Ring of Fire

Ring of Fire History is written by the winners

The Ring of Fire is a chain of volcanic hot spots coursing around the Pacific Rim, where the ground shakes and fire is born from the earth. At the end of the Twentieth Century, it is a focus for action— political, economic... and magical.

The two mystic poles of the Ring of Fire are Hong Kong and San Francisco, large and diverse trading cities with turbulent histories. Each metropolis is a beating heart pulsing intrigue hundreds of miles in every direction.

The secret history of the world is massively confused. Organizations like the Technocracy and the Ascended prefer to remain behind the scenes, and take steps to be hard to detect if you don’t have intimate understanding of their workings; not only are they hidden from most of the mundane world, they remain well hidden from each other as well, because they seldom come into direct conflict. (Mages know mages because they compete for the same resources, but they don’t take feng shui sites seriously.) The default setting is a fat spliff rolled up from the factions of Feng Shui, Unknown Armies, Call of Cthulhu, and the World of Darkness in the modern juncture, and a past and future that will sometimes shift to Cyberpunk 2020, Cybergeneration, and Deadlands. Reality shifts on a regular basis as the different factions mix it up; the very nature of the Netherworld ensures that it opens on the points in history that are most vulnerable to change at a given time. Innerwalkers, due to their attunement to the Netherworld, usually get enough warning to make it to a nearby portal, should their own juncture close.

Times Places Factions Powers Paradox Conversions Mecha Technology Madness

Season One: Millennium Year Fever

Introductory text...

Letter to the head of the Men in Black from superiors in the Technocracy denying access to resources because they're already occupied on other fronts.
Transcript of a rant by Alex Abel complaining about all the damned werewolves.
Memo from the Order of the Wheel discussing the uprising among petty occultists.

A note on Troupe-style roleplaying One of the important things in any game where the GM hat is traded off on a regular basis is that the characters perceive a consistent universe. To avoid the differences in GM’ing style from becoming a problem for PC’s, the world of Ring of Fire is subject to regular small subcritical shifts— it is not unusual for innerwalkers to see billboards and headlines change every few hours or days. Any differences in GM’ing style can be blamed on the fluidity of in-game reality.

Background:

The sleeping tiger is twitching its tail and flexing its claws as millennium fever strikes. Suicide cults and apocalyptic visions are not unique to the Sleepers; the Kindred are worrying about the approach of Gehenna, the occult underground is rumbling about the Millennium and possible Second Coming, the Garou see all the signs of their Apocalypse, and everyone is rushing their own agendas to cope with the increased turmoil.

As various factions make their moves, major forces shift and the Netherworld responds. Junctures are opening and closing— there’s usually one each for the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries and another one open in the far future or distance past, but it’s hard to guess what you can get to this week. Las Vegas, a hotbed of feng shui activity, is one of the most reliable places for getting to the Netherworld and finding a nearby opening to another juncture.