Glossary of Terms
- Emergent, Manifested - Initially an adjective for people, it has since expanded to describe any sort of magically active thing, place or being as of late December of 2011. Emergent people, plants, animals, places and objects all exist. This is the politically-correct term for it in the United States and Canada. There are many more less flattering terms, of course.
- NPC's - Disparaging term for regular humans, especially the people that hate Emergents (such as many of the religious fanatics in the country) used by American Emergents in turn. Particularly popular with the ones that have been caught and put in camps. It was a popular term among roleplayers, before roleplaying games and science-fiction novels were pulled off bookstore shelves during the last couple months of hysteria, and outright banned in certain states, as if they were the reason all this came about.
- Shame-kisser - A disparaging term among anti-Emergent groups, often religious, for people who support the rights of Emergents. It refers to the 16th century myth of one of the rituals of witchcraft, the Osculum Infame, involving a kiss to the anus as a show of subservient. It was first used by a famous televangelist mid-sermon, and caught on from there.
- Freakville - Synonymous with the holding camps for Emergents, be they large or small, as run by FEMA and the Department of Homeland Security.
- Pitchfork Party - A facetious term for NPC attacks on Emergents, alluding to peasants with torches and pitchforks, though these days they're more likely to have Molotov cocktails and shotguns.
- Coven – Any gathering or attempt at community by the magically active – this is certainly a loanword from mega-church lingo, which encourages the use of the lexicon of witch hunting as slang for the Emergents.
- Alpha-Omega Type - Classification of the Emergents as given by the DHS upon in-processing at a camp like the Nellis AFB facility, but also part of the shorthand for communicating observed powers. Classifications are as follows:
- Type: Alpha - Confirmed dangerous emergent with abilities that can directly harm someone. These people are processed differently than others -- they are first brought into isolation units for observation and 'testing' before release into the general population. All inmates can be drugged if the guards see fit, but Alphas are almost always drugged to some degree, often on high-dose benzodiazepines.
- Type: Beta - Physically altered. Currently, people are still undergoing sudden changes, in the camp and outside the camp, which is to say, the process is ongoing. If warranted, this class of inmates is physically shackled, muzzled or otherwise restrained so as to not present a threat to other inmates and the guards.
- Type: Gamma - Emergent with abilities to produce apparitions or alter perception. Also kept on high dose benzodiazepines or some other anti-anxiety/behavior control drug as a rule.
- Type: Omega - Unknown/General Population of Emergents. Classification to be expanded as trends in emergence are identified.
In Character Info
It's late October, 2013, and the uncertainty of life, often buried deep in the psyche of humanity, is suddenly a raw and very exposed nerve. Things have emerged and the false serenity of society is irrevocably swept away on a tide of the supernatural.
The world is turning upside down. Things are emerging from a long dormancy, their spirits either finding flesh on their own or fusing with the nearest host and twisting them into something else. From the beautiful to the freakish, it was almost as if someone unlocked a spiritual vault and threw the doors wide open, heedless of what would emerge, heedless of the things this force would overturn.
Magic came back on September 23th, 2012 (the equinox); people suddenly manifested abilities. Some changed shape to misshapen or supernaturally beautiful beings, others manipulated energies by their will and mind. Society was not prepared, and fell into all sorts of social unrest, including lynchings, riots and vigilantism. Not everyone was grabbing a shotgun or gardening tool to go after these newly-minted 'Emergents' but there was a torrent of hate on the TV and on the radio, a furious argument about how to respond.
Irrationality won out, as it almost always does when fear sinks into the mass psyche.
Initially, at the behest of the more vocal and hardliner group of Americans, yelling for the government to 'do something,' especially with people taking it to their own hands and 'doing something' themselves, often with encouragement through the internet or the radio or the pulpit; vigilante violence against Emergents. These people, backed up against the wall, lashed out -- their uncontrolled, sometimes dangerous talents gave the newscasts of these incidents a horror movie feel, especially as the media played up the most extreme example, partially for ratings.
There was, of course, a chance for the government to stand up to this trend, but instead the government did two things; they put a law into effect recognizing that Emergents were not human, and therefore not accorded the rights of the 14th Amendment -- the Supreme Court shot down the challenges, and then used the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 to justify deploying military force, under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), specifically the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to start rounding up Emergents, as they were being called, to be placed in containment camps, often on military bases, "for the protection of everyone involved." Darker rumors swirled, that the various governments of the world were frantic to understand these forces and dead set on controlling or containing these disruptions.
In December, right before Christmas (the 21st, the Solstice, as well as the prophesied end of the Mayan calendar/start of a new age), suddenly the animals and plants, things and places, started to show emergent traits; limited phenomena at first and then a buildup to a crescendo point. Many Emergents felt it in their bones, but most of them managed to conceal this feeling of burgeoning power, a sudden increase in these new-found things they do. They know they are hunted and being kept, and so they keep their own secrets from a secretive government. Quietly, affecting a degree of docility, the inmates at Nellis begin to plan...
Haye, Pennsylvania finds itself swept up in a dire situation as the federal government, largely overwhelmed, is having to put out fires in all kinds of places and leaves a lot of others on their own. Small towns like this are largely cut off due to a lack of resources, and small town America has undergone a sudden change – sure, the internet is open, and there phones are working, and there's even wireless coverage (sometimes) but the land outside of the metropolitan areas, where humanity is still sparse enough, thrums alive with mystical energy. The federal government is happy to come and sweep up a few locals that emerged, turned in by some fervent relatives or other locals that knew them, though the act of ratting on other locals has torn this small-knit town apart. The feds themselves are little help – they ride in with their automatic weapons on armored vehicles, make a big show of apprehending someone that is scared out of their wits, maybe a kid, and then ride back, acting like they'd faced down Old Scratch himself.
Then the town has to live with itself while it deals with the problems of Emergence...alone.
The world is turning upside down. Things are emerging from a long dormancy, their spirits either finding flesh on their own or fusing with the nearest host and twisting them into something else. From the beautiful to the freakish, it was almost as if someone unlocked a spiritual vault and threw the doors wide open, heedless of what would emerge, heedless of the things this force would overturn.
Magic came back on September 23th, 2012 (the equinox); people suddenly manifested abilities. Some changed shape to misshapen or supernaturally beautiful beings, others manipulated energies by their will and mind. Society was not prepared, and fell into all sorts of social unrest, including lynchings, riots and vigilantism. Not everyone was grabbing a shotgun or gardening tool to go after these newly-minted 'Emergents' but there was a torrent of hate on the TV and on the radio, a furious argument about how to respond.
Irrationality won out, as it almost always does when fear sinks into the mass psyche.
Initially, at the behest of the more vocal and hardliner group of Americans, yelling for the government to 'do something,' especially with people taking it to their own hands and 'doing something' themselves, often with encouragement through the internet or the radio or the pulpit; vigilante violence against Emergents. These people, backed up against the wall, lashed out -- their uncontrolled, sometimes dangerous talents gave the newscasts of these incidents a horror movie feel, especially as the media played up the most extreme example, partially for ratings.
There was, of course, a chance for the government to stand up to this trend, but instead the government did two things; they put a law into effect recognizing that Emergents were not human, and therefore not accorded the rights of the 14th Amendment -- the Supreme Court shot down the challenges, and then used the National Defense Authorization Act of 2011 to justify deploying military force, under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), specifically the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), to start rounding up Emergents, as they were being called, to be placed in containment camps, often on military bases, "for the protection of everyone involved." Darker rumors swirled, that the various governments of the world were frantic to understand these forces and dead set on controlling or containing these disruptions.
In December, right before Christmas (the 21st, the Solstice, as well as the prophesied end of the Mayan calendar/start of a new age), suddenly the animals and plants, things and places, started to show emergent traits; limited phenomena at first and then a buildup to a crescendo point. Many Emergents felt it in their bones, but most of them managed to conceal this feeling of burgeoning power, a sudden increase in these new-found things they do. They know they are hunted and being kept, and so they keep their own secrets from a secretive government. Quietly, affecting a degree of docility, the inmates at Nellis begin to plan...
Haye, Pennsylvania finds itself swept up in a dire situation as the federal government, largely overwhelmed, is having to put out fires in all kinds of places and leaves a lot of others on their own. Small towns like this are largely cut off due to a lack of resources, and small town America has undergone a sudden change – sure, the internet is open, and there phones are working, and there's even wireless coverage (sometimes) but the land outside of the metropolitan areas, where humanity is still sparse enough, thrums alive with mystical energy. The federal government is happy to come and sweep up a few locals that emerged, turned in by some fervent relatives or other locals that knew them, though the act of ratting on other locals has torn this small-knit town apart. The feds themselves are little help – they ride in with their automatic weapons on armored vehicles, make a big show of apprehending someone that is scared out of their wits, maybe a kid, and then ride back, acting like they'd faced down Old Scratch himself.
Then the town has to live with itself while it deals with the problems of Emergence...alone.
