The History

## Planet Earth Largely Unchanged

What may be a super interesting part of JSE is that it is built to be played in a real-human history. Time may be wibbly-wobbly in order to create more interesting settings, but the order of historical events remain the same.

Perhaps this leads to a grim, dramatically ironic story where the characters grow, bond, and inevitably fail in a war the players know the outcome of. Perhaps this leads to the characters taking charge of the future, crafting a utopia or corrupting it into bladerunner or some shit. Perhaps the characters do succeed on making marks on human history, changing the lore of this parallel universe. lots of breathing room here.

And that is *so cool.*

## Divinities and their Followers

The largest dramatical changes for lore and history are those of religous nature. The christians where right. But so where the Chinese, the Hindu; whatever the greeks where smoking turn out to lead them to beliefs that ended up being pretty close with whatever was going on. The true organisation of higher powers is largely unknown, but these deities are an elemental force and do hold power in this world; not enough to rule it, but *just enough* to make little marks. No one religion or mythology has any evidence that they are more or less correct, to the observer they are all just different perspectives on the same truth.

When you enter a temple to an unworshiped god, you may feel chills, eyes on you, the lightest touch of a deceased loved one; but these are not scientifically replicable. All the power in divinities is in faith, and you *really* need to go looking for powerful divinities.

Due to this and the lack of arcana in the world, magically enhanced mortals do not exist. There are just people, who can do amazing things if they put their mind to it.

The closest people can get to high-fantasy style magic is to be a champion of these divinities. Their boon may only grant an illumosity of skin, a slight clairvoyance, or the control of a breeze. these champions of faith however, are extremely scarce, and moreso recluse. A champion may live life as a hermit, keeping their premonitions only to themselves and the wind; or the leader of an empire may secretly be a champion, manipulating votes and thoughts from behind a mask of eloquence. The harsh truth of being a champion is most likely you will never be written about, unless the idea of tipping your hand to the manipulated - or worse, *competitors*, and dealing with the greivous results.

## Fantastical Beasts - (And where they hide)

The real (Low-)fantasy of the setting arises from the beings that inhabit the world. Just like religous scriptures being somewhat true, so too are the mythos' (mythies?). Cryptids from all folklore can be found, and largely must be dealth with.

Santa Clause? Yeah that guy rolls around every year to anyone that invites him in; fast as wind, visiting as many houses he can in one night, spontaneous apparition, runs a small coterie of helpless children who he capitalises on... *Is Santa a vampire? Who knows... maybe.* oh yeah, vampires are real, sprites and yoguai too. If you see a stone circle on a hill; *Do Not Fucking Disturb That Hill.* Theyre just all there, fucking around.

This can lead to precarious situations where a village might need help from a set of dubious salt goblins or an entire inantry being mesteriously killed by a single Oni. Dont go on long Voyages without rotting meat to deter a great kraken or invite young ladies into your home at twilight. Lots of things going on.

*plothooks people, plothooks.*