Notes:
Guns, Sails, and Empires is the title of a monograph by Carlo Cipolla, an economic historian. If you ever want to know how and why the west took over the world during the seventeenth century, Cipolla's work is a good place to start.
Forward
I'm a great proponent of what I call "rational fantasy". Basically, rational fantasy assumes that a fantasy world obeys the same set of physical laws as our own, fantasy monsters fit a specific ecological niche, and fantasy races exist for reasons besides helping the human protagonists of the story. A good example is L. Sprague de Camp's "Two Yards of Dragon": if you view dragons as evil (or good) monsters, you'll hate the story, but if you view dragons as animals, the story provides a new (and humorous) take on the dragon. Many other good examples come from the work of Terry Pratchett. When I was younger, I tried my hand at it (and wrote a few unpublishably bad stories about how wizards came into this world to pick up texts on quantum mechanics and organic chemistry to improve magic in their world...); since then, I've realized that the physics is secondary, and what is more important is the sociological background...
Enough pontificating, though. Welcome to my world...
Introduction
My gaming philosophy is that all games, however complex, should begin with a simple, fundamental idea. The fundamental idea for Guns, Sails, and Vampires is...not found here, because potential players might read this and get some hints. But the background begins with the basic "What if" question: What if vampires existed, and the nations of the world took steps to wipe them out? Twenty years ago, the major nations in the game world (which is your standard medievaloid fantasy world, so the major nations can be called France and Lithuania) organized a war of extermination against the vampire menace. The war has been successful thus far, and in the twentieth year of the war, it looks as if the last vampires will be exterminated and the world will enter a new period of peace and prosperity.
Yeah, right...
De Bello Vampirorum: A chronicle of the Great War, written by someone who lived through it.
An Introduction to Vampires: So you think you know what a vampire is...