association of Tea Duellists publish a lovely set of rules available at their website here. And while this is certainly a fine way to pass an evening or afternoon, I was thinking that we need something grander to sink our teeth into, so to speak.

Then I remembered an incident at the Beakerhead festival in Calgary this last September. There was a good representation of Calgary Steampunks involved in adding some classy colour to the event and during one afternoon along the major downtown mall two lovely Ladies got into a duel!

What rules and etiquette applies to this I wondered?
Perhaps this is something that could become a "sport" with competitions and skills and stories to go along with it.

A Steampunk Sport and a fine Lady like one at that!

I have been working on a draft set of rules for Parasol Duelling.  I still need to do some actual experiments to make sure it is workable, fun, and safe for Ladies and Parasols both of course.  But once I have a workable scheme I will publish the rules here so others can try them out too.

Who knows, maybe sometime in the future there could be a World Championship Parasol Duelling competition at a major Steampunk event!

Stay tuned for more developments as they occur.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Adventure!

This is a fantastic little Steampunk film.

Enjoy!

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

What is it about Steampunk...

That makes us want to actually experience all the gadgets and wonderful alternate history for real?
Is it the gadgets, the fearsome weapons and monsters, the complexity of clockwork mechanisms, the power of steam, the elegance of a beribboned bustle, the intriguing glimpse of a lace edged corset?

As you know, if you have been following my posts on Airship design, I am a member of a role playing group that is the crew and passengers of an exotic airship in the service of her Imperial Majesty Queen Victoria.

According to Wikipedia:

A role-playing game (RPG and sometimes roleplaying game) is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative, either through literal acting or through a process of structured decision-making or character development. Actions taken within many games succeed or fail according to a formal system of rules and guidelines.

Our group is not a game in the sense of the last line of that quote, rather it is a shared storyline that we are participants in. The story gives our characters a common history, and a chance to play in the alternate world we have created. We have created a complex story with intrigue, action, boredom, danger, humour, travel, and good companionship.  The main purpose of the group is really to have fun with a set of Steampunk characters. Since we all enjoy the costuming and gadgets that Steampunk is famous for, we also have a chance to wear our characters "out in public" so to speak.

Now having a group of like minded people building gadgets and sewing costumes is certainly not new or unique. In fact there are many airship crews, military units, expeditions, and such like out there. The Neo-Victorian world is a world of exploration and adventure after all.

Here are three things our group does that we find helps to increase our enjoyment.

First thing is the "Story" of course.

Originally the group was simply the crew of an airship, with a minimal setting in which to place our characters mostly for costuming purposes. Eventually people began to add back stories to their characters. Since we wanted to share the world, we tried to place the back stories in a common context. That meant that we needed to settle some details of the world so that we all knew where and when our characters were supposed to be.

This was surprisingly hard to do, we didn't want to be too detailed in respect to the alternate history in which our characters lived (mainly because we couldn't agree!) and because we didn't want to be too limiting. We eventually settled on not having a specific date but rather that we would simply be "sometime" in the late 19th c. with Queen Victoria still ruling the vast British Empire. We decided that there were some changes from real history to liven things up. For example the South won the Civil War and North America consists of five countries. The Union, the Confederacy, Texas, the British Colony of Canada and the Spanish provinces of Mexico and California.

The Royal Navy now has an Airship component of which our airship is a part. The military side of our world is that of the Victorian Royal Navy and Army.  The civil world is pretty much that of the Neo-Victorian Steampunk worlds we all know and love.

So far so good.

When we weren't getting together for drinks in our costumes we all hung out online, and it was a natural extension to roleplay interactions between the characters. As time went on it became apparent that as we did so a story line began to develop too. A realtime history began to appear recorded in the conversations and roleplay.

One of us suggested that, since we were an airship crew, why not have the airship arrive somewhere and then we could get together in costume as if we were actually at that place. So when we went to London we went to see "Gaslight" and when we went to Venice we had dinner in an Italian restaurant before going to see Gilbert and Sullivan's "Gondoliers". Of course it helped to have the story follow along with reasons for being in these places.

My wife is a mystery writer as well as a member of our group and she volunteered to keep track of the story and help to move it along. Essentially she became what in a normal RPG is known as the Dungeon Master.  We have had some really interesting twists and turns in the story which has seen our crew involved in corporate intrigues, spies, sabotage, battles, and storms.

Not everyone in the group participates in the online roleplay which is fine because really the roleplay is just adding colour to our character's shared history.

Second thing is the "Technology".

We are an airship crew and consequently the airship itself becomes a major character in the story.
My Practical Airship Design posts cover how I see our fine ship, being her Chief Engineer and all.  But this is an alternate history and a Steampunk one so our airship isn't the only exotic technology we have to play with.

Personally I like Steampunk tech to be close to real tech (see my first article on Airship Design) but not  everybody in the group thinks like that of course.

The trick is to make the technologies "appropriate" to the world, so for example we have complex semi intelligent machines but they appear to be clockwork driven mechanisms. Fiendishly complex but still clockwork. If someone wants to add a new piece of tech we try to decide how it fits in, because the nature of our roleplay means once introduced it becomes part of the world. So far nearly everything has fit, mechanical rats, ornithopters, mechanical augmentation, and even "brass bound blasters" for our detachment of Royal Airship Marines.

Third is Non Player Characters (NPCs)

This has turned out to be one of the most interesting aspects of our story, because not all our members are active in the roleplay, often it is necessary to have other characters involved in the action. What is a crew without crew members? So we have added NPCs as other members of the crew and other people in the World that can help to move the story along. For example as Chief Engineer I have a "Black Gang", as the engine room crew of a Victorian Royal Navy ship was known, of six men each slightly different characters useful as other points of view from my main character. When used judiciously the NPCs can really help to flesh out the action, and keep the story moving even if most of the other members are busy doing real life things.

Plus if a "Red Shirt" is ever needed...

These three elements, a real time story, appropriate technology, and NPCs, have really helped to add life and colour to the shared story that our characters inhabit. When we do get together in our costumed finery we have a shared history of adventures, dangers, excitement and travel.

And a finer bunch of shipmates a man could not hope for.

Keep your sight glass full, your fiebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

This is going to be fantastic!

Update Nov 20, 2013!
This is fantastic!
First episode is out.



Enjoy!



This series starts shortly so keep an eye out.
Details here:
The World of Steam

Ignore the stupid cover photo it should look like this:

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

A fascinating collection of tales.

This beautifully bound and printed book is a collection of Victorian Science Fiction tales.
Edited by Mike Ashley, these tales have wonders that even today's Steampunk authors are hard put to equal.
From the forward:

The assemblage of these unjustly forgotten stories... provides us with a chance to divest ourselves of a century of preconceptions, misconceptions and misprisions, and to return to the dawn of a literature, when the future-- our present-- still shone with a numinous radiance.
--Paul Di Filippo

There are tales of airships, robots, aerocars, submarines, fearsome weapons, marvelous adventures and catastrophic dangers. These are tales of the future from a time "when everything seemed not only possible but inevitable."

Although the book is entitled "Steampunk" these are not Steampunk tales anymore than Jules Verne or H.G. Wells tales are Steampunk. These are indeed "Extraordinary Tales of Victorian Futurism", as the subtitle states, and show that imagination is a gift we all share whether in Victorian times or now.

This book is also a jewel as a physical object, the cover is gorgeous, nearly every page is bordered by gears and colours, and the tales are illustrated with fanciful and period illustrations. The colours are vibrant. The pages are fairly thick paper which complements the illustrations and text, giving this book a heft that is a joy to hold and read.

Truly a marvelous addition to anyones library of fiction.

Alas I was only lent this beauty, thank you Monica, so it must return to its owner but I will certainly keep on the lookout to add it to my collection.

Keep your sightglass full, your firebox trimmed and your water iced.
KJ

Title
Steampunk
Extraordinary Tales of Victorian Futurism

Author
Various
Edited by Mark Ashley

Publisher
Fall River Press

Date
2012

ISBN
978-1-4351-4193-3