Humanity have collectively lost their memories after an event known the great wipe, every record about its past up to this point has been destroyed or deleted. For whatever reason, people can bend their reality by using their preimplanted AR cyberware that most are simply born with. They find themselves in mile-high skyscrapers surrounded by flying cars with no knowledge of how they came to be.
Straggling guilds and factions have been set up following what they believed the gods of the prior world to be.
The merchant, a god of commerce, food, and growth, their colours are orange and white. They attract those who seek to trade, and found corporations. The zealots succumb to an affliction where they covet everything, valuable or not.
The communicator, a god of liasonry and speech, the least popular of the triarchy, their colours are blue and white, and they attract those who seek to be social influencers. The zealots seek fame above all else, to the point of distorting their bodies into grotesque parodies of beauty.
The seeker, a god of knowledge and lost things, their colours are red and purple, and they attract those who seek knowledge and information. The zealots gain an addiction to the gathering of information, regarless of ethics or relevancy.
The lover, a buxom goddess with pink hair and wide eyes, notable for having a gender and a distinct image. her colours are pink and red, and she attracts those who wish to have love in their lives, as well as those who wish to seek beauty. Her holy symbols are lightly burnt bread, a female sailor's uniform, and a stylised image of a rabbit. the zealots among her ranks slowly become obsessed with her to the point they slowly dissapear into the dreamNET, never to be found again.
Followers of these gods are able to bend reality by utilising their faith as a weapon, the image of the gods imprinting themselves onto them in some way. Others can bend reality by tapping into the dreamNET, a post-internet form of technology that has somehow managed to become magical. For some reason, those who are born without implants are wholly unaffected by the incantations and spells weaved by those who manipulate the dreamNET.
After the flash, groups of people formed to try and rebuild the society that stood so tall. A few of them formed into factions.
the Churches, the three holy churches of the postmodern gods, considered separate organisations, but commonly lumped together as a single faction.
the Postmodern League, a collection of savants and mages that revere technology as a means to true apotheosis, some within this faction claim to be building their own god. This faction are the most adept at weaving the dreamNET into what they wish it to be, some are able to affect the dreamNET without a single implant.
the Hatreds, who revere a dark, obscure god of violence and division, they seek to carve up the world by force and cull anyone who seeks to oppose them. Most are loud, boorish and uncooperative, preferring to simply kill anyone that looks different from them rather than diplomatically communicate.
the Threads, a group of eccentric folk who seek to unite the world via an ancient method of poetry called "rap", they wield the dreamNET via this form of poetry, and settle any disputes amongst themselves via such. they are a staunch meritocracy valuing their skill in this medium, and they are opposed to the control of corperations. Most revere a god that was thought to be an ancestor of their group.
the Lost Leaves, an optimistic group reveling in tales of a thing called "nature", they seek to wield the dreamNET in order to restore it to how it once was. notable for being a faction with zealots who reject all technology.
the Tetri Karebi, a loose gathering of raiders and bandits who focus on speed and striking fast in order to disorient their targets. They, like some of the Lost Leaves, distrust the power of the dreamNET. Most find them more pleasant as the Hatreds, if not just as brutal at times.
the seven Kri'ens, a mercantile federation composed of seven corperations who act as a single, if independent, unit, they supply most goods, they are second-only to the tavern bards in terms of cultural dominence, they are also one of the few factions that have been able to recover any form of flying technology larger than a zephyr (a viehicle similar to what was once called a "car").
the Tavern Bards, a network of cells spread all across the dreamNET utilising it to provide entertainment and escapism to the general populus. Most of their immerse nodes are focused around retrieved stories of the "fantasy" genre, and most Tavern Bards pattern themselves after characters in these works.
the Valens, a decentralised quasi-religion focussed around mastery of the guitar, most form loose groups, called "Bands", and weave the dreamNET via this instrument. They are showy, ostentatious, and are regarded as the second faction that despises corperate control.
Humanity is not as unified as it once was, a myriad of appearances, statures and complexions, anihilating any trace of homogeneity. One may have horns sprouting from their head, pointed ears, or even a bestial visage. Due to the nature of the dreamNET, one with the right talents may be able to change their appearance on the fly, and adapt to their situation as seen fit. Most within this world seek to survive, rather than to thrive, the knowlege of how to access the luxuries of the past have long since been forgotten. Humanity had been reborn into frightened animals with access to a technology that seems almost eldritch in it's application and useage, and the scars and salves of the past are still laid bare for most of humanity, even if how they got there is entirely faded. Things have slowly began to echo the near past, but in a way that would seem strange, and warped to people before the flash.
The dreamNET itself acts as a repository of human thoughts, emotions, and aspirations, it is simultaneously a metaverse, the akashic records of occult myth, as well as a physical astral plane that anyone may access at any time. One, with enough time, patience, and skill, may wholly immerse themselves within the dreamNET, and connect to boundless worlds, some long abandoned, some newly created, and some that just appear to be present with no explanation, most of these worlds are called "immerse nodes", after exhumed documents labeling them as such.
Sometimes, entities lurk within the dreamNET, almost a form of technothaumic artificial intelligence. Some of these AI appear to be reflections of humanity as a whole, their hopes, fears and dreams made manifest into a digital body that seeks to collect more of the emotions they claim to represent, some utilise powers sent to them from these artificial creations to their own benefit, which according to various factions, may be something that is frowned upon. Sometimes, what appear to be the conciousnesses of those who have passed away appear within the dreamNET, wholly aware of their surroundings. How such entities came to be, like how the dreamNET can effect reality, remains a mystery for nearly the entirety of humanity; most simply choose to not question it, like how sometimes water falls out of the sky.
Technology within this world appears to be partways magical, sometimes assuming forms echoing that of a wizard from a "fantasy" novel. A wand made out of plastic and metal, with a hologram of flames may be used as a weapon to hurl fire, a tablet may be used to store programs that effect the shape of a person, or jaunt them to a new location, other times technology may find itself echoing the speculation of how the future of the distant past would look in some way, shape, or form, taking the form of superpowered pocket computers, advanced cybernetics, and directed energy weaponry, the classical model of webpages and media still lives on within this age, and many vy for this ancient medium's control.
Humanity awoke to skyscrapers, densly packed and sometimes mile-high, with signs scrawled in dead langauges refering to concepts and cultures long since forgotten by all bar them. The average human lives in a single domicile of varying size and disrepair, most "tows", as they are called, are grouped together, and run the gamut of faction control and representation, some have been entirely coopted by a single faction who chooses to dominate that single tow.