There are other Worlds than these... but they are meant to be separate, each universe proceeding along in parallel and segmented off from each other. The barrier between the Worlds is known as The Curtain, and it's purpose is to make sure reality makes a certain amount of sense, that the varied and different circumstances of the varied and different universes stay contained, so that the internal logic of every World is consistent.
But The Curtain has grown tattered, and reality is slipping.
Here on Earth, native life has always been perfectly mundane. But for millennia, holes in The Curtain have opened up and allowed the bizarre inhabitants of various other Worlds have drifted over. Some have been around so long that it is hard to claim they are foreigners, but others continue entering through these rifts to this day. The select few Humans who are aware of this dynamic, known as The Stitchers, work themselves ragged and just barely manage to slow The Curtain's rate of deterioration. The supernatural grows more and more commonplace with each passing day, and with the advent of modern technology, the normies are beginning to notice.
Will The Stitchers eventually succeed in sewing The Curtain back up? Or will Earth become a melting pot of creatures who were never meant to co-exist? The Earth's future lies in your hands, Contractor. Don't fuck it up.
Contractors from The Tattered Curtain
Are portable, and may play in Contracts in other Playgroups.
The Tattered Curtain grants 6 Experience points to GMs who achieve the Golden Ratio.
1) All Contractors begin with the Condition of Umar's Sight, which gives them the ability to see holes in The Curtain.
2) Native Contractors may not begin with the 'Gifted' asset. Characters who start with this World as their home are human (or mostly human; some inhuman ancestry is definitely possible). This means that some character concepts are just not possible with The Tattered Curtain as their starting home.
3) Visiting Contractors with Gifted are allowed, but be warned that the welcome from the locals may not be the friendliest if its easy to tell you aren't from around here, and relocating here comes with a lot of risk.
Our earth was not designed with the supernatural in mind. Humans were meant to be on top, the superior species, intelligent and lording over the beasts and creatures as is their right. Physics was meant to work a certain way, with (semi) predictable rules governing it. Nevertheless, despite good intentions on the part of whatever led to existence, the earth has been plagued with unexplainable phenomena throughout human history. Humankind has developed and evolved a wide variety of superstitions and beliefs to try and explain these things. In days gone by the explanation might have been “magic” or “spirits” or “God”, today the explanation might be UFOs.
The truth is that all of these are at least partially accurate. There are other worlds than these, existing in parallel to this one, and although there exists a sort of dimensional “curtain” between the worlds, keeping them apart, the curtain will sometimes become torn and tattered, allowing a sort of multi-dimensional “UFO” to bleed through. Historical tales of fairies, sasquatch sightings, the Bermuda Triangle, all of these are nothing more than consequences of these rifts in the fabric of reality, weak spots that allowed strange creatures to enter our once mundane world.
In the early days of humanity, The Curtain was fairly pristine, with only the occasional tear, often leading to either a new religion being started or some sort of mass casualty event. Many of the creatures who crossed over during this early period were able to settle down and establish permanent dwellings within this World. These are the creatures most often featured in ancient folklore: the Spirits, or the Gods. In some cases, they intermarried with the local humans, leading to many of the great Heroes of history (Greek stories are filled with examples of this, Zeus was a particularly thirsty example of a creature who passed through one of these rifts).
Over time, the fabric began to rip more frequently, and various societies developed their own defenses against this perceived invasion, fighting back as best as they could. However, it was not until 1190 that a means was discovered to close the rifts. Umar ibn Salim, himself descended from a djinn three generations back, lived in Damascus under Saladin’s rule, and played a minor role in the administration of the sultanate as an agricultural advisor. When the Crusaders laid siege to Acre, Umar went to serve his sultan and take charge of feeding the city. While there, he witnessed The Curtain rip open before his very eyes, and what seemed to him to be a demon crossed through. Without thinking, he swiftly slew the demon, and, seeing more creatures on the other side of the rift, stabbed at the side of the opening with his sword, piercing through all the way to the other side. The force of this drew both sides of the gap together, somehow sealing it shut.
When the Crusade was ended, the Crusaders were granted a pilgrimage to Jerusalem before returning home, and it was here that Umar discovered both how special and unique his abilities were, as well as found another man who shared them. The man was Percival, a young soldier similarly possessed of the ability to see The Curtain, or at least, see when it tears. The two of them went on to found what they called The Brotherhood of Guardians, a small group which scouted out other similarly talented individuals and recruited them to, as they put it, “save God’s earth from an other-worldly crusade”.
The Brotherhood of Guardians has survived in some form or another all the way to the present day. They are incredibly secretive; no one, not even members, has a full grasp of how large they are or how far they reach. Those who are aware of them are by and large deathly afraid of the group they know informally as The Stitchers; they tend to view threats to their anonymity just as harshly as the extra-dimensional creatures they fight.
At present, The Stitchers have a small presence in the governments of most states, but primarily exert power through their control over a small United Nations commission which exists to study the body of evidence surrounding UFOs. They give a report every five years, which thus far has consistently “debunked” the notion of extraterrestrials. Most of their funding does not go to research, it instead goes into the Brotherhood’s coffers. Their agents are on high alert constantly, searching for new tears, and monitoring locations known as Seams which have historically been hotbeds of trans-dimensional activity.
And then there are Contractors. The Stitchers are highly secretive and thus are very cautious about who they allow into their ranks, so they do a lot of their work through contracting out to mercenaries. The Agency was established by a couple of Stitchers as a middle-man entity, both to keep some distance between them and the Contractors they use, as well as to scout around for anyone who possesses “Umar’s Sight” and recruit them. In order to preserve secrecy, The Agency brands itself as a general-purpose mercenary clearinghouse, and are more than happy to book their Contractors out to anyone willing to pay.
Discord Server
Get Early Access
