A Primer on the Hidden World

Beneath the steel and neon of the modern world, something ancient endures. The world of Afterlight is one of layers and illusions, where what is seen and what is real are rarely the same thing. The supernatural is not gone—it has merely been buried beneath progress, drowned in Noise, and erased by those who profit from ignorance. But not all threats are eldritch horrors—some were built in corporate labs, written in code, or born from Human ambition.

Technology dominates the world, but it does not liberate—it surveils, controls, and exploits. Machines and AI shape reality just as much as the forgotten myths lurking in the shadows. The divide between cybernetic augmentation and unnatural transformation, between artificial intelligence and occult knowledge, is vanishing.

Some fear the return of the supernatural. Others fear the day technology finally surpasses the need for humans at all.

The Supernatural World: What Lies Beneath

"The most merciful thing in the world… is the inability of the Human mind to correlate all its contents."

— HP Lovecraft

The supernatural in Afterlight is not a relic of the past—it is alive, hidden beneath the neon sprawl and corporate ambition.

• Monsters exist, but they do not hunt in the open. They live within the cracks of the world, feeding on those who slip through the margins.
• Magic is real, but it has adapted. It is not wands and spells—it is sigils etched into circuit boards, rituals performed in server farms, and whispered names that should never be spoken.
• The Mythos has not vanished—it has simply learned to hide. In the flickering lights of surveillance feeds, in the rhythmic hum of industrial machinery, in the forgotten words buried in code—it waits.

Monsters: The Things That Lurk

There are things that Regulars will never believe in—and that is exactly how the world survives.

• Some monsters walk among us, wearing human faces, perfectly integrated into the world of corporations, crime syndicates, and backroom deals.
• Others dwell in the spaces people have forgotten—the Underground, the ruins, the drowned districts where the old world still lingers.
• Some are bound to objects, places, or ideas, shaping the world without ever being seen. A cursed building, a corporate AI that never shuts down, a song that no one should listen to twice.

The further one digs, the more unnatural things become. The worst monsters are not the ones hiding in the shadows—they are the ones wearing suits and making deals.

Magic: Power at a Price

Magic is not a force of whimsy—it is a set of rules buried in the fabric of reality, old and unyielding. Those who tap into it do not cast spells—they unravel hidden truths, speak forgotten words, and forge connections between the seen and unseen.

• Relics: Objects infused with meaning, history, and power. Some are innocuous, forgotten in dusty archives. Others are dangerous, their presence warping the world around them.
• Thin Places: Locations where the veil is thin, where the Noise struggles to contain the truth. Some are ancient, others are new, created by the weight of human emotion, tragedy, or obsession.
• Names and Pacts: The right words, spoken at the right time, to the right entity, can reshape fate. But those who bargain with the unknown rarely dictate the terms.
• MagiTech: Some corporations and rogue scientists experiment with fusing magic and technology—blending Cybernetics with occult rituals, turning myths into software, and forging weapons from the power of belief.

Magic is never free. Every power has a price, and those who think they can control it never understand what they have invited into their lives—until it is too late.

Technology: The Cage You Cannot See

"The world is covered in masks, but the greatest trick is making you believe there is only one."

— Dr. Elias Caine, Professor of Cognitive Science

Technology is worshiped, but it is not freedom. In Afterlight, cybernetic advancements and artificial intelligence are as much a threat as supernatural horrors.

Cybernetic Evolution

The human body is optional—or at least, that’s what the corporations would have you believe.

• Cybernetics are everywhere—from neural implants that enhance memory to synthetic limbs stronger than human muscle.
• Augments are normalized—workers accept mental conditioning software, adrenaline stimulators, and retinal HUDs without a second thought.
• The rich receive biomedical perfection, while the poor get black-market implants, unstable and prone to malfunctions.

Every improvement comes with a cost. How much of you is still human?

Augmented Reality: The City You Cannot See

AR overlays have rewritten the way people experience the world. Buildings do not just exist—they shift based on your profile, preferences, and permissions. What you see is dictated by the corporations, social networks, and data brokers that own your feed.

• Corporate Zones shimmer with advertising holograms, private data networks, and digital security fences that only authorized eyes can perceive.
• Poorer districts are layered with glitching signage, junk code, and outdated AR graffiti that bleeds through decades of forgotten overlays.
• Hidden places exist within AR—encrypted safehouses, black-market exchange hubs, entire Underground societies built inside the digital plane, only accessible if you know the right backdoor.

AR is a blessing and a curse. It provides navigation, security, and convenience—but it also means no one truly sees the world as it is anymore.

Cyberspace: The Second Reality

Cyberspace is not just the internet—it is a world of its own. Most experience it as a seamless integration with the real world, but for those who know how to look deeper, it is an entirely separate plane of existence.

• The Tangle – The corporate-controlled cyberspace, a walled garden where data is owned, monitored, and monetized. It is sterile, controlled, and policed—but even here, there are cracks.
• The Undernet – The black-market cyberspace, a chaotic sprawl of encrypted servers, rogue code, and digital entities that exist outside corporate control. It is where secrets are traded, stolen, and buried.
• Thin Spaces – Just as the physical world has Thin Places where reality frays, cyberspace has its own anomalies. Glitches that should not exist, data that refuses to be deleted, locations that lead to something… else.

To the untrained eye, cyberspace is just a tool, a convenience, a network. To the Touched, it is a hunting ground, a hiding place, and a battlefield. Because somewhere in the dark code of forgotten servers, something is waking up.

The Noise: A Digital Veil Over an Ancient World

The Noise is more than just a flood of augmented reality, neural feedback, and corporate propaganda. It is a mask, a veil woven from technology, distraction, and human apathy.

• To Regulars, the Noise is just part of life. It keeps them numb, overwhelmed by information but blind to the things that should not exist.
• To the Touched, the Noise is a filter that distorts reality—but once you’ve glimpsed beyond it, you can never unsee what lies beneath.
• To those who understand its true nature, the Noise is a tool—one used to keep the world blind to the unnatural horrors that walk among them.

The Noise is self-sustaining. The more people dismiss the supernatural as glitches, hoaxes, or stress-induced delusions, the stronger the illusion becomes. But there are cracks in the system, places where the old world refuses to be forgotten, and where those who listen can hear whispers of the truth.

The Ministry: Guardians or Jailers?

There are those who know the truth, and they do everything in their power to keep it hidden.

The Ministry is as much a myth as the things it seeks to contain. No one knows who they truly answer to, how long they have existed, or why they do what they do.

• They erase evidence, redact records, and silence those who learn too much.
• They do not explain—only issue warnings.
• They appear when it is already too late, offering a choice between forgetting and disappearing.

The only certainty is this: The Ministry does not want you to ask questions.
And if they are asking about you—it is already too late.