History Main / DungeonPunk

Usually, this takes the maxim [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."]] and turns it on its head. As we get more proficient with the use of magic, it takes on characteristics of technology. We have railroads, but instead of burning coal to work a steam engine, they have a bound air elemental. We have radios, but instead of sending electromagnetic waves across space, they work by sympathetic magic.

** Also, the much earlier [=FASA=]game ''{{Earthdawn}}'' where magic and Magitek are much more commonplace and play a more central role. Not coincidentally, Earthdawn is canonically the setting of Shadowrun thousands of years earlier.

* ''{{GURPS}} [[http://www.sjgames.com/pyramid/sample.html?id=659 Zauberpunk]]'', which is ''GURPS Technomancer'' [[XMeetsY Meets]] ''GURPS Cyberworld''.

Compare TheDungAges. See also UrbanFantasy, DarkFantasy, FantasticNoir and ScienceFantasy.

* ''WesternAnimation/LegendOfKorra'' has elements of this like using lightning bending to generate elctricity.

Compare TheDungAges. See also UrbanFantasy, DarkFantasy, and ScienceFantasy.

* Jess Gulbranson's ''Literature/AntipaladinBlues'' series, which takes all the ultraviolent basement [[DungeonsAndDragons D&D]] tropes and skewers them with a bunch of anachronistic {{Magitek}} and pop culture [[ShoutOut references]].

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' setting for ''DungeonsAndDragons'' is a direct ancestor of Dungeon Punk and partial originator of its visual style.

* The ''TabletopGame/{{Planescape}}'' setting for DungeonsAndDragons is a direct ancestor of Dungeon Punk and partial originator of its visual style.

* Many of the later games in ''Franchise/TheLegendOfZelda'' franchise take this approach, with pretty varied views on how cynical it actually is. Where the first few games were strictly magic and swords, as time progressed, you now have steam boats, trains, weird spinner tops, hookshots, and various MagiTek automatons such as [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheMinishCap Armos]] and [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Guardians]].

* ''Manga/MahouSenseiNegima's'' [[MagicalLand Magic World]], AKA [[spoiler: Mars]], naturally has a great deal of modern sensibility about it, since it exists contemporaneously with ours, and people travel back and forth between them. At the same time, it appears to have been designed, in-universe and out, to include every Adventure, Fantasy and RPG Trope known to man.

* Some of the ''Franchise/FinalFantasy'' games fit this, such as [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI VI]], [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyVII VII]], and [[VideoGame/FinalFantasyCrystalChroniclesCrystalBearers The Crystal Bearers]].

* Anime/''VisionOfEscaflowne'' has mechas that are powered by dragon hearts.
* Manga/''MahouSenseiNegima's'' [[MagicalLand Magic World]], AKA [[spoiler: Mars]], naturally has a great deal of modern sensibility about it, since it exists contemporaneously with ours, and people travel back and forth between them. At the same time, it appears to have been designed, in-universe and out, to include every Adventure, Fantasy and RPG Trope known to man.

* From what little we saw, there were definite elements of this in ComicBook/BattleChasers, particularly with the Wargolems and the prison.

* Fanfic/DungeonKeeperAmi grows into this during the Voyage and Avatar Islands Arcs, once Ami starts createing proto-golems she calls 'reaperbots' that are piloted by her goblin minions, or giving her troll blacksmiths electromagnets and electric furnaces to work with, or useing jem crucibles to fund her war effort and fuel her Dungeon Hearts... yeah, it's Dungeon Punk. To date, she's gotten all the way up to airships.

* ''VisionOfEscaflowne'' has mechas that are powered by dragon hearts.
* ''MahouSenseiNegima's'' [[MagicalLand Magic World]], AKA [[spoiler: Mars]], naturally has a great deal of modern sensibility about it, since it exists contemporaneously with ours, and people travel back and forth between them. At the same time, it appears to have been designed, in-universe and out, to include every Adventure, Fantasy and RPG Trope known to man.

* From what little we saw, there were definite elements of this in BattleChasers, particularly with the Wargolems and the prison.

* Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''DarknessSeries'' of novels are set in a world which, through the application of FunctionalMagic, has achieved a technological level roughly equivalent to 1940s Earth.
** His ''WarBetweenTheProvinces'' is similar only with Civil War level tech.

* Tad Williams's "TheWarOfTheFlowers" has a fairy kingdom which has developed this sort of society. According to a diary in the book, it used to be SteamPunk, too.

* Literature/TheActsOfCaine series by Matthew Stover. While the eponymous perspective character Caine is in fact ''from'' a comfortably CyberPunk society, the characters native to the story's medieval setting are just as world-weary and cynical as anyone from Caine's CrapsackWorld.
* ''{{Incarceron}}'' plays with this, combining the technologically-advanced titular prison with a [[SchizoTech future world that insists on living in a zero-tech Middle-Ages simulation]] in the wake of a world-breaking war so intense, the moon got half-destroyed. [[spoiler:Emphasis on "simulation." The whole thing, by the end of ''Sapphique,'' is revealed to be an elaborate holographic illusion superimposed over a heavily damaged landscape.]]

* Jess Gulbranson's Literature/AntipaladinBlues series, which takes all the ultraviolent basement [[DungeonsAndDragons D&D]] tropes and skewers them with a bunch of anachronistic {{Magitek}} and pop culture [[ShoutOut references]].
* The {{Nightside}} series plays with this in some of its alternate universes, although the Nightside itself is modern-day UrbanFantasy.

* The ''{{Eberron}}'' campaign setting for ''DungeonsAndDragons'' is a straightforward example of the trope. The punk aesthetic is becoming increasingly common in D&D at large as well.

* Many of the later games in the ''Zelda'' franchise take this approach, with pretty varied views on how cynical it actually is. Where the first few games were strictly magic and swords, as time progressed, you now have steam boats, trains, weird spinner tops, hookshots, and various MagiTek automatons such as [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaTheMinishCap Armos]] and [[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaSkywardSword Guardians]].

* GuiltyGear Being it's predecessor, having Magic born from Science, Fantasy creatures and what not, except, if anime tropes are conserned, Blazblue is a shonen, meanwhile Guilty Gear is Seinen, having more cinism, and less humor, but still has it's moments.

* DominicDeegan occasionally flirts with the trope, the climax of the Storm of Souls arc owing more to {{Neuromancer}} than anything else. The city of [[PunnyName Erossus]], aka "Sin City", is probably supposed to be a parody of it.
* ''PennyArcade'''s ''Song of the Sorcelator'' appears to take place in this sort of universe.
* ''ErrantStory''. Big magic-powered cities with magic-powered 21st century level technology and beyond, including a PortalNetwork, and the omnipresent sensibilities of a 21st century JRPG nerd.

* {{Exalted}} can easily fit here, with First Age magitech common, gods and prayers treated as a business deal, and your average military having an elite guard of giant magical mecha.
* The DragonMech game is about steam-powered mechs in a sword-and-sorcery setting fighting to protect the world's survivor's against an alien invasion in the midst of what might well be the end of the world.
* The cityplane of Ravnica, in ''MagicTheGathering''. Dungeon Punk creeps into many of the game's other settings as well; in fact, the main setting, Dominaria, makes a clear progression from MedievalEuropeanFantasy in the Dark and Ice Ages to verging on Dungeon Punk in the Weatherlight era to AfterTheEnd in the wake of the Phyrexian Invasion.

* The [[PlaneScape Planescape]] setting for DungeonsAndDragons is a direct ancestor of Dungeon Punk and partial originator of its visual style.

* ''WesternAnimation/AdventureTime'' has magical artifacts and wizards alongside technology such as holographic newspapers and robots.

* ''LegendOfKorra'' has elements of this like using lightning bending to generate elctricity.

* The [[Literature/TheScar novels]] [[Literature/IronCouncil of]] Creator/ChinaMieville's ''Literature/{{Bas-Lag Cycle}}'' including ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'', where Magic, called Thaumaturgy, is studied in college and is considered one of the 3 fundamental branches of natural sciences next to biology and physics. The goal of the main character in ''Literature/PerdidoStreetStation'' is[[spoiler: to discover a Grand Unified Theory that links the 3 branches.]]

* The Eldar of ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'' have sometimes been described as a PostCyberPunk styled take on DungeonPunk. For an outsider their technology is inherently magical (and contains no metal sans very veryminor exceptions) and is highly linked to their PsychicPowers. At the same time they are in a heavily cynical setting and always on the verge of destruction but can prevail due to their technology and magic. Plus they are majorly racist and supremacist.

* ''TalesOfMU'' takes place in a Dungeon Punk setting which seems to be more or less based on D&D, complete with concepts like character classes seeping into the real world.

* ''VideoGame/{{BlazBlue}}'' contains many examples of Punk genres, but the overall aesthetic of the game is squarely this one. Not too far into the future, an EldritchAbomination mysteriously appears out of nowhere and begins to destroy the earth. Conventional technology, including [[NukeEm nukes], prove utterly useless against it. Just as all hope seems lost, Six Heroes appear and teach humans to use a new form of technology; the "Armagus", an artificial form of magic that is powered by [[{{Mana}} seithr]], the toxic substance that the beast exhumes. While the combined efforts of the Six Heroes and mankind are eventually successful in slaying the beast, ending the so-called "First War of Magic", the vast majority of the world's population are left dead and seithr has rendered much of the planet uninhabitable. The survivors flee into the mountains and begin to rebuild, forming the Novus Orbis Librarium to control the Armagus weapons and prevent their misuse. However, before long, the N.O.L grew into TheEmpire and abused it's power, creating a hostile monopoly on the magical artefacts, and using them to govern the world, subjugating and decimating anyone who opposed them. Two hundred years later, [[OneManArmy several N.O.L bases are annihilated by a lone figure]], known as "[[AntiHero Ragna the Bloodedge]]", [[MacGuffin wielding a ludicrously powerful artefact]] [[ArtifactTitle called the BlazBlue]], who promptly declares the start of a one-man war to free the world from the tyrannical grip of the N.O.L. In retaliation, the N.O.L sets the largest bounty on record on his head, open to anyone who can bring him in, dead or alive. This attracts [[RagtagBunchOfMisfits bounty hunters]] from far and wide to the 13th Hierarchical City of Kagutsuchi, kicking off the plot of the first game.

[[folder:Toys]]
* {{LEGO}}'s Franchise/{{Bionicle}} toyline has to be mentioned. According to the story, the Matoran Universe was a technological wonder, being a world built inside a HumongousMecha. But the characters developed a deep mysticism of their own, different areas had varying levels of technology (some were tribal, others were urban utopias), and the citizens used various powers for all kinds of things. Though the writers later tried to explain that these powers were merely pre-programmed codes, they still seemed a heck of a lot like magic -- How do you program a fluid that's filled with the souls of unborn scientists? Or how do you write a software for creating rocks out of nothing? There were some elements, however, like the mysterious Energized Protodermis, which they did not try to explain, and with the introduction of a broader universe, "magic" became a solid and undeniable part of the story. No matter how many times they use such words as "robots", "artificial intelligence" or "nanotech".
[[/folder]]

* ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' video game saga is increasingly acquiring Dungeon Punk themes, specially in the third game, ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIIIMorrowind Morrowind]]''. ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion Oblivion]]'' went back to standard fantasy, and ''[[VideoGame/TheElderScrollsVSkyrim Skyrim]]'', although still a conventional setting, has brought back a part of the theme in the form of Dwemer Ruins.

* ''VideoGame/JadeEmpire'' is a rare Eastern-style version of this - flying machines, [[ArtificialHuman golems]] and even ''power lines'' are present in what is otherwise a FantasyCounterpartCulture of Middle-Ages China. They're all established to be a combination of technology and sorcery.

* ''VideoGame/PlanescapeTorment'', being set in the D&D Planescape setting mentioned above and adding a thick layer of grime and rust and a grim, cynical storyline, is prime Dungeon Punk.

* Creator/HarryTurtledove's ''Darkness'' series of novels are set in a world which, through the application of FunctionalMagic, has achieved a technological level roughly equivalent to 1940s Earth.
** His ''War Between the Provinces'' is similar only with Civil War level tech.

* Tad Williams's "War of the Flowers" has a fairy kingdom which has developed this sort of society. According to a diary in the book, it used to be SteamPunk, too.