Editing Setting:Fantastic America (section)

===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.