The city's seen better days since the Indian Point Disaster.

The Shadow floods with monsters, and the Kha'vadi of the city work in uneasy alliance with Void Engineer Marines and Bata'a mothers and fathers to hold back the foe. Their great works, collectively known as the Event, prevented an eruption of awful spirits into the waking world, and halted the progress of some dire force the Awakened don't wholly understand... But at the price of a disjointed reality.

The New York we know is not the one that the world knows... Not the one it interacts with. The differences are subtle, almost beneath notice, but anyone can see that something is very wrong, even as the powers holding off the coming storm are absolutely vital to maintain.

Manhattan is the last wholly held bastion of the Traditions and Disparates, more comfortably allied than the Technocratic survivors of the first and second waves of Nephandic activity.

Sleeper agents erupted across sectarian boundaries and factional lines. Overt moves, brutal and efficient. Suicide runs by their disposable operatives. Power grabs by more clever monsters. Worst of all, the Greenpoint Bridge, where a former Technocratic scientist, turned Marauder by torture, was unleashed as a walking weapon.

We've had to revisit old prejudices and reconsider our allegiances. Whatever is being held beyond Event space is too terrible to contemplate, and the Fallen want to let it in. This has been agreed.

The Technocracy, cut off from Control and struggling to maintain supply lines with disjointed telemetry causing shipments and manpower to go missing, have begun to accept aid from Deviants. The Flatiron Building, Brooklyn Naval Yard, and Erie Basin Constructs are all pursuing the battle in one way or another. An MIB agent, of all things, has taken to working alongside Deviants after a close call nearly cost him his life.

The Traditions, never too mighty in this stronghold of hardheaded practicality, have begun to regain ground, as desperation drives the ambitious among the Masses unknowingly to pursue old and strange ways. Their stronghold in the Hess Estate is nowhere near what it could be, but they've made overtures to both Disparates and Technocrats, at least in piecemeal form, hoping to keep the eight million Sleepers in this town from being lost.

And perhaps most peculiarly, the Dissonants, led by the Hollow Ones, Hyppolytoi and Children of Knowledge (with support from the Ngoma's financial power, renegade Ecstatics and Virtual Adepts) have set up shop right under Union Square. They run the Underground, neutral territory for everyone but the Fallen, and it operates as anything from black market to triage center to mustering grounds depending on the day.

For now, things have gone quiet. Occasional skirmishes break out, but with the momentum of the assault stalled, the enemies of Ascension probe for weakness and pursue methods to incite terror among the Sleeping populace.

Here's a map: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1A16A8PqdA9xk4mHYrjs5mcRBEdrEd1e-&usp=sharing

Welcome to the Big Apple. Get ready for the fight of your life.

Themes:

-Common Foes, Opposing Ideologies

-Humans vs Fate

-Paranoia (are the Nephandi still among us? Can you really trust X faction?)

-Good, Bad, We're The Jerks With The Means To Do Something

-What's Worth Fighting For?

There's more, of course, but that's the main arc.

Updates should be frequent!

Check out Mage House Rules and Mage Creation!