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Shadow City, New York's mirror, the sixth borough; accessible only via certain underground paths, it is a near-perfect physical copy of New York City and its environs, and the semi-willing home of most of America's supernatural population, forcibly relocated there by the government. Largely lawless and heavily dependent on shipments of food (for various definitions of "food") and supplies from the daylight world, pure humans are rarely seen in Shadow City, and even part-humans like witches and shapeshifters need to be on their guard.
For millenia, the Great Veil prevented humanity as a whole from realizing the existence of supernatural beings among them. Vampires preyed in peace, ghouls haunted graveyards, witches passed as ordinary or plied their trade in plain sight; even stranger beasts like centaurs and dragons hid their true nature when necessary to trade with ordinary people. Then, in the 1970s, the Crash came.
Afterward, esoteric physicists hypothesized that a drifting pocket universe had collided with our own; the ripple effects on the fabric of reality disrupted much existing magic, including the ancient Great Veil, as well as creating - or perhaps only granting access to - Shadow City itself. The world found itself suddenly dealing with surprised, exposed supernatural creatures, many of whom were strange, dangerous, or even outright predators on humanity - and completely outnumbered and outgunned by mortal numbers and technology.
There were calls for extermination from some, for peaceful coexistence with others, but in the end the most workable compromise was almost total exile. Those mythological beings who could claim human status - witches, minor talents, even many shapeshifters - were allowed to stay, though they faced prejudice and fear. Those beings who were decidedly inhuman or required the flesh or blood of intelligent creatures to survive were, when not exterminated outright by fearful humans, forced to relocate - with the promise of government-provided food from the daylight world. For creatures that preyed on humans by choice, however, the medical waste and animal blood provided proved a poor replacement - akin to a human surviving on dog food.
Some nations reached more accommodating arrangements with their native supernatural residents, most notably China, Japan and India, where demigods and demons walk freely and dragons keep their palaces on the seabed in exchange for weather assistance; by and large, however, the mortal response was nowhere near so positive, and many supernaturals accepted exile for their own safety, even when not legally compelled.
The largest passage between Shadow City and the daylight world, a tunnel beneath Grand Central Station, was fortified and set up to serve as a depot; several times a day, trains carrying food, medical supplies, anything the inhabitants of Shadow City cannot make themselves, pass through and bring back the exotic or esoteric items the monsters themselves can produce.
The only semblance of law beyond the Grand Central soldiers and "don't mess with anyone who will eat you" comes in the form of the licensed bounty hunters, or just Hunters for short; some of the most powerful supernatural creatures in Shadow City, they are able to travel between it and the daylight world as needed, tracking down those creatures that escape from the shadows and returning them by any means necessary, to protect the human masses.
The farther reaches of Shadow, farther from the established cities, bear less resemblance to the daylight world, and are infested with strange and hostile beings of frightening power; only the daring and the mad venture far into the wilderness. The merfolk report that even stranger and more terrifying creatures make their homes in the deep of the Shadowed world's oceans, strange twisted parodies of whales and dragons with an alien intelligence of their own, down in the abyssal dark.
For millenia, the Great Veil prevented humanity as a whole from realizing the existence of supernatural beings among them. Vampires preyed in peace, ghouls haunted graveyards, witches passed as ordinary or plied their trade in plain sight; even stranger beasts like centaurs and dragons hid their true nature when necessary to trade with ordinary people. Then, in the 1970s, the Crash came.
Afterward, esoteric physicists hypothesized that a drifting pocket universe had collided with our own; the ripple effects on the fabric of reality disrupted much existing magic, including the ancient Great Veil, as well as creating - or perhaps only granting access to - Shadow City itself. The world found itself suddenly dealing with surprised, exposed supernatural creatures, many of whom were strange, dangerous, or even outright predators on humanity - and completely outnumbered and outgunned by mortal numbers and technology.
There were calls for extermination from some, for peaceful coexistence with others, but in the end the most workable compromise was almost total exile. Those mythological beings who could claim human status - witches, minor talents, even many shapeshifters - were allowed to stay, though they faced prejudice and fear. Those beings who were decidedly inhuman or required the flesh or blood of intelligent creatures to survive were, when not exterminated outright by fearful humans, forced to relocate - with the promise of government-provided food from the daylight world. For creatures that preyed on humans by choice, however, the medical waste and animal blood provided proved a poor replacement - akin to a human surviving on dog food.
Some nations reached more accommodating arrangements with their native supernatural residents, most notably China, Japan and India, where demigods and demons walk freely and dragons keep their palaces on the seabed in exchange for weather assistance; by and large, however, the mortal response was nowhere near so positive, and many supernaturals accepted exile for their own safety, even when not legally compelled.
The largest passage between Shadow City and the daylight world, a tunnel beneath Grand Central Station, was fortified and set up to serve as a depot; several times a day, trains carrying food, medical supplies, anything the inhabitants of Shadow City cannot make themselves, pass through and bring back the exotic or esoteric items the monsters themselves can produce.
The only semblance of law beyond the Grand Central soldiers and "don't mess with anyone who will eat you" comes in the form of the licensed bounty hunters, or just Hunters for short; some of the most powerful supernatural creatures in Shadow City, they are able to travel between it and the daylight world as needed, tracking down those creatures that escape from the shadows and returning them by any means necessary, to protect the human masses.
The farther reaches of Shadow, farther from the established cities, bear less resemblance to the daylight world, and are infested with strange and hostile beings of frightening power; only the daring and the mad venture far into the wilderness. The merfolk report that even stranger and more terrifying creatures make their homes in the deep of the Shadowed world's oceans, strange twisted parodies of whales and dragons with an alien intelligence of their own, down in the abyssal dark.
