Mush news:Setting

There is a beautiful city, popular and populous. It is a small sliver of Americana where residence live full lives and visitors travel in from the world over for the experiences it offers. Within this city, there are families that pull strings and individuals who experience great successes and great tragedies, there are secrets kept and secrets exposed. It’s a place where great challenges and dangers have been met and overcome. But what if things played out just a little differently? One small action changed can trigger a domino effect over the wider world. And that is what this game is.

The End of the World came on Friday, June 21, 2013. Some knew it was going to happen, some had time to prepare for themselves and for their loved ones. Most of the world didn’t see it coming and even amongst those who did, not everyone wanted to stop it or help others survive. Some embraced what was coming, reveling in the potential of change and the possibility of coming out on top of what was to be left of humanity. Some simply wanted the world to burn. This small region fared much better than much of the world, steps had been taken that helped, but those steps did not stop the terrible tide of things that came on that day.

Throughout the world, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, avalanches, floods, tsunami and storms tore apart civilizations and the majority of the structure of “modern society”. What was the United States was torn in two by coastal earthquakes that triggered massive tsunami that washed over the populated outer areas of the country and by an earthquake of the New Madrid fault line that triggered an eruption of the Yellowstone Caldera that all happened within the same day. Other nations fared no better with disasters within their own countries.

But there was more to these events than just the disasters of the planet that seemed to strike back at the creatures that lived on it, and those that survived the things that happened saw even more that had been unbelievable and myth before. The world is full of more than just people and animals, insects, birds and fish. There are monsters and the events that began on that day exposed all of the survivors to a new reality. A reality where there are vampires, werewolves, fairy creatures and magic. It is a reality where the ghosts linger, massive numbers of souls who lost their lives during the events of that day. Across the world, the Sleepers have been roused to a realization that there is more around them than they ever realized, even as they struggle through the reality that almost all that was is now lost and they now must survive.

At the start date for the game, it has been just over one year since the world ended. Roughly. No one is exactly sure though, time feels just a little different now and the value of it is different when every day is a challenge to survive rather than a challenge to beat the clock. There were weeks of darkness that followed the solstice and for the survivors during the time, no one counted the days. When it was over, or when the worst of it was passed, and what was left of humanity emerged, it was from that point that someone kept track.

What remained of the county in what used to be Maine, was better than the majority of the world had fared. It was a refuge of hope within a dark and dangerous world, and those that had survived there knew it. There was a very firm sense of how lucky they were as they began to clean up, to try to repair and put back some measure of order into the chaos.

"The Lonely Lighthouse beam does sweep,

an eye for ships and Outlook's peak,

but in the shadows twixt doth creep,

a predator that comes to reap.

In this ruined world its clear,

that every life should be held dear

to celebrate too loud its clear

draws the ire of what men fear.

When Haven is by starlight touched

the rule of thumb is then to hush

lest by this horror you too are clutched

the moral is, lock up and SHH."