Supernatural World

The supernatural isn't hidden.

Vampires, werewolves, witches, zombies, ghosts and other supernatural people exist openly alongside everyone else. They have jobs, deal with the police, appear in official records and generally exist as part of ordinary society rather than as a secret world operating underneath it.

That does not mean society has completely worked out what to do with them.

Some supernatural phenomena have created entire areas of law, medicine and bureaucracy that simply would not exist otherwise. Police can search official Supernatural Registration records when identifying people, while practices such as Resurrection and Necromancy are regulated because bringing somebody back from the dead involves far more than simply casting a spell.

Legal resurrection can restore a person whose life ended prematurely, but it has physical limitations. The original body is used where possible, with responsibly sourced replacement tissue used when necessary. Replacement limbs need to be reasonably close in size to the originals, and catastrophic damage can make ethical resurrection impossible.

The result of successful resurrection is what society generally calls a Zombie. Zombies are still people, but their reconstructed bodies behave differently from living ones. They tend to move more slowly and require large amounts of raw meat and protein to maintain the necromantic bonds holding their bodies together.

There is also an illegal trade surrounding resurrection. Unlicensed necromancers can make use of stolen bodies, grave robbing, unlawful donor tissue, undocumented payments and fraudulent identities. The existence of a legitimate resurrection industry has therefore created an equally real black market around it.

Other supernatural groups have their own physical characteristics. Vampires, for example, can live and work openly in ordinary society. Their bodies do not appear in mirrors, although clothing and other objects they are wearing still do.

Witches can be identified physically by discoloured fingertips, although there is no single colour associated with witchcraft. They also age more slowly than ordinary humans, meaning apparent age is not necessarily a reliable indication of actual age.

Exactly where the boundaries sit between biology, magic, death and personhood is not always particularly tidy. Society has mostly responded in the way society usually does: by creating laws, forms, registries, professions and a surprising amount of paperwork.