What do monocles and hand-crank zombie cattle prods have in common? In the world of steampunk, it’s just a part of your daily outfit.

This past weekend, GameX was taken over by Steam Gear Lab and The League of S.T.E.A.M. for the Steampunk Fair. “Steampunk” mixes Victorian style with science fiction/science fantasy to create a futuristic world run by steam. That seems like a horrible clash of ideas, but somehow, it works. And it’s hot.

See? Hotness. Frankly, I think we should all dress like this all the time.

But I digress. I got the chance to hang out with the people from The League of S.T.E.A.M. on Saturday, and they made me smile. Especially when they whipped out this little contraption, which you can see the guy above (Mr. Crackitus Potts, aka Nick Baumann) wearing on his back:

That, my friends, is a cattle prod. A working cattle prod at that. Perhaps cattle isn’t the right word, though – it’s actually a zombie prod. You can’t see it in this picture, but it’s got a strobe light going and when you hold both ends, a pulse of electricity goes through you as someone cranks the other end. Yes, those are eels in a tank “powering” the contraption. Here’s another look at it, along with some pictures of James and Intern Richard getting zapped:

This zombie zapper brings up a really interesting point – steampunk is so versatile that it can crossover into multiple other genres really easily. We talked to the Steampunkers (I may have just made up that word. Is there an official word for people into steampunk?) about it, and they can fit in at so many different kinds of events. Steampunk can work at ren faires or with pirates. It can go more gothic or more “Old West” based. People extremely into LARP are interested in the weapons and armor; people who just like to cosplay are interested in the costumes. And of course, us gamers love ‘em.

Steampunk also changes how people think about role-playing in general. It isn’t just about running around with huge foam swords and costumes that are duct taped together. Once you get over the negative connotations that come with terms like “cosplay” and “LARP,” you can actually start to play with some really cool stuff. The weapons, costume pieces, and other hand-made items they showed me were incredibly detailed and took hours to create.

If you haven’t checked out any of this kind of stuff before, please do so. This isn’t a new revolution (hello, Final Fantasy fans, let’s take a walk down memory lane to FFIII), but it is one that I daresay is gaining steam. Har har.

Special thanks to all of the people in the Steampunk booth for humoring me as I brought person after person back to the table to be shocked.

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