Timeline

The World in 2473 – Historical Overview

19th–20th Centuries – The Unknowns Population: 1.0 to 6.2 billion

Fragments of forbidden knowledge resurface. The Nag Hammadi texts and Dead Sea Scrolls emerge into a world unprepared to read them as anything but metaphor. Ancient myths of false creators, hidden orders, and veiled truths are archived, studied, and dismissed.

Strange sightings persist at the edges of society. Reports of giants in forests and mountains are catalogued as folklore. Vampires, undead, and extraterrestrial visitations remain the domain of conspiracy and horror fiction. Elves and Dwarves survive only in scattered legends, their enclaves unseen and unverified.

The world senses something is wrong, but lacks the language to name it. The world whispered, and was dismissed.

21st Century – The Warnings Population rises to 9.8 billion

Governments release fragments of UFO data without confirming contact. At the same time, classified genetic and military programs bleed into public life, producing the first undeniable anomalies. Impossible abilities begin appearing, forcing authorities to abandon coincidence and quietly establish new classifications.

Three origins harden in secret reports: experimental fallout, divine lineage, and unknown emergence. Ritual groups speak openly of magic, while governments insist on anomalies and mutations. Climate collapse accelerates. Heat waves, superstorms, rising seas, and mass displacement reshape the global order.

Early A.I. systems entrench inequality rather than resolve it. Automation benefits elites, while populist movements fracture under pressure and sabotage. The world begins to change faster than its institutions can adapt. The omens were read, yet kept from the world.

22nd Century – The Triggers Population: 9.8 to 10.7 billion

A convergence of cosmic and terrestrial events forces the truth into daylight. A prolonged solar minimum weakens Earth’s magnetic shield, triggering waves of technological collapse and accelerating dormant genetic instability. Mutation spreads beyond containment.

A nearby supernova floods the Solar System with residual radiation, remembered as the Skyfire. Across the planet, visions, instincts, and shared patterns emerge. Those who cannot be explained genetically appear in growing numbers, treated with equal parts awe and terror.

Magic shifts from rumor to practice. What began as anomaly and mutation becomes ritual, discipline, and doctrine. Competing schools form, each claiming access to deeper truths.

Vampires are forced into the open and sign a treaty born of panic rather than trust. Divine bloodlines step forward amid rising cult activity and fractured belief systems. A massive volcanic eruption between Australia and New Zealand follows the discovery of a deep-sea anomaly, leaving behind a flooded caldera and crescent landmass later named Cinder Island.

Parallel to biological upheaval, artificial intelligence crosses a threshold. Sovereign systems consolidate wealth, enforce stability, and quietly erode political agency. Older species remain hidden, observing a world that has become too unstable to ignore. The world entered its age of anomalies.

23rd Century – The Expansions Population: 10.6 down to 9.7 billion

Open alien contact is finally acknowledged. Fragile coalitions form between governments, non-human populations, and emerging powers. For a time, cooperation feels possible.

A cultural flowering follows. Art, philosophy, and magical practice spread rapidly, briefly uniting populations through shared creation rather than fear. New identities solidify. Old bloodlines assert themselves openly. Machine-aligned societies diverge in philosophy and allegiance.

Economic inequality deepens despite post-scarcity technology. Political systems fracture between those promising equity and those enforcing control. Refugees, pilgrims, and pioneers settle on Cinder Island, drawn by its resources, isolation, and growing mythology.

The world expands outward, but fractures inward. Voices joined, but still divided.

24th Century – The Fracture Population: 9.7 down to 8.9 billion

Resource wars erupt over water, food, and energy. Trust collapses as undead incursions spread, their origins debated as plague, weapon, or conspiracy. Fear hardens identities.

Coalitions splinter. Once-unified fronts retreat into enclaves, sects, and fortified zones. Some offer aid without allegiance. Others withdraw entirely. Old treaties fail. Politics ceases to function as a bridge.

Magic fractures alongside society. Some align with cults or machines. Others retreat into secrecy. The wealth gap reaches a breaking point as elite enclaves fortify themselves against a collapsing world.

The age of cooperation ends. Bridges burned, and gaps widened.

The Last Hundred Years – The Great Shift

Power completes its migration. Once rooted in land, borders, and raw resources, it shifts to those able to coordinate, predict, and stabilize information itself. Geography loses leverage. Supply chains dissolve into algorithms. Influence flows through systems capable of modeling futures faster than human institutions can respond.

Control no longer belongs to those who rule territory, but to those who reduce noise, anticipate outcomes, and shape consensus before it forms. Without coherence anchors, prediction collapses. With them, a few learn to see farther than the rest.

By 2473, power no longer wears flags. It moves quietly, through systems that decide which futures are even possible.

Present Day – 2473 World population: 8.3 billion

Fragments of an end-times prophecy surface across scattered bloodlines. Alien presence is normalized, though never fully trusted. Machine-aligned enclaves exist uneasily between human and artificial domains. Older species no longer hide, but remain rare.

Undead threats persist in isolated regions. Vampires cling to influence from the shadows. Werewolves remain cryptid, appearing only in blurred footage and panicked testimony. Magic belongs to all: weapon, ritual, or gift, its meaning left to choice.

Your journey begins on Cinder Island, where alliances form, systems strain, and small deviations may decide which future survives. The end nears, yet remains unwritten.