Dave Arneson has Left the Prime Material Plane

As is my wont of late, I am late in this post in observation of the late Dave Arneson, who failed his last saving throw versus Cancer earlier this week.
This means that the two main minds behind the origins of Fantasy Role Playing Games, have left us.
I know there were some issues about Dave not feeling he got his due credit for his role in the creation of Dungeons & Dragons, though for me personally, I always remember his name being right there on the front of my rule books.
Fare the well, Dave.

Now here's hoping Ken St. Andre will still be with us for awhile.

Retro-Futurist Bikes

For your Gernsbackian delight, Well Medicated blog has a post up with 45 covers of classic pulp science magazines. Check out the title link for all kinds of groovy domed houses, jet-packs, and flying cars. I have of course selected all the cycle related covers, for your immediate edification.



via bOINGbOING

War of the Worlds II: The Steampunk Sequel

I just got a report on a new animated movie co-written by David Abramowitz, and using the voice talent of well, most of the cast of Highlander the Series, as well as Adam Baldwin, from Firefly. Sounds pretty cool.
The Dragon's Highlander correspondent reports:

War of the Worlds: Goliath that was co-written by David Abramowitz and is voiced by Adrian Paul, Adam Baldwin, Peter Wingfield, Elizabeth Gracen and Jim Byrnes. It's set in the very early 20th C. a few years after the events of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, around 1914.

Because of the source material (Wells) and the setting, it always sounded kind of steampunk to me. At Indianapolis I was chatting with David about the movie and said straight out that it sounded like a steampunk film to me. His answer was "Exactly." In scrounging around I found this site with a bunch of pre-production illustrations.

The Heavy Metal site has this to say:

Synopsis by Joe Pearson, "It's an R rated, retro-history, steam punk epic set in a 1914, fourteen years after the first failed Martian invasion. Mankind has rebuilt her cities and military adapting a lot of the abandoned Martian technology. They've created an international defense force, A.R.E.S., based on the lower end of Manhattan and under the command of Theaodore Roosevelt. They've built a formidable force centered around giant, steam powered battle tripods. Think of "Band of Brothers" meets "Star Wars", meets World WO. It will be cool-steam powered battle tripods, doomed Cossack cavalry charges, victorian decco, steam punk Manhattan, 1500 foot long armored battle zeppelins, Teddy Roosevelt, souped up Tri-planes, blood on steaming metal, sex in the cockpit. The usual." This story is not directly based on Heavy Metal, but it is a sequel to the classic War Of The Worlds novel by H.G. Wells. It will have a budget of around $3 million, and be produced by Tripod Entertainment Sdn Bhd (joint venture between Elemental Ventures Sdn Bhd and Epoch Ink Corp). It is uncertain how connected this movie is to Heavy Metal. It was originally indented on being part of a series of Heavy Metal Videos. And is being co-produced by Kevin Eastman (owner of Heavy Metal).

Sounds pretty promising, can't wait to see it.

Technoccult interviews Steampunk Artist Alex CF

Keeping with the Steampunk vibe of the last few posts, and catching up on some things I've been meaning to post is this great interview Alex CF.

(Above is Werewolf Anatomical Reasearch Case III)

T: You started doing your assemblage work in earnest after retiring your comic series Wilderemere. When exactly was that?

A: About three years ago. I had invested everything I had into my comic career, but I wasn’t happy and didn’t really enjoy what I was doing. I’d drawn and written 18 comics and released an action figure line, sunk everything into it - I remember throwing my pencil across the room and shouting out “I can’t be bothered anymore!” I swore that I would never draw another comic. I’d created assemblage pieces in the past, but I guess it all started with this little box, called “The Vampire Legacy Case” about a 14th century aristocratic vampire, the last rites and possessions of this vampiric lord. I had the idea of creating an alternative past, creating characters and species with which to fabricate my own world in which all these things existed. So I started making, and the rest is history!

I learn everything from scratch, and if I come up against some project or a goal which is not easy to reach, I’ll have a good think and reach that by trying lots of different things. From sculpting to soldering, they were all things I had to learn myself.

Bruce Sterling looks at the Steampunk Sub-Culture

Just stumbled across this great essay by Bruce Sterling, who some would credit with birthing Steampunk, (though he is humble enough to credit earlier influences), on where Steampunk came from, and where it just might be going.

Ruskin wrote an extremely influential and important essay which changed the world. Everything Ruskin says in that essay is wrong. The ideas in there don't work, have never worked and are never going to work. If you try to do the things Ruskin described in the spirit that Ruskin suggested, you are doomed.

However. If you try to do those things in a steampunk spirit, you might get somewhere useful. Steampunks are equipped with a number of creative tools and approaches that John Ruskin never imagined, such as design software, fabricators, Instructables videos, websites, wikis, cellphones, search engines and etsy.com. Successful steampunks are not anti-industrial as Ruskin was. They are digital natives and therefore post-industrial. This means that they can make their own, brand-new, fresh mistakes -- if they understand the old mistakes well enough not to repeat them.

Steampunk's key lessons are not about the past. They are about the instability and obsolescence of our own times. A host of objects and services that we see each day all around us are not sustainable. They will surely vanish, just as "Gone With the Wind" like Scarlett O'Hara's evil slave-based economy. Once they're gone, they'll seem every bit as weird and archaic as top hats, crinolines, magic lanterns, clockwork automatons, absinthe, walking-sticks and paper-scrolled player pianos. ...

The past is a kind of future that has already happened.

Fox Mulder's Vespa

Stories about celebrities riding scooters are almost as common these days as the boilerplate fluff pieces linking rising scooter sales with rising gas prices. In other words, not really worth me commenting on. But this story about David Duchovny purchasing a Vespa to fill the holes left by electric car is worth checking out.

"I’ve had my RAV4 EV [Toyota’s all electric 4x4] for the last four years,” Duchovny says. “It was supposed to be a prototype for the next generation of cars. But the problem is that the car needs charging every night and the most you can do in a day is 80 miles. It is like being tethered.”

He has become so fed up with it that since moving back to New York from Los Angeles he has bought a Vespa scooter.

I also like the fact, mentioned later in the article that he didn't have a drivers license until he was 27.

Does Google Dream of Electric Shepherds?

Who says good old hard Science Fiction is dead?
Check out this piece by George Dyson on Edge, Engineers Dreams. It's deeply researched, historically accurate, with a geek's lovingly obsessive attention to detail. This is what Science Fiction is supposed to be, a lens through which we get hazy glimpses of tommorrow.

I'd tell you more about the story, but it's short, and I'm avoiding spoilers.

via Slashdot

Steampunk Recumbent Trike

Proving that personal vehicle experimenters are just a hair away from Steampunk mad-scientists is this gorgeous trike, complete with leather trunk. Lots more drool-worthy photos over at Jake Von Slatt's blog.

Man, love those white tires, nothing says turn of the century like skinny white rubber!

Ben Hur Enters Celestial Chariot Races with a Vespa

The first thing I was greeted with this morning upon firing up my browser was the news of Charlton Heston's passing, and the obligatory yet distasteful jokes about his "cold, dead hands."

That Chuck spent his later years as a whipping boy of the Left has always troubled me. Though I may not have agreed with all his politics, I always respected Heston. He always gave me the feeling of being the kind of man you could agree to disagree with. The snark with which many progressives have approached his passing, seems indicative of the loss of civil discourse in this country.

The Charlton Heston I'll remember is the man who marched with MLK, who starred in one of the best movies EVAH (Orson Welles' Touch of Evil) and made some of the best matinée fodder ever, from sword and sandal epics, to classic B-Movie Sci-Fi which are still quoted today.

Quinlan: Our friend Vargas has some very special ideas about police procedure. He seems to think it don't matter whether killers hang or not, so long as we obey the fine print.

Vargas: Captain, I don't think a policeman should work like a dog catcher in putting criminals behind bars. No! In any free country, a policeman is supposed to enforce the law, and the law protects the guilty as well as the innocent.

Quinlan: Our job is tough enough.

Vargas: It's supposed to be. It has to be tough. A policeman's job is only easy in a police state. That's the whole point, Captain - who's the boss, the cop or the law?

-From Touch of Evil

Firefly + Bluegrass + Radiohead = Bliss

Or to steal a page from Warren Ellis's book:

Q: Conan, what is good in life?

A: Mashing-up Nihilistic British Pop music, virtuoso American rural folk music, and the best Gorram show to be canceled before it could find its niche.

Gaius Baltar = Messiah ?!? What the Frak?

(Or judging from this promotional photo that has been circling the internet for awhile, maybe it's Six... ?)

If you are wondering why the Dragon is blathering on like a five-year-old talking about Dinosaurs today, it might be because Battlestar Galactica is back with new episodes!

(Pardon me whilst I do the "Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy" dance.)

It could also be that I just made the best batch of red beans and rice in the history of mankind. OK, perhaps that is hyperbole, but they came out pretty frakkin' good. I used this recipe, with (unusual for me) very little modification. Basically, I didn't dump the water once they started boiling, and I added Garam Masala, because I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that there is very little you put in your mouth that couldn't be improved by it.

No, really it's Battlestar. I don't want to post any spoilers, but if you like SciFi at all, and haven't watched this series, well, get thee to a video store and start catching up. Or just check out this 8 minute recap of the last three seasons. (Heh, heh, "there's a bun in the toaster.") Seriously. This is one of the best shows on TV, and the best SciFi series EVAH. (Firefly, of course coulda been a contender if not for the fickleness of Rupert Murdoch's minions.)

The series just continues to reflect upon some of the deepest issues that people face: What does it mean to be human? What is the nature of faith? and How do you keep 'em down on the farm after they've had sex with folks whose spines light up?

Steampunk Games

Brass Goggles (Which seems to share a posting schedule with the Dragon) has a couple of posts up recently about Steampunk computer games.

Dirk Valentine and the Fortress of Steam, is online game with old-school style controls and graphics. You can find it here.
It looks like the perfect thing for cubicle inmates looking to kill some down-time.

More interesting to me is Remnants of Skystone, an upcoming MMO which is Flash based. Tinkergirl writes:

Upcoming from the Flipline developer, and slated for release on the Kongregate site (known for free to play, Flash based games), Remnants of Skystone is a very Steampunk multiplayer game featuring character creation (look for gas masks, spats, goggles, brass cuffs and the most stunning facial hair I’ve yet seen in a game), socialising and co-operative side scrolling missions battling the bally alien invaders! There may even be the opportunity to have your own floating residence!

Apparently going to go live sometime this autumn (or fall, if you prefer) it looks like it has some potential indeed, and the blog has some nice backstory, art inspiration pages, and character screens. Several of the characters could do with smiling more, but I suppose with alien mimics denying the very ground you stand on, you might be a little disgruntled too!

The world definitely needs more games with stunning facial hair!

Free the Elves!!!

In celebration of its 30th anniversary, the Pini's are publishing all of the ElfQuest saga online for free!
For those of you non-geeks, who think ElfQuest is a euphemism for my search for a bar with a 50 cent Maredsous happy-hour, it is actually one of the longest running and influential independent comic series of all time.

Ectoplasmosis probably sums it up best:

• With Dave Sim’s Cerebus, it was among the first self-published comics to make it big, booting down the door for new talent the nation over. Its success as a graphic novel in mainstream bookstores helped infect the American mainstream with a European-esque appreciation for comics. Women actually read this. Women.

• Wendy Pini’s art is a melting pot of comics, manga and classical illustration. And she’s been at it since before most people had even heard of manga…

• The feral, omnisexual, hallucinogen-guzzling protagonists aren’t Tolkien-derived clichés, but a freakish medley of european lore, native american myth and hippy free love.

• No superheroes, magic wands or other arbitrary magics. It’s consistently plotted to tight rules of engagement and expertly crafted by the same wife-and-husband team thats been doing little else since 1977.

• It’s a neat blend of high fantasy and science fiction: the “elves” are aliens who wanted to impress us by appearing as angels, but got stuck in a genetic disguise by their slaves’ violent rebellion.

• All the fashions in it are either from the 1970s or the 1930s: everyone is either a pimp in furs and leather or something sculpted by Erté. They just don’t make ‘em like this any more.

• Winnowill is the best arch-villainess since Maleficent Cthulhu.

• It’s not over: the story’s final showdown, the creators write, has been written but not yet published.

• 6,000 pages of full-color classic indy brilliance free of charge. Precedent set.

• Issue #17’s Elf Orgy. If nothing else, a great name for a punk band.

Seriously, if you are into comics at all, or even if you aren't (ElfQuest has long been the prefered gateway comic for geeks who want their significant others to grasp the possibilities of the medium) you owe it to yourself to check this out.

New Serenity/Firefly Comic

Looks like Joss Whedon is not quite ready to abandon the Firefly universe. The first issue of a new Serenity limited-series comic called Better Days was published just a couple days ago.

I haven't been able to get my grubby little talons on a copy yet, but I'm pretty excited about the project, especially since it is set as a prequel to the feature film, so two of my favorite characters should still be on board.

You can get issue #1 here.
and preorder #2 here.

Origins of D&D, and other Legends

So it seems that Wired was actually working on a story about Gary Gygax to go with the upcoming release of 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. The whole of it is up, and it's pretty nice, they even talk to Dave Arneson some, who has been overlooked a lot lately for his contribution to the early development of the game.
And of course, the good natured jokes about missed saving throws have given way to snarkier commentaries about how lame D&D (any version) is compared to system X.

Here's the narrative arithmetic that Gygax came up with: You come across a family of sleeping orcs, huddled around their overflowing chest of gold coins and magical weapons. Why do orcs and other monsters horde gold when they can't buy anything from the local "shoppes," or share a jug of mead in the tavern, or do anything but gnash their teeth in the darkness and wait for someone to show up and fight them? Who knows, but there they are, and you now have a choice. You can let sleeping orcs lie and get on with the task at hand—saving a damsel, recovering some ancient scepter, whatever. Or you can start slitting throats—after all, mercy doesn't have an experience point value in D&D. It's the kind of atrocity that commits itself.

Yeah, maybe to a ten-year old who's watched Conan the Barbarian, and Red Dawn too many times on cable. But a good DM would quickly disavow them of that notion, as they did me. Frankly, a houserule which is just about as widespread as free-parking in Monopoly, or "around the world" in gin rummy, of rewarding good role-playing with extra experience points, and penalizing out of character actions with experience point deductions, is almost as old as D&D itself.

It is interesting to me, that it is the geeks who are whining about Gygax's posthumous laurels. But such is ever the nature of near-asperger's afflicted geeks to miss the forest for the trees. Indeed Uber-Geek that he was, Gygax frequently focused on minutia while just glossing over the larger scene.

I myself had been toying with the idea of posting some about role-playing games in the last year. Researching Steampunk lead me to some interesting Steampunk themed role-playing games, in particular Space 1889 and Forgotten Futures. I even purchased the original hardback rule book for Space 1889, and some of the Heliograph reprints. It's a fascinating setting, and I hope to be able to play it some day. If you are at all interested in gaming in a steampunk setting, I'd recommend checking out Marcus Rowland's Forgotten Futures site. His material is shareware/freeware, and he has an amazing collection of period source material to help you flesh out the setting.

Mr. Rowland's idea-heavy, but rules light approach to rpg's brings me to the main gist of this post. I mean if you dig deep enough, he has some suggestions for role-playing with younger kids which don't really involve dice at all. They are just based on refereed cooperative storytelling. Like if your favorite uncle made up "choose your own adventures." Which is really freaking cool, if you think about it.

Back in the day, I played a LOT of different systems. I owned and studied even more. I even designed and played tested a couple of my own game systems. Role-playing geeks talk a lot, or at least they used to, about the balance between realistic game mechanics and playability. It's a complicated subject, which I just want to scratch the surface of.

Some of the funnest games I ever had were with a game called Tunnels & Trolls (I was always attracted to the alliteration & ampersand games.) T&T is about as rules lite as you can get, I think it would be seen as ridiculously so by "modern" gamers, but I frequently found that this encouraged role-playing. The less players were concerned with the trivialities of game mechanics, the more they could unloose their imaginations and embrace their characters.

And that's kind of why I'm attracted to playing some 1e AD&D (First edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, to those of you not fully acquainted with the current web-accepted abbreviations.) Because as byzantine as some of the rules might be, it's like having English as your native tongue. It's complicated to explain, but it's also just second nature. It just comes naturally to me, as it is the geek lingua franca for geeks in their mid-thirties. And luckily, there is a thriving community of first edition AD&D afficiandoes online.

I'll post some more about the 1E AD&D community which is to be found online soon, but until then, enjoy this awesome documentary on D&D, courtesy of YouTube:

01: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lPCn3KcuYYs&NR=1
02: http://youtube.com/watch?v=RD_t19PpgiA&feature=related
03: http://youtube.com/watch?v=QTF07R7MbfA&feature=related
04: http://youtube.com/watch?v=t2ZB1BPnQJ8&feature=related
05: http://youtube.com/watch?v=vI7CBGLtg4c&feature=related
06: http://youtube.com/watch?v=4Y9r1BvJGzU&feature=related
07a: http://youtube.com/watch?v=W2mwloAsfi4&feature=related
07b: http://youtube.com/watch?v=oNFmWbj4Lag&feature=related
08: http://youtube.com/watch?v=Q4bsHgoxW0M&feature=related
09: http://youtube.com/watch?v=osOejhDOs00&feature=related
10: http://youtube.com/watch?v=mKWm9wCR25E&feature=related
11: http://youtube.com/watch?v=hUXnm5EC2WE&feature=related
12: http://youtube.com/watch?v=TarhYY-LAd8&feature=related
13: http://youtube.com/watch?v=fj81WVDWwag&feature=related
14: http://youtube.com/watch?v=lX8NcyYtZ70&feature=related
15: http://youtube.com/watch?v=bTrXrOPLEIM&feature=related
16: http://youtube.com/watch?v=EbQ7jwKk3zw&feature=related
17: http://youtube.com/watch?v=ZZosb792cQA&feature=related
18: http://youtube.com/watch?v=whMEXm7TJ9U&feature=related
19: http://youtube.com/watch?v=9wZ8kQiWIJg&feature=related
20: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dnhilB5kc2Y&NR=1
21: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLTqoPoWmPY&NR=1
22: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxo9gFBHJsE&NR=1
23: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RWqf4QGCa4&feature=related
24: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ra9h63CLtLY&feature=related

So if you watched the whole thing through, which you should have, especially if you didn't already know much about the history and (sub) culture of D&D, you realize that it is basically just a codification of kids playing make-believe. A way to determine whose "bang-bang", impacted first.

So if the Gygax eulogies have made you nostalgic, but you think you might be too old now to pick up a Player's Handbook or Dungeon Master's Guide, all I gotta say is:

D&D never forgets:

So you're a little bit older and a lot less
bolder
Than you used to be
So you used to roll percentiles and D20s
But now you feel your life lacks some fantasy
So now awkward thirteen turned thirty-one
You can't remember the last time you had real fun
Well all you got to do is sit down and and pick out a class
One that kicks some real ass
Come back buddy
D&D never forgets
You better get yourself a dice-bag
Go down to your basement or hobby shop
Check Craigslist or Meetup.com
Chances are you wont have to go too far
Yeah the vorpal swords will be going snicker-snack
The ranger and the paladin will lead the attack
And all you got to do is roll 3d6
If you need a fix
Come back buddy
D&D never forgets
Oh the orcs are still ugly and mean
And the mind-flayers still make your brain scream
All you got to do is crawl through a dungeon tonight
Heh tonight

Well they say youth is wasted on the young
But maybe your Bard still has some songs to be sung
Your player character's a legend waiting to be told
if you can be bold
Come back buddy
D&D never forgets
Said you can come back buddy
D&D never forgets

D&D never forgets is Creative Commons licensed for non-profit reproduction, if you use it and make a profit, I get 10%.

(with apologies to Bob Seeger)

Free Online Warren Ellis Steampunkish Comic: Freak Angels

I just read the first installment of Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield's new steamy graphic work, Freak Angels, and I gotta say I am intrigued.
The art is simply lovely, the setting is a neat post-apocalyptic steampunkish world, and the writing, well it's Warren Ellis, innit, you sniveling human?

Quicksilver: The Dieselpunk Honda Elite.

Nemo Gould has completed his exceedingly lovely and original Retro-Futurist Scooter, which I have previously mentioned. Even better he has posted an instructables page with step-by-step details of the project!
Wow, Nemo, that is one sexy scoot! Maybe my dreams of an Anachronistic Scooter Society (or A.S.S. for short) aren't so far fetched after all.

via bOINGbOING!

Gaslight Justice League

There is something just right about he pairing of retro futurism or Alternative Histories with action figure modding. Especially, superhero action figures. Alternative History, while long a staple of science fiction, was first introduced to me through the Hiesenbergian multi-verses of comic book mythologies. It seems a hair's breadth away from fan-fiction in the realm of reappropriating pop icons for individual purposes. Action figure modding, seems like fan-fiction made tangible. So these Steampunk renditions of the Justice League feel particularly apropos. Of course the artistry with which they are executed doesn't hurt.

My favorites are the Flash, and Hawkgirl, but you should check out all of them.

via Brass Goggles

Steamy Holidays

The Make! blog has enlisted Steampunk maker extraordinaire Jake Von Slatt to create a gift guide for that Steampunk on your list. As you might expect from a tinkerer of Herr Von Slatt's ingenuinity and refined taste, there are some real beauties on this list:


Tool box - Journeyman Tool Chest Price: $987.00 Buy: Gerstner - Link.

There is something about beautifully crafted hand tools that enhances your work. It's not just that they are of high quality, there's something about an heirloom tool that inspires you and allows you to exceed your normal skill level when you work with it.

Such tools need, nay, demand! a worthy case. Gerstner & Sons of Dayton Ohio have been making such cases since 1906. To put it simply; OMG, WANT!

Jes's folks got her a vintage example of just this type of toolchest for her birthday this year, and it is freaking amazing! Of course, hers needs some refinishing love, but that in itself is a project I'm sure she will enjoy. So if the new price gives you sticker shock, you should keep in mind that your favorite nefarious anachronistic mastermind just might enjoy restoring and customizing a slightly broken in specimen of the above, just as much as the chest itself...

But if you have the budget, here is another ready made steamy gift suggestion, I recently came across on Retrothing:

There are countless iPod docks on the market, but few are as carefully crafted as the Thodio iBox lineup from Amsterdam... Each case is handcrafted from 15 mm beech, oak, teak, zebrano or mahogany. They contain a 2 x 25 Watt solid state amplifier and a pair of Focal Polyglass 100CV1 full range speakers.

One thing that bothers me about many docking systems is that they tether you to the wall with an awkward AC adapter. Thankfully, the iBox does away with wires by incorporating a built-in rechargeable 15 hour battery pack that enables you to take the unit beyond the four walls of your home. You'll be the life of the party during power outages, too. There's even a 149 euro Bluetooth option for completely wireless operation.

Prices start at 359 euros for a painted MDF version and range up to 549 euros for a deluxe finish with 7 layers of scratch-proof gloss finish and UV protection.

And if you feel that the iBox's steamy retro yumminess is somewhat marred by sticking a very modern iPod into the docking slot, well get your favorite retrofuturist a steampunk iPod skin:

These beauties are available for all generations of iPod, and at $15 will certainly not break the bank. In fact just one of these by itself, could be the perfect steampunk stocking stuffer. The artist, Colin Thompson, also has some brassy, rusty, patina-encrusted laptop skins available for a variety of portable computing platforms:
This laptop skin is basically adhesive vinyl and might be used for customizing items other than laptops... for instance I'm thinking one of these might look good on my Steampunk Vespa's glovebox...

Now if your favorite retrofuturist is more of a NeoVictorian than an exposed gears and boilers type, you know emphasis on the STEAM instead of the PUNK, you might consider a Kowal Portable kit, which will transform their mundane laptop into something like this:
The kits run a little more than Colin Thompson designs, but are far more customizable, with the option to choose from a variety of woods and such.

Another great, inexpensive steampunk present was posted recently by Tinkergirl on Brass Goggles, a brassy, antique-looking webcam:
This unique cam might present a little more challenge to acquire, as the site it is available on seems to sell wholesale to importers. Still, they do offer pricing for sample quantities of 1 to 15 for less than $12...

Now all these commercially available products will be claimed by some to be watered-down Steampunk, a few steps away from the DIY tinkerer's ideal. If you have the ability, a handmade gift should always be appreciated, or you might try finding something with some steam potential and customizing it a bit before gifting it. Inexpensive welder's or army surplus goggles and some applied imagination could just provoke waves of delight. (Plus one simply never has enough goggles!)

Or if you can't swing that, you could take Jake Von Slatt's suggestion and search for "steampunk" on Etsy.com. All sorts of suitably steamy one-of-a-kind handmade items will instantly appear before you. Plus you will be supporting individual artists and craftspeople, rather than corporations, and that will display some steampunk savvy, indeed!

Finally, if money is no object and you are shopping for the Steampunk who has it all, there is the gift to end all gifts, a hand crafted keyboard by Datamancer:
Datamancer has produced several gorgeous variations on an original design by Jake Von Slatt. These are labor-intensive works of art by a master craftsman, and are priced accordingly ranging from $800 -$1000+. I doubt that Datamancer would be able to get you one by the 25th, as they are made to order with at least a two-month wait. Still, no steampunk worth their brass gears would be disappointed with the simple assurance that one was on the way...

Mr. Moore's Heartfelt Tribute to Mr. Wilson

Probably the best salute to RAW since he passed from this shoddy plane.

Thanks to Technoccult