First, a history lesson. Don't worry. We won't be here long.
Ah - no questions. Not yet. I'll tell you when you can ask, just be patient.

So. Twenty years ago. Two thousand, year of someone's lord. World is, more or less, as you know it. Mundane. Kept that way - powerful NGO with lots of ties, and lots of fingers in lots of pies, kills and imprisons magical beings for the good of man. Questionable if it did them any good. Probably got a lot of magical beings angry, mostly kept them scared, hidden, or dead. These monsters that killed monsters, they were the Blackguard. I'm sure some of you listening - hell, maybe most - might agree with them. History does not.

Fifteen years ago. Two thousand five. Blackguard are rooted out. Made public. Sides are drawn. Some countries are taken over, some brutally. "For the good of man-", they said, often. "A needed sacrifice." Other countries, give in without a fight. Still others side with the magical creatures. This is the Blackguard War. Heroes rise from all over, join together. Alisa Zolner. Rostislav. Isaac the Ward. The war - fueled by magic on both sides alongside military tech - is long, bloody, and damaging. To the world, and to its people. The Blackguard falter.

Ten years ago. Two thousand ten. The war ended three years ago. The world is now standing in a battlefield with theaters all over that has introduced them to a new minority: Thaumics. Magical beings of all sorts, builds, abilities, hungers, lifespans. These years are marked by turbulence that still, in some flavor, lasts today. No one can agree on anything, it seems. Division is rife in all walks of life, fear and hate present in seemingly any conversation. Thaumics pull away from heavily populated cities, some of them taking significant money and workforces with them. Unmasked celebs slip away from public life. Humanity finds itself oddly alone again, as the wonderous creatures they saved and harbored slink away in fear again.

Five years ago. Two thousand fifteen.
Almost in silence, almost without another word, cities sprout from the American Midwest, in the Russian wilderness, in all sorts of barely-populated places. The power of magic and the educated Thaumics comes together to rise cities, modern cities full of the half-implemented conveniences present in others. Various governments work together to give land over, making various deals with the Thaumics to hand them their own proto-nation that is spread across the planet. City One, in America, and the other four, scattered around the world, represent the Thaumic Nation. A loose, newborn experiment. These cities are, technically, part of the government of their "parent nations", but are working towards a peaceful independence over time.

We've talked about the past.

Now. Let's talk about you...