[i]Imagine a world parallel to ours. A world where inhuman and semi-human creatures alike lurk - vampires, werewolves, faeries, warlocks - and yet pale compared to the demons that threaten to snuff out humanity on a daily basis…[/i]

[i]And now, imagine the sort of person it takes to fight back against those demonic shadows.[/i]

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Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the world of Shadowhunters. It is much like our own in many ways, and yet hides an alternate reality of magic that most mundanes never see, a Shadow World inhabited by various supernatural entities, and assailed on a regular basis by demons desiring the destruction of all other life on our planet. Protecting Earth from these deadly foes are the Shadowhunters, or Nephilim: humans with angelic blood in their veins, granted superhuman strength and speed, as well as the runes and weaponry necessary to fight back against the demons that have menaced the world for a thousand years and more.

Generally speaking, people who are already familiar with the Shadowhunters universe would be preferred as players. If you’re not, however, then before you can get started, there’s a few important pieces of terminology we need to go over, [b]bearing in mind that massive spoilers to the setting and stories may follow,[/b] specifically from the six books of The Mortal Instruments and other stories set in that time period:

[hider=Terminology]
[b]Mundane[/b] - Normal humans, unaware of the Shadow World, usually lacking the Sight to see past the glamours hiding it, and generally not introduced to it to avoid causing a panic. The equivalent of Harry Potter’s Muggles, for comparison’s sake.

[b]Downworlder[/b] - Any denizen of the hidden Shadow World, from vampires to warlocks. Technically includes Shadowhunters themselves, though it is uncommon to hear them described as such.

[b]Glamour, and the Sight[/b] - Magic used to hide the Shadow World from mundanes, as well as the true nature of things in general; and an ability necessary to see past glamour that mundanes generally lack, with greater strength allowing the bearer to see past stronger glamours.

[b]Shadowhunters[/b] - The Nephilim, part-angel and part-human. Shadowhunters are trained from a young age to defend Earth from the demons that assail it, with both physical prowess beyond human norms and many angelic gifts such as seraph blades, the holy runes called Marks, and the Mortal Instruments, all gifted by the angel Raziel. They reside in Institutes in cities across the planet, or in their home city of Alicante in the hidden city of Idris, and are all participants of the Clave, governed by the Council which in turn is presided over by the Consul. Note that in breeding pairs, Shadowhunter blood is dominant, and will always produce Shadowhunter children with both mundanes and all fertile Downworlders.

[b]Vampires[/b] - The Children of the Night, these are humans infected with a demonic virus that turns them into undead, yet highly powerful beings. With superhuman strength, grace, speed and senses, as well as powerful regenerative abilities and the ability to mesmerise others with the [i]encanto[/i], vampires are very similar to how they are depicted in fiction, though this applies to their weaknesses against sunlight and blessed substances and materials too, amongst other things. Vampires and werewolves are inherently opposed to one another on an instinctual level, and though this instinct can be overcome with effort, it nonetheless negatively affects their relationships with one another on a race-wide scale.

[b]Werewolves[/b] - The Children of the Moon, these are humans infected with a demonic virus that transforms them into wolves in the light of the moon, though they may also Change at will when trained to do so (and for their own sake they are encouraged to do so). With enhanced strength and speed even in human form, they gain powerful claws and teeth in their lycanthrope state as well as enhanced senses, and can spread their lycanthropy through a bite, though their regeneration is cancelled out by both the angelic fire of a seraph blades and weapons made of pure silver. Werewolves and vampires are inherently opposed to one another on an instinctual level, and though this instinct can be overcome with effort, it nonetheless negatively affects their relationships with one another on a race-wide scale.

[b]Warlocks[/b] - Lilith’s Children, unaging and sterile beings that are born half-demon and half-human, usually through unsavoury means on the part of their demonic parent, and who possess the power to invoke demonic magic in various forms, up to and including the illegal summoning of demons. Of all Downworlders, Shadowhunters are most likely to work with Warlocks in order to benefit from demonic magic that the angelically-aligned are forbidden from using, namely the creation of Portals to allow transportation from place to place.

[b]Faeries[/b] - The Fair Folk, believed to be part-angel and part-demon, yet possessed of human souls nonetheless, as well as their own brand of magic aligned to neither angels nor demons, supernatural swiftness and grace, and an ethereal beauty underpinning their varied forms and cunning natures - though pure iron is toxic to them and they are unable to tell lies, they are masters of social manipulation, often tricking mundanes and Shadowhunters alike with wordplay and subtle magical manipulation. Though they tend to keep to their own affairs in their realm of Faerieland, also called the Faerie, their tendency to meddle in the affairs of others is well-known, and for their actions in the Dark War have been heavily sanctioned for the time being.

[b]Angels[/b] - Winged celestial beings who oppose demons in all forms, both directly and by proxy via the Shadowhunters, whose patron and creator is the archangel Raziel. Angels are rarely seen on Earth, as their primary concern is with Heaven and the war against Hell, though in the rare circumstances that they are brought to Earth, they are considered powerful beyond the scope of any mortal being.

[b]Demons[/b] - Evil creatures originating from Hell and the Void, these are beings of pure destruction: they seek to destroy all worlds, turning them into horrific places inimical to non-demonic life, and generally take on monstrous corporeal forms that reek of death in our dimension depending on the demon in question. Though they are very weak to holy weapons such as seraph blades, and cannot detect angelic magic, they are nonetheless terrifying foes which are more than capable of slaying even a Shadowhunter if they are unwary, especially those Greater Demons that occasionally make an appearance on Earth, and rather than dying the demonic energy powering them simply returns to the Void upon their physical body’s destruction, ensuring their ability to come back to our dimension again some day.

[b]The Covenant, and the Accords[/b] - A set of rules that all Shadowhunters live by, enforced by the Clave and providing both the basic moral code and the overall legal system that Shadowhunters, and to a limited degree Downworlders, have agreed to abide by. The Covenant has been amended several times via the Accords, a series of treaties agreed upon by Shadowhunters and Downworlders to further improve Downworlder rights and minimise discrimination, with revisions taking place roughly every fifteen years. As of present, the punishments set out in the Cold Peace after the Dark War means that Faeries do not currently benefit from the Accords’ protections.

[b]The Mortal Instruments[/b] - The most powerful artefacts of the Shadowhunters, gifted to them by Raziel himself. Includes the Mortal Cup, allowing mundanes to Ascend to become Shadowhunters by drinking from it (though the process is rarely used without extensive testing for suitability); the Mortal Sword, which compels Shadowhunters to tell the truth when held; and the Mortal Mirror, thought lost for ages until its recent rediscovery as Lake Lyn in Idris, whose waters are poisonous to Shadowhunters.

[hider=Recent Shadowhunter conflicts]
Recent conflicts within the Shadowhunter universe have largely been spurred by the Circle of Raziel and its agents, radical Shadowhunters whose leader Valentine Morgenstern sought to purify the world by killing all Downworlders. These include the Uprising, the Mortal War, and the Dark War, in that order.
The Circle’s ideals first coalesced into violence during the 1991 signing of the Ninth Accords, where they tried and failed to kill all Downworlders present at the meeting, only to be fought off by a combination of Shadowhunter and Downworlder forces.
By 2007, the Circle had reformed, and attacked Idris directly along with an army of demons, though with the assistance of Clarissa Fairchild an alliance of Shadowhunters and Downworlders again managed to fend the Circle off, with Valentine dying in the process of summoning the angel Raziel with the Mortal Instruments.
However, his son Jonathan would then corrupt many Shadowhunters with the Infernal Cup, creating an army of Endarkened that fought alongside Faerie allies to try and destroy Alicante again only three months after the Mortal War, though all Endarkened perished after the Infernal Cup’s destruction.
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Further information on all of these topics can be acquired [url=http://shadowhunters.wikia.com/wiki/The_Shadowhunters%27_Wiki]here.[/url] Once again, bear in mind the possibility of spoilers for the setting in general.
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As far as the game itself goes, it will be Co-GMed by [@Nallore] and [@JaceBeleren], and set in the city of San Francisco in 2010; a High Casual level of writing ability will be expected of players, and as stated awareness of the terminology is very important. Note that the setting involves significant amounts of romance throughout the canonical stories, so those who are interested should expect their characters to get involved in romantic subplots with either PCs or NPCs.