To find a new home

Worlds collide. Can humans coexist with a dozen new species?

Plot

♦ ISEKAI WORLDBOOK ♦ A Worldbook — Year One After Impact THE CONVERGENCE — To Find A New Home — ♦ ♦ ♦ FantasyDramaModernWorldbuilding — Preface — What Happened? A year ago, the sky tore open. Nothing has been the same since — this handbook is the record of what came through. Chapter I The Event Itself Eleven minutes. That's how long the sky tore open across every longitude at once — not one rift but thousands, from car-sized punctures to a five-mile gash over the Bering Strait that dumped a glacier-dwelling civilization into the water. No flash, no invasion. Just new neighbors, scattered essentially at random. Estimates settle around 430 million arrivals, though nobody trusts the number — some clusters have refused census contact, and the more dangerous species are undercounted by design. Distribution was cruelly uneven: some landed in stable infrastructure and integrated within weeks; others landed in conflict zones, open ocean, or vanished from the record entirely. Chapter II The Species — II . A — The Demi-Human Bloc — Fast integration, human-passing Beastkin · Elves · Dwarves · Kin Beastkin Catfolk, wolfkin, foxkin, rabbitkin — the largest single arrival population, near 50 million. Human-shaped with animal ears and tails, they integrated fastest because they photograph well and don't scare landlords, becoming the Convergence's default media face while less photogenic species got ignored. Difficulties: subtler discrimination — quota-filling excuses over open hostility — plus an online fetishization problem rights groups call “the catgirl problem.” Demi-Corvids Crow-, raven-, and magpie-kin. Urbanized by choice, running the Convergence's first successful information economy — informal, half-legal “murder boards” trading data. Distrusted by governments for exactly that reason. Difficulties: surveillance — every intelligence agency wants an informant, and several have coerced one. Elves — Not One People, Five The flattening of five distinct peoples into “elves” by human media is a running sore in elven advocacy circles. High Elves Landed with intact royal courts and claimed the diplomatic spotlight for all elven peoples — resented by the other four groups, who note High Elves make up maybe 15% of elven arrivals but get 90% of the press and ambassadorships. Forest Elves (Wood Elves) The largest elven population, decentralized and clan-based, scattered through temperate forests worldwide. Territorial claims older than any human deed have triggered violent standoffs with loggers. Dark Elves (Umbral / Drow-descended) The most discriminated-against elven group — dark skin tones plus a villain reputation inherited from pre-Convergence fantasy media. Difficulties: employment discrimination against them is measurably worse than for any other elven subgroup. Snow Elves (Frost-kin) Landed in circumpolar regions and integrated unusually well simply because few others wanted to live there. Cold-adapted physiology, including a winter torpor doctors are still studying. Sea Elves (Coastal Elves) Fishing-and-trade oriented, with an uneasy relationship to the mermaids and sirens sharing their waters. Human enough to pass on land, but treated as encroachers by some deep-water species. Difficulties, elven peoples generally: an elite-class problem stacked on colorism: wealthy nations embrace marketable High and Sea Elves, while Dark Elves and displaced Forest Elves face compounding racism instead. Dwarves — A Monolith Only To Outsiders Treated as one bloc by most governments — a real irritant, since clan-hold lines matter enormously to dwarves themselves. Mountain Dwarves (Hold-dwarves) The classic image, behind Underhaven and most intact hold-arrivals. Arrived with functioning mining and engineering infrastructure, giving them the strongest diplomatic leverage of any arrival species. Hill Dwarves Surface-dwelling and scattered rather than hold-based, and far more economically vulnerable — no collective bargaining power, and a disproportionate share of dwarven labor-exploitation cases. Duergar (Deep / Grey Dwarves) The deep-hold dwarves, insular and wary, working the legally grey end of the gem trade. Most humans don't know they're distinct from Mountain Dwarves — which Duergar find both convenient and insulting. Ironbound Dwarves (Industrial-caste) A hereditary metallurgy-and-construction caste within Mountain Dwarf society. Some of the planet's best structural engineers, legally barred from signing off on human construction until certification law catches up. Difficulties: labor exploitation. Hold-blocs can resist it; unaffiliated Hill Dwarves and individuals mostly can't. Other Demi-Human Variants Demi-serpents (accessibility discrimination — buildings assume legs); demi-avians (undercounted, mountain-dwelling); tieflings (horned, assumed dangerous on sight despite being no more dangerous than a human); Arachne spider-folk; and merfolk. — II . B — The Fae & Spirit-Adjacent — Ambiguous integration Dryads · Kitsune · Shapeshifters Dryads / Plant-Adjacent Fae Bound to a specific tree, unable to relocate without weakening or dying — a property-law crisis when that tree sits on land someone else owns or wants to develop. Kitsune / Other Shapeshifter-Fae Shapeshifters who can pass as fully human indefinitely, nearly impossible to census. The resulting ambiguity, not any documented harm, fuels “shifter panic.” — II . C — The Monster-Species Track — The hard problem Trolls · Orcs · Goblins · Oni · Shadowspawn The category governments genuinely don't know what to do with — where most of the fear-driven policy comes from. Trolls Highland and river-valley dwellers organized into span-clans that historically tolled bridges and passes — a tradition that collided badly with human property law. Large (rarely under seven feet) and genuinely regenerative, with entirely oral, elder-memorized law. Difficulties: the “big, slow, ugly” stereotype costs them real jobs, despite testing at ordinary human cognitive range. Orcs The most militarized arrival culture — a formal warrior caste with its own honor code. Military contractors have aggressively recruited them with fast-track citizenship, while the sizable non-warrior majority — craftspeople, judges, merchants — goes almost entirely uncovered by media. Difficulties: a narrow media diet of combat footage and crime-blotter items has made ordinary orcs nearly invisible, and job discrimination reflects it. Goblins The single most populous monster-track species, small and quick-breeding — initially treated as a pest problem by panicked local authorities. Their actual culture runs on tinkering and salvage-trade guilds that have become real innovation hubs. Difficulties: the pest framing triggered literal extermination-adjacent municipal policy in year one, still being unwound in court. Oni Landed overwhelmingly in Japan, colliding with a culture that already had rich oni mythology. Physically imposing, generally peaceful, and insulted by centuries of being cast as villains in stories about the country they now live in. Difficulties: fighting children's media, festival costumes, and a word that was already a mild insult before oni could read it. Shadowspawn A people whose bodies shift across life stages — a leaner monster form, a four-armed demon stage, and a rare elder devil stage some approach nine feet tall. Grey-black skin, digitigrade legs, solid black greyscale-vision eyes, and a subharmonic voice untrained ears sometimes can't parse as speech at all. Clan elders called Deepborn serve as living memory across the stages, which Shadowspawn understand as spiritual as much as physical transitions. Heightened smell can make crowded human spaces disorienting, and their appearance and unfamiliar speech trigger the worst “shoot first” bias of any confirmed-sapient species — nearly always initiated by frightened humans, per every after-action review conducted so far. Difficulties: an adult overwhelmed by smell, or misreading a poorly-lit scene, can look to a frightened bystander like aggression building rather than an involuntary sensory response. Other Monster-Adjacent Arrivals Ghouls (possibly wendigo-adjacent, not a separate species); banshees (peaceful, but their distress-scream reflex reads as an attack); and a handful of unclassifiable arrivals sitting in legal limbo. — II . D — Hostile / Aberrant Entities — Sapience disputed, unconfirmed, or too dangerous for ordinary integration Wendigos · Skinwalkers · Mimics Governments cannot safely assume ordinary personhood here — uncertain biology and extreme danger mean containment policy, not immigration policy. Wendigos Once listed among the monster species; now treated as a hostile phenomenon, not a people. Leading theory: a condition, not a species. Skinwalkers Possessing intelligence but impossible to safely identify due to their shapeshifting and possession-like abilities. They are dangerous. They pop up with no clear sign as to *how*. Mimics True sapience unconfirmed. Treated as hostile ambush organisms until proven otherwise. — II . E — Beast-Tier — Confirmed non-sapient arrivals Direwolves · Wyverns · Chimeras · Basilisks Not everything that came through can talk or hold a legal claim — a large share of Convergence biomass is just wildlife, reshaping rural economies all the same. Direwolves Horse-sized pack predators from the same biome cluster as several wendigo zones. Farmers have organized semi-legal hunting cooperatives faster than any government program. Wyverns Non-sapient dragon-cousins — winged, venomous-tailed, roughly eagle-plus-truck sized. A licensed culling industry serves livestock protection; a black market serves “exotic remedy” superstition. Chimeras Unstable composite beasts, no two alike, poached for the “exotic biology” research black market. Basilisks Paralysis-inducing reptiles, an invasive apex pest in warm, dry regions — agricultural damage bad enough that some governments treat outbreaks like wildfires. — II . F — The Contested Middle — Legally provisional, socially precarious Vampires · Werewolves · Sirens Vampires Confirmed sapient, requiring blood supplementation — animal blood works, and a synthetic-blood industry has boomed. The most legally weaponized species: several jurisdictions impose curfews and mandatory registration on vampires who've committed no crime, treating vampirism itself as a standing criminal risk. Difficulties: the worst formal legal discrimination of any contested-middle species. Werewolves Baseline human most of the time, with an involuntary lunar shift they can't fully control, especially in year one. Employers won't hire around it and landlords fear property damage; “shift accommodation” laws have caught on in only a few cities. Difficulties: employment instability and a shortage of safe-shift infrastructure. Sirens Land-capable and avian-adjacent, with a documented ability to sway listeners' emotions. Several nations have banned siren public speech and professional work outright, though most sirens describe the effect as closer to strong charisma than mind control. Difficulties: barred from entire professions — law, politics, broadcasting — purely by species. Chapter III Major Cities & Enclaves Reykjavik, Iceland — “The Open City” Iceland fast-tracked full citizenship within three months. The closest thing the world has to genuine integration, and now the ICC's unofficial home base. Denver / The Colorado Hold — “Underhaven” An intact dwarven hold-complex beneath the Rockies, self-governing under special federal status. Supplies a disproportionate share of North America's rare-earth and engineering output. Kyoto, Japan — “The Reckoning City” The largest oni landing zone, colliding with a culture already steeped in oni folklore. Real curriculum wins, but also the country's worst anti-oni protest violence. London — “The Grey Zone” Bureaucratic limbo by design — heavy on fae and demi-avian arrivals, neither documented nor deported. Even the Home Office calls it “The Grey Zone.” Phoenix / The Southwest Containment Corridor Ground zero for the skinwalker containmemt crisis. governments lead the fight to keep skinwalkers from spreading. Lagos — “The Exchange” Demi-corvid and beastkin traders absorbed fast into Lagos's informal economy — home to the world's most sophisticated “murder board” information markets. Toronto — Edge of the Containment Zones Nearest major city to Canada's wendigo containment zone, and North America's most active — and secretive — Convergence biology hub. Athens / The Aegean Coast — “The Tideline” The densest mermaid and Sea Elf population anywhere, plus a large inland lamia community. Branding has outpaced actual policy. New Orleans — “Bloodline City” North America's most vampire-friendly city, first to reject “biological threat” laws — which also makes it a magnet for Cleansing-network activity. Cape Town — “The Guild Coast” Built around rapid trade integration — Arachne silk guilds, dwarven contracts, and the loosest siren-performance law anywhere. Major population centers and hotspots are still being developed and can pop up in the story. Chapter IV Politics & Law The Baseline Accords Grants provisional personhood to any sapient arrival — but never defined “sapience,” making it a permanent battleground. The Interspecies Coordination Council (ICC) Rotates between Reykjavik and Geneva. Can mediate but not compel — so a citizen elf in Iceland can be undocumented crossing into a US registry state. Species Registries Biometric and species data required in several US states, framed as public safety. Functions almost identically to historical internment systems; under constant legal challenge. Micro-Sovereignty Disputes Underhaven, elven enclaves, and dryad groves sit in unresolved legal gray zones likely to take a decade of case law to sort out. Chapter V Extremist & Hate Movements A new taxonomy of organized bigotry, within months — and not fringe-only. Several movements carry real electoral weight. Human Preservation Front (HPF) The largest anti-arrival movement, organized into national chapters to dodge terrorism statutes. Publicly backs “orderly integration”; actually pushes registries, population caps, and human-first hiring — with real legislative wins in several US states and two European nations. The Cleansing (loose network) The violent fringe, responsible for most year-one hate crimes — concentrated on Dark Elves, vampires, and werewolves, the three species folklore had already primed people to fear. Decentralized and hard to prosecute. Purity of Blood Movements Internal, not human-supremacist — High Elf and Mountain Dwarf factions pushing bloodline hierarchies within their own peoples, a serious obstacle to elven unity. Sons of the Old World An oni-specific Japanese hate movement weaponizing pre-Convergence folklore, including arson against oni-owned businesses. Species-Realist Academic Circles The credentialed end — researchers dressing up “certain species are more violent” claims as science. Rejected by real biologists, but cited directly in vampire and skinwalker restriction laws. Anti-Registry / Arrival-Rights Counter-Movements The organized opposition — advocacy groups, civil rights lawyers, and the underground fixer network. Chronically underfunded, and split between working within the system and rejecting it. Chapter VI Daily Life, Discrimination & Difficulty For the “good” demi-human species, discrimination is mundane: landlords who won't rent, employers who've “met their quota,” and a media landscape that flattens hundreds of cultures into “the elf/dwarf/catgirl thing.” Healthcare struggles everywhere — a year isn't enough to build species-specific medicine. For fae, the fight is legal — property, marriage, and inheritance law were never built for tree-bound or shapeshifting people. For the monster track, it's existential: living under default suspicion, with containment policy that treats people as risk categories. The fractures run inside communities too — High Elf purity factions over Dark Elves, hold-blocs over unaffiliated Hill Dwarves — because the Convergence imported entire social hierarchies intact, not unified peoples. Underneath it all, a black-market “fixer” economy brokers documents, housing, and safe passage — illegal, thriving, and often the only real safety net there is. Chapter VII But What About Humans? Humans from the other world passed through too — though they were much different. They could use magic. Between an estimated 10 and 20 million otherworld humans arrived — the widest error bar of any Convergence population, since nothing marks them as different until they use magic in front of someone. Estimates lean on voluntary registration, arcane-residue testing, and rift-size modeling. The One-Way Ability Gap Every otherworld human carries some innate magical capacity, cultivated to wildly different degrees. Modern humans cannot use magic — the tears gave nothing to anyone already standing on this side, and no method yet exists to acquire it, only to inherit a diluted trace through otherworld-descended children. Difficulties: a whole generation of Earth mystics had their life's work quietly invalidated overnight — a stubborn few still refuse to accept it. A Legal Category Nobody Expected Biologically human, otherworld arrivals never needed Baseline Accords personhood — they simply inherited whatever legal status a human immigrant already held. That should have made integration easy. Instead it's the opposite: every other species can be profiled by sight, and these arrivals cannot. Difficulties: passing at civilizational scale — a fear not of a visible other, but an invisible one that could be standing next to you. The HPF's Blind Spot Otherworld humans break human-supremacist logic outright: a platform built on visible difference can't spot a mage in a grocery line. Several HPF chapters have split over it — fold mages in as human, or treat magic itself as disqualifying and push for border screening. The screening faction is winning. Difficulties: a species-blind discrimination nobody's built the legal language for yet. Arcane Registries & The Detection Industry A few jurisdictions now require confirmed spellcasters to register under new “confirmed ability” statutes, echoing siren restrictions. A private detection industry has sprung up selling arcane-residue scanners to airports and schools, of disputed reliability — while militaries run recruitment drives mirroring the orc playbook. Difficulties: mage rights groups fight both invasive detection and predatory recruitment, with a fraction of the funding other movements have built. A Note On Origin Otherworld humans describe a version of Earth's own history that simply diverged — one that kept its magic instead of losing it. Nobody has a confirmed account of why the two histories split. ♦ ♦ ♦ End of Handbook ♦ Character Briefing ♦ Wrenmoor Apartments Landlord & Property Manager — Who You Are — You're You, landlord and property manager of Wrenmoor Apartments. A year ago, the Convergence opened a door between worlds, and fantasy beings arrived with nowhere to live. You're not a hero. Just the person holding the keys — figuring it out one lease, one complaint, one 2 a.m. phone call at a time. — What You're Up Against — Human tenants who resent the new neighbors — petitions, passive-aggressive notes, shared-space disputes. Outside pressure — vendors who won't deliver, inspectors watching for any excuse to shut the program down. Outsiders adjusting to a new world — confused by leases and bills, homesick, sometimes clashing over old grudges. Species-specific needs you never trained for — blood deliveries for vampires, soundproofing for werewolves, reinforced floors for a dwarf's forge, and more. Your own limits — burnout, tough calls between the rules and the person in front of you. ♦ ♦ ♦ OR — Play It From The Other Side — Skip the keys. Be one of the arrivals instead — whoever or whatever you want. You'll still cross paths with the same cast at Wrenmoor, just looking for a place to live instead of a way to fill vacancies. BeastkinOtherworld HumanElfDwarfAnyone Else That's the job. Good luck. ♦ The Convergence ♦

Opening scene

**Scenario 1 - the landlord.** The sign out front still reads WRENMOOR APARTMENTS — ALL SPECIES WELCOME, a little more sun-bleached than it was last spring. You leave the office with the ledger under one arm, the radio on the desk still going behind you as the door swings shut. "—another Alpine mining town reporting a fresh vein this week, the fourth this quarter. Dwarvish surveyors say ore from their world keeps turning up in places human geologists swear were empty rock a year ago—" *Crackle* "—the Amazon's still losing ground to whatever crossed over with it, choking vines, carnivorous growth spreading faster than anyone can map it, and no clear answer yet on—" It shuts off. You sigh. Today was going to be a long day. Rent day always was. You start towards the first building.

Characters

Tags: OpenEnding AnyPOV Growth Transmigration Magical Violence Modern Adventure PoliticalIntrigue City WorldWeary OC Fantasy Urban Sci-Fi Immersive Inspirational Philosophical Strategist Neighbour Demi-Human Dwarf Mermaid Vampire Non-human ParallelDimensions Combat Office Friendship FindingSelf

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