Lady Scarlet's World

Lady Scarlet's world is different from ours. First, she lives about a hundred years in the past. Second, certain key events that shaped our past never happened or unfolded differently. Third, magic is very real and powerful, though very few understand or even believe in its existence.

Dates are not locked down in the narrative of the stories but to enter Lady Scarlet's world, imagine yourself in the early nineteen-teens. While not technically the Victorian era, many details will be the same. Rapid technology shifts have shaken the basics of society. Attitudes are changing as new clashes with old. Gender barriers are still there, but so is the idea that anyone with intelligence and drive can accomplish anything. Whole new, previously unattainable possibilities are  open to people with the ambition to try. Railroads and airships have made the world both a smaller and larger place.

But these stories are not steampunk...exactly.

The shrinking world has also grown the world economy. While steamships once took months to reach exotic ports, an airship can reach the same location in days. New commercial markets create vast opportunities for wealth and crime.

To fight the new tide of global crime, several nations banded together to create a worldwide law enforcement agency. Agents from the International Police Commission (I.P.C.) use assets all over the world to fight the new breed of criminal gangs who have also discovered the emerging global economy. These agents are the best in the world, highly trained, and empowered by the member nations to do what it takes to stamp out these upstart gangs.

But while I.P.C. agents play cops and robbers with gangs and crime lords, other forces are at work.

Most people are blissfully unaware that magic exists in this age of steam and steel. Just as robber barons, business magnates, and street thugs vie for power, other groups work in the shadows. This hidden world of magic is as real as the work-a-day world of the regular person. Some lust after power, some seek vengeance or justice, and others just want to be left alone.

The types of magic are equally diverse as the new technologies. Some have their own innate powers, while others are derived from spells or ancient rites. Others come from a mixing of technology and magic and still others are bound to and by powerful relics.

Each form of magic is different from the next and most of it distrusts the others. A secret war rages behind a curtain of coal smoke and human ambition. Lady Scarlet never knew of - nor wanted any part of - the ancient war but it found her anyway.