15 minutes into the future…

                For untold generations, mankind has huddled next to its fires to stave off the dark.  These fires have evolved, from crude sticks and stones to manipulation of the bonds of electrons and the spinning of generators, but the purpose has never changed: never let the dark in, never extinguish the light.

                Mankind has lived a lie.  Even now, Shadows walk amongst us.  They use us, deplete us, and leave our empty shells to walk a landscape of their shaping, their devising.  Some claim to fight to free us, some to enslave us.  Some try to lead us to realize what they believe to be our potential, whatever that may be.  All of them, despite their wars and intrigues and the countless mortal lives lost in their pursuits, hold to a single credo: never let them see, never let them forget.  Never in all their years of dominance did they imagine they would actually win.

It is a new world.  The time of choice has past, and true night has fallen.  The predations of the Shadow Worlds have scarred the soul of the human race.  Untold years of denial, pain, and loss at their hands have caged mankind in a prison of its own apathy.  That apathy now has led to numbness, relinquishing their ultimate power of will.  The Shadows no longer need fear exposure, for the masses have been reduced to simple husks, their seed spilt on infertile ground.  The great struggle for humanity’s soul is over, and we have lost. The Great Ones rejoice.  Ancient remnants of a world before our own, they now seek rebirth in these darkened times. 

It is not in our nature to go silently.  Guttered out like a candle, the fire that was once the human soul still has dying embers that may yet be relit.  The tools of the light lie shattered and corrupted.  What remains to fight the darkened tide? 

Torn from the shadows, creatures of ancient enmity are raised, recruited, and assembled as allies.  They are trained to exacting specifications by an organization whose agenda is as yet unknown, by Benefactors none has seen.  They are sent out into the world as their Hand, to thwart the Shadows and their overt collaborators.  They alone of the Shadows serve the light.  By their hands the tide of Darkness may yet be stopped, or the whole of the world may be swallowed whole.