Worlds Enough: Anno Victoria
The Sun never rises on the British Empire. Victoria has been the immortal, undead Queen for 300 years. When Vlad Tepes, Dracula, came to London in the late 1800’s, he became part of her innder circle, and eventually made her his bride. But Victoria was proud, and would not bow to a foreign count, even as a vampire. She imprisoned him, and drained his power and his life, becoming true vampire Queen.
The undead are conservative, so society has barely changed. Most of the world, including nearly all of Europe, and Russia as well, lies under her rule, and magic blots out the sun. What new tech there is steampunk and forbidden, in the hands of rogue artificers and alchemists. The Catholic faith, and most other religions, are likewise forbidden in her domain. They have been replaced by the new Anglican Church of Eternal Life, ostensibly a sect of Christianity that holds that Jesus himself was a vampire, and that Longinus was his first vampiric offspring. Dracula is considered to have been made by Longinus, and Victoria by Dracula, making Victoria the legitimate heir of Christ. She also now claims descent from him on the mortal side, via the Merovingian Dynasty and the bloodline of Christ preserved by the Priory of Sion . . . which has endorsed her claims.
Australia is the center of the Resistance. The Sun still shines there, in its normal fashion, and the wise men of the Aboriginal people have made common cause against the Undead Empire with the colonists, most of whom were rebels and criminals to begin with.
What was temporarly the United States of America is part of the Empire again, bought by offering eternal life to the elites. Each state is merely a province of the Empire, though they do have their own subordinate Parliament based in Philadelphia.
The American West holds out, defended by Native American shifters and shamans. Vampire territorial governor and gunslinger Quincy Morris tries to bring the rebellious West to heel. But the shamans hold the Vampires at bay with the Great Sun Dance.
South America has many isolated hold out areas in the deep jungles especially, but the coastal colonies held by Portugal and Spain, as a whole, accept Victoria’s Imperial authority. Many of the rebellious peoples of the area suffer under their own vampire overlords who refuse Victoria’s rule.
Asia , other than the British colonial holdings in India and Hong Kong, refuses to be part of the Empire. It is controlled by older supernatural forces called ‘shen’ by the Chinese, and is inscrutable and mysterious to western thought. Travel there is heavily restricted, both by Victoria and the native powers. The islands of the Pacific also have their independence, hard fought with Indigenous magics and the support of their own supernatural creatures.
A dark steampunk horror setting
A setting for rebellion and survival.
Inspired by Dracula by Bram Stoker, Anno Dracula by Kim Newman, and Vampire fiction in general.
