Amercana - The Pentagon

No secret history of a magical otherworld existing alongside our own is complete without government meddling. After all, a government will seek to know all of the goings-on within its borders, and eventually, it will stumble across magical elements that the population doesn't know about. What that government will decide to do with its newfound access to the magical world depends heavily on the government in question - exploitation, experimentation, diplomacy, declarations of secret war, and so on.

The United States government never went through this process of discovery. It knew about the magical world well before it gained its independence from Britain in its revolution. Its founding fathers were members of secret orders, hidden lodges, and occultic brotherhoods which sought to understand the world that existed alongside our own. When the nation came into its own, and its government began to crystallize, it needed a bureau to handle supernatural (or thaumaturgical, as was the preferred term) matters. Thus, born in the fledgling America was the first instance of the Pentagon.

Amercana - The Secret World of Thaumaturgical America

 American history classes are really good at drilling the highlights of U.S. History into you - pilgrims, colonies, Revolutionary War, Civil War, emancipation, reconstruction, expansion, WWI and WWII, Cold War, and then now. But what if there was more happening behind the scenes (and I don't just mean the interesting parts of history that get glossed over in such classes). What if there was a thaumaturgical war for control over America, the soul of its people, and the power hidden in its land?

This is the premise of Amercana. The world isn't some far-removed fantasy land - it's America, the place you live (if you happen to live in the United States, that is). There's magic, sure, but its hidden, behind the scenes. It's in artifacts from the Golden Age, sought after by the wandering Hoboes and the Pentagon alike. It's in the culture, in the Vox Populi who draw their power from fandom and subculture alike. It's in the media, influenced by the bizarre, often unsettling broadcasts of the enigmatic Cryptogrammaton. It's in the government, with the Pentagon's spellbinders trying their best to keep magical threats to national security under control. And it's in the history, in the larger-than-life tall tales and myths, in the legendary figures immortalized in monuments like the heroes of old. If you know where to go looking, you can find the magic, waiting to be tapped.