The Dark Conspiracy RPG released during a time where RPGs were seen as more than just game mechanics. Developers began adding lore behind the story of the setting. This had been a slow development that grew into entire tomes being created for people who didn’t have the time or imagination to flesh out the conditions of their world.
Dark Conspiracy had an entire section dedicated to the lore behind how the world had changed into its current state. This series will reveal how the world that the Player Characters have been thrust into came to be.
How the Dark Conspiracy Began
The world of Dark Conspiracy is familiar because it is our world. It is a world of the future where a global economic collapse has transpired. Some people call this the “Greater Depression,” where borders have disintegrated between traditional nations. They still exist, but their actions fall into the category of either irresponsible or irrelevant — most people arguing they are simply obsolete. To fill this power gap, megacorporations have risen to power, rivaling these anemic nations.
Throughout all of this is the greatest threat, the appearance of the Dark Ones. They have overrun entire areas of urban centers and the countryside. These areas were first simply categorized as haunted. Now, they are known as the Demonground.
How did this all happen?
The State of the Union
In the United States during the 1990s, the signs of an impending doom were blatant, yet no one took heed. Economically, socialism imploded as expected, and capitalism suffered from a string of terrible investments and unhinged greed. As a result, the governments couldn’t pay back the loans of hundreds of billions of dollars issued to them. Traditionally conservative institutions like banks, savings and loans, and insurance companies, kept investing into risky ventures. When those failed, instead of pulling back, they pressed forward even more, hoping for that big payoff like a gambling addict. It never came.
Government Decline
A turning point came in the United States in 1997 with the Voting Rights Act. This gave voters the right to give their proxy votes to others in elections, which was previously the case in corporate elections. The law gave tremendous power to corporations. As a result, these corporations have done everything within their power to limit the size of the government.
The social and economic ruin grew faster than the government could deal with. Law and order broke down. In this future, the government still exists, but it is much more remote.
This created a decrease in basic government services. It also has precipitated the government retreating from controlling certain geographic areas. Large patches of the country are now referred to as “outlaw,” because of them being so far from governmental jurisdiction. Rural areas are the responsibility of county police. However, where there are no residents, there are no police. There are still state police who patrol, but they do little else. The FBI has authority in certain situations, but the resources are so limited to support them that their intervening in a situation is sporadic and disjointed.
Urban Sprawl
The collapse of traditional markets and the rise of large agricultural corporations saw an influx of citizens from rural areas injected into urban centers. In the United States, 80% of the population live in a few sprawling urban metroplexes.
Life in the City
This overpopulation from these rural refugees has made life in these metroplexes decline in overall quality. In Dark Conspiracy, crime is off the charts. Unemployment is always in the double digits. This is a global phenomenon, not just in the United States.
Small businesses are hit the hardest. Shops, light manufacturing, restaurants and the like, all have to struggle to keep their doors open. Just to get from point A to B has risen astronomically in terms of transportation. This has forced people to move into the inner cities so they can be closer to their job, allowing them to walk to work.
Suburbs are not like they used to be. They are places for the unemployed and rural refugees who reside in what’s known as the Farm Family Relocation Camps. The suburbs are really nightmarish ghettos of crime and squalor.
The municipal police keep law and order in the metroplexes. But there are large slums where they only enter if they are in hot pursuit and even when they do that, it is with extreme caution. These areas are marked with signs that say “You are now leaving a controlled zone.”
Within these chaotic areas, a subculture of violence develops that many people grow up in. Gangs are the law and order here, normally striking out in raids into the controlled zones. They rival the police, who are often subjected to gang ambushes. When the law has had enough, it looks like a military campaign, armored vehicles roaming the area clearing deserted buildings.
This is not the case at the center of these metroplexes. There you can see towering skyscrapers and the wealth the corporations have invested there. Entire areas are the equivalent to oversized gated communities, restructured for the employees of these corporations who live quite differently from those on the outside. Security is tight and the neighborhoods well-patrolled. There are lush green lawns and sparkling fountains. The security is so good that some municipal police have actually given over that jurisdiction to the corporations for their own property, which relieves them from the financial burden while giving the corporations life-and-death power in their own domains.
On the outskirts of these areas are islands of wealth and high technology, a mixture of middle-class housing and deep slums surrounding them. Cyclists and pedestrians fill the streets, the roads packed with cheap automobiles for those who can afford them.
But this is not the end. Look for Part 2 soon.
