Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. August 7 through 9. The theme is Worlds of Tomorrow, and the mood board they’re working from is Metropolis, The Rocketeer, and airships. If you just read that sentence and felt nothing, I cannot help you. The Doctor, however, felt several things simultaneously and had to sit down.

Key City is one of the premiere steampunk cons on the East Coast, and they do it right every year: makers, panels, tea dueling, live music, a costume contest, handcrafted goods from vendors who actually know what they’re doing, and a hotel (the Wyndham Gettysburg) that sits minutes from a Civil War battlefield. Which means you can spend Saturday in a brass-goggled aviator coat watching people duel with teacups, and Sunday morning standing on ground where 51,000 people became casualties in three days. The Formulae handles both with equal dignity. Online ticket sales close at midnight on August 6th, so don’t be the person who shows up at the door paying the walk-up rate because you forgot. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but forgetting to pre-register comes close.

Get your tickets at keycitysteampunk.com before the clock runs out. High-5 to everyone already packing their goggles.

The Chicago Steampunk Exposition has dropped its 2027 theme and, look, I just want to say: someone in Schaumburg, Illinois is doing the Lord’s work. The 2027 Expo is going full Victorian space travel, drawing its inspiration from H.G. Wells, Georges Méliès, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and anyone else who ever looked at a steam-powered boiler and thought, “yes, but what if we aimed it at Mars.” The convention channels the spirit of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair with a retro-futuristic twist, and this year the twist is: the Moon, Mars, and boldly going where no chap (or lady) has gone before. Mark your calendar: June 11–13, 2027, Schaumburg, IL.

This is the Omega7Red Formulae operating at peak efficiency, people. You take Victorian ambition (the kind that built the Ferris Wheel and called it a modest achievement), you point it at the void of space, and you get something that makes NASA look like it’s still loading on dial-up. Méliès shot a rocket into the Moon’s eye in 1902 as a film trick. The Victorians would have called that a proof of concept and started laying track. Three days of panels, costumes, vendors, entertainment, and presumably at least one argument about whether aetheric propulsion counts as hard science. Free parking. Fully air conditioned. The Doctor approves.

Get your goggles calibrated, fire up the brass orrery, and start planning your kit now. Twelve months is barely enough time to properly weather an authentic Lunar Expedition ensemble. chicagosteampunkexpo.com — wait, no. chicagosteampunkexpo.com for all the details. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a steam-powered rocket to the Moon is a solid second place. High-5.

The Magnanimous and Beneficent Dr. Warthan hereby raises a brass monocle to Level-5, because Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is still happening, and it is set in a steampunk town called Steam Bison. They named the town Steam Bison. That is either the best or the most gloriously unhinged thing in game development this year, and frankly the Doctor does not care which. It’s canon. It counts.

The game is the eighth main entry in the Layton series, and it’s coming in 2026 to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, and Windows simultaneously: the first time a Layton game has ever landed on either of those last two platforms. Level-5 confirmed in April that it’s still on track for a worldwide simultaneous release, which means there are no region-locked excuses this time. You will play a puzzle game set in a steampunk frontier town called Steam Bison. The Omega7Red Formulae did not need to touch this one. Level-5 handled it themselves.

Good job, high-5. Now put on your best waistcoat and go wishlist it. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a clockwork mystery in a town named after the most diesel animal on the plains comes remarkably close.

Via: Wikipedia

San Diego Comic-Con 2026 wrapped up today, and while the normies were busy losing their minds over Marvel casting news and Blade Runner 2099 (CyberPunk, yes, I see you, it counts), the real action was happening at the back stairs of the Convention Center on Saturday morning. Drake & McTrowell called the faithful: full steampunk cosplay, back stairs, 10am, be there or be boring. And they showed up. Of course they showed up. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

Meanwhile, The Steampunk Explorer did what it does best and compiled the steampunk highlights from the whole con floor, because someone has to be the archivist of the aesthetically correct. Between the Enola Holmes 3 news (neo-Victorian, close enough, the Formula approves) and whatever gothic-gear cosplay wandered into frame, SDCC 2026 was apparently a better steampunk con than it had any right to be. The Doctor is grudgingly pleased. High-5, San Diego.

Via: The Steampunk Explorer / SDCC Unofficial Blog

Someone at Somanyrobots Games asked the right question: what if the Industrial Revolution ran on reanimated corpses instead of coal and steam? The answer is Machines of Bone & Blood, a 5E/5.5E sourcebook set inside a Necroindustrial Revolution, where skeletal constructs are replacing living workers, necrobarons run factory floors staffed by the freshly dead, and the tagline is literally “Fight the Necroindustrial Revolution!” The Doctor approves. That is the Omega7Red Formulae applied to labor history, and it is glorious.

The book clocks in at 300-plus pages of necrocrafting rules, two new classes, twenty-odd subclasses, spells, monsters, and mini-settings you can drop straight into an existing campaign. The art is all human-made (the publisher has a firm no-AI policy, which earns them a bonus half-Omega just on principle). The Kickstarter already funded at nearly five times its goal before closing on July 9th, so late pledges are your move now. Via: Kickstarter

Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a factory floor run by a necrobaron and his army of bone-machines comes remarkably close. ΩΩΩΩ½ before I’ve even rolled a single die.

Someone in France just shipped a cozy, pocket-sized steampunk RPG in a box and I’m unreasonably pleased about it. Nobi Nobi Steampunk is one of two new adventure settings (the other being Cyberpunk, naturally) for the Nobi Nobi tabletop system: a fast, cinematic party game that gets you into a story in minutes. No 400-page rulebook. No character optimization spreadsheet. You strap on the clockwork goggles, load the electropistol, fire up the steamwagon, and go. The whole thing is modular too: mix and match with the Fantasy, Horror, and Thriller boxes because sure, why not, a steampunk horror thriller is basically Tuesday around here.

The Formula has always held that SteamPunk is a delivery mechanism for adventure, not a homework assignment. A tiny box that drops a table of people into gears-and-steam mayhem in under ten minutes? The Doctor approves. BackerKit late pledges are still open, rewards ship end of 2026. Get on it. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, so you might as well spend the time rolling dice.

Houston, your weekend orders have arrived. Delta H Con 2026 is on the ground right now, July 17 through 19 at the Marriott Westchase, and it has a dedicated Steampunk Track that would make the Formulae proud. The centerpiece: a full Steampunk Ball headlined by Aurelio Voltaire and Addisyn Madd, framed as an Un-Birthday Party complete with tea dueling, parlor games, and door mouse prizes. Because of course. The con’s art theme this year is Neuroverse: Code Houston (cyberpunk plus anime plus gaming plus space fusion), which is basically the Formulae running a five-way merge and daring you to argue with the output.

Unwoman is also on the schedule for two evening sets inside the Steampunk Track, which means you get cello-driven industrial folk AND Voltaire doing his delightfully macabre thing in the same building across the same weekend. For a three-day pass that apparently goes for $45, that is a frankly irresponsible amount of value. The Doctor does not make financial recommendations, but the Doctor also is not NOT making a financial recommendation here.

If you are in Houston and you are not at this convention, I genuinely cannot help you. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal. Via: Delta H Con

It is July 16. The sun is a diesel-powered furnace welded directly above your skull by a malevolent engineer who clearly never had to work outdoors. Heat indexes are lying to you in real-time. Somewhere, a politician is promising relief that will never come. The ice in your drink surrendered eleven seconds ago. This is Summer, raw and unprocessed.

Now watch what happens when I apply the Formulae.

Apply the Omega7Red Formulae and Summer becomes: brass valves bleeding off overpressure steam on a copper boiler the size of a cathedral, zeppelins trailing condensation over a crowd in full kit (goggles down, corsets tight, nobody sweating because the aesthetic demands it), the smell of machine oil and gunpowder and something that is definitely not legal at a county fair. It is SteamPunk Summer: oppressive, gorgeous, completely worth it. Whitby XX just wrapped. Papplewick Pumping Station turned ten. The Brass Screw Consortium has already convened and dispersed. TeslaCon is heading to Oz. The Formula is running hot this year, and for once, that is not a complaint. High-5. Stay hydrated. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

The people behind the Great Dickens Christmas Fair have gone and done it again: they’re turning Pier 35 on the Embarcadero into an 1849 Gold Rush settlement for two days only, August 22 and 23. We’re talking immersive Victorian-era San Francisco, sea shanties pouring out of saloon doors, high-kicking can-can dancers, artisan wares, oysters, sourdough, and hopeful prospectors who will absolutely try to sell you a shovel. In partnership with the San Francisco Historical Society, no less. Red Barn Productions calls it “theatrical living history.” The Doctor calls it GoldPunk, and he will not be taking questions.

Think about what’s actually being proposed here: a fully immersive port city circa 1850, crammed with period clothing shops, sketch comedians, sea captains, gold panners, and enough local ale to float one of those great sailing vessels. This is the Omega7Red Formulae applied to Manifest Destiny, and the result is completely canonical. The Formula doesn’t care about your eras; it just asks what the most interesting version of a moment in history looks like. Turns out it looks like San Francisco before the earthquake got to it, staffed by 150 actors and built on Pier 35. Tickets are $40 for adults. Get in there.

Via: The Steampunk Explorer

Britain has a Victorian waterworks in Nottingham that fires up its original 1880s James Watt beam engines, opens the underground reservoir, and once a year lets the Steampunk community take over the whole magnificent, gear-laden, boiler-heated cathedral of a building. This weekend was that weekend. The 10th Annual Steampunk Steam Event at Papplewick Pumping Station ran July 11-12, and if you weren’t there, you were somewhere objectively worse.

The lineup: Alice Strange on Saturday, Professor Elemental on Sunday (with a noon Rap School, because of course), Tea Dueling with Steampunk Shenanigans, over 30 trade stalls, and the engines in full steam the entire time. A Victorian pumping station that is a Scheduled Ancient Monument running its 1883 Lancashire boilers while costumed gogglers duel with teacups. The Omega7Red Formulae did not need to be applied here. The universe already did the work.

Year ten. High-5, Papplewick. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but ten years of keeping this alive on volunteer power comes close.