I’ve started moving the info on this page to the Deadlock Wiki, so this doc won’t be updated anymore. Please look at https://deadlocked.wiki/Lore for updates
Deadlock takes place in an alternate timeline, probably in the year 1949.*
Supernatural forces have always existed in the Deadlock universe, but they were regarded as folklore and superstition until 1899, when an eclipse triggered the first Maelstrom event, which revealed the supernatural to the world at large. After the Maelstrom, mysticism became a part of everyday life, and beings from other planes of reality live alongside humanity.
Puerto Rico was annexed to the United States due to the presence of an astral gate, as well as South Ixia, part of the outer plane of Ixia. Occult proxy wars have been fought instead of WWI and WWII. Scientists have started to study and develop magic-fueled technology.
Now, 50 years later, a second Maelstrom is about to occur, and multiple parties are fighting across New York City (the Cursed Apple) to complete a complex ritual and summon a Patron to grant their wishes. Once again, the world is about to change…
* The date can be inferred from multiple references to the 1949 musical South Pacific.
(note: Vindicta’s death is confirmed since Salem witch trials took place in 1692-1693. Geist’s birth date is shown in the VN. Dates between 1899-1949 are estimated assuming current day is 1949 and using context clues, but not 100% confirmed)
Ivy Visual Novel (chapter 1 audio)
Newscaster lines:
There are people who spent their whole lives dreaming about moving to New York. Holliday isn't one of those people. Content with being a Sheriff in a small town, Holliday enjoyed a career where the only time she had to use her gun was when trick shooting at the county fair...then the murders started.
Grisly and inhumane; the bodies were found with their rib cages ripped open... their innards picked apart as if by birds. Holliday tracked down the killer, a traveling folk musician that the media dubbed "The Troubadour", but when she confronted him he exploded into a murder of crows and flew away.
That was 6 months ago, and while the murders in central Illinois have stopped, Holliday's investigation has not. She believes that The Troubadour is traveling to New York, and when she finds him she's going to kill that evil son of a bitch.
Granted the dubious honor of being named Time Magazine's most dangerous woman on the planet, Calico is an enigmatic occult arms dealer that is willing to fund any and all sides of a conflict if the price is right.
While her critics (and friends) would correctly identify her as being amoral, she is not without her principles... however cold and calculated those principles may be.
The Djinn are one of the more curious groups of people in the modern world. Possessing great power in controlled doses, Djinn are incapable of maintaining corporeal form for longer than 48 minutes without resting within a vessel. As a result, most Djinn employ human bodyguards for transport, protection, and companionship.
Mirage is one such bodyguard. Employed by Djinn ambassador Nashala Dion, Mirage is in New York on a diplomatic mission. It's the hope of the Djinn that they can negotiate with the US government for a sale of part of Wyoming so that they can build a sovereign nation for their people.
When the Maelstrom first hit New York, it didn’t just usher in a new age of mysticism to the world… it changed geopolitics. From CIA-employed seers identifying threats decades before they rise to power to occult pacts made in smoky back rooms; countless wars and atrocities have been prevented that would otherwise have shaped history. But that doesn’t mean there is no war… just that war has changed.
Paranormal Military Companies have risen to prominence. These groups, using a combination of extra-planar creatures and various blood magics, have found ways to circumvent the guardrails established by the nation’s watchdog oracles, allowing them to function as proxies for nations seeking to wage war.
Wrecker is one such soldier.
Employed by Eldritch Tactical Solutions (a subsidiary of Fairfax Industries), Wrecker is an elite soldier of fortune with a reputation for doing dirty work that other PMCs don’t have the stomach for.