I'm looking for inspiration for a character I'm building. The setting is going to basically be Supernatural, if it was steampunk instead of urban fantasy. My chatacter is a mad scientist who is obsessed with creating new and 'useful' inventions. The core concept for him is based on that quote from Jurrasic Park. He's so obsessed with figuring out if he can build his creations that he never thinks about whether or not he should .

With that in mind, I'm struggling somewhat to come up with interesting inventions for him.

Right now, the ones my DM has okayed are a perpetual motion device that will constantly produce just enough electricity to power a lightbulb, an oversized lantern that also cooks small amounts of food, a Swiss army knife-type multitool with some interesting additions, a clockwork man that he uses as his lab assistant, and the equivalent of a steampunk Ironman suit (based off of the armor in the steampunk section of Genesys that adds 1 Brawn and increases Silhouette to 2).

Right now, I'm not really concerned about weapons, as those will be made over the course of the game depending on the types of things we commonly run across. I just want some ideas for quirky, morally-gray and ambiguously-useful items that my character could create. This is more for the sake of theme and narrative, so I don't care whether or not these items have any in-game use.

So with that in mind, what wacky steampunk inventions do you guys think would be fun?

Spring loaded boots
Phosphorus Grenades
Steam Propulsion Ornithopter
Clockwork Cat
Electro-Magnetic Grapple Arm

Just having a peek, curious about what one could intend for a career, stumbled upon a typo, presumably.

Now that I'm here: Any self-respecting steampunk character does need a pair of outlandish spectacles, probably of the Swiss-Army persuasion: different rotating/folding/intermountable lenses.

In a time and age like that a person of stature would never leave the house without a headpiece, would they? Simple hats and caps are just so boring. Think of something; you're the intentor!

An umbrella-helicopter, that will let you fly a short distance (one flying manoeuvre per encounter).

And of course: the Holocaust Cloak, not sure what it's supposed to do.

A working version of The Turk. Obviously, you had to make it highly intelligent to play chess, and at this you succeeded admirably. It's so intelligent, in fact, that it's never lost a game. It's so intelligent, in fact, that a good portion of its mechanical clicking is actually an attempt to communicate in Morse code. Of course, its intelligence does have limits: For instance, it actually hates playing chess and thinks that finding a better player will allow it to be freed of its confinement and live as a human while its opponent is forced become the new Turk. But other than that, it's highly intelligent.

3 minutes ago, Grimmerling said:

Just having a peek, curious about what one could intend for a career, stumbled upon a typo, presumably.

Now that I'm here: Any self-respecting steampunk character does need a pair of outlandish spectacles, probably of the Swiss-Army persuasion: different rotating/folding/intermountable lenses.

In a time and age like that a person of stature would never leave the house without a headpiece, would they? Simple hats and caps are just so boring. Think of something; you're the intentor!

An umbrella-helicopter, that will let you fly a short distance (one flying manoeuvre per encounter).

And of course: the Holocaust Cloak, not sure what it's supposed to do.

Yes, that is most certainly a typo in the title. Autocorrect is the bane of my very being

I suppose you've already got a difference engine in your laboratory; technically it might emulate the research records workshop benefit from Special Modifications.

39 minutes ago, Underachiever599 said:

[...] a Swiss army knife-type multitool [...]

Just remembered seeing this on QI:

6 hours ago, Grimmerling said:

Just remembered seeing this on QI:

A very similar picture is what inspired my character's multitool

Actually. I kind of like the name "Intentor"

It strikes me as the name for a nutty inventor who focuses on intent of objects (but whose inventions generally get repurposed).