~World Changes~

Ancient stories, myths, legends, tales all abound with creatures, with abilities, with matters and beings beyond normal human capability. But then, at some point in history, these tales petered out. Sure, they were still there in various forms, comics, movies, but people stopped believing in them - and those that didn't were labelled 'weird' or 'mad'. The world became a very human place to be. The world became a safer place to be, because, for all the wars and hurt mankind waged and created, for all the famine and hunger and environmental issues, there was that feeling of control, of knowledge. that faith that though it was known that humans were capable of terrible things, they were still human. They weren't demons, they weren't monsters, they weren't unknowable things with special powers and alien mindsets. They were just people, at the end of the day - people who may not act in a way that others could support, but they did it in ways that people could understand - they didn't do it using some kind of ability that most people lacked. there was a control there.

The human world just wasn't ready to learn how wrong they were. Maybe that was why things got so bad, so quickly. It started on Halloween, when for some reason that is still unclear, the veil between this world and the spirit world dropped, and suddenly everyone could see spirits. Suddenly everyone could see what had been argued as being a figment of the imagination, or a good camera trick for so many years. They were there, they were real.

The following full moon, a group of lycanthropes forcefully took over a TV station in upstate New York and broadcast their Change - a broadcast that got syndicated all over the world, made every news report for days. Their message had been clear - we're here, but we're not monsters. Things seemed okay, after that - at least for a little while. It seemed that the world was adjusting to the new reality. The initial panic over spirits died down, lycanthropes - though a shock, were accepted by most. A large number of people were even excited by the prospect, buying into the fact that the movies had it wrong.

Twenty-eight days the lull lasted - a lunar cycle. It lasted until the next full moon, when the real monsters came out. When so many people died or were permanently changed by bitten werewolves - the one type of lyncathrope not mentioned by those who overtook the tv station, the cursed line...they were like the movies. They were the mindless killing machines of pop culture. No one ever found out who set it up, because it had to be a set up--so many all at once, someone was doing this on purpose, but after a while? It didn't matter. Lycanthropy spread like wildfire in some places, causing one government to bomb some of their own cities to quell it the next full moon.

And the world wasn't done with it's surprises yet. After that, Vampires came forward. They revealed that they existed, and they had the whole time. That they were around, and that people were going to have to deal with it. The world had different reactions. Some flocked to sign themselves up as vampiric 'pets', to be their blood sources. The vampiric culture that had existed mainly in fantasy before was catered to, particularly by a particular Bloodline, the Venuste. Sure, there were other vampires, but they really grabbed the spotlight. Or, they did for a little while before packs of vampires started popping up here and there, leaving entire towns dead in their wake.

Some people say that the reason that both vampirism and lycanthropy were declared as diseases was simply the reaction of government (or governments) who were trying to maintain some semblance of control over their populations. After all, diseases could be understood, they could be fought on purely human levels. Whatever the real reason, it was put forth by first one government, and it as quickly picked up by others. That issue is still being heavily and sometimes violently debated in the court systems. And if it was for the reason of maintaining control, it didn't work.

It probably would have been easier if everything had calmly come out openly one thing at a time. There could have been explanations, people could have learned. But the way it was done, with things falling over themselves to be open - people got very scared, rumours hit hard and fast, there was misinformation everywhere and people panicked. And the supernaturals panicked. There were mobs, lynchings, all sorts of madness. Lots of people ran for the hills - only to find that the hills was were supernaturals had been hiding for decades (plus, they didn't know how to survive in 'the hills', so did pretty damn badly anyhow).

Society was crumbling - faster in some countries than others, but human society in every country in the world was showing the strain of the sudden realisation that the supernatural not only existed, but was integrated into society itself.

Trust went out the window. After all, most things had been hiding out as human - masquerading as human. And the straight humans found out things they really didn't know about their nearest and dearest, their next door neighbours, the people they'd trusted their kids to. Lots of people had been lying to everyone, and nobody really knew what was and wasn't possible.

The worst came in a small eastern European country, when the population realised that over 95% of their democratically elected governing body were demons. The world watched the reports as the country imploded in a few short weeks. And then the world watched again as other countries turned on their representatives and rulers. Some countries attempted a 'no tolerance' policy against the supernatural as a backlash, with disastrous results. Whatever the reaction, more than one government fell in the wake - other countries ended up in all out civil war, or ended up turning on their neighbours. It didn't matter about the truth anymore, or so it seemed. Witch hunts were rife once again. Only this time, there were real witches, and more so.

All in all, there is no central store of 'knowledge', nobody giving out information. The government certainly isn't - plus, there is massive distrust of government since it was discovered that key figures in all levels of government were demons, or suspected of being demons. In at least two States there have been assassinations of governors because they either were shown to be, or highly suspected of being demons. There is also a flood of misinformation available. Many books were rushed to print after things started--only to be found out later that their content was largely false or misleading. Not only that but there's a whole culture and history of horror novels, movies, fantasy genre...all of it is part of the world, and yet so much of it is wildly untrue. But that's what people have to work with, and generally it's been found that people will fall back on Hollywood's versions of things and swear it's the 'truth' instead of coming at something with the knowledge that they don't know all the answers.

Things changed so fast that some people called it truly the end of the world. Some areas were harder hit than others, but no area escaped. In America, society has largely broken down in all but a few areas. Federal government has all but ceased to exist, State government is not much better. Local government is the only remaining suggestion of control, and that varies from area to area. Vigilante justice is becoming more common these days as citizens seek to maintain control of their own towns in the absence of anything more authoritative. Schooling of children is considered an optional extra as people look more towards survival than formal education.

The world, for all intents and purposes, was changing on a rapid, unchecked basis, nobody could keep track of what was and wasn't happening. Nobody knew what was new, what had always been there, and what was going extinct - and some types of supernaturals really didn't survive the changes. For example, at one point, there had been 'willworkers' in the world - people who could bend reality to their will - but they don't exist anymore. Reality changed so fast and hard that most of them were killed outright, and if they weren't, their own brand of magic ate them.

In early February, what the supernatural world had referred to as 'seemings' dropped entirely for unknown reasons. Just like the spirit world's veil being drawn back and no one understands why, any innate 'magic' that worked to hide the supernatural for what it was stopped working. As a result of this, other supernatural species were wiped off the map as well, a few of them creatures that had been around for just as long as humanity, they just came in smaller numbers. Most of these died off because they were obviously alien in appearance, and an easy target for hunters now that their seemings were gone. For example, there were once gorgons around, but they got wiped out in record time. Nothing like a person with a head full of snakes to scream 'hey, target over here' to someone out looking for blood. They didn't go down quietly though, and more than one town has a memorial 'statue' of a gorgon victim in a prominent place of a permanent reminder of the dangers of the supernatural.

Game Location Specific

Marquette

Whilst supernatural matters didn't start occurring in most of the world until last halloween, events started in Marquette some months before that - and they started badly. It was the end of summer when the town first got hit by things that people struggled to define as 'normal' (though many people did try and write off what was happening in a way that they could understand).

Below is a timeline of events that have occurred in Marquette only, both before the game started and during the game (we will add in significant events as they occur). Events which have affected the entire world, and events that have affected only a few characters that other characters do not need to have known about are not included in this list.

~Timeline Of Events In Marquette~

• Early August: Garoupe attack the town, resulting in several deaths and many hospitalizations.

• Autumn: Some psychics in town start having dreams which call them to a mine on the road to Neguanee. They find a healing spring and a doorway to the inbetween (note: the mine is located outside the loops)
• Early September: A large pack of vampires of the Ferals family hit town and cause death, chaos and mayhem for a week before moving on to terrorise somewhere else.
  Mid September: Shroud Eaters target the town, at first simply being there, then after five days they start going after anyone who they consider doesn't belong, then after another couple of days they start attacking anybody at all. During the days of their attacks they come in constant, two hour waves.

• October: On the days leading up to the full moon, there are a rash of 'wild animal attacks' which injure a substantial number of people. On the night of the full moon, it becomes clear that these people had actually been attacked by a bitten werewolf as Marquette suddenly has a real werewolf problem - many more people are attacked. In the days following the full moon there is a rash of murders - caused by hunters taking out the new weres whilst they are still in human form and injured.
• November: The Collective starts sending serious numbers of ARC units to the town as a result of the supernatural activity in the area.
• Winter Solstice: the loops start appearing
• Groundhog Day: The loops get worse, Marquette is largely cut off from the outside world.

Other game Locations

Currently, Marquette is the main game location. If and when we get enough take up of other game areas (a handful of playable characters) we will develop those other areas further. If you take a character in another game location (which we encourage), you can work with the mods to develop that area for the rest of the game! In the meantime, information can be found about the other playable areas on the Game Locations page.