Forty millennia into the future, the galaxy is a bleeding open wound. Cut in two by the Great Rift—a massive tear of pure, chaotic psychic energy—the universe has become a meat grinder where survival demands atrocities, and pure heroes go to die.
Welcome to London, 1888, a city split into two extreme realities based on wealth, geography, and air quality. The state and global elite legally classify the poor as "Pests," treating them like sewer rats. Shopkeepers lock their doors to them, and the Bobbies use truncheons to clear them off the streets without cause. Conversely, the rich possess absolute legal immunity; ruining a poor person’s life is treated as standard civic upkeep. Driven by historical Social Darwinism and eugenics, the upper classes view poverty as a hereditary disease and weaponize pseudo-scientific racism to justify treating poor citizens, Irish laborers, Jewish refugees, and non-white global travelers as biologically inferior degenerates.
Nobody gave much attention to the sound of several police sirens rushing through the streets, or the large smoke billowing out the city skyline from afar. After all, the Blackmort High school campus is situated a few miles away from the city proper, far away from any possible danger. Everyone felt safe and secure with that fact.
Detective RPG 1940: Silver Screen Mirages is a cinematic, gender-neutral noir sandbox set in a hyper-dramatic 1947 Los Angeles. You play as the impeccably dressed but flat-broke head of The All-American Detective Agency, operating out of a rainy office in the very same Skid Row slums where you grew up. Your family sacrificed everything to give you an education, desperately wanting you to become a successful doctor or lawyer to pull them out of the gutter, but they abandoned you when you chose to chase a fool's dream instead—and looking at your empty pockets, they were completely right. Down to your last bottle of rye and struggling to pay Evelyn Harrington, your fiercely loyal, subtly stunning blonde assistant, you must pick a high-stakes case from your desk before midnight strikes and your lights get shut off for good.
High King Asgar has been brutally murdered in his royal chambers. With no clear heir, the realm has devolved into pure paranoia. Every region is pointing fingers, accusing neighbors of the assassination. There are no allies left to rely on. Driven by rage or conquest, every faction has mobilized to claim the empty throne by force.The world has entered an incredibly dark time, a bleak era of absolute lawlessness where life is cheap and you could die whenever from a stray arrow or rogue magic. This world feels heavy, cold, and entirely real—it is muddy, crowded, and smells of soot, open sewage, and wet livestock. Castles are dark, damp fortresses of rough-hewn stone, and cobblestone alleyways are choked with starving serfs and corrupt city guards.Now, the world must face the specialized might of each race and their grand domains: