Fireborn is a world on the edge of a storm. One it has weathered before at the cost of great losses: the loss of countless lives, of the world’s great civilizations, of magic. The scions alone know that there was a mythic age, know what happened to the world at its end, and know what needs to be done to stop it from happening again. They know... because they were there.

Scions are at once human and more than human. While born of flesh and blood, their souls are far older. Within their bodies are the reincarnated spirits of dragons from an ancient past. Throughout the ages, scions have been reborn in human form, each time remembering less and less of their former selves. As magic fled the world at the end of the mythic age, so did the wyrms’ strength of spirit. As the last ice age receded and the modern age began, the memory of the mythic age was all but gone.

Now that's changing. None are sure why... a prophecy fulfilled, the stars aligned, a ritual completed? Regardless, karma, the force that Westerners call “magic,” that wise men of the East call “ki,” and that the ancient Egyptians called “ka,” has returned. And with it all manner of beasts and wonders.

But magic is dangerous and unknown, and the modern mind is far from accepting of the impossible. That, after all, is what monsters, magic, and myth must be: Impossible. Everyone knows that. We’ve been told that from the beginning. And surely, if anything was out there, the police and the government would know. They’d tell us how to protect ourselves.

So magic remains hidden from the light of day. No one talks about it. Second-class citizens are hunted by beasts in the slums. Superstitious drifters draw pentagrams in railyards to keep the rain and the dogs away. Tales of werewolf maulings appear in the tabloids with alarming regularity and amazingly clear photos, and most folks don’t talk to their neighbors anymore.

And amidst all this, the scions begin to remember that there’s something else beneath the magic and the beasts and the fear. Something older than man and dragon alike, something that, in an age of myth and legend, almost consumed the world.

The scions grow in power, one flashback at a time, and hope that they’ll be able to remember, in time, the secrets that their enemies never forgot.

Dual-Era Roleplaying
The action in Fireborn takes place in both the modern day and a mythic age. The base setting for campaigns is modern London just a few years from now, a place of cosmopolitan dealings, venerable age, and dark mysteries. Characters in the modern age may have many directions and goals, including monster hunting, political machinations, treasure seeking, avoiding the authorities, and anything else the Game Master throws at them. Between and during adventures in the modern age, however, comes every scion’s main priority: rediscovering who and what he was.

This re-discovery occurs via a game mechanic called flashbacks, in which players remember and play out, collectively, a dramatic event that occurred to their previous selves in the mythic age. During these flashbacks, the characters take the role of immensely powerful dragons of all shapes and kinds. The times and locations of the flashbacks can be spread throughout several aeons and across many lands, all collectively known as the mythic age. During these visions, the players control their dragons as if playing them in the here and now, slowly learning more about their capabilities and the world they used to inhabit. Mythic age flashbacks may give their modern age selves clues to important events occurring in the modern day, a chance to meet and interact with figures that may play roles in their futures, or even an opportunity to leave behind powerful items for their human selves to find and use. With every flashback, the scions in the modern age remember more of their previous powers and can access greater amounts of draconic strength.

Bound by Fate
In both ages, the players are part of a group called a brood. Brood-mates are more than family; they are bound to one another throughout all time. Broods learn from one another, protect each other, and in some cases limit each other. The bonds created within those broods were forged through long aeons of growth, change, experience, and even death and rebirth. Because of the brood, a dragon’s spirit is never alone. In essence, the souls of a brood grow and merge to become facets of a single being, greater than the sum of its parts. Throughout the centuries and into the modern age, that connection remains. Scions may slumber for most of their lives before finding their brood-mates, but once the connection is made, it can neither be ignored nor forgotten.

With this history to bind them, the players have a motivation, a necessity, to work together to survive and grow. Some brood-mates support one another and work together as a well-oiled unit, while others may work at cross purposes, and some may even find themselves undesirably allied with hated enemies.