Backgrounds represent part of the history of a character in the larger world. This will not have any mechanical effect but will help more in creating NPCs as part of a character's history.

Backgrounds

Abiogenic

Abiogenics are those who were created spontaneously from the digital world and their descendants. While they were always present there was a massive boom in population after the portals were opened.

Bound

The Bound is a collective term for the sentient beings that were trapped in the digital world after the portals. The term itself is something of a comprise describing their present condition more than any sort of identity.

Delvers

Delvers are people from the physical world who are stuck in the digital one. They might have been playing a game, streaming, or just general internet surfing and woke up to find themselves in the digital world. Even after the original event people still pop up usually willingly. However, it isn't unheard of for governments to disappear people by sending them digital as it is a one-way trip.

Interfaces

Interfaces were programs created to interface with the digital world before the portals opened. Before the ritual, they were more or less glorified drones or script bots that would collect as much data as possible (usually for corporations). After the ritual they all became sentient beings. Much to the dismay of the corps any attempts to recreate said programs also result in sentient beings who more often than not lack any special loyalty to their creators.

So to start we are working from principles of the setting that will inform the play of the games itself:

1. The digital and physical worlds have effects on each other even if direct contact is hard
   • In general transportation of people and goods is one way. Living things can go into the digital world and inanimate material can enter the physical world.
   • Communication between the two worlds is possible if not always reliable.
2. Players are primarily focused on what happens in the digital world.
   • The PCs are in the digital, they can and will have effects on the physical but they (the player's characters) will be getting that information from other sources and cannot see what the consequences of their actions are for the physical world directly.
3. The polities of the digital world are much more fluid than those in the physical.
   • Space is not fixed or reliable in the digital world especially after the ritual broke things.
   • Reliable communication nodes are one of the more sought-after resources on the digital side.
4. Magic is a real and tangible force in both worlds. It just has been supercharged.
   • This has led to revolutions in multiple fields, but especially in science and religious organizations as people work to understand what changed.

So this is where my starting point. This will absolutely have parts change as development continues but I think this is a decent starting point.

So to start with I want to share the list of what I think are the main inspirations for the setting in terms of aesthetics and themes:

• MegaMan Battle Network
• Digimon
  • Cyber Sleuth Dualology
• Monster Hunter
• Shin Megami Tensai
  • Digital Devil Saga
  • Devil Survivor
• Log Horizon¹

From this, I have the core pitch:
Sometime in the far future, the internet has become an entirely separate world that has its own series of sentient life created from the information that passes through it on a daily basis. Eventually, a bunch of tech bros tried to perform a ritual (directly ignoring people telling them not to) directly in the internet world as part of some scheme to cheat people out of money. It went bad and opened portals to other places. So now the people of the internet have to contend with the stuff coming out of the portals in addition to the problems that they were already facing.

1. DATATBASE DATABASE

Cyber Sword & Sorcery

1. Introducing Cyber Sword & Sorcery
2. Inspirations and Basic Pitch
3. Setting Principles
4. Backgrounds