Editing Dragons Wake (SWADE PbP) (section)

== Setting Brief ==

The world is broken, and we can’t even be sure who did it. 

The years after the Great War — the War to End All Wars, the explosion of all the illusions of the ''Belle Époque'' - were thick with race-hate, aggression, hypocrisy, greed and wounded pride. All that was worst in humankind seemed to fester at the core of Europe and flow outward, like a boil on the world bursting and spreading its infection. 

The world responded in kind. Or, perhaps, the war was a manifestation of a deeper madness in the world. Abominations arose from the sea, crept from the dark holes in the earth, slithered down from the sky between rain drops and made the war of nations into a battle of humanity against something inextricably Other... and against those humans who would ally themselves with anything, no matter how evil or alien, in order to overcome those peoples they understood enough to despise.

But even as Earth’s mortal inhabitants learned, to their sorrow, that they were not alone, the weird entities arrayed against them found that they did not possess sole dominion over the laws of time and space. A few women and men, very few, saw the impossible and became impossible themselves. Faced with alien gods, they became, themselves, godlike.

All the nations of the world put these godlike superhumans, these Talents, to work in their war efforts. The Allied powers formed a Talent Operations Group as a military arm equivalent to their Navies, Air-Forces, and Armies.

Around the world and throughout the war, Talent commandos use their amazing abilities to confront superpowered Nazi "Übermenschen", Japanese "Thousand Dragon Sons" (roughly translated from ''Watatsumi No Sen-Ri No Musuko'') and the secret, awful Mythos creatures the Fascists attempt to release and control to win the war.

=== Things You Need to Know ===

Superhuman individuals - '''Talents''' - have occurred at a very low percentage for a long time. A huge increase in Talents manifesting happened during World War I, though scientists and academics do not know why, or how, or in response to what stimulus this explosion of Talents occurred.

By 1935, Allied Intelligence agencies become aware that a secret occult research organization called '''Black Sun''' has begun working for the highest echelons of the Nazi government. Black Sun operatives scour the earth for occult writings and occult artifacts. Allied Intelligence finds no similar occult preoccupation among Italian nor Japanese forces up to the start of the game in mid-1942.

Even after WWI, the existence of Talents wasn't fully accepted by scientists, experts, or the general public. That changes in 1936, when Hitler has a crew of '''Übermenschen''' demonstrate their awesome abilities at the opening of the 1936 Olympics.

In 1939, Allied Intelligence learns that a new occult military unit called '''Nachtwölfe''' has been created. By early 1940, they are putting occult based weapons into the field for use against the Allies.

In July 1940, at the beginning of what becomes known as The Battle of Britain, Black Sun and Nachtwölfe operatives summon a massive tentacled Mythos horror in the English Channel, hoping to direct it towards the British coast. It is defeated by a brave group of Allied Talents who utterly obliterate the thing.

In the fall of 1940, Japan claims to be able to manufacture Talents. These claims are downplayed by Allied Intelligence at first.

By April, 1941, it's clear that Japan is fielding "Fire Teams" of Talents who all have remarkably identical elemental superpowers. Surrounded by a nimbus of energy that resembles a ghostly Japanese dragon, these individuals have control over Air, Earth, Fire, Water or Darkness. Japan calls these manufactured Talents the '''Thousand Dragon Sons'''. They continue to field the more idiosyncratic "natural" Talents in the field as well.

After the US enters the war in late 1941, the Allies combine their '''Talent Operations Groups''' and assign these superhuman troops as needed to critical operations and missions where the Axis powers are believed to be deploying their own Talents or utilizing Mythos derived technology.