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1. The “United” States of AmericaToday, the United States of America can barely hold itself together. With more than three-quarters of its territory having fallen under a plethora of breakaway states and non-state entities, the USA struggles to survive in an increasingly bizarre and frantic world. The eruption of the Yellowstone Supervolcano was the final death knell of the United States. Combined with the federal government’s ability to maintain order, the ensuing chaos brought about what would become known as the American Sengoku, where hundreds if not thousands of warlords duked it out for supremacy. From the quaking wastes of San Diego to the grey ruins of St. Louis, man fought man and man fought monster. In California and Texas it would be like this for the next decade. But in the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone, or at least the parts still fit for human life, it would stay this way forever. As the chaos subsided, two powers rose from the ashes. The Shogunate of California would be unified by Firippu Gyaraga, who in the early 2010s would vassalize the Ludocratic State of Vegas, the State of Arizona, and the states of Washington and Oregon that had combined with the Canadian province of British Columbia to form the Cascadian Union. Meanwhile the Republic of Texas, ruled by a loose alliance of martial artists, would take control of New Mexico and Oklaholma as protectorates. In most of the Great Plains and Mountain States, the American Sengoku would never end. With very few exceptions it would remain a land of terrible monsters and deadly terrain, and only its outer limits would become viable territory for human warlords. The Yellowstone Exclusion Zone would be divided into four concentric Zones, each one more lethal than the last. Idaho would become Private Idaho and Montana would become the Free State of Montana. What remained of Utah would become the Holy Kingdom of Deseret (as is the case in these alternate histories) while Hawaii and Alaska seceded into a Kingdom and a Republic. The State of Florida seceded from the Union, whereupon it simply became known as Florida. In the Northeastern United States, things weren’t looking any better either. A magical Mist would make it impossible to travel in and out of New England and Upstate New York. The Mist was so thick people were stranded inside their houses and in worse cases, their homes. For twenty-two years, not a single soul would enter and not a single soul would leave. Doors and lockers and bridges became portals to the Labyrinth Realm, an endless interdimensional maze filled with monsters and treasure. In the years to come it would prove to be both a blessing and a curse to the newly formed Kingdom of Novanglia. And in the windy summer of 2022, the Mist would dissipate and the awed people of New York would gaze upon a land changed forever. 1.1 Federal Territories (Remnant USA)America! Fuck yeah! ‘cause Freedom is the only way, yeah! - Extract from America, Fuck Yeah in Minor Key by Trey Parker The federal government of the United States of America can be said to retain a measure of control over the Steel Belt, the Deep South, and the Mid-Atlantic Coast. Their cities buckle under the weight of millions of refugees migrating eastward on foot, fleeing the monstrous hordes of the Zone. If there is any silver lining to this the collapse of global civilization has reinvigorated the former Rust Belt’s manufacturing industry and the South is the United States’ breadbasket once more. The eastern segments of the midwestern states of Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, and Arkansas which border the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone are controlled under a military district, but in many places they still can’t get across the Mississippi. Today, Washington DC is still the capital of the United States and the epicenter of the Federal Government. Its control over its remaining territory is tenuous at best, as much of it de facto belongs to countless self-declared states and non-state entities. Alarming portions of the South are ruled by Christian Dominionist, White Nationalist, and Black Separatist militias (among other things), the states are vying for greater autonomy as the federal government has proven itself to be exceedingly ineffective at dealing with the local threats, and the US Military has proven itself woefully ineffectual at retaining control over its southern coast and the Gulf of Mexico. While Uncle Sam may admit, as he holds back bitter tears of shame and humiliation, that Florida and Texas no longer belong to him, he will nonetheless deny the fact the pirate nation of West Florida has seized the meagre coastline of Alabama and Mississippi. Nor will he acknowledge that the coast of Louisiana now lies under the necrotic thumb of the Lichdom of Louisiana. Or that the long-suffering Gullah people of South Carolina have declared independence and have not paid the government a single dollar of tax money since 2013. Like a tattered flag hanging limply in the wind, the map of the United States is full of holes one accounts for the sheer number of little nations and armed groups that defy its once-proud authority. The States are having a hard time adapting to the mad, mad world it’s found itself in. Its leaders are an aging, narrow-minded, incurious bunch who want little to do with anything that did not exist before the Disaster and make no attempt to understand them. Current United States legislation strictly regulates and bans anything remotely supernatural and for the most part refuses to integrate them for anyone’s benefit. Kaijin are discriminated against while Neomorphs have no human rights. Wizards and witches are shunned by most, while esoteric martial arts are unknown for the most part. In many parts of the country apartheid-like measures have even been put in place to segregate them from wider society. All this did was push them underground, turning them into countercultures. Many magic-users and kaijin congregate in online communities more often than in person, and it’s an unspoken rule that weird supernatural types have had a disproportionate influence on internet culture. A few internet cafes (which as of 2024 is currently the most popular means of accessing the information superhighway: more than half of people don’t own a personal computer) will cater to them and conceal their internet activity from government surveillance. Thankfully prejudices typically vary by area and individual. While these laws may seem nasty on paper, they are not enforced as rigorously as one might assume. It takes a witness who cares enough to care enough, and kaijin in America typically keep their inhuman side hidden from those around them. A lot of people do not have a problem with kaijin, while some think they are wicked monsters that need to be banished, while a few believe they are unfortunate victims of a supernatural curse that should be contained for their own good. A small but vocal minority, however, are adamant in the belief that kaijin are the next step of human evolution destined to change the world for the better. Mainstream culture in the United States is significantly more conservative than it is in OTL. The Religious Right is as relevant in the 2020s as it was in the 80s if not more, and the Satanic Panic has come back more extreme than it could ever be. Nothing supernatural is broadcast on television or sold in bookstores, and if it is it’s treated like pornography and kept in the back of the store. Muslim-Americans are routinely demonized for the actions of the very extremists they fled from, and in many states same-sex activity is a crime. In the United States, having secular and progressive beliefs are heavily stigmatized and universally considered extremely edgy and anti-establishment. As for the culture wars, things are a bit more complicated than you’d expect. Ever since Novanglia made polytheism relevant in the 2020s, the American culture wars have been locked in a three-way standoff between christianity, atheism, and polytheism. The atheists have been on the losing end for two decades straight and the few who remain outspoken have grown more extreme than ever. The christians have been running victory laps around the atheists since they ran roughshod over them in the mid-2000s. But thanks to recent advances, the polytheists have as much proof to back up their claims as the Christians do and neither side has been able to get an edge over each other. While most would expect it to have run out of steam by now, never underestimate the lengths people will go to to prove themselves right. 1.2 The Kingdom of Novanglia/New EnglandAfter being cut off from the rest of the world and downright marinated in interdimensional weirdness for 22 years, what was once Upstate New York and New England is now a strange, fantastical land ruled by knights, dukes, and wizards. Novanglia is ruled by a High King. All the lords of Novanglia swear fealty to him from the lowest viscount to the highest duke. When the Mist set in, it was so thick nobody could leave the towns they were in, with many forced to resort to sustinence agriculture or even delve into the Labyrinth Realm in search of food. In the 2010s it began to slowly dissipate, but it happened in such a way that while it became possible to travel from city to city, it was still impossible to leave the Mist-affected area. The territorial wars concluded in the ascension of the High King as Novanglia’s most powerful political figure. Its most powerful cultural figure, on the other hand, is known as The Founder. Once a popular fantasy author in the 80s, her popularity began to decline by the late 90s, but that wasn’t a problem since by then she’d already made enough to retire. One morning she woke up to find out she couldn’t leave her house. The door wouldn’t budge, the windows wouldn’t break, and there was nothing beyond them except an opaque white Mist. With only her imagination to keep herself company, the Founder was driven mad. Soon she was convinced the stories she’d written about had really happened, and that the characters in them were actually real. She annotated her books with thousands of notes of pseudohistorical analysis. Her illegible commentaries would be the seminal text of the new religious movement known as the Phantasmagorian Movement, or Phantasmagorianism. While not many became her disciples, her religion exploded into a plethora of local sects, appropriating myths and legends into their own pantheistic cults. On the surface it was just a cult dedicated to her books, but at its core it was a religion emphasizing the presence of the divine everywhere, and an endless cycle of reincarnation in an infinite plurality of worlds. No matter where you are, you can find traces of phantasmagorianism everywhere. Neopagan trappings can be found in every nook and cranny, and it’s a safe bet most people know what their horoscope, affinity, patron god or totem animal is. So what does it look like now? Well usually it depends on where you are. For starters, there’s way more forest, in fact whole towns have been eaten up by them. In Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Maine, most of the area between the Connecticut River is predominantly wilderness because it was dominated by forests that sprung up in humanity’s decade-long absence. These would be called the Wu Marches. While they have been cleared out for farmland, they grow back so quickly in some places nobody bothers to cut them down. Much of it is ruled by the Mystic Knights of Wu Styr Shai who have been stationed here to protect people from monsters and bandits. Whole cities have returned to an agrarian lifestyle as they clear away the surrounding forests to grow crops. The ones that happened to be stranded amid enchanted or haunted forests just up and left. 1.2.1 Massachusetts & Co.For the most part, the southern part of New England is reasonably urbanized. Although the population density is far lower and it is mostly covered in forests and woodland, it has the highest proportion of farmland to wilderness than the rest of the Kingdom. The most populated cities outside of the coast are on the Connecticut River, while the ones on the coast suffer from the effects of flooding. Most of them, particularly the ones between them, were heavily abandoned and overgrown on account of the thousands of people migrating into the countryside to practice sustenance agriculture. Because of the reversion to agrarianism, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut have been divided up between a patchwork of territories ruled by landed gentry. Despite being hereditary nobles they are much less autocratic than you think, they actually have very little legal authority and are tasked with dealing with internal threats, ensuring public welfare, and distributing resources, while having limited authority in enacting law as the most local authority is invested in the town governments themselves. There’s a King of Massachusetts whose territory is concentrated around Boston and Metrowest (the college fraternities/sororities have managed to secure political power for some reason) while Plymouth and the Merrimack Valley are duchies, the North Shore belongs to a lord, and Berkshire is ruled by a baron. Mayors are subject to the peers of the realm, as are knights and wizards. Who while holding a monopoly over martial and magical force, are not allowed to own land save for their fiefdoms in the Wu Marches where they are highly autonomous but directly subject to the king. Providence and the Overlordship of Rhode Island has a semi-autonomous status under the High King in which the Overlord has complete and utter control over its own internal affairs. The Mystic Knights of the Occlusian Order are based here and tasked with defending Novanglia’s sovereignty by any means possible. A similar thing is going on in the town of Salem, where all kinds of magic are allowed. Magic is ubiquitous in the Kingdom. A third of the population knows at least one semi-reliable cantrip. One in every hundred people can call themselves fully-fledged mages, whether they’re self-taught hedge wizards or if they graduated from magic school with a bachelors’ degree in general wizardry. Speaking of which, the Kingdom of Massachusetts is known for its magic schools. It is very theoretical stuff, with most people spending hours studying occult theory before learning how to cast a single spell. Most are encouraged to learn potions and astrology before they start hurling fireballs around. 1.2.2 Vermont & Co.The northern parts of New England in Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine are much wilder and less organized. The small polities of northern Novanglia are decentralized, with more authority being concentrated on a local level, being unions, alliances, and confederations of more or less self-sufficient towns, hamlets, and villages. There’s the Witchdom of [i cannot decide on a name], a confederation of towns and communes inhabited and run by, you guessed it, witches! Its territory encompasses parts of Vermont and New Hampshire. Unlike Massachusetts, it’s not magocratic because everyone living there is a witch to some capacity. Bordering the Witchdom is a radical feminist break-away state called the Queendom of Trysseline (originally known as the Tri-Selene Sisterhood) made up of anywhere between four to six towns depending on how the mayoresses are feeling on any given day. The matriarchal Trysselites revere an extensive pantheon of heathen goddesses with the Triple Goddess of wicca at its helm. Of course, they have a strong belief in apotheosis, and are quick to build shrines to historical figures of renown, as they are known to venerate people like Amelia Earhart, Andrea Dworkin, and Starhawk. Vermont’s most prominent polity is the Forest Kingdom of Elfwood. Druids practice highly liberal, phantasmagorian reconstruction of the celtic faith. The elementalists revere the elements themselves and have a strong animistic and syncretic bent. They will pray to gnomes, vodyanoi, brownies and dryads in the same breath. They identify strongly with their Affinity more than anything else and will live according to their element, which is a thing that is popular among magic users, but it seems to have originated from them first and nobody takes it more seriously than the elementalists themselves. In nothern Novanglia, there aren’t as many wizard’s schools as there are witch covens, druid circles and neo-pagan priesthoods, which are much smaller and more local as far as magical institutions go. Magicians are either self-taught or tutored in apprenticeships. Northern styles of magic are far more animistic in origin, relying more on drawing on pacts with spirits and other immaterial beings for power. They seem to have a greater reverence for nature as it immediately exists around them, hence the ubiquity of less organized phantasmagorist sects, such as the totemists who identify strongly with a totem animal, or elementalists who place great importance in their elemental Affinity. As for demihumans, there are centaurs and atterkin (these are spider people, much like d&d driders) who come from the Exclusion Zone and the Labyrinth Realm respectively. Also hailing from the Labyrinth Realm, who are dwarves, who are extremely rare, secretive, and are never actively involved in societal affairs, preferring to keep to themselves. There is also a small but noticeable population of intelligent humanoid slimes, but there are currently less than a hundred in Novanglia at any given time. Also, elves. 1.2.3 Pennsylvania?Although nominally still a part of the United States, it occupies an ambiguously autonomous grey zone. It has been argued that it is part of two countries at once, as many public officials have Novanglian connections while recent polls have shown that 49% of the population is in favour of seceding from the union or becoming a condominium. Part of the reason for this is because state laws have made it a haven for neomorphs and kaijin across the country, possibly on account of the fact it was strongly associated with the largely niche and underground furry fandom in the months leading up to the Disaster. 1.3 The Republic of TexasSquatting on the largest oil reserve in North America, the Republic of Texas is rollin’ in the dough by the second as what is arguably the continent’s wealthiest petrostate. Since Texas is accessible via an overland route (although their cargo gets seized by the Lichdom of Louisiana every so often) the risk of being looted by bandits is relatively lower than taking a sea route. The state of Alberta up in West Canada is trying to compete with them, but to get up there you have to travel across the Zone if you’re living in the remnant USA, and if you’re from the Shogunate you have to get through Cascadian turf and you know how those tree huggers feel about oil. With the Middle East under the thumb of the Caliphate and the fact the Carribean and Gulf of Mexico are swarming with pirates, Texas is the only place on the continent where you can get oil at a (relatively) affordable price. The oil companies have become ludicrously, insanely, unimaginably rich, which in the last decade has drawn the continent’s best warriors in like flies to cow dung. Another thing is that Texas is the by far most strategically valuable location in North America. Whoever controls Texas also gets to control the protectorates of Oklahoma and New Mexico, and will have free access to not only the USA but also Mexico, Utah, and the Shogunate. YZ4 sits right on top of their head and the allied warlords occasionally do business with them, but they have so much allies and influence in the southern tip of Zone 4 some say there’s a Texan plot to reclaim the Exclusion Zone. Every square inch of Texan soil belongs to private owners and corporations. So to keep the peace between them they choose the best fighter in the country as their President. Now, in Texas, the President isn’t a democratically elected leader, but a kratocratically elected one. Whoever wins a fighting tournament held every five years gets to call the shots, but they can stay in office for longer. To do this they have to participate in an annual tournament with 100 other people. If they lose once, then whoever beats them gets to be the President. 1.3.1 Protectorate of New Mexico Lots more people live in caves. The new agers here are influenced by theosophy and UFO stuff. 1.3.2 Protectorate of Oklaholma/Turtle Island Natives! 1.4 The Shogunate of CaliforniaThat's why I'm turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so - “Turning Japanese” (1980) the Vapours When the American Sengoku came to a close, nobody expected the eccentric Gulf War veteran Philip Gallagher to unify the warlords of California. Deeply enamoured with Japanese culture from a young age, Shogun Gallagher sought to impose his vision of a romanticized Feudal Japan on American soil in order to advance it from warlordism to a constitutional monarchy in a process not unlike the Meiji Restoration. His desired result was a hybrid nation with the social cohesion (and aesthetic trappings) of Japan combined with the freedom and diversity of the United States. While he first wanted to enforce a confucian-inspired class system to keep himself in a position to guide society from despotism to egalitarianism and democracy, he did not have the heart to do so. Gallagher pardoned the warlords who surrendered and let them rule their own domains as a warrior aristocracy of daimyos loyal to his Gyaraga Dynasty in Sakuramento. So long as they followed his laws, they would be given substantial autonomy. If not they would be deposed and replaced with a more loyal ruler. The Shogun of California chose a hands-off approach for enforcing soft power. While he may have built hundreds of shinto shrines, he may have invested plenty of power in the samurai class, he did not make an active effort at promoting (his own idea of) Japanese culture. In accordance with the zen principle of wu wei, Gallagher allowed his own cult of personality to do the work instead of deliberately trying to Japanize the populace. His presence, combined with that of everything he had worked to build, would eventually result in his most loyal daimyos imitating him and their subjects following suit. It goes without saying the Shogun had very little to work with. Just everything was destroyed by the earthquakes, especially along the San Andreas fault, which is home to the San Andreas Rift, a lava-filled canyon bisecting the former cities of Hollister and Parkfield. Much of the San Francisco Bay Area is underwater and the semi-flooded buildings are a haven for pirates and smugglers. On the other hand, San Francisco Bay itself is two dozen kilometers longer and it swallowed up the city of San Jose. Pretty much all the infrastructure was completely scuffed and the entire surviving population resorted to scavenging in banditry., By implementing a simple yet intuitive labor tax system, Gallagher personally oversaw the rebuilding of countless agricultural towns. He also took it upon himself to a portion of their residential districts in the minka style. But true to his long-held belief that a man who is taught to fish will never go hungry, he taught local builders how to work with more primitive building styles so they could rebuild their communities faster without the use of heavy equipment, which by now had either been destroyed or appropriated by warlords to be used as mechanized infantry combat vehicles. A common building material was bamboo, which had rapidly sprung up in areas where the vegetation had been completely destroyed because of its status as a quick-spreading pioneer species. The areas that were most affected, however, were the coastal cities along the San Andreas Fault. These urban areas had been completely flattened, and since they were closer to the ports they were constructed with help from Japanese companies to be sturdy and earthquake-proof. What is probably the most interesting organization associated with the Shogunate isn’t even technically part of the Shogunate itself. In the worst parts of the American Sengoku, Gallagher sought out an alliance with a coalition of ninjas, whose expertise at espionage and assassination combined with his tactical genius and sheer willpower helped win the war. In return, he allowed each clan to govern its own ninja village as de facto sovereign countries situated in national parks across the Shogunate of California and her vassals. They started up a village in Lassen Volcanic National Park, one in Sequoia, another in Death Valley, ect. functioning as their own distinct political entities allied with the Shogunate. The ninja villages are mercenary states who, with a few exceptions, readily offer their services to the highest bidder and can be paid to do missions against pretty much anyone save the Shogunate itself. Since nobody can prove the secret ninja villages actually exist, this means Shogunate, the Gyaraga Dynasty, as well as their clients, will never be held diplomatically accountable for their actions. While supernatural martial arts are incredibly common throughout the population of the Shogunate, the ninjas are renowned for their larger-than-life actions, which like pretty much everything else that has to do with them, are kept secret from the general populace. The repeated attempts at concealing themselves has made them what is perhaps the most famous, most publicized, and most lionized secret agency in human history, which has made it all the more frustrating for the Shogunate’s enemies when they try, with no avail, to gather evidence of their wrongdoings. Another thing which helped speed along the Japanization of California in parts was the growing presence of spirits, more specifically, yokai, which prompted an unprecedented surge in animism. This uptick in paranormal incidents gave credence to American Shintoism, a new state religion built on the idea that the Shogun was a descendant of Amaterasu. Being heavily syncretic, incorporating aspects of Protestant Christianity and Zen Buddhism, local variants incorporate indigenous spirit beings like kachinas, who also happen to be real and capable of manifesting into physical form. It is not uncommon to find a temple whose priest has written and illustrated reams of an elaborate mythology about how Jesus, Amaterasu, and Quetzacoatl joined forces to defeat the Devil and Ming the Merciless who took over Middle-Earth. With that being said there are still plenty of Catholics, particularly Latinos in the south. However they do not believe in the divinity of the Shogun, many are still loyal to him since the forces of the Vatican are mainly concentrated in Mexico helping them fight their civil war. 1.4.1 Cascadian UnionDuring the American Sengoku, the states of Oregon and Washington were locked in a war between leftist, amerindian, reconstitutionalist, christian dominionist and white supremacist militias looking to establish their northwest territorial imperative. Because a lot more people here live off grid, they were less affected by the Disaster on average and were able to recover more quickly and were able to make use of what little industrial capacity they had left. Despite this they lacked the manpower, infrastructure, and technology of the Shogunate (not to mention the ninjas) and had to rely on them for military intervention. The Shogunate helped them win at the cost of their autonomy and shortly after they unified. Even though they helped them secure their (partial) autonomy, the Cascadians are still highly suspicious of the Shogunate. Local expressions of Northwestern Coast Indian culture have become extremely pronounced in response to their southern neighbour’s immense soft power, and you can see signs of this everywhere. Far more people identify as Haida or Tlingit or Coast Salish, while Amerindian influences can be found in local architecture, in the way people dress, on signs and in newspapers. Industry is very decentralized. Each town is agriculturally self-sufficient and has its own source of energy. While a lot of things in the Shogunate are made out of bamboo, you wouldn’t believe how much it’s used in Cascadia. There is a large population of bird demihumans, who were likely born from pairings between neomorphs and humans. Regardless of what bird species they resemble, all birdmen are capable of interbreeding; their children may resemble a cross between their parents, or 100% like one parent or one of their ancestors, this cannot be explained that nobody can really tell how this works at all. In other words you can have a duck father and a hawk mother but you can come out looking like your pelican grandfather, or a mix of any combination of them. They say it has something to do with the constellations or the phases of the moon. Honestly I don’t really know. 1.4.2 Ludocratic State of NevadaNevada, or Greater Vegas as it is occasionally called, is a country where political power is determined by one's aptitude in games, whether they are games of skill or chance. So great is their commitment to being the world’s first and only Ludocratic country that the ruler of Nevada is called the King of Games.
1.4.3 Navajo Republic More natives! 1.5 Holy Kingdom of DeseretSalt Lake City was 100% wrecked by the Yellowstone Eruption. Nobody’s living there. In fact there are more Mormons living outside Deseret itself these days as one can tell by the “Little Utahs” scattered across Nevada, Arizona, and even California. The ones who didn’t leave would stop at nothing to reclaim their homeland from the inhuman menace. Utah was renamed Deseret, and it became a theodemocratic republic under the direct administration of the LDS Church. The sheer devastation its people endured transformed Deseret into what is one of the most human supremacist nations in North America, second only to the Adamic State in the Yellowstone Exclusion Zone in what was once Colorado. Kaijin and neomorphs are barred from most towns, and church members who associate with them risk being disfellowshipped. While the crime rate is one of the lowest in the US, its culture is extremely stifling with alcohol, martial arts, and occult practices being forbidden. Visitors often joke they’d rather live under the Caliphate. Today, its capital is St. George. Not only was it only sacked twice by warlords during the American Sengoku, this tenacious little city managed to come out of the Disaster with a whopping three quarters of its infrastructure intact. Only a little bit of Utah is free from the Zone, Warren Jeffs, president of the FLDS or Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, saw the Disaster as punishment from Elohim upon the mainstream LDS church. Sensing an opportunity, he commanded his flock in Short Creek, Arizona to resettle Utah and today the FLDS makes up a sizable voting bloc in Deseret with about a third of the population being Fundamentalists, the rest being mainstream Mormons. Considering their rapid population growth, the Mormons fear they will be outnumbered by these heretics in their own homeland and debate among themselves whether they should have been as enfranchised as they currently are. On another note, Warren Jeffs has yet to answer for his crimes as of 2024. Only time will tell when, or if, he will face justice. Somewhere in eastern Deseret there is a colony of bee demihumans whom the Mormons call Melissites. They are numerous, organized, and locally powerful, so much so they have become a sole exception to the Holy Kingdom’s “chase away on sight” policy. Surprisingly, despite their overwhelmingly anthropomorphic appearance, no mortals were involved in their creation: their mother is a bee neomorph nicknamed “Melissa”. The reason Mellissa’s children were born as demihumans, as opposed to neomorphs themselves, is unknown.
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