[Icelander]

The supernatural and monsters, as well as the very existence of the Vile Vortices, in my campaigns world are officially a secret and not acknowledged by governments. Indeed, for most of the 20th century, there was nothing to acknowledge, research, deny or suppress, as the supernatural was a non-factor in the history of my world between about 1890 to 1980. And between 1890 and 2000 or so, not much happened in the campaign world at large that didn't happen in our world.

A very few people became aware of the supernatural during the subtle times between 1980-2000, when RPM magic didn't even exist for the first decade (use highly limited Path/Book) and any paranormal effects were very limited, but most of those who learned about magic and monsters didn't do so until after 2001 or so, at which time even someone who didn't live within the highest magic area of a Vile Vortex might experience something he could not rationalize away. Still, magic remained a secret that very few people knew about.

Until about 2011, it would have taken a professional historian considerable research to determine the difference between the world of my setting and the real world. After that year, however, the cumulative effects of higher and ever rising crime rates, combined with a more volatile international situation, means that the world of my setting is getting subtly worse every year.

Of course, there are those who would say that this does not substantially differentiate it from the real world, but it is nevertheless a fact that violent death in the campaign world, both from criminal causes, civil wars and sectarian conflicts, and a variety of small wars in Africa, Asia and the Americas, has become about an order of magnitude more common in the setting than it is in the real world. Basically, wars and conflicts that in our world had started slowing down, became worse and less comprehensible in the setting.

The many African civil wars that have flared up in the 21st century now increasingly resemble the Angolan and Congolese crises, with innumerable factions, many of whom have strange cultic practices and make bold supernatural claims, like the Lord's Resistance Army and other such combatants in our world. Syria and Iraq are at the center of what seems to be becoming Hell on Earth, with new factions emerging every day and every new rebel leader making new apocalyptic proclamations or claiming terrible supernatural powers for his followers.

Reports from Venezuela indicate that despite public proclamations denying violence, there is a full-scale civil war in progress, with an unclear number of combatant factions. Officially, India and Pakistan are at peace, but apparent sectarian violence and frequent terrorist massacres in the Kashmir, as well as Pakistan's Sindh province and the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, are threatening that peace.

About the only saving grace is that the United States and most of their strongest allies have been kept out of the worst conflicts, having managed to leave Iraq before it started its long, drawn out collapse after 2012-2013, and not being involved in Syria on any significant scale. The autonomous tribal areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan remain intractable problems, but with the death of bin Laden, the focus of US efforts in Afghanistan tends to be away from these centers of internecine violence.

Magic is still a secret and considered rank superstition by most governments, but instead of just a few dozen or even a few hundred people having learned about it, there are now thousands of people who are aware of its reemergence and hundreds of thousands and even millions, mostly living at the edges of society or in places near Vile Vortexes, who are affected by it on a daily basis, for all that they might not know very much about it.

The denials increasingly ring hollow and it is, quite frankly, incredible that something has not shattered the Secret even before now. By all logic and rationality, this ought to have happened by 2012 or so, and at the very least, within a year or two of that date. There simply are too many paranormal occurrences for such a secret to endure.

Occultists, of course, argue incessantly about the metaphysical implications of the Facade and the way human minds rationalize everything supernatural away. If magic and the supernatural existed in human history before the modern era and the various legends and myths that exist about it are true, then this Facade obviously didn't exist back then. Or, at least, worked very differently. If it is a new effect or one that has changed dramatically, might it have a cause?

Questions?

Comments?

Desires for explanations or things I should have mentioned, but didn't?