I've been reading a bunch of manwha lately and I've been struck by some of the conventions of the whole isekai/reincarnation/returner genre. So here are a few notes for a webtoon or ren'py game that I'll probably never write.

To begin, the setting is the city of High Iatus (pronounced "hi-yatus") in an otherwise unnamed parallel world. It's a city that's had all its gates open and get closed again.  The Dark Lords and Outsider Gods and whatnot have all been defeated and most of its awakeners have gone back to sleep again. This is a world that has been well and truly saved, and no new and ominous threat has emerged as a consequence.

Superfically, High Iatus could pass for any modern city from our reality. Oh, there are still gates that open from time to time, but they're so tame that they might as well be amusement park rides. Magic works, sort of, but mana is scarce and magic isn't good for much except entertaining at children's parties. The city has a number of humanoid monster races, not to mention some undead and anthro- types, but on the whole they've been fully assimilated into society and nobody so much as bats an eyelid. 

It also has a small community of awakened heroes from other worlds that ended up in High Iatus, The ones that got swallowed by a dimensional rift at the very moment of their triumph. The ones that got reincarnated into a different world retaining all their memories from before; the ones who took a wrong turn on the 87th level of the Tower and can't retrace their steps.

Some of these people are anxious to leave High Iatus and return to whatever world saving quest they were diverted from, and the City is more than happy to help out in these cases and to speed these potentially dangerous and disruptive elements on their way. Others ... are just worn out from the fight. Emotionally scarred from seeing their loved ones die in lifetime after lifetime; traumatized by the memory of unimaginable pain, suffering and sacrifice, or even simply happy to abandon a role and a responsibility that they never asked for.

These people are the broken detritus of a hundred pan-dimensional crises. And once a week they meet in the back room of a community center at the downmarket end of the commercial district and attend the Isekai Survivors Support Group, where they can tell their stories amidst people who know what it's like and understand what they have been through.

There's the evil overlord who reincarnated into a loving and supportive family and found himself socialized against his will.  He no longer has the cold and ruthless edge that let him once dominate an entire world, but he still can't find much enthusiasm for being one of those goody two-shoes types that once caused him so much grief. He finds it easier to stack shelves in a supermarket and live a life of unregarded mediocrity. But there was a time when he commanded fear and respect. And once a week he gets to talk about it.

There's the young man who once used his prior knowledge of his world's apocalypse to exploit events and artifacts and gain levels and skills though The System. But his arrival in High Iatus reset his levels and the powerful artifacts of this reality were all consumed long since in the City's own crises, now long past. Now he does proofreading work for a local publishing house.

There's the hero who absolutely has not given up on his quest and is going to take one of the opportunities offered by the City to return to his own world. He's going to do that, any day now. Just once he's had a chance to catch his breath and get his bearings again. Honest, he is. Meanwhile, the guys at the support group know how it is, and he can at least get a sympathetic ear.

There's this one guy who always sits in a shadowy corner. He can't help it; wherever he sits, the shadows follow. He's not the only one in the group who used to command darkness based powers, but he's the only one who can't turn it off. Word is, he had a love affair with a princess of one of the Twilight Realms and it ended badly. He doesn't like to talk about it, but he has been heard to occasionally mutter under his breath *"The shadow's gift, the shadow's curse!"* Now he works as a security consultant and occasionally a private eye. Being able to blend into the shadows is still a useful skill, even when the world isn't ending.

There's a hero who never had any powers to speak of but who survived crisis after crisis using nothing but his wits and whatever happened to be at hand. He never really questioned the fact that all the right things always seemed to be on hand when he needed them.  But in High Iatus those happy accidents don't seem to happen nearly so often. He used to think that he was just that good, but now he has to wonder if the System was messing with probabilities on his behalf. Whatever. He's got a job with a engineering startup now.  Pay's not great, but at least he gets to do what he loves.

Some of them are broken in other ways. Like the fellow whose System alerts are visible not just to him, but to everyone else as well. Which wouldn't be as bad, but they provide a constant stream of unhelpful trivia, each accompanied by an attention-getting "ping!" Worse still, they sometimes report his internal dialogue or emotional state, which can be a problem if the girl you're dating happens to be reading over your shoulder.

So that's the scenario. The Isekai Survivors' Support Group lets us tell the stories of each of these people in turn, as well as how they interact with their fellow group members,

And maybe there's still one story left to tell in High Iatus that can only be resolved by a bunch of misfits like the Isekai Survivors' Support Group. Maybe.