The year is 1933.

Three years have passed since the Congress of the United States enacted the Threat Preparedness Act of 1930, a sweeping response to rising global unease, domestic turmoil, and the ever-present whispers of unexplainable phenomena.

Soon after, in a bid to quell rising tensions and make sense of the new world they were coming to face, the Executive Branch invoked its newfound authority to create the United Society for Supernatural Oversight (USSO) - a precariously-sanctioned contractor wrapped in the cloak of an official agency.

Born from the Act’s laden clauses, the USSO became the government’s greatest tool for identifying, studying, and above all, containing the extraordinary.

It was to remain a secret punishable by death - its operations confined, at least officially, to the city limits of New Salem. A young and restless metropolis full of opportunity, sin and the supernatural.

Doing so involved feats that sometimes required the unthinkable. For when steel and law fail, the officers of the USSO are forced to call on the occult, the mystical, and the inexplicable - in an effort to stave away the darkness that haunted their home.

...Or at least, that's the line you feed the poor bird you are trying to impress, slurring your way through your third round at the midnight diner. You probably revealed something you shouldn’t have. Again.

The job was much less glamorous than the stories implied. Between the frantic life-or-death moments, you spend most days drafting case reports no one will ever read, or filing away minor anomalies that wouldn’t make a civilian blink. Other days you steal a quiet minute at the office coffeemaker, breathing in the mix of stale ashtrays and the smell of fresh rain drifting in through a cracked window.

Your thankless task, at the end of the day, is to keep the otherworldly exactly where it belongs: sealed deep in records, and far from the eyes and minds of the public. 

But something seeps through the cracks of vice-soaked New Salem. And whatever it is, it's not going to be sealing itself. 

If left unchecked, the worst may still be on its way; and if the USSO fails, you’ll be drowning in whatever crawls out.