From the introduction:
Hallucinogenia is a game about adventure, action, horror, black comedy, mystery and the occult.
Set in around the last decade of the 19th century, in a world that is similar to but not quite like ours, Hallucinogenia will lead you to the twilight world of spies, gentlemen adventurers, soldiers of fortune, magicians, alchemists, mad scientists, revolutionaries, Bohemian poets dreaming opium dreams, ghost hunters, brutal thugs and daring airship pilots.
It will lead you into shady opium dens of London, the bohemian establishments of gay Paris, far-off lands, princely manors, lost cities, ancient tombs, strange places hidden between the ripped fabric of reality. You will encounter things weird and wonderful, humourous and horrifying, beautiful and twisted.
The world of Hallucinogenia is a world of secrets, a world where jealous States play the Great Game of espionage, sacrificing morality and ethics on the altar of national rivalry. Here mad scientists build their impossible Infernal Devices, bypassing the limits of mere reality. It is a world where magicians seek enlightment and power through studying the alien energies of the five elemental fields, trying to harness and utilise their power. Here the dead may not always lie down, coming back to haunt the living.