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The Unholy Revolution:
A request by Metalheadjohn for a re-imagining of the main theme of The Unholy Reich . In this world the Napoleonic Empire is falling apart as the monumental losses incurred in Russia cripple the Grand Armee and shatter the illusion of invincibility that surrounded Napoleon and his empire. As everything collapses some people become desperate.

During the retreat across Europe, the emperor Napoleon begins to lose control over himself and rants and raves against the crumbling state of his ambitions. As he does this, a dark presence enters his tent and forms into a woman with red eyes, ghostly white skin and sickly purple veins running across her form. She offers him power in return for a war that will never cease and the emperor accepts. Soon pitch-black, bestial monstrosities emerge from the shadows and fall upon France’s enemies. The advance across Europe is stopped and Napoleon rallies his forces with the support of the shadowy beasts called Grimm.

With these dark powers at his command, Napoleon reversed his retreat and then moved back east, crushing rebellion with the monsters at his command. At the behest of his new patron, Napoleon also began to draw upon other dark powers, swelling the ranks of his army with new abominations that routed the forces of Europe. New cults emerged to oversee the creation of new monsters, the dread rituals fuelled with the blood and flesh of prisoners, rebels and those who questioned the decisions the emperor was making. Reinforced by other abominations, the French and their vile allies soon pushed forward on new fronts and expanded France’s empire to new heights. Darker powers were uncovered from ancient or previously unknown sites, swelling Napoleon's might even further and feeding his patron as well.

After securing the continent again, Napoleon turned his abominable armies on the British Isles. The island tried to gather its own forces, secretive groups revealing their own powers but what they could muster seemed miniscule by comparison. As Napoleon’s armies were transported across the Channel by flying and swimming Grimm leviathans and a French fleet that had been rebuilt to a size never before seen, Britain became desperate. It was then that several figures appeared before the British and showed them how to reveal their Aura, a manifestation of their souls that armoured them metaphysically and gave them strength. With their soldiers’ Aura unlocked and new mystical forces at their disposal, the British were able to defeat the French invasion force but only just.

Whilst Britain was still lost to him, Napoleon sent the bulk of his forces that he had not devoted to the war effort in the west into Russia. Though his Grimm froze in winter, they defrosted just as easily and were ready to fight whilst vampiric agents guarded them in the chill weather and hunted the Russian soldiers and officers with bloodthirsty glee.

Modern France is a bizarre and disturbing theocracy, dedicated to the dark forces the Bonapartist emperor made pacts with. France’s empire is now a dark and terrifying land where monstrosities now walk the land and often stalk their own population. A massive secret police, most of whom are now composed of vampiric agents sent from the Transylvanian Empire, specialised, tentacled ocular Grimm, enslaved Wesen and heretics who have stolen the holy power of the Church’s exorcists and now use it to keep the population cowed. French cities are twisted hives inspired by romantic designs that inevitably get stained by the dark forces the empire exploits. The new cities of the French Empire (as well as a heavily re-remodelled Paris) look like dark fairy tale cities covered in an eerie atmosphere.

France prefers magic over technology but hasn’t abandoned it completely. There are modern fixtures in buildings and industry has spread, primarily to feed the Empire’s war machine and keep its necessary infrastructure intact. Humans who are given over to the various dark cults that now rule France in the absent emperor’s place serve as the new aristocracy. The vast bureaucracy which is made of both humans, Orcs and other creatures keeps the empire running but people often fall through the cracks, a fact that doesn’t worry many as the are usually slaves and can be replaced. The most powerful of the cults is the Order of Salem, a group dedicated to the worship of the being who Napoleon first made a pact with. The heads of their order are supposedly able to fuse with the very Grimm they breed and become something much worse than any, demon, monster or beast the French can create.

France’s human population is almost completely consigned to the cities and various facilities, often to work as slave labour. The countrysides, with the exceptions of the agricultural zones that the government has set up, are given over to the Grimm. The beasts of Grimm have let the forests completely return to nature, with animal populations being left unmolested by the black-skinned monstrosities that wander amongst them. Human resistance movements that tried to establish themselves in the wilderness are usually hunted down by the misanthropic beasts. The only other creatures that can live in the wilder areas of the countryside are the Orcs, another monstrous race that Napoleon learnt about when he sought out other dark forces. Bred in dark pits, the Orcs were brought back into the world and then enslaved by the French Empire This race now exist as somewhat privileged thralls in the French Empire, often working as support soldiers for the Grimm and the few human forces that still serve in the army.

Napoleon Bonaparte is still the emperor but he has become a wretched creature, swollen into an obscene shape by the dark powers that continue to animate him. His descendants are now the hereditary heirophants of the foul cults he helped create and rule France in his place as he is incapable of even communicating properly with humans anymore. A vast cult of personality still extols Napoleon’s right to rule and he is revered as the god-emperor of France as well as the chosen vessel of the various dark powers who now patronise him. One of the things that ensures his rule over France is a small collection of enchanted coins that surround the bearer with a supernatural charisma and aura of compulsion. With these coins in his possession, Napoleon has the assured support of his descendants, his nobles and even his people who are slavishly devoted to him as long as he keeps the cursed items. The powerful beings he bargained with for power so long ago are not affected by the coins though and have been very interested in what they are.

France’s closest ally is the dark Transylvanian Empire. During his second rampage through Europe, Napoleon’s agents came upon the Ancient Vampire, a cursed creature who claimed to be the debauched and mad Emperor Claudius. With him was his spawn the Count Vladislaus Drakulya. Through the count, the vampires had a claim to Wallachia and Napoleon made a deal with them stating in return for their support he would give them Transylvania and more to rule over. With his support, the vampires not only took Transylvania with France’s blessing but were then sent to conquer the neighbouring Ottoman Empire.

The Transylvanian Empire is not as grim as France but the dark forces that rule it are very much in evidence. The capital and other major cities are swathed in thick, dark clouds that obscure the sun and allow the vampiric rulers of the empire to walk openly. People live in fear, regularly hunted by their rulers for sustenance or sport. Though Emperor Vlad is a comparatively nicer person than most of his spawn, the Ancient Vampire that rules over him and most of the lesser vampires the two of them produced are much less caring for human life. Orcs, some Wesen, Ghouls that have been enthralled by the vampires and lesser familiars as well as the loyal, human renfields, have all been invited into Wallachia to serve as enforcers.

The primary opposition to France is the British Empire who, despite having some weapons to fight France with, sought out other powers to help in the war. The biggest advantage they gained was when a sacred order – composed of different religious groups dedicated to fighting evil – once kept safe by the Catholic Church, moved all of its resources to London in the wake of France’s descent into darkness. Preferring to stay closer to the conflict than the main portion of the Papacy, the Holy Order have tied themselves to the UK and given them all of their resources to combat Napoleon and his patrons.

The UK and its empire have both been geared towards keeping France at bay, with the British having swelled their overseas territories to immense size in an effort to keep these lands away from France. It was also industrialised, first with mundane techniques and then with the advanced technology gained from extraterrestrial and prehistoric sources the UK recovered. The cities across the empire are now highly developed complexes, built with a ‘steampunk’ aesthetic that have also been combined with their own ‘fairytale’ features. The upper levels, which appear like shining Romantic castle towers at the top but are just as dark and grimy as ever in the slums and lower levels. Automated police drones, most of which can transform into a variety of different objects (often limited by size though) patrol the seats, hunting down dissidents and cultists that threaten the cohesion of the empire.

Desperate for weapons and power that could be wielded against the French, Britain scoured as much of the Earth as they could to find anything of value. It was at two very different locations that they found what they were looking for. In the Arctic Ocean, a naval expedition uncovered an extraterrestrial organism composed entirely of metal. Though it took decades, the UK was eventually able to reverse-engineer advanced technology from the dormant body of the entity. At the same time, they also found an esoteric artefact in western North America, a vast cuboid object of alien origin that was able to grant machinery life. The British have become experts at wrangling this sentient machinery and have put them to work. Most of the military’s machinery is now automated in this fashion and also has the ability to take a humanoid form and spontaneously produce weaponry far in advance of the conventional machinery they originally were.

At the centre of Britain’s society are two organisations, the Holy Order and the Hunters. Though the latter tends to bleed into the former now that some Order agents have their Aura unlocked, they are often at loggerheads over how much influence they have over the British Empire. The Order’s agents have artefacts and mystical forces gathered from every major (and righteous) religion in the world. They also have massive collections of darker and more esoteric artefacts, usually captured from their enemies that they safeguard and occasionally utilise should the situation be dire enough. The Hunters, however, are a group founded by the first people to have their Aura unlocked by Britain’s benefactors in the past. They continue to train any people who come to them who have talent but the recent rash of criminals, traitors and cultists who exploit the abilities they have been given has made the group a lot more paranoid about who they let in. Some Hunters also made contact with another world, one held in thrall by a wintry sorceress who, in return for the secrets of Aura, gave them the knowledge of her own dark magic. Since then, ice witches have also been employed by the British army, even if their efforts are starting to produce disturbing side-effects in the practitioners of these arts.

Both sides are happy to exploit technology for their arsenals. The Order were always keeping an eye on innovators and researchers, often because the more desperate or insane would resort to dark powers to complete their work. The Hunters, on the other hand, having been founded by the military, are even more enthusiastic about advanced hardware.

The United States of America is a nation that, for most of the 19th Century, existed at the sufferance of the other powers. Lacking any form of supernatural support, they were unable to expand that far and rejected the paranormal artefacts they were able to find as they saw how disturbing the French, British and other major powers were becoming as they exploited their own unnatural forces. It was only, on the verge of the 20th Century, that they found something that they were willing to resort to. In New England, a massive cache of extraterrestrial weaponry was found buried deep under the ground. Though it took time, the Americans were able to activate the alien machinery and then, eventually, reverse engineer it as well.

The United States was still too late to the ‘Great Game’ to acquire anything more but it has definitely made itself a power on the world stage. Their initial arsenal, made up of tripod war machines armed with death rays has since been expanded with gravity manipulating engines allowing massive machines to walk around on deceptively thin limbs and seemingly weak thrusters. Heat beam based weapons are also rather common these days (don’t expect civilian models though) as well as a variety of secret and horrific bioweapons produced from technology taken from Engineer sites. There’s also the creatures they wrangled from an alternate planet/dimension that was discovered by a secret project called Arrowhead. The infestation by this ecosystem and the subsequent quarantine that was needed to prevent New England from being completely overrun has caused some trepidation for the populace at large.

The modern United States is a nation of the future and has rejected the unnatural powers the other great empires rely upon. Though they are dedicated to science, the US is still highly superstitious and they, of course, do not reject the idea of supernatural forces. Everything in the US is designed to display this fact with the major cities having been transformed into shining arcologies that contrast the dark, fairytale style metropolises of Britain and France. Organised crime is a problem, especially since some groups have been able to get their hands on alien derived technology as well. Foreign criminal groups, especially those from Britain who have had their Aura unlocked, are even more dangerous as they bring their supernatural powers with them. There are also incredibly violent rural groups who usually either reject the scientific dependency of the US or who have bargained with supernatural forces of their own.

The Papal Empire of Brazil and its various dependencies are another major power. The flight of the Catholic Church during the resurgence of the Napoleonic Empire saw the Papacy and its closest agents seek refuge in Brazil. The Holy Order, a separate and almost heretical multi-faith organisation took all of their resources to the UK where they aligned themselves with the British. The Papacy, however, took their directly controlled mystical projects and operations and brought them to Brazil.

Brazil is still a monarchy but for all intents and purposes, it is actually a Catholic theocracy. The Pope does not reign but he does rule as does the Inquisition who have once again become a public institution. They have expanded their duties from hunting down devilish cults and unnatural (non-Angelic) beings and have become a secret police force that deal with mundane dissidents as well. The Papacy has embraced the extraterrestrial derived technology provided by the British and Americans but forbids all non-sanctioned supernatural powers. Their agents are able to call upon the Heavenly Light of God and wield it as weapons or imbue mundane ones with its blessing but the amount they can wield is negligible compared to their Angelic patrons.

The Papal forces are involved in various experiments regarding the various holy relics they hold. With the war against the supernatural and abominable forces spinning out of control various new projects have begun. Most of them are actually out of the Pope’s direct supervision, the budgets often being allocated in secret. Many, such as the infamous (at least as much as a secret group can be) Holy Sword Project was responsible for numerous atrocities against its test subjects, most of whom were children. Though these organisations have managed to reproduce holy relics and expand the Papacy’s arsenal the moral costs that the Pope is learning about weigh heavily on him.

China spent a lot of time as little more than a vassal of France for almost a century. It barely avoided being carved up between the other, more developed powers and covertly searched for its own patrons or technology to give it an advantage. It was in the 1950s that they received something useful that they alone could exploit. An extraterrestrial craft crashed into their lands and was taken by Chinese agents before the French could find it. Using known alien technology bought from the Americans as a base, the Chinese reverse engineered the ship and built their own arsenal. What they also recovered were the pilots of the craft.

Modern China, like the United States of America, is a state built on extraterrestrial technology that has been reverse-engineered and adapted to their needs. Chinese cities are bizarre techno-organic metropolises that house countless millions of people in large, ovoid hives that are connected by capillary lines of anti-gravity trams that can carry thousands at a time. Serpentine, autonomous cameras monitor everything alongside drones who will often travel out of the cities into the immense farms of genetically augmented crop plants that feed the continuously ballooning population. People are often grown artificially and much of the more recent generations has been subjected to some form of genetic tampering in order to grow them to predetermined designs made by the government. The last two generations of grown Chinese are not just built with an optimum body design, but have also exhibited greyish, rubbery skin texture, ridges on their foreheads and additional joints in their skeletons.

Behind the increasingly alien transformation of China is a malignant intelligence that has been guiding them subtly for generations. Several alien bodies were recovered from the crash and one happened to be alive, albeit in a state of suspended animation. It awakened itself during a visit by the emperor and other key officials and spent the days they were within the facility slowly influencing their minds. Eventually, it had planted enough of its telepathic influence within them to begin controlling them outright. Now, the Harvester is the ruler of China, influencing entire generations of monarchs, officials and leaders within several levels of the government. He is completely unable to contact the hives scattered across the galaxy but he can amplify the signal, he just needs to engineer enough of the locals to be like his kind. Once he changes them and connects their altered brains to the hivemind, he can call the rest of his kind and harvest this world.

The third lesser great power is the Empire of Japan, a nation that has gone to great lengths to ensure its independence in the face of the other great powers’ expansion. As the major empires closed in on East Asia, the Japanese were forcibly interfered with, an act that eventually spurred them on to finding their own supernatural forces to support them.

As demon-summoning and necromancy spread out from France, the Japanese brought in blasphemous texts to harness the dead for themselves. An infectious form of necromantic animation was utilised to decimate invading forces but left behind two things, the hardy undead they named the Kabane and powerful hybrids between human and Kabane they named the Kabaneri. Both are now used in the Japanese military and have been horrifically effective. The Kabane are normally used as a means of clearing out enemy territories and have been responsible for securing many of Japan’s overseas acquisitions. The Kabaneri, meanwhile, have often been sent as assassins and can even match the vampires of France and Transylvania in combat.

Japan, by this point is a bizarre state that mixes its traditional aristocratic social order with the modern militarism of Europe. They did import some ideas, technology and cultural features from Europe but they have preserved more of their traditional culture in the face of European efforts to conquer them. The samurai have lost many of their traditional powers but they still have a place in society. Some of them will even submit themselves to the Kabaneri process though these samurai tend to be spare sons (and occasionally daughters). Despite this conservative veneer, Japan has embraced modern and advanced/alien technology as well, especially in where it can be applied to the military. With their use of the Kabane Virus, they have also turned towards the biotechnology of the Engineers and have attempted to create various war beasts. They have managed to produce various war abominations, usually by experimenting on Koreans and Filipinos and turning them into horrific, warped perversions of the human form that then have control chips implanted in them and weapons grafted to their bodies.

Not too long ago a group in Japan also discovered something disturbing, the supposed next form of mankind. Called the Diclonii by western scientists, these beings operate on a hivemind, possess numerous invisible, ocilating limbs called vectors and have an innate hatred of humankind that drives them to slaughter people. By cooperating with the USA, the Japanese have been able to develop control devices that allow them to order the Diclonii around. They have since been used as shock-troops by whichever of the non-French nations have been able to find them. Their disturbing ability to rewrite the genetic structure of human males and turn them into Diclonii breeders has led to strict control over them though and outbreaks of genetic infection have devastated human communities in isolated areas.

Since humanity first came down from the trees, there have been the Wesen, hidden beings that hide behind glamours that allow them to hide in human society. Before Napoleon, only the Grimm, special humans that could dispel their protections temporarily were the only way a Wesen could be unwillingly revealed. The proliferation and mass production of supernatural forces, however, ended up forcing Wesen everywhere to unintentionally reveal their true forms. Wesen have since been profiled by every nation around the world. Nations often deal with them differently. Some like the British and French do treat them the same as their human subjects (make of that what you will) whilst others like Japan, Brazil and the USA strictly segregate them. Both groups will still put the Wesen to work in whatever way they can, exploiting their supernatural abilities to try to find some advantage in their war. China has been systematically exterminating them due to the fact that their existence confuses the Harvester. Grimm do not take kindly to Wesen either, finding them still too close to human to allow to live. Wesen Hunters from Britain are considered infamously powerful due to their ability to combine their natural, abilities with their semblances and combat training.

The dead no longer rest easy in this world. Though the Kabane virus and its ability to not only revive but mutate the dead and infect the living is one of the most infamous forms of necromancy, there are other means of reanimating corpses. An unorthodox one is the rather confusing method reviving those who condemned themselves to the Labyrinth. These damned souls can only return to life when fresh blood falls on the place of their death and damnation. Warped into demons by their experiences in the Labyrinth, there are now an unknown number of hungering degenerates who feed off the life of others to maintain themselves. They are, in turn, hunted by the vengeful and angry Cenobites who are charged with returning escaped souls. The most prolific and disturbing are the Deadites, demon possessed corpses who exist to spread their own numbers, infect the living and have gone out of control is several parts of the world thanks to unknown copies of the Necronomicon that have been distributed by unscrupulous occultists and black marketeers. Then there’s the reanimation serum, a disturbing (and relatively easy to acquire) concoction responsible for independent cellular animation of dead tissue which has led to body parts running free.

There hidden places scattered around the world where prehistoric and esoteric lifeforms survive. The most infamous is a cluster of unrelated islands in the Indian Ocean, near Indonesia. These archipelagos are remnants of landmasses that have been able to preserve dinosaurs and other older forms of life, all of which have evolved into aggressive and powerful creatures. Death-traps, these islands are also home to extreme beasts that grown to immense size in the oppressive and hostile jungles. The most infamous of these various menageries are the massive and powerful apes that call the islands home. Expeditions that have been able to penetrate the anomalous storms that protect the islands have captured many creatures, often to take them home, break them and often mutate or augment them to turn them into powerful living weapons.

There is a bizarre phenomenon that much of the world’s upper class possess. Due to their own breeding practises, the social elite are able to shunt their bodies, twisting them into unnatural shapes and configurations, sometimes even melding multiple people together and experience warped sensations by doing so. France’s old elite have largely been purged as those who shunt have been averse to using the dark powers of their emperor’s patrons. Those ‘shunters’ who become Hunters in the British Empire usually pass off their ability to shunt as an aspect of their semblance as most of them prefer to keep it secret. The fact that often engage in disgustingly obscene orgies with one another, some of which even involve killing poor people they have acquired.

The technology of this world is almost schizophrenic thanks to the discovery of so many extraterrestrial deposits. Most nations now have cities that incorporate wondrous civilian technologies that allow their settlements to grow to massive sizes, house millions and even sustain themselves with less output from outside sources than they would have. Great towers are now the homes of most people, the wealthy having domed settlements to themselves that pierce the clouds (but sometimes not the unnatural smog). Laser weapons, whether they’re concentrated heat rays, microwave emitters or particle accelerators are now commonplace and the transforming machines that are now common in the British Empire have changed their industries and armies. Robots are not common outside of the UK but there are semi-automated drones everywhere now that come in a variety of sizes and are often well armed. Advanced androids have also been made, some of which have personalities. The recent construction of an android with a soul, capable of wielding Aura, is a momentous secret development by the UK. Esoteric energy sources provide much of the worlds powers and are closely guarded due to their volatile nature.

Engineer biotechnology has also led to other changes. Their advanced mutagens have allowed the nations that discovered their sites to create all manner of creatures. Some are immense food beasts, grown to be butchered and provide meat for the populace. Others are terrifying living weapons, many of which are difficult to control. Some have also tried to augment humans (and those afflicted with certain forms of necromantic animation like Kabane victims) with the mutagens, often with disturbing results.

Unknown by all the factions of this world, the actions of France and its enemies and rivals has had massive ramifications for the universe. The three great factions of the Abrahamic Faith have been shaken up by the dark powers that now war for the collective soul of humanity with even the Devils of Hell (an eccentric bunch these days) now concerned about this could mean for them. Heaven and Hell have been mobilising their depleted forces and gathering whatever powers they can to them in preparation for the descent of the foul forces that now afflict the Earth. In desperation they have even been recruiting humans into their ranks, turning them into versions of their own kind to bolster their numbers. Darker and darker forces are flocking to the Earth and a tipping point may be reached at some point. Some point soon.

All rights to the creators of RWBY, Re-Animator, Dracula Untold, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Van Helsing, Kabaneri on the Iron Fortress, Evil Dead, The Mist, Grimm, Elfen Lied, Independence Day/Resurgence, Day of the Triffids, Transformers, War of the Worlds, Hellraiser, Society, Prometheus, Highschool DxD, the Mummy 1999 & 2017, Dead Snow and Troll Hunter.

Description

The Unholy Revolution:
A request by Metalheadjohn for a re-imagining of the main theme of The Unholy Reich . In this world the Napoleonic Empire is falling apart as the monumental losses incurred in Russia cripple the Grand Armee and shatter the illusion of invincibility that surrounded Napoleon and his empire. As everything collapses some people become desperate.

During the retreat across Europe, the emperor Napoleon begins to lose control over himself and rants and raves against the crumbling state of his ambitions. As he does this, a dark presence enters his tent and forms into a woman with red eyes, ghostly white skin and sickly purple veins running across her form. She offers him power in return for a war that will never cease and the emperor accepts. Soon pitch-black, bestial monstrosities emerge from the shadows and fall upon France’s enemies. The advance across Europe is stopped and Napoleon rallies his forces with the support of the shadowy beasts called Grimm.

With these dark powers at his command, Napoleon reversed his retreat and then moved back east, crushing rebellion with the monsters at his command. At the behest of his new patron, Napoleon also began to draw upon other dark powers, swelling the ranks of his army with new abominations that routed the forces of Europe. New cults emerged to oversee the creation of new monsters, the dread rituals fuelled with the blood and flesh of prisoners, rebels and those who questioned the decisions the emperor was making. Reinforced by other abominations, the French and their vile allies soon pushed forward on new fronts and expanded France’s empire to new heights. Darker powers were uncovered from ancient or previously unknown sites, swelling Napoleon's might even further and feeding his patron as well.

After securing the continent again, Napoleon turned his abominable armies on the British Isles. The island tried to gather its own forces, secretive groups revealing their own powers but what they could muster seemed miniscule by comparison. As Napoleon’s armies were transported across the Channel by flying and swimming Grimm leviathans and a French fleet that had been rebuilt to a size never before seen, Britain became desperate. It was then that several figures appeared before the British and showed them how to reveal their Aura, a manifestation of their souls that armoured them metaphysically and gave them strength. With their soldiers’ Aura unlocked and new mystical forces at their disposal, the British were able to defeat the French invasion force but only just.

Whilst Britain was still lost to him, Napoleon sent the bulk of his forces that he had not devoted to the war effort in the west into Russia. Though his Grimm froze in winter, they defrosted just as easily and were ready to fight whilst vampiric agents guarded them in the chill weather and hunted the Russian soldiers and officers with bloodthirsty glee.

Modern France is a bizarre and disturbing theocracy, dedicated to the dark forces the Bonapartist emperor made pacts with. France’s empire is now a dark and terrifying land where monstrosities now walk the land and often stalk their own population. A massive secret police, most of whom are now composed of vampiric agents sent from the Transylvanian Empire, specialised, tentacled ocular Grimm, enslaved Wesen and heretics who have stolen the holy power of the Church’s exorcists and now use it to keep the population cowed. French cities are twisted hives inspired by romantic designs that inevitably get stained by the dark forces the empire exploits. The new cities of the French Empire (as well as a heavily re-remodelled Paris) look like dark fairy tale cities covered in an eerie atmosphere.

France prefers magic over technology but hasn’t abandoned it completely. There are modern fixtures in buildings and industry has spread, primarily to feed the Empire’s war machine and keep its necessary infrastructure intact. Humans who are given over to the various dark cults that now rule France in the absent emperor’s place serve as the new aristocracy. The vast bureaucracy which is made of both humans, Orcs and other creatures keeps the empire running but people often fall through the cracks, a fact that doesn’t worry many as the are usually slaves and can be replaced. The most powerful of the cults is the Order of Salem, a group dedicated to the worship of the being who Napoleon first made a pact with. The heads of their order are supposedly able to fuse with the very Grimm they breed and become something much worse than any, demon, monster or beast the French can create.

France’s human population is almost completely consigned to the cities and various facilities, often to work as slave labour. The countrysides, with the exceptions of the agricultural zones that the government has set up, are given over to the Grimm. The beasts of Grimm have let the forests completely return to nature, with animal populations being left unmolested by the black-skinned monstrosities that wander amongst them. Human resistance movements that tried to establish themselves in the wilderness are usually hunted down by the misanthropic beasts. The only other creatures that can live in the wilder areas of the countryside are the Orcs, another monstrous race that Napoleon learnt about when he sought out other dark forces. Bred in dark pits, the Orcs were brought back into the world and then enslaved by the French Empire This race now exist as somewhat privileged thralls in the French Empire, often working as support soldiers for the Grimm and the few human forces that still serve in the army.

Napoleon Bonaparte is still the emperor but he has become a wretched creature, swollen into an obscene shape by the dark powers that continue to animate him. His descendants are now the hereditary heirophants of the foul cults he helped create and rule France in his place as he is incapable of even communicating properly with humans anymore. A vast cult of personality still extols Napoleon’s right to rule and he is revered as the god-emperor of France as well as the chosen vessel of the various dark powers who now patronise him. One of the things that ensures his rule over France is a small collection of enchanted coins that surround the bearer with a supernatural charisma and aura of compulsion. With these coins in his possession, Napoleon has the assured support of his descendants, his nobles and even his people who are slavishly devoted to him as long as he keeps the cursed items. The powerful beings he bargained with for power so long ago are not affected by the coins though and have been very interested in what they are.

France’s closest ally is the dark Transylvanian Empire. During his second rampage through Europe, Napoleon’s agents came upon the Ancient Vampire, a cursed creature who claimed to be the debauched and mad Emperor Claudius. With him was his spawn the Count Vladislaus Drakulya. Through the count, the vampires had a claim to Wallachia and Napoleon made a deal with them stating in return for their support he would give them Transylvania and more to rule over. With his support, the vampires not only took Transylvania with France’s blessing but were then sent to conquer the neighbouring Ottoman Empire.

The Transylvanian Empire is not as grim as France but the dark forces that rule it are very much in evidence. The capital and other major cities are swathed in thick, dark clouds that obscure the sun and allow the vampiric rulers of the empire to walk openly. People live in fear, regularly hunted by their rulers for sustenance or sport. Though Emperor Vlad is a comparatively nicer person than most of his spawn, the Ancient Vampire that rules over him and most of the lesser vampires the two of them produced are much less caring for human life. Orcs, some Wesen, Ghouls that have been enthralled by the vampires and lesser familiars as well as the loyal, human renfields, have all been invited into Wallachia to serve as enforcers.

The primary opposition to France is the British Empire who, despite having some weapons to fight France with, sought out other powers to help in the war. The biggest advantage they gained was when a sacred order – composed of different religious groups dedicated to fighting evil – once kept safe by the Catholic Church, moved all of its resources to London in the wake of France’s descent into darkness. Preferring to stay closer to the conflict than the main portion of the Papacy, the Holy Order have tied themselves to the UK and given them all of their resources to combat Napoleon and his patrons.

The UK and its empire have both been geared towards keeping France at bay, with the British having swelled their overseas territories to immense size in an effort to keep these lands away from France. It was also industrialised, first with mundane techniques and then with the advanced technology gained from extraterrestrial and prehistoric sources the UK recovered. The cities across the empire are now highly developed complexes, built with a ‘steampunk’ aesthetic that have also been combined with their own ‘fairytale’ features. The upper levels, which appear like shining Romantic castle towers at the top but are just as dark and grimy as ever in the slums and lower levels. Automated police drones, most of which can transform into a variety of different objects (often limited by size though) patrol the seats, hunting down dissidents and cultists that threaten the cohesion of the empire.

Desperate for weapons and power that could be wielded against the French, Britain scoured as much of the Earth as they could to find anything of value. It was at two very different locations that they found what they were looking for. In the Arctic Ocean, a naval expedition uncovered an extraterrestrial organism composed entirely of metal. Though it took decades, the UK was eventually able to reverse-engineer advanced technology from the dormant body of the entity. At the same time, they also found an esoteric artefact in western North America, a vast cuboid object of alien origin that was able to grant machinery life. The British have become experts at wrangling this sentient machinery and have put them to work. Most of the military’s machinery is now automated in this fashion and also has the ability to take a humanoid form and spontaneously produce weaponry far in advance of the conventional machinery they originally were.

At the centre of Britain’s society are two organisations, the Holy Order and the Hunters. Though the latter tends to bleed into the former now that some Order agents have their Aura unlocked, they are often at loggerheads over how much influence they have over the British Empire. The Order’s agents have artefacts and mystical forces gathered from every major (and righteous) religion in the world. They also have massive collections of darker and more esoteric artefacts, usually captured from their enemies that they safeguard and occasionally utilise should the situation be dire enough. The Hunters, however, are a group founded by the first people to have their Aura unlocked by Britain’s benefactors in the past. They continue to train any people who come to them who have talent but the recent rash of criminals, traitors and cultists who exploit the abilities they have been given has made the group a lot more paranoid about who they let in. Some Hunters also made contact with another world, one held in thrall by a wintry sorceress who, in return for the secrets of Aura, gave them the knowledge of her own dark magic. Since then, ice witches have also been employed by the British army, even if their efforts are starting to produce disturbing side-effects in the practitioners of these arts.

Both sides are happy to exploit technology for their arsenals. The Order were always keeping an eye on innovators and researchers, often because the more desperate or insane would resort to dark powers to complete their work. The Hunters, on the other hand, having been founded by the military, are even more enthusiastic about advanced hardware.

The United States of America is a nation that, for most of the 19th Century, existed at the sufferance of the other powers. Lacking any form of supernatural support, they were unable to expand that far and rejected the paranormal artefacts they were able to find as they saw how disturbing the French, British and other major powers were becoming as they exploited their own unnatural forces. It was only, on the verge of the 20th Century, that they found something that they were willing to resort to. In New England, a massive cache of extraterrestrial weaponry was found buried deep under the ground. Though it took time, the Americans were able to activate the alien machinery and then, eventually, reverse engineer it as well.

The United States was still too late to the ‘Great Game’ to acquire anything more but it has definitely made itself a power on the world stage. Their initial arsenal, made up of tripod war machines armed with death rays has since been expanded with gravity manipulating engines allowing massive machines to walk around on deceptively thin limbs and seemingly weak thrusters. Heat beam based weapons are also rather common these days (don’t expect civilian models though) as well as a variety of secret and horrific bioweapons produced from technology taken from Engineer sites. There’s also the creatures they wrangled from an alternate planet/dimension that was discovered by a secret project called Arrowhead. The infestation by this ecosystem and the subsequent quarantine that was needed to prevent New England from being completely overrun has caused some trepidation for the populace at large.

The modern United States is a nation of the future and has rejected the unnatural powers the other great empires rely upon. Though they are dedicated to science, the US is still highly superstitious and they, of course, do not reject the idea of supernatural forces. Everything in the US is designed to display this fact with the major cities having been transformed into shining arcologies that contrast the dark, fairytale style metropolises of Britain and France. Organised crime is a problem, especially since some groups have been able to get their hands on alien derived technology as well. Foreign criminal groups, especially those from Britain who have had their Aura unlocked, are even more dangerous as they bring their supernatural powers with them. There are also incredibly violent rural groups who usually either reject the scientific dependency of the US or who have bargained with supernatural forces of their own.

The Papal Empire of Brazil and its various dependencies are another major power. The flight of the Catholic Church during the resurgence of the Napoleonic Empire saw the Papacy and its closest agents seek refuge in Brazil. The Holy Order, a separate and almost heretical multi-faith organisation took all of their resources to the UK where they aligned themselves with the British. The Papacy, however, took their directly controlled mystical projects and operations and brought them to Brazil.

Brazil is still a monarchy but for all intents and purposes, it is actually a Catholic theocracy. The Pope does not reign but he does rule as does the Inquisition who have once again become a public institution. They have expanded their duties from hunting down devilish cults and unnatural (non-Angelic) beings and have become a secret police force that deal with mundane dissidents as well. The Papacy has embraced the extraterrestrial derived technology provided by the British and Americans but forbids all non-sanctioned supernatural powers. Their agents are able to call upon the Heavenly Light of God and wield it as weapons or imbue mundane ones with its blessing but the amount they can wield is negligible compared to their Angelic patrons.

The Papal forces are involved in various experiments regarding the various holy relics they hold. With the war against the supernatural and abominable forces spinning out of control various new projects have begun. Most of them are actually out of the Pope’s direct supervision, the budgets often being allocated in secret. Many, such as the infamous (at least as much as a secret group can be) Holy Sword Project was responsible for numerous atrocities against its test subjects, most of whom were children. Though these organisations have managed to reproduce holy relics and expand the Papacy’s arsenal the moral costs that the Pope is learning about weigh heavily on him.

China spent a lot of time as little more than a vassal of France for almost a century. It barely avoided being carved up between the other, more developed powers and covertly searched for its own patrons or technology to give it an advantage. It was in the 1950s that they received something useful that they alone could exploit. An extraterrestrial craft crashed into their lands and was taken by Chinese agents before the French could find it. Using known alien technology bought from the Americans as a base, the Chinese reverse engineered the ship and built their own arsenal. What they also recovered were the pilots of the craft.

Modern China, like the United States of America, is a state built on extraterrestrial technology that has been reverse-engineered and adapted to their needs. Chinese cities are bizarre techno-organic metropolises that house countless millions of people in large, ovoid hives that are connected by capillary lines of anti-gravity trams that can carry thousands at a time. Serpentine, autonomous cameras monitor everything alongside drones who will often travel out of the cities into the immense farms of genetically augmented crop plants that feed the continuously ballooning population. People are often grown artificially and much of the more recent generations has been subjected to some form of genetic tampering in order to grow them to predetermined designs made by the government. The last two generations of grown Chinese are not just built with an optimum body design, but have also exhibited greyish, rubbery skin texture, ridges on their foreheads and additional joints in their skeletons.

Behind the increasingly alien transformation of China is a malignant intelligence that has been guiding them subtly for generations. Several alien bodies were recovered from the crash and one happened to be alive, albeit in a state of suspended animation. It awakened itself during a visit by the emperor and other key officials and spent the days they were within the facility slowly influencing their minds. Eventually, it had planted enough of its telepathic influence within them to begin controlling them outright. Now, the Harvester is the ruler of China, influencing entire generations of monarchs, officials and leaders within several levels of the government. He is completely unable to contact the hives scattered across the galaxy but he can amplify the signal, he just needs to engineer enough of the locals to be like his kind. Once he changes them and connects their altered brains to the hivemind, he can call the rest of his kind and harvest this world.

The third lesser great power is the Empire of Japan, a nation that has gone to great lengths to ensure its independence in the face of the other great powers’ expansion. As the major empires closed in on East Asia, the Japanese were forcibly interfered with, an act that eventually spurred them on to finding their own supernatural forces to support them.

As demon-summoning and necromancy spread out from France, the Japanese brought in blasphemous texts to harness the dead for themselves. An infectious form of necromantic animation was utilised to decimate invading forces but left behind two things, the hardy undead they named the Kabane and powerful hybrids between human and Kabane they named the Kabaneri. Both are now used in the Japanese military and have been horrifically effective. The Kabane are normally used as a means of clearing out enemy territories and have been responsible for securing many of Japan’s overseas acquisitions. The Kabaneri, meanwhile, have often been sent as assassins and can even match the vampires of France and Transylvania in combat.

Japan, by this point is a bizarre state that mixes its traditional aristocratic social order with the modern militarism of Europe. They did import some ideas, technology and cultural features from Europe but they have preserved more of their traditional culture in the face of European efforts to conquer them. The samurai have lost many of their traditional powers but they still have a place in society. Some of them will even submit themselves to the Kabaneri process though these samurai tend to be spare sons (and occasionally daughters). Despite this conservative veneer, Japan has embraced modern and advanced/alien technology as well, especially in where it can be applied to the military. With their use of the Kabane Virus, they have also turned towards the biotechnology of the Engineers and have attempted to create various war beasts. They have managed to produce various war abominations, usually by experimenting on Koreans and Filipinos and turning them into horrific, warped perversions of the human form that then have control chips implanted in them and weapons grafted to their bodies.

Not too long ago a group in Japan also discovered something disturbing, the supposed next form of mankind. Called the Diclonii by western scientists, these beings operate on a hivemind, possess numerous invisible, ocilating limbs called vectors and have an innate hatred of humankind that drives them to slaughter people. By cooperating with the USA, the Japanese have been able to develop control devices that allow them to order the Diclonii around. They have since been used as shock-troops by whichever of the non-French nations have been able to find them. Their disturbing ability to rewrite the genetic structure of human males and turn them into Diclonii breeders has led to strict control over them though and outbreaks of genetic infection have devastated human communities in isolated areas.

Since humanity first came down from the trees, there have been the Wesen, hidden beings that hide behind glamours that allow them to hide in human society. Before Napoleon, only the Grimm, special humans that could dispel their protections temporarily were the only way a Wesen could be unwillingly revealed. The proliferation and mass production of supernatural forces, however, ended up forcing Wesen everywhere to unintentionally reveal their true forms. Wesen have since been profiled by every nation around the world. Nations often deal with them differently. Some like the British and French do treat them the same as their human subjects (make of that what you will) whilst others like Japan, Brazil and the USA strictly segregate them. Both groups will still put the Wesen to work in whatever way they can, exploiting their supernatural abilities to try to find some advantage in their war. China has been systematically exterminating them due to the fact that their existence confuses the Harvester. Grimm do not take kindly to Wesen either, finding them still too close to human to allow to live. Wesen Hunters from Britain are considered infamously powerful due to their ability to combine their natural, abilities with their semblances and combat training.

The dead no longer rest easy in this world. Though the Kabane virus and its ability to not only revive but mutate the dead and infect the living is one of the most infamous forms of necromancy, there are other means of reanimating corpses. An unorthodox one is the rather confusing method reviving those who condemned themselves to the Labyrinth. These damned souls can only return to life when fresh blood falls on the place of their death and damnation. Warped into demons by their experiences in the Labyrinth, there are now an unknown number of hungering degenerates who feed off the life of others to maintain themselves. They are, in turn, hunted by the vengeful and angry Cenobites who are charged with returning escaped souls. The most prolific and disturbing are the Deadites, demon possessed corpses who exist to spread their own numbers, infect the living and have gone out of control is several parts of the world thanks to unknown copies of the Necronomicon that have been distributed by unscrupulous occultists and black marketeers. Then there’s the reanimation serum, a disturbing (and relatively easy to acquire) concoction responsible for independent cellular animation of dead tissue which has led to body parts running free.

There hidden places scattered around the world where prehistoric and esoteric lifeforms survive. The most infamous is a cluster of unrelated islands in the Indian Ocean, near Indonesia. These archipelagos are remnants of landmasses that have been able to preserve dinosaurs and other older forms of life, all of which have evolved into aggressive and powerful creatures. Death-traps, these islands are also home to extreme beasts that grown to immense size in the oppressive and hostile jungles. The most infamous of these various menageries are the massive and powerful apes that call the islands home. Expeditions that have been able to penetrate the anomalous storms that protect the islands have captured many creatures, often to take them home, break them and often mutate or augment them to turn them into powerful living weapons.

There is a bizarre phenomenon that much of the world’s upper class possess. Due to their own breeding practises, the social elite are able to shunt their bodies, twisting them into unnatural shapes and configurations, sometimes even melding multiple people together and experience warped sensations by doing so. France’s old elite have largely been purged as those who shunt have been averse to using the dark powers of their emperor’s patrons. Those ‘shunters’ who become Hunters in the British Empire usually pass off their ability to shunt as an aspect of their semblance as most of them prefer to keep it secret. The fact that often engage in disgustingly obscene orgies with one another, some of which even involve killing poor people they have acquired.

The technology of this world is almost schizophrenic thanks to the discovery of so many extraterrestrial deposits. Most nations now have cities that incorporate wondrous civilian technologies that allow their settlements to grow to massive sizes, house millions and even sustain themselves with less output from outside sources than they would have. Great towers are now the homes of most people, the wealthy having domed settlements to themselves that pierce the clouds (but sometimes not the unnatural smog). Laser weapons, whether they’re concentrated heat rays, microwave emitters or particle accelerators are now commonplace and the transforming machines that are now common in the British Empire have changed their industries and armies. Robots are not common outside of the UK but there are semi-automated drones everywhere now that come in a variety of sizes and are often well armed. Advanced androids have also been made, some of which have personalities. The recent construction of an android with a soul, capable of wielding Aura, is a momentous secret development by the UK. Esoteric energy sources provide much of the worlds powers and are closely guarded due to their volatile nature.

Engineer biotechnology has also led to other changes. Their advanced mutagens have allowed the nations that discovered their sites to create all manner of creatures. Some are immense food beasts, grown to be butchered and provide meat for the populace. Others are terrifying living weapons, many of which are difficult to control. Some have also tried to augment humans (and those afflicted with certain forms of necromantic animation like Kabane victims) with the mutagens, often with disturbing results.

Unknown by all the factions of this world, the actions of France and its enemies and rivals has had massive ramifications for the universe. The three great factions of the Abrahamic Faith have been shaken up by the dark powers that now war for the collective soul of humanity with even the Devils of Hell (an eccentric bunch these days) now concerned about this could mean for them. Heaven and Hell have been mobilising their depleted forces and gathering whatever powers they can to them in preparation for the descent of the foul forces that now afflict the Earth. In desperation they have even been recruiting humans into their ranks, turning them into versions of their own kind to bolster their numbers. Darker and darker forces are flocking to the Earth and a tipping point may be reached at some point. Some point soon.

All rights to the creators of RWBY, Re-Animator, Dracula Untold, Lord of the Rings, Narnia, Van Helsing, Kabaneri on the Iron Fortress, Evil Dead, The Mist, Grimm, Elfen Lied, Independence Day/Resurgence, Day of the Triffids, Transformers, War of the Worlds, Hellraiser, Society, Prometheus, Highschool DxD, the Mummy 1999 & 2017, Dead Snow and Troll Hunter.