Cog

Cog is a dark urban fantasy/steampunk roleplay set in a very large, strange city called Antillia. It first opened in January of 2008; this is its second revival. The main goal of the site is to provide talented roleplayers with an open, flexible universe, one that allows for a great deal of creativity and member-driven content while still offering up a cohesive setting. You may choose from several pre-existing species and professions or you can just make up your own—character creation options are virtually limitless. Feel like joining as an alien? A talking dog? A girl made out of clockwork? That’s what Cog is here for.

covered within this section:
setting • technology

Setting

From the ad: “Cog's main setting is a massive, sprawling city-state called Antillia. It is a festering sore on the moorland upon which it was built almost a millennium ago; even as it rots away from within, its margins continue to consume more land with every passing year. From a distance its dark, serrated outline resembles the back of a gargantuan urchin spat contemptuously up out of the depths of the sea, and airships cloud the sky above it in a perpetual swarm, reduced to the size of insects. A river of waste called the Vitriotic Stain hemorrhages ceaselessly from the city's slums, and smoke billows perpetually from its industrial circuit. Some of its oldest districts have succumbed to urban decay, inviting the return of vegetation and wildlife in the most unexpected of places.”

Essentially anything can happen in Antillia. It is a strange amalgam of the old and new, an eclectic mating of hundreds of different cultures. The answers to the questions “how should my character dress?” and “what religions exist in Antillia?” are simple: you make them up.

The city itself is divided into two separate and distinct sections. Upper Antillia, where aristocrats and wealthy citizens live, is smaller, cleaner and more exclusive, while Lower Antillia is a sprawling, intestinal maze of streets and districts so large and convoluted that even the people born there often have difficulty navigating it. It is infected with disease, technology, and strange, dangerous magic. Poverty runs rampant, from the glowing thoroughfares of Ambergris Avenue to the grime-streaked spires of St. Mary’s Station. The lower city exists more or less in a state of constant anarchy. Law enforcement is not trusted. Racial and species-related prejudices run rampant. It is no secret that Antillia is drowning in its own decadence and corruption, despite the shining face of scientific and technological innovation that it presents to the rest of the world.

Technology

Technology in Cog—especially in Antillia—is loosely based off of steampunk aesthetics. Clockwork, steam power and thaumaturgic energy are very common; however, coal and natural gases are also taken advantage of, and electricity is quite rare but occasionally utilized. Engineering is an overwhelmingly important Antillian profession. Machines generally have a more clunky and ornate appearance in Cog than they do in our world, and some technological advancements exist in Cog that we haven’t even begun to dream of. On the other hand, things have developed along a different route from our own—while Antillia has airships and functional clockwork constructs, they haven’t invented cars, bombs, advanced photography or sophisticated airplanes (their version is called “aeroplanes” and is simplistic in design). Alchemy, although technically illegal, is also responsible for many innovative new technologies.

Common examples of things found in Antillia are airships, the city-wide tram system, clockwork carriage horses and artificial clockwork limbs.

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