The year is 1891, and the engine of Progress in the world has surged forth ceaselessly in the past two decades. The sound of constant construction rings out in every city in the world, steel mills churning out the bones of the modern world and coal mines providing the blood. Every year some fantastical new technology changes life for the better and upends the old ways of doing things as soon as it's adopted. Massive advanced airships ply the skies, an aeronautical corps the logical next step after ocean shipping. Clockwork machines do hard labor, freeing men to educate and improve themselves. The deeply strange phenomena of electricity, radium ores, and exotic rays are just beginning to be probed by the world's most daring scientists, and news of these investigations are carried into the homes of the wealthy by invisible wireless transmissions.

The ominous news of a summer with temperatures a full fifteen degrees cooler than usual has put the whole world off-guard, however. It's a 'climate anomaly' that scientists are struggling to explain, and so far none of the theories you've read hold up to actual scrutiny. But something about it has you worried... Crop failures are all but certain, and when the food is gone chaos is soon to follow. You've already bought up large amounts of food to tide over your employees for this winter, but what if it gets worse?

Surely this climate anomaly won't last for multiple years. Every major scientific publication is proclaiming that things will probably go back to normal next year.

But what if it doesn't?

What if it lasts for years? What if it gets worse?

You'll have to be ready.