As the corporations continued to grab land and power, world events outside of anyone's control started happening at breakneck speed. The 2010s began with the devastating worldwide pandemic known as VITAS (Virally Induced Toxic Allergy Syndrome), a disease that went from patient zero in India to killing 25% of the world's population within two years. Vaccine hoarding amongst the powerful and corrupt wiped some cities and even a few nations off the map altogether.

The world was battling a medical disaster, and desperately needed a nice, serene, quiet 2011 to take the edge off and return things to normal.

They got the Year of Chaos instead.

2011 started off with some expecting mothers giving birth in January to babies with abnormal appearances, resembling elves and dwarves from fantastical fairy tales of yore. By March, the term elves and dwarves were formally used to describe these babies in news articles, with scientists coining the term Unexplained Genetic Expression (UGE for short) to describe the condition leading to these births. Elves and dwarves were subject to heavy and sometimes violent discrimination depending on where they were born, and to this day some mothers abandon their UGE babies after birth, horrified at their newborn's appearance.

Meanwhile, other strange unexplained phenomena was afoot. Long-dormant volcanoes and mountains began erupting erratically, wiping out everything below them. A Halloween celebration in Salem, Massachusetts was visited by actual ghosts, a hunting party from the 1800s known as the Wild Hunt. The once-mythical yeti became not so mythical, appearing in Nepal and terrorizing mountain villages throughout Asia. Rock formations rose up from the ground throughout Great Britain, some glowing with a mysterious light.

Then came the Awakening.

On December 24, 2011, magic returned to Earth.

Unbeknownst to its residents, the Earth they were living on was actually "the Fifth World". Earth as a planet went through cycles spanning multiple millenia, with the Fourth World taking place between roughly 8000 BC and 3000 BC. The Fourth World had contained magic, elves, dwarves, and other surprises that would be considered paranormal by the standards of the Fifth World of 3000 BC to current day. In 2011, the Fifth World was now set to change to the Sixth World, with events such as UGE, the yeti, the ghost sightings, the magical rock formations bursting from the ground..... all of those were events that signalled the start of the Awakening to the Sixth World, and the Awakening of magic on the Earth again.

North America was one of the first continents to feel the effects, as one of the first people to awaken to magic was a young man in Texas named Daniel Coleman. Daniel was one of many Native Americans (referred to nowadays as "AmerIndians") holed up in federal detention camps in 2011, jailed for protesting the theft of reservation lands by resource-hungry corporations. On December 24, Daniel received spirit visions from his ancestors, and unlocked his formidable latent magical potential from within. Daniel demonstrated this magic to his fellow prisoners, and led them in a mass breakout of the prison camp, declaring himself Daniel Howling Coyote, leader of the Native Americans.

Under cover of darkness and a conveniently timed rainstorm, Daniel led his people out of the camp. The guards tried to shoot them down with high-powered rifles, only to find bullets completely ineffective against Daniel's magical glowing protective barriers. The AmerIndians were led off into the night, but they wouldn't be alone for long. Others awoke to magical potential, and led breakouts from their prison camps. Eventually, a full-fledged resistance movement rose up, waging guerrilla warfare against the US and Canadian governments and corporations that had oppressed them for so long.

After waging his wars for 6 years on North America, Daniel Howling Coyote played his trump card. He gathered together many powerful shamans, and together they conjured a magical ritual called the Great Ghost Dance, which caused four simultaneous volcano eruptions throughout the western United States. That, combined with magical sabotage of the US and Canadian military hardware, led to peace talks. In 2018, the Treaty of Denver was signed, giving the newly formed coalition known as the Native American Nations most of the western United States and Canada. The Native American Nations parcelled out individual countries to tribes that distinguished themselves in the fighting, such as the Algonkian, the Sioux, the Utes, and the Salish, just to name a few. North America's map was redrawn, and the continent would never be the same.

The weakened United States and Canada eventually merged into UCAS (United Canadian and American States) in 2030. In 2034, the southern states broke off into the CAS (Confederated American States), and the once mighty American world power was a shell of its former self.

The collective Native American Nations, on the other hand, celebrated their victory by ultimately dragging themselves down to the level of their former oppressors. Infighting and corruption ensued, despite Daniel Howling Coyote's best efforts as leader of the pack he had worked so hard to create. After over a decade of frustration, Howling Coyote quit the Nations and disappeared from the public eye for good.

The Awakening would shift more pieces on the political chessboard. Dragons rose from millenia-long slumbers, starting with the Great Dragon Ryumyo, rising from his lair deep in Japan's Mount Fuji the day of the Awakening. Dragons would quickly become big players in life, with some using their shapeshifting magic and charisma to enter politics and the corporate world. A few dragons would go wild and attack humanity, necessitating combined military efforts to bring them down during countryside rampages.

Other dragons would offer insight into the Awakening and the mysteries surrounding it, such as the Great Dragon Dunkelzahn. Dunkelzahn started by granting an insightful 12 hour interview to a young journalist named Holly Brighton in a famous moment, and would go on to have his own TV show ("Wyrm Talk") explaining the new mysteries of the Awakening and the Sixth World. Dunkelzahn's charisma eventually got him elected President of the UCAS in 2057, only to be assassinated by mysterious and unknown magical means just hours after inauguration.

More events related to the Awakening continued throughout the 2010s. Rivers and standing stones throughout the world became purified mana lines, serving as conduits of mana that could be harnessed by mages and shamans for powerful spells. Volcanoes continued to erupt erratically and against the grain of scientific predictions. Mythical feathered serpents with a vague resemblance to wingless dragons, known as the Naga, appeared in Cambodian rivers and were promptly worshipped as deity-like figures by the peasant population there. Mana storms of purple electricity ravaged various parts of Australia, some lasting for weeks on end.

Then in 2021, the Goblinization took place, an event where roughly 10% of the human population mutated into trolls and orks, beings that also existed with dwarves and elves during the time of the Fourth World. The four races became collectively known as "metahumans", and lobbied hard for equal rights in every country (with more than a little support from non-metahumans). A few nations shunned them, either imprisoning and executing them, or using them as indentured servants or sex slaves. Some forward-thinking countries and corporations gave them their rights and accepted them fully into society. Some gave them rights in name only, then treated them as second or third-class citizens.

As the Awakening continued, so did the rise of technology, until facing a vicious obstacle known as the Crash Virus. In 2029, this powerful virus manifested itself in the Internet, and tore down anything resembling a defense against it, taking control of or overheating various important computer systems. Automated equipment and vehicles, reliant on the internet for use, ended up malfunctioning in often fatal ways. Thousands of lives were lost to plane crashes, train wrecks, factory explosions, and even space station destruction, as the virus continued to spread with no end in sight.

The corporations and governments in North America worked together to find a solution, leading to the creation of a powerful computer known as a cyberterminal. Using new and revolutionary virtual reality technology, one could hook up to a cyberterminal via a cyberdeck and datajack linked directly to the brain, and would be able to interact neurally with the Internet for ease of use. A team of hackers, codenamed "Echo Mirage", was assembled to combat the virus directly, and created powerful programs on their cyberdecks to crash the Crash Virus. Some died, due to the virus unexpectedly sending fatal biofeedback through their datajacks and into their brains, but the team prevailed and wiped out the virus by 2031.

It did not escape the notice of the corporations and governments that no current anti-virus defense on the internet could stop cyberdeck users (later nicknamed "deckers") from using a cyberterminal and doing whatever they pleased on the net. This led to the Internet being phased out for a new worldwide three-dimensional virtual reality network called "the Matrix", a technological wonderland that used cutting edge icons and graphics to represent the data within. The corporations used remnants of the Crash Virus code to create programs called Intrusion Countermeasures (usually shortened to just IC or "ice"), in a bid to prevent future cyberterminal and cyberdeck users from breaking into their systems on the Matrix. Deckers with a vendetta against the corps responded by creating powerful and often illegal new programs to crash the ice, and the technological arms race continued.

In the shadows of the urban sprawl, people tired of living under the thumb of the corps, and the modern "shadowrunner" was born. A mercenary who takes often illegal jobs related to espionage, protection, hacking, murder, you name it, the average shadowrunner lived and often died for a quick buck. Most hated the corps, some worked for them, intentionally or unintentionally, and they were in high demand everywhere for their talents. As the 2030s turned to the 40s, then the 50s, local problems were always present, and always needed some unrelated third parties to solve the problems and pull the necessary triggers. Men and women such as FastJack, Captain Chaos, Static, Joshua, and Jake Armitage became legends in the shadows for their anti-corporate deeds. Many people armed with only a gun, a cellphone, and a lot of brass took to the shadows to forge their own legendary reputation in that mold.

As the 2060s approached, one had to wonder: Would the world finally stabilize? Would some sense of "normalcy" return to a world that had seen so much drastic change in 50 years? Or were more big happenings on the horizon........