How characters start in this game is going to largely depend on player preferences. My working assumption is that people are going to be from different cities or continents. Travel between areas is easy, and you're all established enough that you've likely heard of and worked with each other before, so you can definitely still contact each other and engage with each other. My thought is to do a largely sandbox game; each city will have things going on that people can involve themselves in as they please, driving their own plot. As such, this is a game that will require a fair bit of player agency - you will be the ones making decisions about what you want to devote your attention to. Character connections with other characters are highly recommended, and don't hesitate to send people a nightmare and invite them to hop over for a chat or to help out with a problem you're having. Just because your home bases are in different areas doesn't mean that this is a noninteractive game.