America, the fall of 1896. President McKinley has just been sworn in and only forty-five stars adorn the old glory. The old west is now long in the tooth, but still full of vim and vigor. People of all stripes seek riches to call their own, be they ill-gotten or otherwise.

 

Five years ago, a cynical businesswoman invented the first mass-marketed spirit board. It advertised to a richly superstitious and grieving population that they could, at last, “speak with the dead.” To the inventor’s surprise, it worked, and everything changed.

 

Since this revelation, new industries and ideologies concerning the dead have risen with meteoric ascent. Victorian mysticism is the new religion, and everyone wants a slice of the fly-blown pie. Shadowed sects of necromancy and clandestine businesses alike have slunk into the light to claim their carrion mouthfuls, and more than a few see vile heresies in this new way of life.

 

The dead are given new, tragic purpose. Human souls are bartered and traded for immeasurable profit. Your earthly vessel is no longer strictly yours to inhabit, nor your soul only yours to possess.

 

Here lies a new gold rush of souls, the Post-Mortem Age