A Campaign of Modern Myth
Post-Cataclysm New York. Magic. Corruption. The Rift.
The Lightforge was supposed to bring abundance. Instead it split reality — and magic bled through into a city that had no name for what it was about to become.
That was a generation ago. Now the Bureau of Arcane Utilities meters every spell. Every rift. Every breath of the impossible. And someone always profits from the meter.
When the Lightforge ignited, it didn't just crack the sky — it shattered the boundary between worlds. The Rift Cataclysm remade New York in a single night.
The BAU regulates arcane energy like electricity. Unlicensed casting is a felony. The grid runs on Rift-tapped power, and someone holds the contracts.
Things older than language press against the seams of reality. They are patient. They have been watching since before the first brick of Manhattan was laid.
In post-Cataclysm New York, alignment isn't a stat. It's a survival strategy.
They say they keep the Rift from swallowing the city. What they don't say is what they keep for themselves. The BAU is law — licensed, metered, and watching everything.
Homeless elves under the BQE. Fairies in the steam tunnels. A gnome who remembers when this was forest. The Fey didn't ask for the Cataclysm — they just survived it, without papers.
Graham Steele doesn't see people. He sees zoning opportunities. The car wash going in where the Fey community lives isn't spite — it's just business. That's what makes it worse.
MMI takes the cases the BAU buries. They're not heroes. They're investigators who got tired of looking the other way — and they're licensed just enough to stay out of a cell.
Maggie Washburn. Retired lunch lady. No magic. No license. No agenda beyond what's right. She just showed up one day and never stopped. Sometimes that's enough to matter.
They have no faction. They have no name that human throats can shape correctly. They are the pressure behind the seams. And the seams are getting thinner every session.
"The city doesn't care about your magic. It cares about your permit."
The one who asks the questions nobody in the BAU wants answered. Licensed. Careful. Increasingly convinced the license doesn't matter as much as the answer.
Where Mannus asks, Marlow listens. Every room tells a story before anyone speaks. That's a gift the BAU doesn't know what to do with — which is exactly how Marlow likes it.
Retired lunch lady. No magic. No agenda. She heard about the Fey community getting pushed out and just... showed up. She's been showing up ever since, casserole in hand, chaos in her wake.
Community organizer. Unlicensed. Technically not supposed to exist by BAU classification standards. Has strong opinions about zoning law and even stronger opinions about Graham Steele.