Like all good stories, ours starts at Waffle House #2224, at 300 Marietta Street, in Atlanta GA, on the 21st of June, 2021. The restaurant was lightly populated, with small groups of friends enjoying their hashbrowns, the occasional solitary figure sipping on his or her coffee. They didn't know it yet, but their mundane lives were about to be altered forever.

About a mile away, a train carrying Akkadian relics from the port of Jacksonville, Florida to an anonymous and wealthy collector somewhere to the north and west of Atlanta, derailed. The derailment woke something. As the carefully packed boxes shifted, ancient clay seals cracked. A massive, primal scream erupted from the rail line as beings long imprisoned cast off their fetters, ripping a psychic scar across the Atlanta skyline as power failed in the surrounding area. Those sensitive to it would recall a red pillar of light, menacing and ominous, over the site of the wreck. A sense of dread, of wrongness, of ancient evil slowly spread across the city.

Those enjoying their coffee and hash browns would come away forever altered. As the power failed, some force, some shared experience, bound their souls together. Their eyes opened as if anew, perceiving the world for the first time. Now, several months later, their lives since touched by hardship, loss and misfortune, they all feel a call. Pulling them back to Waffle House #2224 from across the city, a subtle but insistent tug has pulled the threads of fates. Once again, they sit, enjoying their coffee, waiting for something. This time, however, they see each other differently…

Questions:

• Who are you? You are a real person, with a job/family/interests; what is your favorite color?
• What great misfortune befell you after awakening
• How has awakening changed your life? Do you still go to work? School? Drink heavily? Become more fit?
• Sensing the world beyond, have you drawn closer to family and friends for protection? or did you remove yourself from their presence to keep them safe?
• Do you really know how to use a gun? Really?

• Supporting Personae

• General Rules Cheatsheet
• Combat Rules Cheatsheet
• Mage Rules Cheatsheet