The War of the Worlds

Why not? That'd be a hell of a premise and twist on the Arcanum setting. Time period is perfect for it too.

Heat weapons for technies
All sorts of alien mutagen chemicals that turn lifeforms into other lifeforms
Upgrade your charged automatons into Tripods, and maybe drive one!


How could the aliens be repulsed? Same old disease as in the original story? Can Arcanum's scientists reverse-engineer enough of the alien technology to fight back on even terms? Some old magickal artifact?


Refugees taking shelter in Dwarven mines, the Glimmering Forest smothered by crawling red creep, armies be they are arcane or wielding state of the art canon and gun reduced to ashes. Perhaps a desperate mission to find safe refuge or some ancient artifact 20 Thousand Leagues Under the Sea?

 

I sure wish I had the expertise. I'm very much an ideas person, or maybe an editor, but not so much a doer of things. I was inspired to have this idea after listening to the audiobook for War of the Worlds. The first time I've ever "read" that classic, though I've been fan of the 50's film version for a long time. Whatever else might be said about that version I think it has truly amazing sound design:


Can't believe it has been two years since I made this post. I didn't intend to disappear for that long, but it happens these days. Day by day, week by week, time just flies by. Work, drive home in traffic, lay about on the computer, sleep, drive to work in traffic again, work, repeat... Moving to another state now and going to be transitioning into a different sort of lifestyle one way or the other. Hardly play many games anymore these days but I was thinking about Arcanum recently after spending a few weeks listening to lectures by the Gettysburg National Park Service about the (American) Civil War.