by Arveliot

There is nowhere in literature where the wistful longing of High Fantasy marries with the revolutionary spirit quite like what's known as either Gunpowder or Flintlock Fantasy.

Its themes are as varied as its worlds, and the tales are dramatic and bold. The unifying theme to the genre is the technologies of the time upsetting the powers that be. Flintlock for the guns and cannons, but also the cities and industry, and the growing power of the common folk.

The genre is a fairly recent creation, although guns and gunpowder in Fantasy is as old as the genre. Gunpowder made an appearance in Lord of the Rings, had a dramatic entrance at the tail end of The Wheel of Time, and was lamp-shaded in Terry Pratchet's work. But only in recent years has the genre come into its own, finding its voice alongside other rising genres of fiction, such as its close cousin Steampunk.

It's current champions include Django Wexler's Shadow Campaigns series, Brian McCellan's Powder Mage, Brandon Sanderson's The Alloy of Law, and Naomi Novak's Temeraire. Wattpad hosts some dramatic offerings, often fused in with its Steampunk stories.

The stories in this genre are often very different, at least thematically, from classic High Fantasy. These are not the tales of the Once and Future King, and the Dark Lord in the lands of shadow is eerily familiar to the masters who once ruled our world. Lords and kings, masters of industry and ambitious men sit in the thrones that were once occupied by elder gods and fallen spirits of light.

Be they pirates on the seas or revolutionaries in dark basements, the spirit of independence and self-determination flavour the stories that this genre gives rise to. Our heroes are often pirates and highwaymen, soldiers or throne-less princes, bold and brave characters who embrace the changing world they belong to.

The settings for such fantasy stories are as varied as the genre they spring from. Mirrors of our own history are as common as enslaved dwarves and gnomes rising up against their elvish masters. Dramatic tales on the high seas, or wars with dark lords.

What often drives a wedge between Flintlock Fantasy and Steampunk is the technology. In Flintlock Fantasy, the technologies such as the gun are game changers, upsetting the powers that maintain their world's order. In Steampunk, those inventions are the order. If dirigibles and rifles appear in Flintlock Fantasy, they're as new and dramatic to their world as the Internet and the Automobile were for ours. But the fantastical robotics and physics-defying airships of Steampunk are the establishment; often the backbone of oppression and order.

There won't be cartridge rifles and revolvers in a Flintlock Fantasy. Often, there won't be airships or trains or even top hats. Rifled barrels, casings, revolving firing chambers, and hammers are the fruits of generations of inventors making thousands of tiny improvements, rather than the sudden introduction of a dramatic new technology.

My personal favourite aspect of Flintlock Fantasy comes in the idea that no one is powerless. Magic is not an everyman's power, it is a tool instead for some kind of empowered elite. Be they learned scholars or born to their gifts, magic is a power of a bourgeoise, a privileged few. Guns and industry are accessible powers, powers that turn peasants into citizens, or failing that, revolutionaries.

To anyone willing to take on such a tale, I offer a tip of the hat and a raised mug. If there is one common theme among the authors of this genre, it is a willingness to embrace the audacious.

Example of Gunpowder Fantasy on Wattpad:
Burning Night: A Tale of the Everburning City by Arveliot

Synopsis:

There is no night in the Everburning City.

There can never be.

For four hundred years, the City has been besieged by an enemy that has swallowed the entire world. The land that the City now sits upon has been claimed from the Gloam; a grey mass of smoke-like mist that kills everything within it. Only fire, pumped endlessly from beneath the world, holds the Gloam at bay.

But things move beneath the shrouding mists of the Gloam, and they march for the City. Against them lie only the resolve of its soldiers, and the audacity of Crafter Tabitha a'Loria, and her apprentice Gerald Raeth, defying the powers of the City to build the first hope humanity has known since the Everburning City's founding.

Excerpt:

"Standard shot has an effective range of ninety-four yards. Double-stuffed shots can reach over a hundred, but are wildly inaccurate," Mia found herself reciting, as every fact she remembered about the Salamander in her hand came flooding back to her. She closed the barrel and felt the extra rounds in her coat pockets with her free hand. "A practised hand can fire forty shots per minute."

"I can do sixty," she added, more to herself, but the old Sergeant grinned beside her. She reached into her pockets and started laying rounds on the broken stone, in groups of four.
"Keep six sets in your pockets," Valen said softly, beside her. "We need those to make it back to the wall."
She nodded, already focused on the shadows. She could just begin to see the figures approach in a shuffling, awkward rush.

Mia felt her throat dry, and her tongue stick to the roof of her mouth, as the first figures stepped through the mists and into the firelight. The creatures were a pale grey, the same colour as the mists from which they emerged. Most of the figures had clothes, or what was once clothing. Rags hung off their gaunt frames, mould and moss clung to their bodies, and even from this distance, Mia could see their eyes had lost every bit of colour.

The figures marched forward, a shuffling walk that seemed to put them off balance with every long stride. As a group, they seemed to walk in unison, taking each stumbling step together.
"They're people," Mia whispered. "Flaming cinders of the abyss, sir, they're people!"

Valen nodded in response. "They were. The Gloam uses the dead like puppets," he turned to her, and added, "Aim true, Corporal. I'd hate to be used like that."
She levelled her salamander at the approaching mob. "Aye, sir."

The mob scrambled into range as more stepped out of the mists. The dozens approaching were joined by what could be a hundred more, and suddenly, the pile of ammunition in front of her seemed all too small.

"Up to eighty yards," Mia muttered to herself, recalling what she knew about her weapon. "A salamander's rounds can penetrate half a foot of stone. Through flesh, five feet."

Her breath hissed out of her pursed lips, as she slowly squeezed the trigger. Bright blue fire flashed in the air, like a lightning bolt, and vanished in less than a heartbeat. The afterimage was a bright white line that seared her eyes, forcing her to blink rapidly to keep her sight clear. Ahead of her, a crowd of the creatures stumbled and slowed, as a few of their number collapsed backwards.

She fired three more times, rapidly, before popping open the firing chamber and letting the cartridges fall to the ground. Valen started shooting as she reloaded, popping one round into each of the chambers.

She closed the chamber as the sergeant fired his third shot, clipping one of the creatures in the shoulder. She watched it stagger and fall to its knees before the second flash of fire took it in the chest and knocked it to the ground. As Valen turned away to reload, she pointed her Salamander towards the largest group and waited.

She fired twice, rapidly, as a few of them darted around a slab of rock. Two quick bolts of bright blue fire flashed in the night, and the leaders were thrown back into the creatures behind them, where several fell in a heap.

She didn't spare the moments to see how many of them scampered to their feet, as a dozen more of the creatures advanced on their left. She fired quickly, barely hearing the screech of the gun between her shots, and saw another few of them fall as she started reloading.

Beside her, Valen began firing into a crowd of the creatures, his first shot driving a dozen of them to a halt and dropping a handful of them. The next two threw the leaders into the crowd behind them.

Insert cartridge, check fit, repeat three times. Close the chamber, and pull the latch shut until it clicks. She had spent nearly a year at drills, her first year along the wall, and just about every day of it included reloading a Salamander.
She was firing just as Valen fired his last round, four quick shots to drop some of the creatures who had broken off from the larger packs. The bulk of the mob was still almost sixty yards off, reeling from their combined efforts.
"Ammo check," Valen said, and Mia immediately glanced down at the stacks of ammunition set on the rock in front of her. The rest of the shots rested in a satchel behind her. She counted twice before answering. "Twenty shots in reach, sir."

"I have thirty-five. Take mine if you run out," Valen ordered. He finished reloading and set the butt of the gun on his shoulder. Mia dropped the spent cartridges on the ground and started reloading.

"Make your shots count. One or two stragglers are manageable," Valen said, between shots.

"You're okay letting those things get close?" Mia asked as she finished reloading.

"One or two aren't worth the ammo. Just remember to pull your sword back out if you expect it go down," Valen replied, as he fired his last round.

Inspirations:

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https://youtu.be/WYA-wYEdZoU