I've recently discovered a nifty little subgenre after seeing a comment on youtube. It's called midevalpunk. Think everything you know about the pre industrial era like horses, weapons and gear, as well as politics and combine it with primitive, sometimes early inventions like steam engines, primitive combustion engines and bolt action rifles, revolvers as well as early motor vehicles.
This period did exist IRL. like from 1900-1930s. WW1 is the closest you could get to this subgenre. Its a really cool setting if you add a bit of mana and magic into the mix. This really resonates with me since I love the premise of combining magics and technology. what do y'all think of this? I'm really curious on you opinion on this subgenre.
I don't want to be that guy, buuuut, the era before the Pre Industrial Period would be the Renaissance. For example, this is where Steampunk, and its subgenre Clock(work)punk usually take place.
But around that period 1900-1930s, that's also the time where the Wild West dies down in the US, Cattlepunk, and the Global Industrial Era start, Dieselpunk.
For me, -Punks are mostly an aesthetic and general background for stories. General background in a sense where the culture and morals of the setting also affect the story, e.g. Victorian era.
Like you can have your medievalpunk setting, with all the knights and castl.
And then you can also have neon lights lining up the local tavern, along with people and horses having working metal prosthetics.
Heck you can even have, a chainsaw for a hand if you want to, I'd still read that shit.
I'd probably even dream about if I was reading while high.
However, I'm still aware how punk literature started as anti-mainstream stories where part of the focus is also given to technology on society.
That's probably why there's no medievalpunk since civilization is still running on sticks and stones at that point, not much tech to go around unless you put one.
(Aristocrats on the other hand are a big Anti-mainstream target tbh.)
Like in stone punk, you can have tribes riding on raptors, and dinosaurs, while throwing spears that explode on impact.
To be fair tho, I don't understand how Sandal Punk works. Maybe you can add post apocalyptic desert punk in the mix? Or sci-fi for something like Dune?
I think it's up to you on what tech you want to add in your medievalpunk.
If it's just magic, well, that's just medieval fantasy.
If you add magitek, "runes", and dungeons, you'll probably get Dungeonpunk.
There's also Castlepunk which I don't know how to categorize, after a quick look it says that it's about alchemy and fairies.
It's probably Aristocrat/Court Drama with Wizards and their towers in the mix.