Welcome, ladies and... morons, to:
LORE DUMP
Nuke?
What do you mean by Nuke?
Also, I need info regarding:
Present military sizes/readiness status/technology/magic-use levels
Present sentiment towards magic/technology by various groups
Present world leaders and government policies
Knowledge of in what ways the world map is different, politically, from real life(don't give me bullshit about it not being different; this would spark so many civil wars and revolutions it's actually kinda scary to think about)
Requests to codify some lore(primarily concerning the treatment of corporations and how corporation and rights for them have changed in the setting over time)
Requests to heavily fuck with the setting in a 'status-quo has changed' way that probably won't have too drastic long-term consequences for the players
Character motivations and permission to work with people to incorporate their characters into the plot in a more interwoven and interesting way
Present Void knowledge in the world at large
True God lore
Elemental lore
Summoning lore
Magitek lore
Wall Street
The Date, in-game
Permissions for time-skips
'Nuke', as in something that explodes with the force of a nuclear bomb or greater. Big explosion things of mass destruction.
Note: the following is my knowledge of the situation, because fuck telling the OVERGM anything . I'd recommend you read the titbit section at the start of the OOC thread too. If you have a spare 300 hours, you could probably read through the entirety of V2 and become the Dark Lord of Lore, and all would bow to you. This got off topic.
Present military sizes/readiness status/technology/magic-use levels
Varies immensely. Some countries are still equipped with fairly old-world gear, others with massive stockpiles of arcane weapons and magical soldiers. PMCs seem to have taken the lead in this.
Present sentiment towards magic/technology by various groups
Everyone loves technology, as far as I know. Magic? Only the US seems to have a problem with it, for some fucked up reason I can't comprehend. Most countries attempt to ignore it, or just tolerate it, and a select few embrace it, including Australia and Japan.
Present world leaders and government policies
America just got a new president, using the fact that magic is fucked up to propel himself into power. He don't like magic. Africa has mostly been consumed by Murder Night, although several organisations are attempting to pick away at her empire. Other countries I'm not too sure of, but they'll be mundanish, with maybe one or two fantastic racists sprinkled here and there.
Knowledge of in what ways the world map is different, politically, from real life
Well, Africa was a giant ball of civil war free-for-fuck-all before Murder Night stomped a good section into line. Think a Roman-style empire, with muggle slaves. It is fairly stable, except when people go around killing her generals, which leads to unrest. Nevertheless, crime rates are down inside the empire. The rest of Africa is currently being pacified by several PMCs, or SERT, although many are joining MN's empire instead.
Western Europe has been held together by EU - just. Eastern Europe, on the other hand, went absolutely batshit crazy, one of the many reasons SERT was put together. Russia fired up the old steamroller and flattened some of the revolution, other civil wars completely reshaping the borders of some countries, a city state or two emerging here and there.
Australia and NZ were, well, meh. As in nothing of non-wildlife-related-murder interest happened, as per normal. They have embraced the magic, with magicians becoming minor celebrities,
happily boosting the ego of the PCs and their owners. Huge amounts of refugees from magic-related shenanigans are still being processed, most being sent back home.
North America was about as chill with it as the rest of the world until the Shade incident happened, destroying New York. Yet another reason for SERT. This did not go well for the magical community, which is more or less heavily repressed at the moment, racist 50's style. Also, the South continue to be racist bigots, with magic now being a target. However, with the dawn of what some are calling Mithril Age of Space Travel, putting a satellite into Low-Earth Orbit and even higher orbits became much, much cheaper. This led to a proliferation of satellites for various purposes, from major (allowing all locations to receive satellite-based telecommunications and surprisingly fast Internet) to petty (an array of geosynchrous communication satellites which keeps one over a given city at all times). Unfortunately, collisions between satellites, often involving so called pirate satellites put in orbits without proper permission, have caused many to believe that Kessler Syndrome is going to be coming into play shortly. It is feared that this could destroy countless satellites, crippling much of the global communications network, especially in poorer countries, and possibly even leading to spacecraft debris crashing to Earth. A spacecraft sent up to try and curb the issue by safely de-orbiting defunct or illegal satellites was famously struck by another satellite within hours of deployment.
Central America went further to shit than normal, until a warlord with a private magical army rose up and stabilised his government. Despite being little more than an uneducated military man, he managed to keep his little corner of the world in a semi-controlled heap, although the drug trafficking is probably far worse than ever before.
South America was also a giant ball of war, with gang-wars elevating into national crises spanning half the continent. South America is now compressed into a forced alliance, more or less having a single supergovernment trying to pin down the riots, gang wars, and mafia activity, with varying success. Another reason for SERT's existence, although it is not the best tool for the job here.
Asia! Massive uprising from the serf population toppled China and India, both still gluing themselves back together after a bloody, dirty revolution not to be talked about in polite conversation, which resulted in several smaller states in makeshift confederacies. Japan managed to isolate itself, again, although it did have a large influx of refugees. Japan did sorta go crazy with the magitek, making a ridiculously large amount of advanced technology they sell to anyone with enough coins to spare, unwittingly arming warlords and militaries worldwide with things they shouldn't have, like mecha, pocket dimensions, and even Kaiju.
South East Asia went to absolute shit, all semblance of the original governments being gone. Instead, each inhabited island is more or less an independent city-state, wars between them being common, short, and ultimately pointless. Singapore acts like the disappointed parent to the lot of them, hosting the SEAC (SEA Council), jokingly referred to as 'The Kiddies' UN'.
The Middle East got hammered moderately hard, with super-rich oil barons keeping the peace (and continuing the age old religious wars) with new magically enhanced armies. The occasional fanatic-led crusade usually occurs every six months, usually dealt with within a day or two. Shia-Sunni-Jew tensions came to a head two years back, until a five-year peace treaty was signed by all sides during a major crisis that threatened all of the holy cities... but that's another story. dun dun duuun
Russia has turned a blind eye to most of the chaos, although it did snatch a fair chunk of Eastern Europe (again), calling it 'peacekeeping'. Well, they did restore order, but they don't appear to be relinquishing the territories anytime soon. Siberia is a good place to go if you wish to find either secluded magical communities or supervillains.
Antarctica is still Antarctica. Rumors speak of a colony of sentient penguins carving a civilisation out of the ice and rock, but there is no proof of this so far.
Overall, imagine every second and third world country beating the shit out of each other (and themselves), while the first world bunkered down and ran away into space.
Requests to codify some lore(primarily concerning the treatment of corporations and how corporation and rights for them have changed in the setting over time)
I'd need to read the stuff first, and compare it to the pile of crap I've already amassed. If it fits, I'll make it official.
Requests to heavily fuck with the setting in a 'status-quo has changed' way that probably won't have
too drastic long-term consequences for the players
Changing the status quo is some world-breaking shit right there. The world is still pretty banged up as is, so heavily fucking with the setting isn't going to be happening more than once or twice.
Character motivations and permission to work with people to incorporate their characters into the plot in a more interwoven and interesting way
Motivation is a tricky one. Why do we want to do anything? You need to think of things that people will want to join, without having to hold a gun to their heads. Good luck with this one.
Character integration? This is good. Like, cocaine good. This needs to happen more often.
Present Void knowledge in the world at large - ask Akroma.
True God lore - I'd tell you to ask Elf, but he's not playing anymore... Define 'True' god.
Elemental lore - ask Akroma. Elementals are beings of pure creation, the oldest in existence because they are composed of primal energy that existed when magic was created in the first place.
Summoning lore - depends on the type of summoning.
Wall Street - im not even sure if this lore is valid anymore since Emp left.
In my personal opinion: Screw lore, just make your own Twilight dimension and go from there.
The Date, in-game - at the moment, mid-July. Not enough time has passed in-game to keep it up with us.
Permissions for time-skips - You need to ask everyone if they're okay with it, and only then will I approve the jump.