I recently made a universe for my shifter lore I made a few months back(if it seems familiar I also had it mentioned on tumblr).
here's the link -
universes/enter-the-shifters-worldhere's the synopsis - The earth has always been inhabited by humans and animals, just humans and animals but, there are times that these humans with animal attributes pop up in legends and raise questions for a while but are often regarded as a myth or fairytale. What if they were not as mythical and fairytale like as portrayed to be?
In the forests all over the world, there lies a hidden area that is charmed by ancient magic to protect the society that lives within said forests. These magical forests house shifters of all kinds and have for a long time now. Shifters were not always hidden, in fact, they walked amongst humans many many years ago and for a long time it was accepted but in the medieval time period, wars broke out between the shifters and the humans and thus, the shifters retreated into the forests and elder beings had charms set into place so that when a human came near the area that led to their society, they’d want to turn around due to a great sense of foreboding.
Still, humans could wander upon these hidden areas but it was entirely rare and usually they were scared off, on the rare chance that they were not scared off, they would leave quickly and speak of what they saw, only to hardly ever get anyone to believe them and on the rare chance they were believed and had a search party come to look for the area, they never could find the exact spot again. Thanks ancient magic.
Just as humans would wander out, there were always rebels that left the safety of the forests and ventured back out into the human world, sometimes it went fine and other times it never ended well. There were laws set into place for a long time and the number one law was to never go out and associate among the humans, it was the strictest rule and it was implemented to keep all the shifters safe.
Life continued onward like this for many many years until the last of the old elders died off in each are and new elders were elected, flesh blood was up to make decisions and thus, they decided in the 1980s that enough years had went by for them to be able to integrate back into the human world so that they could advance even further with the society just outside theirs.
The elected supreme elder of each forest got into contact and together they all decided to approach the leaders of the human world. At first approach there were shock, fear, worry and even hate from some world leaders but, there was also some acceptance, some curiosity and hope. Treaties were made amongst the countries and these hidden worlds just beneath their noses, though some treaties were more lenient as compared to others varying my country.
Thus began the integration of shifters into the human realm for the first time in many years. A lot of shifters were met with backlash and laws had to be put into place over time, protection laws, laws for misbehavior, laws against the idea of enslaving their animal like coexistors. Many laws had to be put into place leading up to where they are now, other laws were revoked due to their unethicalness and because they were replaced with a better law later on.
Many things have changed since the revealing of the hidden society of shifters, there is more acceptance in these later years being that many were born into the time of shifters already being a part of day to day life. There are still some old school people that think of shifters as just wild animals that need to go back to the forests for the safety of humans. There are cults that think the shifters are a bad omen and need to be taken down but, the good is really outweighing the bad in the year of 2020 where shifters go to school with humans, where they work amongst them, where they even marry them and start families.
Shifters. Friend or foe?