The setting for the game restart is the planet Earth in the year 2009. Most of the action will take place in the United States of America and characters are assumed to speak English as their default starting language.
The average person would notice few significant differences between the game world and the real world that you and I live in. There are some minor historical differences – like the New Orleans Saints NFL franchise moving to San Antonio after Hurricane Katrina in 2005 – but, as far as most people know, world geopolitics, science, technology, climate, popular culture, etc. are consistent with our real world.
As you'll see below, though, the world is not what it seems. Strange things lurk just outside the perception of ordinary people…
Character Background
All characters are assumed to have the following shared elements in their background. If you feel like writing up more details specific to your character, that's fine (and I'll probably hand out some bonus XP for those that do).
Your life was perfectly normal and uninteresting until sometime in the summer of 2006. That's when the dreams started. In these unusually vivid and realistic dreams, you found yourself a heroic character in a foreign world – a world with a weird combination of advanced technology and magic where you fought monsters and villains. As time passed, these dreams began to recur night after night. They recurred, but did not repeat themselves. Instead, each night's dream seemed to build on what happened the previous night, as if your subconscious was telling you a story.
After a year or more of these dreams, you could stand it no more. You had to find out the source of these dreams or unlock the meaning behind them. Were the dreams somehow more than dreams? Were they memories of a past life? Were they a message from some outside source? You quit or took a leave of absence from your job and everyday life in order to pursue answers to those questions.
If your character is a "reincarnation" of your character from the previous game (more on this later), then the dreams essentially told the story of your role in that game. If your character is brand new, then the dreams told some other, equally weird, story – maybe something from another RPG you've played. Up to you. It is possible that your character also had some other encounter with the occult or unexplained phenomena that drove him or her to make this life change – a Bigfoot sighting, a vampire attack, strange lights in the sky, etc. Up to you. It's something you can expand on in your background, if you want.
Eventually, your search led you to an unexpected source of answers: The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., specifically the Smithsonian's Esoteric Studies Program (ESP). ESP, a little-known branch of a famous organization, has for decades been quietly seeking out people like yourself – people who have had strange, unexplained experiences and who possess the skills and will to seek explanations. After a few interviews and odd tests that took place in the basement of the National Postal Museum, the helpful ESP staff revealed a few facts to you:
Although the ESP staff could not conclusively explain your strange dreams, they confirmed that the dreams (along with your other experiences, as appropriate) marked you as a sensitive. Combined with your skills and background, your sensitivity made you an ideal candidate for a Gamma Team. Relieved to learn you weren't going insane, you jumped at the opportunity…Esoteric Studies Program Introductory Brochure wrote:
Shadow, Sensitives, and the Smithsonian
The world is not as it seems. Magic and monsters – like the things you've seen in your dreams – exist. Things most people think of as pure fiction – magic spells, mental powers, vampires, werewolves, mummies – are all too real. The Smithsonian categorizes these things as "Shadow."
Though the monsters exist, few people can see them as they truly are. Most people are blissfully ignorant of the nature of the threat that encroaches on us all. Their minds can't comprehend the strangeness, so they see what they expect to see. Faced with magic or otherworldly creatures, they dismiss it as a costume or a trick of the light – at least until the final moments when it's too late.
For whatever reason – fate, divine intervention, genetics, and ancient curse, or even coincidence – some small subset of the human race is predisposed to awareness of Shadow, of what lurks beyond the perception of most people. The Smithsonian categorizes these people as "sensitives." In the past, such people have been called seers, parapsychologists, fortune-tellers, mystics, or (most often) lunatics.
Throughout history, groups of sensitives have banded together to protect oblivious humanity from the threats represented by the monsters in the shadows, and from the less scrupulous sensitives who would use magic and monsters for personal gain. Since the organization's founding, the Smithsonian Institution has included sensitives on its staff (the professions of archeology and history seem to draw sensitives like flies). The Institution has been the U.S.'s primary source of research on, and defense against, Shadow.
During the early years, the Smithsonian focused on collecting and securing magical knowledge and ancient artifacts useful in the fight against Shadow. This arsenal, along with Smithsonian staff trained in its use, was loaned out to various other organizations in the U.S. government (usually the military, law enforcement agencies, and, oddly enough, the Postal Service) as needed.
The Esoteric Studies Program (ESP) was formed within the Institution in the late 1960's, under the leadership of a gentleman named Manuel Sorian, to serve as the primary U.S. organization in dealing with Shadow. This provided a more centralized approach to dealing with these matters and eliminated complications in dealing with other government agencies, whose leaders often included non-sensitives unable to comprehend the need to draw on the Smithsonian's resources.
In cooperation with the Smithsonian's Office of Protection Services (OPS), ESP began training field teams of agents, called "Gamma Teams," to deal directly with Shadow threats. Gamma Teams are made up of sensitives, often with military or law enforcement backgrounds, and sometimes include persons with innate magical or psionic talents of their own.
After 9/11, ESP and its Gamma Teams were given joint status as a branch of the newly formed Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Within DHS, ESP is known as "Department-7." Although ESP remains organizationally within the Smithsonian Institution, this joint status allows Gamma Team members to carry identification as agents of Homeland Security. This can sometimes aid in securing the assistance of local law enforcement agencies. Institution policy, however, recommends maintaining as low a profile as possible, to avoid general panic among the non-sensitive public.
You have spent the last 9 months in intensive training at various ESP facilities hidden in and around Washington, D.C., including in the basement of the National Portrait Gallery, the laboratories at the Air and Space Museum Annex, and the restricted-access lots behind the National Zoo. With the completion of your Gamma Team training, the strange dreams have finally stopped, and you are ready to take on your first assignment…