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What Really Happened! Okay, this is a very rough compilation of everything going on in the World of Darkness. You can use this information as you see fit in your games or disregard it. In 1998 a battle broke out between some of the young mages and the masters in both the Traditions and Technocracy. This fight resulted in the destruction of Horizon, the Traditions greatest Realm in the Umbra and killed many of the Archmages in the Council. Also during this time the Euthanatos discovered information proving that a long standing house within the Order of Hermes actually were spies for the Technocracy and began to eliminate many of the houses senior members. Caeron Mustae, the leading member of the Jannissaries being killed, apparently decided to fight and began a battle in Doissetep, destroying the strongest chantry of the Order of Hermes and wiping out the Traditions most powerful Archmages. Doisseteps destruction caused a powerful backlash of magic and paradox to wash into the Digital Web via magical backdoors set up secretly by the Virtual Adepts. This backlash caused a whiteout in the entire web for three seconds, not much time out here but in the Web that feels like an eternity. Many mages who were immersed in the web at the time were killed and even more went insane. When the web came back online there was widespread destruction as certain files and data were corrupted or changed from the backlash. The Virtual Adepts, longtime leaders in the race for dominance in the web, found themselves back at square one along with everyone else. It was also made fact that the leading chantry of the Euthanatos was corrupt. They were using energy drained from the node at Daschau concentration camp, which began to corrupt its members. They began assassinating people without notification or consent from the rest of the clan. This news caused a huge uproar in the Traditions and many members of the House of Helekar were hunted down and killed, only a handful escaping to stir up trouble. Now the Technocracy was having its own problems. The younger members also began to question their superiors and inciting battles for dominance. While they believed in the rightness of technology, they began to feel that humanity had become stagnant and lazy, that they lost the drive to create a better world and settled for convenience. On top of this information began to surface that a division of the Syndicate were working alongside Pentex. Due to the influence the Syndicate could muster and the damage they could cause the world. A special task force was built, which would begin removing these elements in the Syndicate and Pentex without betraying who is responsible. Only the most trusted and intelligent people are selected, including a few Tradition mages who figured out what was happening. Of course if the heads of the Technocracy knew that heads would roll. It was also learned that Nephandi were also corrupting members of the Void Engineers in the Deep Umbra. One corrupted mage destroyed a Void Engineer outpost in deep space. The other Voiders are trying to regain control of this situation. Now the werewolves being few in number anyway were dealt a horrible blow. The Stargazers left the tribes as a whole and went out into the Umbra. They were never seen again. Also near the beginning of 1999 a new cub was born. This child was born from the mating of two metis. For those who don't know metis are wolves born from two werewolves mating. This is forbidden because it is like incest, the cub is always deformed in some way and when it dies, it resumes its half-man/half-wolf form. The metis are always born sterile so a cub born from two metis is impossible. Even stranger is the fact the new child has no deformity whatsoever. The wolf family has gone into hiding because the Garou have no idea what to do with the boy. Some want to kill him and others believe he is destined to save them all. At the exact same time the cub was born a new red star appeared in the Umbra. It has yet to appear on our side but it continuously grows brighter and it is believed to be a sign of the End Times. The vampires are fairing no better. The Camarilla had huge success, regaining New York from the Sabbat and Toledo, Spain when the Sabbat Archbishop defected. But they are also losing a lot of ground on the coasts. The Sabbat still has a stranglehold on the East Coast and now is under attack on the West Coast by the influx of Asian vampires. Anarch held LA is hardest hit and may have to change tactics to survive, maybe even allying with the Camarilla. The
summer of 1999 And now the shit hits the fan; Hell Week, the end of July and beginning of August. While everything else was happening the Wraiths were quiet, being dead and all that. That changed this week with information reaching the rulers of Stygia that a group of vampires and mages called the Black Hand has taken up residence in the Shadowlands. After observing them it was decided that a straight up battle would take too long and allow a large portion to escape. So for the first time a relic atomic warhead was to be used. What the wraiths didn't know was that the Black Hand were not the only ones that knew they existed. A gathering of supernaturals of all stripes called the Circle of Orpheus has been collecting information on them for centuries. In the interest of curiosity they decided to steal the other relic atom bomb and detonate it on the Labyrinth. What happened however was very bad. The simultaneous detonations destroyed both locations and ripped apart the spirits of the victims. This created the equivalent of a hurricane called a Maelstrom. Maelstroms are storms of spectres and wraiths that shred everything in their path, kind of like ripped up locusts that still swarm. This storm has still not stopped and has destroyed Stygia and sent millions of wraiths to Oblivion. While this was going on for some reason the madmen around the world started becoming uncontrollable. They were having horrible visions of a great monster awakening. The Ravnos also went insane, diablerizing each other and any other vampires in their way. All of them were trying to get to India. In an effort to investigate over a hundred werewolf packs, a few hundred mages, and some of the Asian vampires all came to India. They discovered that the Ravnos Antediluvian was awake and calling his children to him, and his illusion powers were causing seven kinds of hell with the local population. The first to engage him were the three greatest of the Asian vampires, one of whom used his powers to summon a great storm in order to keep the sun away. They fought a full day and night while many of the others tried to keep the Ravnos childer and Banes away from the battle. The Technocracy, after determining the extent of the creature's power, launched Operation Ragnarok. Using recently developed orbital weapon platforms, they fired volley after volley of neutron missiles into the location. They killed upward of a million people in the blasts and the storm died out all of a sudden to be replaced with a cloud of debris. Only the Antediluvian and a ragtag group of supernaturals survived. Somehow this group managed to kill the creature and walk away. No one really knows whom and nobody is coming forward. The
Aftermath The combination of all these blasts in the same week has done something to the Gauntlet between worlds. The theory is that the shredded avatars of all these beings are trapped between worlds, in pieces. Anyone with a strong Avatar or Paradox who tries to pass between worlds is damaged. And the more powerful the person the more damage he receives. This has trapped the most powerful mages, both Tradition and Technocracy on the other side of the Gauntlet with no way to communicate to the younger ones. The Technocracy is using this opportunity to clean house and the traditions are trying to implement new leadership and picking up orphans and craft mages to strengthen their groups. The Ascension War is over, for now it appears the Technocrats won. Now all the traditions can do is survive. The werewolves are hurting badly. They lost too many in a short time and are now pulled in too many directions. They have appointed a new Silver Fang leader and are trying to discover new directions to save their race and world. The vampires that know about the Antediluvian awakening are keeping their mouths shut and planning for the next return. The wraiths are scattered to the four winds and have little contact with each other. Who really cares about the changelings anyway? Many of the mummies were destroyed by the ghost storm, but Thoth captured the strongest fragments of their souls and grafted them to the souls of people who were lacking that portion, creating a new modern race of mummies. These mummies combine both old and new, and are no longer sterile. They are the new player in town.
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