Geography
The country is Marsellia, like France, the adjective is Marselline, like French. The capital is San Rosille. The bad part of town where the magic-users live is Strawberryfield. The address where our main characters reside is 217 Violena Street, between Green Dragon Alley and Swan’s Neck. (Please do not take Milo home, he is allowed out.) The ambiance is Frenchified too, but with vastly different history. The language is Anglais, a hybrid of French and English, with a more French-like dialect in the South. There is a river, the Arlo, two harbors, and one airport for the airships.
The world map is seriously messed up and oversimplified, but there are many vaguely-familiar countries with vaguely-familiar people living in them. Anatolia is the continent Marsellia calls home. It bears a resemblance to Europe, but is located in the East. The long war is over, but another is already brewing.
Marsellia calls itself an empire, but their only territories are one and a half islands in the Southern Calixtus Ocean.
Recent History
Marsellia is recovering after getting their collective ass kicked in what they are now calling the Prokovian Conflict. It was the Great Undertaking right up until they lost and then it didn’t seem so great any more. They now find themselves a Prokovian subsidiary with a high degree of autonomy — which can be removed at any time if they get too uppity. Their young Emperor is calling himself the Prime Minister now. (And if he ever finds his testicles again, the General will still be happy to serve him, even though she is technically retired.)
San Rosille itself was subject to a years-long siege. They ate the zoo. They have one hippo remaining and a small dog (it’s a shih-tzu). (These are the jokes, folks!) The nicer bits of it have been fairly well-repaired, with electric streetlights and new tech. Places like Strawberryfield are having to make do with a little less infrastructure and a little more ingenuity.
A lot of people, and a lot of places, are still coping with war damage. Lines to collect pension cheques are long and unruly. Riots are frequent, but unproductive.
“Modern” Life
Magic is real and merges seamlessly with technology and human beings. There are people walking around with inorganic material (and organic material that was not originally theirs) replacing their missing pieces. There are also people walking around who are the same color as Skittles and M&M’s — these are innate magic-users and they are regarded with suspicion. (For more on Magic, see Mechanics.)
Fashion is approximately analogous to Edwardian times, give or take the corset, hem and sleeve styles. In Strawberryfield, where most of the action takes place, it is all rather outdated, all-purpose and drab. SoHo tends towards quirky and colorful, with unnatural shades of hair in asymmetrical cuts and clothing with intentionally-tattered edges. The rich people uptown have the freedom to be elegant and conservative or absolute fops. (Please, for the love of god, do not expect me to keep the fashion consistent in the illustrations!)
Housing options range from country estates with attached farmland and sharecroppers, to shared beds with strangers in doss houses, to shelters and workhouses and asylums for the chronically indigent. The middle classes tend to have rental apartments over storefront businesses, which they may or may not run.
Technology
Magic has given the tech a boost in some places and held it back in others. We have toasters and hotplates but no airplanes, rigid airships being quite enough with a little augmentation. Radios are common but telephones are rare. Hyacinth’s house is a bit of an anomaly. She has no gas or electric because they ripped out all the metal during the siege, and she won’t have appliances that take sacrifices. (It is possible to have a hotplate that eats mice. More useful than a pet snake!)
Television isn’t here yet, but serials, news, and music may be consumed via the radio, periodicals with magically-animated pictures and sound, or at movie theaters. Postcards with magically-animated pictures bear a suspicious resemblance to GIFs and memes.
There are gaslamps around Hyacinth’s house, and some places with no lamps at all. Other neighborhoods have seen far better repairs and updates after the war. Most roads are cobbled, a few are paved. Sidewalks are rare. There is bus service, though it is a little more sparse in crummy neighborhoods. Buses, cars and horses have to share the streets, with horses being a bit more prominent since the war.
Though magic makes all aspects of modern life easier, there is a stigma attached to DIY projects. Proper magic should be done by trained professionals, automated, and sold retail in friendly packaging.
Music
They seem to be getting our music in this universe, but not exactly. Some of the ‘not exactly’ is due to differences between universes but most of it is due to copyright laws in ours. Song titles and artist names are fair game, lyrics are not. I’m operating in a gray area that allows for parody and using content from the Public Domain. I may still get in trouble someday. (I am fixing the art that has real lyrics, be patient with me, Music Industry.) I’m clear to share music with you via the relevant YouTube videos and I will (check the Liner Notes), but be aware that the Beatles they dance to in Tin Soldier are packaged way differently and don’t sound the same. I just felt it was appropriate to credit the real artists as long as I was referencing their real work.
Electric guitar is on its way, but it has not yet occurred to anyone to plug an instrument directly into an amplifier. Magic allows people to adjust sound waves themselves, live. That’s where the Voice from Music process comes from, and why all silent films were sung-through musicals. Mordecai’s old job allowed him to play the dialog. Bowed instruments have much more of a presence in pop music because it’s easier to modify the vibrations they make.
Magic allows for data storage in a quasi-digital format. All types of recording technology, including drawings and photographs, have been using it to improve quality and add features for quite some time. Currently, music is most often delivered by radio, record and music reel (at the movie theater). Wax cylinders are outdated and no longer produced. All of these have much better resolution and/or storage than the versions we are familiar with.
It’s pretty obvious this universe is not getting our music in order. Magic is both a randomizer and a convenient excuse. Different artists are assigned to different eras and I’ll try to spread the wealth of the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s over several decades, sometimes shuffled together like a pack of cards. More recent music is already out there and more of it will appear as we skip merrily along the timeline, but we know the classics are classics because there has been a lot of time to weed out the Top 40 crap, and I will try to stick to the good stuff. Except for Milo. Milo has no judgment, he likes anything happy. I have a little bit of judgment, but I still like a lot of really dumb songs, which I’ll usually give to him so he can love them unselfconsciously.
Eventually, if only for my own reference, I will have to produce a timeline matching up artists and their albums to years on the calendar. I am not equal to this task. When “Ages and Artists” down there becomes clickable, I will have screwed it up in multiple ways. In the meantime, know that Elton John and disco (known as synco, due to a lack of discs) were contemporary for David and Barnaby, the Beatles and British (Elban) Invasion for Mordecai and the Buggles and new wave for Erik. It almost makes sense! (No, it doesn’t and it never will.)
More on the Setting:
- Gazetteer — A list of places in-story, with some history included
- Glossary — Weird words, intentional weird spellings and weird uses of language
- Hyacinth’s Calendar — What we’ve covered in-story, with dates
- Ages and Artists — I will put this off as long as possible
See also: Mechanics