Welcome to Afterlight
“It is absolutely necessary, for the peace and safety of mankind, that some of earth’s dark, dead corners and unplumbed depths be let alone; lest sleeping abnormalities wake to resurgent life, and blasphemously surviving nightmares squirm and splash out of their black lairs to newer and wider conquests.”
A World of Secrets and Shadows
Fifty years into the future, the world is not as it seems. Towering megacities loom over the ruins of the past, their neon-lit spires casting long shadows over crumbling districts and forgotten places. Technology dominates every aspect of life—cybernetic implants, augmented reality, and neural interfaces blur the line between human and machine. But beneath the hum of the digital age, something ancient stirs.
There are things humanity was not meant to remember. The deeper you look, the more the world unravels. Occult knowledge, forbidden artifacts, and unnatural horrors lurk beneath the surface. While the average citizen, called Regulars, remains blind to these anomalies, lost in the constant hum of the Noise—a pervasive flood of augmented reality, data feeds, and corporate propaganda—you have glimpsed the truth.
Some people see past the illusion—they are the Touched. Whether by accident, intent, or fate, the Touched have been exposed to the hidden world beneath the surface, awakening to truths that should have remained buried. They know the stories are real—the ones whispered in secret, the ones that corporations suppress, the ones that never make the headlines.
And once you see the truth, you can’t go back.
The World of Afterlight
Afterlight is a world of mysteries, conspiracies, and forgotten horrors. The modern age has built itself atop ruins both physical and metaphysical—cities constructed over ancient ley lines, corporate towers standing over lost temples, forgotten tunnels sealed for reasons no one will talk about.
Somewhere beneath all of it, something is waiting.
A Future Built on Ruins
- Skyscrapers loom over flooded districts, their foundations buried in the remnants of forgotten cities.
- Corporate R&D labs experiment on things they do not understand, carving myth into machine, turning legends into assets.
- The deeper you go—whether into the city’s history, its underground tunnels, or its digital archives—the more you realize the past never really went away.
The Noise: A Metaphysical Veil
"Myths, history, just different ways to interpret the past."
The Noise is an omnipresent force that obscures the supernatural, ensuring that Regulars remain unaware of what lurks beneath their reality. It is not merely a barrier; it is a system, a self-correcting illusion embedded within society, technology, and even human perception.
To the everyday citizen, the Noise manifests as data corruption, system errors, or unreliable memories. It adapts and distorts reality to keep the strange hidden. Anomalous events are dismissed as miscalculations in augmented reality overlays. Surveillance footage of unnatural creatures is written off as deepfake glitches. Scientific discoveries that breach the boundary of the known vanish from the public record as if they never existed.
Those who attempt to pierce the Noise—whether through research, hacking, or sheer determination—find themselves facing inexplicable resistance. Records disappear, witnesses forget, and sometimes, those who dig too deep simply cease to exist. Entire organizations like The Ministry work tirelessly to maintain this illusion, erasing any evidence that could awaken the world to its hidden truths.
But for the Touched, the Noise is imperfect. They see the cracks in the illusion, the inconsistencies in history, and the anomalies no one else notices. They know that the world is more than it appears, and with that knowledge comes both power and danger.
The Noise is not passive; it pushes back. Those who defy it find reality itself conspiring against them. Their phones crash at the worst possible moments, security footage is conveniently overwritten, and their own memories become unreliable. The deeper they go, the more the Noise fights to keep its secrets buried.
For Regulars, the world is normal. For Touched, the world is a lie. The question is: how much of the truth can you uncover before the Noise erases you?
The Hidden War for Knowledge
- Secrets are dangerous. Those who know too much have a way of disappearing.
- Truth is suppressed. The Ministry ensures that anything that threatens to awaken the Regs is erased. They silence those who ask too many questions, making sure the world never wakes up.
- You are not the first to ask questions. Most who did never got to share their answers.
You Are Touched
Afterlight is not a setting where you play a hero or a revolutionary. You are a Rift—one of the few who sees past the illusion.
"There is no innocence left, only ignorance. Truth is buried beneath layers of steel and silence, and those who dig too deep risk being buried with it.”
You don’t have all the answers. You’re just starting to understand the questions.
Your character might be:
- An investigator uncovering cases that don’t add up.
- A hacker finding files that shouldn’t exist.
- A journalist who ran one story too many and ended up on the wrong side of corporate security.
- An urban explorer who stepped through a forgotten doorway and came back changed.
- A scientist, a researcher, a soldier, a street kid—someone who saw something they shouldn’t have, and survived long enough to start asking why.
The world isn’t what it seems, and you are one of the few who knows it.
What You Can Expect as a Player
Afterlight is a game of mysteries, conspiracies, and consequences. The world reacts to what you uncover, and your actions shape the future.
1. A World That Changes Based on Your Actions
- This is a living world, where every choice has a cost.
- Uncovering certain truths might awaken forces best left undisturbed.
- Your decisions—or your silence—will alter the world around you.
2. Investigation, Discovery, and Paranoia
- You will investigate cases, track down leads, and unravel the hidden layers of the world.
- Everything has a price. Some truths will leave you questioning whether you should have ever sought them.
- Trust is dangerous. Everyone has an agenda.
3. The Occult Meets Cyberpunk
- Technology and the supernatural are intertwined.
- Corporate AI speak in dead languages.
- Scientists vanish after unlocking forgotten knowledge.
Final Words: Why Play Afterlight?
Afterlight is a game of unraveling mysteries, uncovering forbidden knowledge, and surviving the consequences of your own curiosity. The world is full of things humanity was never meant to understand—will you be the one to uncover them?
If you enjoy:
✅ Investigating the unknown and piecing together occult conspiracies
✅ Unraveling mysteries where nothing is as it seems
✅ A cyberpunk world where horror and technology blend seamlessly
✅ A setting that reacts to player choices, with lasting consequences
✅ The thrill of seeking the truth—even if the truth is hunting you
Then Afterlight is the setting for you.
The answers are out there. The real question is:
Can you survive knowing them?
This setting is a near-future cyberpunk world where much folklore and legend turn out to be real, hidden from the Regulars by layers of secrecy. In Afterlight, monsters and Magic exist in the shadows, while conspiracies and cabals vie for control over every corner of society.
Roleplaying Game Systems
We have switched from Fate Condensed to the Otherscape rules, under the Powered by the Apocalypse framework. Both systems focus on storytelling over strict dice-rolling mechanics, fitting Afterlight’s blend of myth, magic, and technology.
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