The people behind the Great Dickens Christmas Fair spent two months building 46 period structures in a pair of Cow Palace warehouses, loaded the whole town onto eight semi-trucks, drove it to Pier 35, and reassembled a functioning Gold Rush-era San Francisco on the waterfront. Over 100 costumed performers (miners, sailors, revue dancers, a juggler, a magician), a docked brigantine you can actually board, saloons, a general store, the Alta California newspaper office, and a pan-for-gold station. Today and tomorrow only. If that logistical audacity doesn’t read as Punk, I don’t know what does.

The San Francisco Historium Spotlight runs August 22-23, 2026 at Pier 35 (10am-6pm). Tickets are $40 adults, $20 kids 5-12, free under 5. Red Barn Productions has been doing this flavor of immersive living-history theater since 1961, and it shows: this isn’t a theme park, it’s an argument that the past was more interesting than the present, made entirely out of hand-painted set pieces and sheer theatrical nerve. The Doctor approves. High-5 to the scenic carpenters who built a ship facade out of lumber, because during the actual Gold Rush, abandoned ships were cannibalized to build San Francisco anyway. History, recursing into itself. Beautiful.

Via: SFist

Napoleon III’s aetherships dueling the British Empire over Venus. Germans colonizing Mars. The moons of Jupiter, unclaimed and up for grabs. That’s not a geopolitical fever dream — that’s the premise of Castle in the Stars: The Universe in 1875, the gloriously over-the-top artbook from illustrator Alex Alice and French publisher Caurette. The Kickstarter hit its €8,000 goal in eight minutes. EIGHT. MINUTES. It eventually blew past €200,000 and unlocked enough stretch goals to fill an aethership cargo hold, including an official “Invitation to the Interplanetary Exposition.” The Doctor approves of this level of ambition.

The book itself is an in-world artifact: a lavishly illustrated guidebook designed as if it were printed for actual travelers in the Castle in the Stars universe, complete with over 200 watercolor illustrations, travel tips, maps, and enough Jules Verne energy to power a steam-driven orbital cannon. Alex Alice also dropped a companion sketchbook called Prototypes that cracks open his design process from first sketch to finished world. It’s the kind of behind-the-scenes material that makes you want to quit your job and move to 1875 Paris and build a rocket. The full Kickstarter run is a 2022 artifact, but copies are still findable through Caurette’s store (last items in stock, so move your gears). High-5, Monsieur Alice. High-5.

Via: Caurette Editions

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

Iron Crown Enterprises just dropped HARP Steampunk, a new sourcebook by veteran designer Phil Masters (yes, the same Phil Masters who wrote GURPS Steampunk and GURPS Castle Falkenstein, so the man clearly has a type). It hit DriveThruRPG in PDF form simultaneously with a physical premiere at Gen Con, and it’s already the top-selling Phil Masters title on the platform. The Doctor approves of this velocity.

The book bolts the HARP system onto Victorian melodrama, weird science, and Jules Verne retro-sci-fi, delivering 12 new Steampunk professions: Detective, Doctor, Engineer, Pilot, and more. You also get mechanical rules for clockwork automata, steam-driven contraptions, ornithopters, steam-powered power armour, and something called Akashic Reading, which sounds exactly as gloriously unhinged as it should. Settings are modular, scaling from grounded Victorian realism all the way up to “electrical miracles,” so your table can calibrate from Sherlock Holmes to The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen depending on how much absinthe the GM has had. Note that this is a sourcebook, not a standalone: you’ll need either the HARP Fantasy or HARP SF core rules to run it. PDF is $20.00. High-5, Iron Crown.

Via: DriveThruRPG / Iron Crown Enterprises

Chaosium, the house that gave us Call of Cthulhu and a respectable body count of player characters, just announced a brand-new tabletop RPG: Time Without Tide. The setting is a fog-choked, post-apocalyptic faux-Victorian world overrun with robots, magic, and (presumably) orphans with serious anger management issues. You play a Delver: someone whose job description is basically “go outside into the horrifying Fog and find out what’s in it.” Spoiler: it’s probably not a tea party.

And here’s the part that has The Doctor’s attention: they’re not using BRP. This is a whole new engine, purpose-built for tactical combat and what the BackerKit page calls “highly customisable character development” (vehicles, gear, companions, mutant powers). So Chaosium built a steampunk game from scratch instead of just bolting Victorian hats onto their existing system. That is either brilliantly committed or magnificently ambitious. Possibly both. The Formula approves of both.

It’s not live yet; the BackerKit campaign is coming. Watch the pre-launch page, get on the list, and tell them The Doctor sent you. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a well-timed crowdfunding notification is a solid third place.

Via: Bell of Lost Souls

Now, this is cool, no matter who you are.  A self-propelled Victorian house.  This is an HDRI photo of the Neverwas Haul.  And it’s not just pretty, it’s actually functional.  It even sports a pseudo-periscope called a “Camera Obscura”.  I only wish that there were more photos of the interior; as well as a generous amount of scantily-clad Victorian prostitutes and Whiskey.

Neverwas Haul, a self-propelled 3-story Victorian House, made from 75% recycled equipment and materials, returns with new interiors, operating system, and collections from its travels around the world (i.e., oddities of the Jules Verne era including a Camera Obscura, described below). The Haul measures 24 feet long by 24 feet high and 12 feet wide and is built on the base of a 5 th wheel travel trailer.

A cooperative effort of a number of artists, photographers and lens makers, the Camera Obscura is installed in the turret of the Haul. With the support of a trained technician, the public sees many a spectacular view. A camera obscura is a series of lenses creating an image that is projected onto a concave screen table (sketch included below) [not on this site]. The size of the unit is approximately 12 feet tall by 3 feet wide and is made from hand-made glass lenses, recycled brass fittings and antique ironwork.

Check out the Site for full details: neverwashaul.com