Tempest is set in the Outer Hebrides, from late April to early June of the year 1933. Following a storm at sea, the survivors of the shipwrecked SS Bannatyne find themselves washed up on a remote island. They must get their bearings, find a way to subsist while waiting for the storm to abate, and uncover the secrets of the island.

Though Tempest is nominally set in the 1930s, this is an alternative history in which there are some very drastic broad-brush differences. In the alternative history of Tempest:

• Around the turn of the 20th century, historic oppression of underprivileged groups still occurred, though the systemic structures that underpinned this were already coming under significant pressure in many arenas in the world. In Britain, for example, the Reform Acts of the previous century went considerably further than they did in the real world, going some way to promoting civil rights and equality.
• The Great War itself had much larger and further-reaching effects than our real-world equivalent. The death toll was higher and the damage to the functioning of established political and social structures was even more catastrophic. By the end of the War, traditional systems of class and privilege had been weakened sufficiently that they could be comprehensively overthrown.
• As a direct result of the social upheaval that occurred during the War and the radical reforms that came out of it, the 1930s of Tempest are free from systemic oppression of underprivileged groups.

This is first and foremost for OC (out-of-character) reasons: to ensure that our players are free to generate characters from groups that experience systemic oppression in the real world, without such considerations impacting on their in-game experience; please see our equalities policy for further details.

In contrast with the timeline of the real world, the 1930s of Tempest is a decade of optimism and recovery. Through the process of rebuilding and reforming society following the Great War, living conditions are finally better than their pre-War equivalents, social mobility is greatly improved, and there is a pervasive feeling that there is nothing that humanity cannot overcome.

Indeed, the promotion of equality, together with considerable investment in social welfare and medicine¹⁾ worldwide, have in themselves strengthened the global economy. Therefore, while advances in technology have followed a similar pattern to those in the real world, there is no Great Depression in this timeline.

However, underneath all of this, the scars of the War are still there, and with them the knowledge that no matter how strong or beautiful something has been built to be, it can all be blown away in an instant….