Welcome to the Adventures by Gaslight wiki, a database for information on the roleplaying and story-telling setting which has come to be known as Gaslight. The primary purpose of this wiki is to serve as an easily navigatible knowledge base for the players of various Gaslight games and to provide information to new users about the setting.
Summary
On the world of Eterra small but advanced civilisations thrive. They have grown and prospered against all odds, and accumulate wealth and power with increasing efficiency. Yet strange things lurk in dark places and the hearts of men can be dreadful indeed. The ruins of a forgotten past begin to call out to curious minds, and the surge of civilisation becomes at risk of a surge of something else, something infinitely horrific that grows in counter to progress. In order to survive Mankind will need heroes; men of intelligence, logic and tolerance. The prize is more than survival; a victorious future promises mastery of the galaxy and more besides.
In a nutshell: Gaslight is science fiction, Victorian adventure and Lovecraftian horror. Dark things lurk which threaten to shatter the sanity of mankind, but even the most horrifying construction could just be a product of Clarkes' Third Law; just maybe everything has a rational explanation…
The Premise
Mankind is a truly wonderful species, for it is continually inventing and pushing back the boundaries of ignorance, one day due to become a race beyond all reproach. No matter what the set back, in time all is overcome by Man. This is premise behind Gaslight. No matter how hard Mankind is pushed, he will always come back, always re-emerging to push back the darkness of both the outer world and his own soul. All that is required is courage and hard-work, for with these two virtues nothing is beyond one's reach.
Ages ago, a vast technocratic utopian society was the master of Eterra and more planets unknown. Whether Eterra was the home of this great civilisation or just a colony is currently lost to the ages. Some great and terrible catastrophe wracked this civilisation to its core and cast it to ruin. Ten thousand years later and humanity is on its way to recovering that lost greatness. Yet the struggle is far from over as terrible beings and alien menaces still prey on humanity and plot to drag men back down into barbarism and superstition, while other men give in to their own primitive impulses and attempt to rebuke the social and scientific progress made by humanity. Only the bravest men and women, knowledgeable and couragous, can hope to to fight back this grim darkness and usher in a new great age for humanity.
Humanity is presented with a choice - to surrender to its own fears and barbarity, or to rise to a rational race of unlimited potential. Although the choice may appear simple, the events and issues that make up this great conflict of conscience are not.
