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The world was pretty different!

Contribute to this board to help us better understand the societal setting of the early 90's!

Scroll over and click the + to add facts or pictures to any category you'd like (be sure you're accurate though because only two people here lived through the 90's!).

Keep in mind that events 1985 - 1995 could be significant as well.

You can also include things that HADN'T happened yet if you find it helpful!

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Ace of Base (what Tilly calls EVIL)

recognizable songs

-The Sign (I saw the sign and it opened up my eyes I saw the sign)

-All That She Wants

Loser by Beck (sung by Chuck)

-"I'm a loser babyyyy so why don't you kill meeee"

Courtney Love (what Vera calls Agnes)

-actress and singer

LL Cool Jay's song Mama Said Knock You Out (one of our battle songs)

-released in 1990

-performance won a Grammy for best rap performance 1991

TLC Waterfalls (Farrah's song)

-"Don't go chasing waterfalls please stick to the rivers and the lakes that you're used to"

The Smashing Pumpkins (Disc mentioned in conversation between Miles and Chuck)

-Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness 1995 album

-Siamese Dream 1993 album

-Their song 1979 is a TikTok sound if that rings a bell for anyone

Gonna Make You Sweat by C&C Music Factory (Succubi Dance Battle)

-"EVERYBODY DANCE NOW"

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according to IMDB

1990: Home Alone, Pretty Woman, Ghost, The Godfather pt III, Edward Scissorhands, Back To The Future III, Die Hard 2, Lord of the Flies

1991: Silence of the Lambs, Terminator 2, Hook, The Addams Family, My Girl

1992: Dracula, Aladdin

1993: Schindler's list, jurassic park, Mrs. Doubtfire, The Sandlot, whats eating gilbert grape, the secret garden, hocus pocus

1994: pulp fiction, the mask, forrest gump, lion king, the little rascals, little women

1995: se7en, jumanji, toy story, clueless, pocahontas, billy madison

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[No gay marriage until 2015]

info according to NCS, Howard University, "Gay in the CLE"

1981:

-first documented case of AIDS

1990:

-Michael Boothe murdered in West London for being a gay actor sparking OutRage! activist group

-OutRage! protest metropolitan police

-'kiss in' protest to protest the arrest of gay men for kissing in public -- famous picture of a man kissing a statue of Eros

-The Lesbian and Gay Police Association (GPA) promoting opportunities for gay lesbian and bisexual men and women in police service -- offering information and advice -- improve relations between police service and those attracted to the same sex

1992:

-Publication of ICD-10 (international classification of diseases) published by world health organisation -- homosexuality removed from list of mental disorders

-Ammendment 2 in Colorado released to prevent laws that would protect LQBTQ+ people from discrimination leading to the nickname "the hate state" not struck down until 1996

1993:

-"Don't ask, don't tell" policy allowed gay people to join military, but not permitting "homosexual activity" not being abolished until 2011

1994:

-age of consent for gay men lowered from 21 to 18 (which was still not equal to heterosexual couples which was the age 16)

1995:

-The Mermaids Charity was created by parents of gender queer kids to raise awareness

(mermaid being a metaphor for trans people being "transformative beings")

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In-Game info about stuff :D WORK IN PROGRESS

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In-Game info about stuff :D WORK IN PROGRESS

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First, our main cast

Half Demon: Also known as a "Tiefling" (pronounced TEEF-ling), Half-Demons are created in any of the following ways.

-Having one or two half demon parents.

-Having one demon parent and a half demon or human.

-Two human parents, cursed baby.

Half Demons dont just have red skin and horns, they can have any combination of chromatic skin tones (red, blue, bruise-purple), satyr-like hooves, sharp teeth, claws, or horns similar to really any animal (goat, ram, deer, etc). Half demons typically have 2-3 od these traits, while the average demon would probably have all of them.

Lillith is most likely a Half Demon, but may be a full demon. (Theres a whole thing about Fiends vs Demons but we're gonna combine the two for this).

Orcus is portrayed different here, but seems to still be a Necromancer. VERY IMPORTANT, NECROMANCY AND NECROPHILIA IS NOT THE SAME THING, I HAD TO EXPLAIN THIS TO MY MOTHER.

Necromancy is the ability to raise the dead as zombies and skeletons, and Orcus is known (or was known) as the Prince of Undeath. While he doesn't do any dead-raising in the play, he does allude to quitting. He's known for his wand made from the spine of a fallen hero, topped with that heros skull. Green magic, big desert style bull skull helmet/hat, the whole nine yards.

Dark Elf: Another alternate naming, typically known as "Drow" (DRA-ow), originate from a massive underground region known as the Underdark. The Underdark is a cave system that spans the size of most of the continent. Drow are known to associate with spiders, poison, and other assasination stuff, fitting for Kaliope.

Minor note, these are races/species in the game, not classes. A class is more like a knight, or a wizard.

Lillith is most likely a Barbarian (known for being big, strong, and angry, especially known for carrying a battleaxe)

Kaliope is probably a multiclass (combination) of Rogue and Wizard

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D&D Classes of Characters (Not Super Important)

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D&D Classes of Characters (Not Super Important)

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OK so Demon Queen and Dark Elf aren't classes, those are species/races in the game.

A class is a role or "job" an adventurer has. Tillius is a Paladin for example, known for healing magic, and their ability to imbue weapons with holy energy, making their next attack super powerful (called a Smite, yes the Paladin was smited by a car).

Paladin: Paladins are mostly explained above, but a big note is the reference Tilly makes at the end about "Paladins not being able to cast Magic Missile". Magic Missile is what's known as an Arcane spell. Arcane magic is the typical fireballs and lightning bolts you see wizards casting. Paladins, however, have Divine magic, which is healing and other holy effects, like smites, meteors, or blessings and curses. Most media depicts them as wearing gleaming plate armor (knight armor), carrying a glowing sword and shield, and overall being the textbook definition of "hero".

Barbarian: Lillith is known for her strength, badassery, and also wanting to eat people for some reason. That and her battle-axe make her stand out as a Barbarian. Barbarians are known for being really "tanky", meaning they can take hits. Brute force is their specialty, hacking enemies apart. Most media depicts them as loincloth wearing, thick beard having berserkers.

Multi class, Rogue/Ranger: Kaliope is a bit of an odd case, being something known in most Table Top Role Playing Games as a Multi class, which is simply a combination of two existing classes.

Rogue is a sneaky, crafty, stabby class famous for being the party member in the corner with a hooded cloak being edgy in a fun way.

Ranger is quite similar to Rogue, but with more of a focus on tracking, wilderness survival, and even possessing some basic nature themed magic, hence her staff.

Fighter: Agnes give us much to work with, only having a sword and shield without any theme. However, Fighter is likely the most fitting, being the classic warrior. It's also known for being very beginner friendly due to its simplicity, so Chuck would have likely given the class to Agnes since she's a beginner.

Again, these aren't overly important, but might help y'all with visualizing what your hero's role is within the party.

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(the bump website, wikipedia, ancestry)

Lilith:

-"belonging to the night"

-feminine form of "demon" or "spirit"

-in Mesopotamian and Jewish mythology she was Adam's first wife and banished for her "disobedience"

Kalliope:

-greek meaning "beautiful voice"

-similar name to calliope one of the muses, goddess of epics, poetry, and heroic song

Orcus:

-the dark side of the ruler of the underworld

-alternate title to the god Hades (ruler of the underworld, often depicted as evil but really just a chill dude.)

Tillius:

-a MASCULINE latin name

-ambiguous meaning

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Search "DnD [Monster Name]" into Google to see what these guys look like, I'll do my best with descriptions and lore tho

Beholder: Big flying telekinetic cyclops meatball with needle fangs and laser eyes. Perfectly normal. Beholders are VERY intelligent creatures that have miniature eyestalks on the tops of their round bodies. They float in the air, and their central eye can nullify any magic cast in the area. The other eyes fire lasers that do anything from charming people, scaring people, disintegrating them, or basically using the force to move things (like Syndrome's point laser in the Incredibles)

Bugbears: Related to Goblins, Bugbears are somewhat dumb creatures covered in shaggy fur that comes to points on its face and joints. They typically wield spiked wooden clubs, but have been known to use other "tribal" weapons like spears or just big rocks. Bugbears are also seen as "Boogeymen" due to their unnatural stealth, silent footsteps, and uncomfortably long arms. The arms is a big deal for them. Bugbears stand at around 6-8ft tall, but are usually hunched over a bit.

Gelatinous Cube: Cubes are actually mostly transparent, with the most common way of one eating you being how hard they are to see. They take up perfect 10ft x 10ft x 10ft cubes, so they would often just hide in hallways, waiting for an unsuspecting adventurer to literally walk into them and get stuck. Their bodies are HIGHLY acidic, reducing any living material to juice in less than a minute. Their distinct green color comes from the mold they accumulate over their lifetimes.

Goblins: Everyone knows Goblins. Green, fangs, small, shanks, all that good stuff.

Kobolds: Kobolds are NOT goblin-like in any way except their size. Kobolds are trapsmiths, meaning they make traps and snares of all kinds. They're simple but smart. Kobolds have a distinct look, similar to a bipedal lizard with a dog-like face in the actual game. Most people just stick with the lizard part though. They are quite skittish in melee combat unless they're defending something, and they absolutely WORSHIP dragons like gods.

Tiamat: The Queen of Dragons, the Demonic Hydra, also known as Painbow by one of her draconic cousins. Tiamat is a literal god of dragons, thought to have been the one to create all evil dragons. Each head embodies one of the types of "chromatic" dragons, both in the element it exhales (fire breath), and personality.

Red: Fire, Rage, Overzealous.

Blue: Lightning, Entitled, Overconfident.

White: Ice, Bestial/Animalistic, Stupid.

Black: Acid, Cruel, Xenophobic.

Green: Poison, Calculated and Scheming.

Succubi: Pretty well known in media, D&D succubi look mostly like humans specifically to lure them in. Yes they do all the usual NSFW stuff people know about, but they actually focus more on stealing memories and thoughts, until eventually their victim has no more free will. They want to get something out of people.

If I missed any, let me know!

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"Satanic Panic", an actually useful thing about D&D at the time

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"Satanic Panic", an actually useful thing about D&D at the time

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From the 1980's all the way to around 2016, Dungeons and Dragons was pretty often seen as some sort of demonic ritual. This was largely spread due to its rulebooks containing spells and archives about the game's monsters, which included demons. While the panic mostly died down around the early 2000's, it would have still been going strong around the era of the play. None of the characters seem to be religious, let alone typical Christians, but keeping in mind that Dungeons and Dragons and Homosexuality were both seen as a sin could lead to an interesting interaction or two. Lillith does claim that her father is "the devil", not Asmodeus, which is D&D's officially licensed version of him, meaning Agnes/Tilly's family may have either been religious, or Tilly just created the world herself.

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Madonna

Boys II Men

TLC

The Notorious B.I.G

XSCAPE

Brandy

Alanis Morrissette

Seal

Hootie & The Blowfish

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1 - History Channel is launched

2 - The infamous OJ Simpson Case

3 - Toy Story becomes the first very computer animated film

4 - Singer-songwriter Selena is murdered by Yolanda Saldivar

5 - Republican party took over Congress for the first time in 40 years

6 - Oklahoma City Bombing

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1 - Japan experiences an earthquake with a magnitude of 6.9 resulting in over 200 billion dollars worth of damage

2 - The Queen and Prince Phillip visit Northern Ireland for the first time since the ceasefire between IRA and Loyalists

3 - The 2002 Olympics is warded to Salt Lake City Utah

4 - A bomb is detonated on the Paris Metro

5 - The last major battle of the Croatian War begins

6 - Windows 95 is released by Microsoft

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Irish Band Referenced that Miles and Agnes Listen to, most known for their song "Zombies" with lines such as "In your head, In your head they are crying. In your head, In your head, Zombie, Zombie, Zombie, Whats in your head? In your head? Zombie, Zombie, Zombie, oh"

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IBM 5150 Personal Computer (1981)

DNA Fingerprinting (1984)

Graphical User Interface (1984)

Fujifilm Disposable Camera (1986)

HDTV (1990)

World Wide Web (1990)

MP3s (1991)

Nokia 1011 Phone (1992)

SMS Messaging (1992)

Multimedia Compact Disk (1993)

Pentium Processor (1993)

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Slang, like it is now, is BIG in the 80's to 90's, which all resulted from different media and whatnot, but I digress.

"Bounce," "Jet," "Radical," "Schweet," "Steller," "No doy/duh," "Fresh," and "Funky fresh," God, there's a lot from even just the little research I've done.

Teens made loads of references to the media, tons of rivalries on being a SEGA or Nintendo kid, Coke vs. Pepsi, too, yeah.

Oh, God, and the start of the Digital Age? Game consoles only really started coming out in the 90's along with everything else. Google was only founded in 1998, so the internet wasn't even really a thing.

Popularity, what sport you did, who you hung around with, all of that fun stuff definitely affected a teenager's high school life greatly back then; even the smallest thing could've landed you as a "poser."

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(info gathered from multiple websites)

Women in the workforce

By the end of the 1990s, women’s participation in the workforce had grown to 60%

Women’s income continued to rise in relation to men’s income, moving up to 76.5 cents on the dollar by 1999, but there were was still big pay differences for w.o.c..

In 1993, Family and Medical Leave Act made it illegal for many women to be fired for pregnancy leave.

Take Our Daughters to Work Day was created in 1992 and celebrated for the first time in 1993.

The 1991 televised testimony of Anita Hill, who spoke openly about the sexual harassment she experienced from Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas, inspired a major resurgence of the feminist movement and fight for gender equality.

Women in politics

In 1992 (nicknamed Year Of The Woman), four women were elected to the Senate, and 24 were elected to the House of Representatives. A year later, Janet Reno became the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney general.

First Lady Hillary Clinton used her platform to speak up for women’s rights. The generation of girls born during or after the 1970s grew up under policies like Title IX, which propelled women into the highest levels of sports, science, and space.

At the Fourth World Conference on Women in 1995, they created the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action – the most comprehensive agenda to date, on gender equality and women's empowerment.

Women in pop culture

Tv turned from targeting older women as heads of the household to girls with shows like "Moesha", "Clarissa Explains It All," and "Pepper Ann" that focused on showing teen girlhood. This decade introduced a lot of positive role models for girls.

The “Girl Power” movement promised that progress for women would trickle down to girls, too. Indie subcultures defined by girl-made zines, music, art and websites flourished, providing young women new platforms for self-expression.

(This info gives a little context to Vera's "she's an independent woman" attitude towards Miles)

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My mom said boy bands were the most popular group such as the New Kids On the Block, NSYNC and Back Street Boys.

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The dark reality of gender equality in the 90s 

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The dark reality of gender equality in the 90s 

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This is a great article I found in my short research. I definitely recommend taking a look but I'll leave a summary here:

Despite the outward progress and rise of women in power, the decade ultimately reinforced and deepened the objectification and subordination of women. A new media landscape that thrived on scandal-driven coverage caused women in the public eye to be reduced to misogynistic stereotypes, hyper sexualized, and vilified. Women’s empowerment, rather than being celebrated, was met with backlash through a culture that continuously dehumanized them, often reducing them to sexual fantasies or derogatory labels. The rise of the 24-hour news cycle turned women's lives into public spectacles while society blamed them for their own victimization. These portrayals became so entrenched in culture that even many women internalized them, resulting in lasting harm to their social standing and self-perception. This decade is deep-rooted with sexism, which has continued to influence culture surrounding women today.

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How the '90s Tricked Women Into Thinking They'd Gained Gender Equality

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Read an excerpt from Allison Yarrow's new book, '90s Bitch,' on how the media and culture of that decade hurt the fight for gender equality.

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The Central Park Five case involved five Black and Latino teenagers Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, and Korey Wise who were wrongfully convicted of the 1989 assault of a female jogger in Central Park, New York City. The case gained national attention due to its racial and political implications.

The teens, aged 14 to 16, were coerced into giving false confessions after long interrogations. Despite a lack of physical evidence linking them to the crime, they were convicted and served sentences ranging from 6 to 13 years.

In 2002, convicted criminal Matias Reyes confessed to the attack, and DNA evidence confirmed he was the sole perpetrator. The convictions of the Central Park Five were overturned, and in 2014, they received a $41 million settlement from New York City. The case remains a major example of racial injustice and wrongful convictions in the U.S.

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The Girl Next Door : typical and unremarkable -- but perfectly acceptable.

A woman with a can-do attitude. She is approachable, friendly and optimistic even when it's to her detriment. She has an open, warm, and caring presence. Like her virtues, her faults are due in part to her love of people. She's usually too trusting, choosing to see people's strengths instead of their weaknesses, and her welcoming nature sometimes stems from a fear of being an outlier herself. She can be bold and brazen but prefers to stay on more familiar ground if in a large company. She likes it when all of her friends get along and isn't one to perpetuate conflict. She still sometimes lives near her love interest, but it is no longer necessary. She exemplifies traditional gender norms and behavior.

Their allure used to come from a place of purity, but that was changed with Luke Greenfield's The Girl Next Door. Since then, these girls have been less beholden to their traditional values.

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1985 - Robert Ballard find the Titanic

1985 - Windows is released

1986 - Challenger Space Shuttle Explodes

1986 - Oprah Winfrey Show

1988 - George H.W. Bush is elected

1990 - Hubble Telescope is launched

1992 - Bill Clinton is elected

1994 - Amazon is launched

1994 - Friend debuts

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1986 - Chernobyl

1989 - Berlin Wall Falls

1993 - Canada's first female PM

1994 - Nelson Mandela becomes president of South Africa

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1991 - Nirvana releases debut album Nevermind.

Bands like Nirvana, Alice In Chains, The Smashing Pumpkins, Deftones, Radiohead, and Pearl Jam were HUGE.

Grunge becomes a genre.

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Video games were taking the teenage world by storm and the American government tried to blame every issue in society on them. All the same, politics were not really discussed in the classroom or teen life.

Life for teens in the 90s, according to Reddit, was incredibly cliquey. No one really mingled and if you wanted to try something different you were shunned (think High School Musical "Status Quo").

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In 1996, there were 1,256 documented hate crimes against members of the lgbtq community. 500 of these instances were violent in nature. As a result of this, there was intense fear within the lgbtq community of being outed and rightfully so.

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I found an article comparing "nerds" today and in the 90s. One key takeaway is how the meaning of the word "nerd" has changed. In the 90s it was an offensive term; something you called someone who was incredibly socially awkward, did not really fit in anywhere. But today it is a term taken on with pride. I am sure many of you here would be honored to be called a nerd in something; whether that be D&D, basketball, theater, anime, etc. But in the 90s it was a hurtful thing to be called. The word "nerd" branded one as a social outcast.

So what were people nerding out over in the 90s? Star Trek for one thing, really any sci-fi shows and movies.

When you are a nerd it means you are obsessed with one certain thing. Today all you have to do is go online and stream your favorite show or watch game reruns. But in the 90s it took a lot more work than that. To acquire films of your favorite show for example you had to record it using tapes or CDs and then you had to not lose the physical copy because that was all you had. Nerd culture took a lot of physical labor.

I would definitely give this article a read, I think it really helps get into that 90s nerd mindset.

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The Ultimate Nerd In The ’90s Versus Today

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A lot has changed for nerds in the last 20 years. Of course, nerds consume and obsess about different things now than in the 1990s, but what’s really transformed is the meaning of “nerd” itself. In the 90s, “nerd” and “geek” were usually terms of…