In late February of 2022, with power utilities unreliable at best, and nonexistent at worst, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at Switzerland's CERN facility became unstable. As the world's largest physics research operation, it was unknown what would happen when the containment units and computer systems reached critical failure levels. Responsible for the discovery of what is commonly known as the "god particle," several scientists had been attempting to recreate the Big Bang in small-scale before CERN was abandoned. A team of mages, werewolves, and changelings that had been working together for the past 16 months neutralizing nuclear devices and facilities took on the challenge of safely dismantling the laboratories.
It did no go as planned. The team had barely begun their work when the systems failed, and catastrophe began to bloom. Only quick thinking saved the remaining residents on our planet, and possibly the galaxy itself, from an all-consuming atomic blast. Through their various attunements to the realms of existence beyond our own, they were able to change the nature of the world-wide blast, breaking down the barriers between mortals and supernaturals. More than half of the humans in adolescence or older with Werewolf or Mage lineages experienced the First Change or an Awakening within a week. Ancient, powerful ghouls who had served their vampire lords for decades or centuries, seemed to die from true age, only to rise again in the clan of their regnant. Famous, beloved statues in Europe came to life as Prometheans, and many well-known Egyptian Pharaohs either joined their ranks or returned Bound to a Geist. And not a single one of the creatures of darkness could hide their nature from Earth's remaining mortal humans.
But with this mass addition of supernaturals into the world came an enlightenment. Gone was the paradox of working magic. Gone was the lunacy upon witnessing a changed werewolf. With the world already in chaos, the fact that your neighborhood electrician now looked like a gremlin and the night shift clerk at Circle K drank blood to survive no longer seemed so far-fetched. With so many human predators hiding in plain sight, it was better to see the monster you knew than the one you didn't.
The Becoming changed the rules. And it created a few of its own. But not all of the changes have been fully discovered...