Editing Setting:Fantastic America (section)

==The Setting==

===Player Races===
*Humans - you, unless society has changed dramatically since this was written.
*Gremlins - small mechanically-oriented creatures.  They sleep in engines: you could have one renting your car during the nights.  Like mischief, but it's strictly harmless nowadays
*Elves - traditional fantasy elves, they live in houses in large trees, which the typical suburb has a few of (elves are not strange, you grew up around elves, the first lady is an elf). The Drow were only recently integrated into society as a part of the civil rights movement, so racial tension with them is still high
*Dwarves - traditional fantasy dwarves, they live underground, in settlements that are usually half as large as whatever settlement is above.  Dwarves are a little more secluded than elves, but you still have dwarven coworkers and friends.  The Duergar were integrated into society as a part of the civil rights movement, racial tension with them is even higher
*Robots - hokey old-fashioned sci-fi robots that look like humans, act like emotionally-repressed humans, and move like they have severe joint stiffness.  Generally defined by their job and taking learning a recreational activity very seriously.  Manufactured by a few sources, but all models are in long term consumer/government/military/etc testing and they're still rather rare
*Ubermensch - very rare since this is a German thing and not that common even in Germany, but we're not at war with them anymore so they do exist.  Strong stoic men with fairly well-concealed Frankenstein-style stitches, originally created as a part of a Nazi plot.  Most people have forgotten they were suspicious of them because they're such hard workers that it's hard to dislike them.

===NPC Races===
*Greys - gray, big-headed, big-eyed, no-mouthed, no-nosed, aliens.  From Mars, of course.  They're suspicious, generally seen talking to agents and disappearing (not that you should know about this, citizen!), and almost certainly up to no good.  As a race they're running multiple (possibly conflicting) plots that are generally quite strange in goals.  They probably don't mean harm.  They probably won't mind killing anyone who gets in their way either.
*Nordics - hippie aliens that look like idealized Nordic humans, thus the name.  They never get anything done.  Agents generally try to cover them up anyway.  Incredibly strong, if it ever comes up.
*Deep Ones - fish/frog/tentacleface people in cloaks.  Trying to do something inscrutable, nonstop.  A lot like the greys, really, but usually near bodies of water instead of the middle of nowhere in a desert, and encounters end in insane visions instead of a bunch of agents telling you never to talk about what you saw.  Their plans tend to be more overtly sinister, but also overly complicated
*New Soviet Man - Soviet extension of Ubermensch technology.  No Frankenstein stitching visible at all, minor facechanging powers.  Great people, way too easy to like - in part because of Mormon levels of thoughtfulness and wholesomeness, in part because of projecting a fey glamour.  Talking to them can have the same effects as being exposed to communist material (learning about communism makes you communist) without anything obviously happening.

===Classes===
Blackbelt - you've mastered at least one martial art, which is unlikely to bear any resemblance to the real-world art of the same name.  You are the best at melee combat, and have several abilities to help make that work in a world where everyone else has guns.  You also can pull information out of your ass from detective training, street smarts, or ancient Chinese secrets.

Supersoldier - you have the uncanny ability to shoot people and hit them in ways more serious than a nasty graze.  And you have lots of guns, and will often find spare guns when you should have to reload.  And you're stronger and tougher than the blackbelt (who will still kick you ass in a fistfight, don't get cocky, Rambo).  You have crazy survivalist, MacGyver, or requisitioning skills.

Discomancer - you look damned sharp and can dance like Pan himself.  Also, you got someone to teach you disco magic (which requires great style and rhythm, congrats).  Disco magic starts with anything a good light show or fireworks show can do (dazzle, misdirect, and fascinate) and so long as you can get someone to look at the wrong place, you can do anything a stage magician can do, except for real.  If you don't understand how powerful this is, watch an Old Spice commercial. Disco has basically no direct attack spells, although Disco Inferno is one of the best.

Metalhead - it starts with an electric guitar, leather clothes with spikes, and a crazy hairdo.  It ends with everything around you looking like a metal album cover.  Metal effects include summoning oversized weapons (metalheads are the second best at melee), elemental blasts, and necromancy.  All metal spells slowly make things around them look more metal, that's just how metal works.  Like disco, you need inherent gifts and a teacher to learn metal magic.

Hippie - unlike disco and metal, hippie magic requires no innate gift: you just have to visit a guru with a open mind.  Hippies get their powers from sharing, communing with nature, and lots and lots of drugs.  Be careful because the better drugs can let supernatural forces into your head.  A hippie might coat all your weapons in flowers so thick you can't use them, ask a passing squirrel to run an errand for him, or send a foe on trips to horrifying alternate planes of existence.

Agent - The Man is the personification of the establishment, and its powers can only be accessed through contract.  The obvious agent powers are telekinesis and ESP.  The more dangerous agent powers are subtle: agents are always where they need to be, when they need to be there, with the equipment they need, and often with backup ready at a moment's notice.  That is, supernatural preparedness, punctuality, and training.

===Ritual/group magic===
Metal - it's called a jam session, and it's pretty easy to do. You just get a bunch of metalheads together and they go all out, and God knows what'll happen but it'll be awesome.

Disco - it's called a dance off, and it has a formal structure. Each participant must outmagic (and outdance) the last, and they get to use their normal effects, boosted by how many turns went before them. When someone fails to outperform the last person, the ritual fizzles, and you'll need a new dance off

Hippie - they've got a dozen of these, it involves circles and drums and singing. You know what hippie magic looks like. It's very powerful in a very straightforward way, but getting a bunch of hippies to try to do the same thing is like herding cats

The Man - their entire system of magic is a shared ritual in the first place

===Secret Plotters===
Thwarting a secret plot is the basic adventure type in Fantastic America.  It's not the only thing you can do, but it's what you do when a D&D character would be going on a dungeon crawl.  To that end, there are lots of different groups that use secret plots as their primary mode of operation.

Soviets - they have plots to overthrow America, of course.  These include traditional secret plots and James Bond style secret agents (speaking of which, Bond and Indy are probably viable character classes in their own right) in straightforward attempts to take over, steal secrets, or do damage.  But they also include communist propaganda, which turns you communist if you learn too much. 

Greys - various completely inscrutable plots.  Always straightforward, though: they might try to remove all mercury from a 3 mile radius, for example.  They like to delegate away the obvious stuff using bribes or mind control.  The Man is especially sensitive about not letting people know these guys are around, for some reason

Deep Ones - inscrutable plots again, but these guys seem to want plots as complex as possible.  The term "Xanatos gambit" comes to mind.  They're clearly just doing old-school cultist stuff about waking up evil gods, hardly original.  Encountering them can result in damage to your sanity, though.

Dragons - yes, there are ancient firebreathing lizards pulling the strings behind some of the stuff going on.  All the dumb dragons died out back in the Renaissance so expect their plans to be highly competent ones.  Generally they're just amassing wealth and influence, and to that end they've all got major corporations and state governments to run, so any crazy schemes one dips into must be very lucrative indeed.  A draconic plot looks benign, runs smoothly, and is finished as quickly as possible without cutting corners (which paradoxically can be very slow: human plots cut corners).  Even if you thwart a draconic plot you're unlikely to know there was a dragon behind it.

The Man - just because some of the party are agents doesn't mean they sometimes don't go up against The Man.  The establishment is huge and sometimes there are things going on that one branch or another doesn't like.  It's not really infighting exactly, it's that The Man is an anthropomorphic personification of all big government and big corporations (both of which exist independently of The Man), and those sometimes fight.  Agents are generally seen covering stuff up, keeping the peace, and testing evil government brainwashy stuff.  They're rough to try to stop, since they have magical organizational/logistical powers where other groups have plans.

===Other Adversaries===
*Zombies - zombie outbreaks tend to peter out a few miles from whatever city it happens in.  Otherwise zombies are very bad news.
*Cryptids - there are piles of them and some of them are mean.  Until there's actual material on them, just assume they're basically all out there and The Man is covering them up

===History===

In general, historic periods take vastly longer than they did in the real world, because that's how things work in fantasy settings.  The medieval fantasy period took several thousand years, for example.  World War 2 took a hundred years.  Even though Fantastic America takes place in a wildly inaccurate interpretation of a 30 year period of real-world history, this setting will last at least a few hundred years.

Humans have been around forever.  Elves and Dwarves have been around since at least the dark ages, which were several thousand years ago and would have been your typical Tolkien-ripoff setting had you been there.  Gremlins showed up in the Victorian/steampunk era, and robots showed near the end of that era, but are much more common now.

The civil rights movement was about 40 years ago, but racial tensions are as high as the early 70s because things are slow.  In addition to integrating African-Americans, it also integrated the Drow and Duergar, who are just black elves and dwarves despite all the magic stereotypes.  Yes, discriminating against people because they were black despite having wildly bigger differences all over the place is meant to lampoon how silly racism is in the first place.

Elvis, the Archwizard of Rock, died about 80 years ago.  With Elvis's death, the power of Rock and Roll is sealed and cannot be used anymore.  Disco and Metal have brought music magic back to near its former glory, but only the true master of the one true style can inherit the mantle of Elvis and unseal the greater powers of music.  It's all very serious if you're a musician, that's why the discomancers and metalheads are always so uneasy around each other (and why both groups will try to kill you if they find out you've been practicing both).

The Hippies and Agents don't trust each other either, and won't allow each other to learn their magics, but unlike the music magicians their conflict is just a vague ideological thing and not something critically important like a struggle to fill a huge power vacuum.