Vampire: The Masquerade
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Subject: Week of Nightmares
??? (Saved by Gimli Son of Gloin) - 07/29/2004 21:00:49 - N/ABrief summary of the World of Darkness Summer of 1999
The Ferrymen were approached by Anubis, who called in an ancient favour and asked that they rid the underworld of the Tal Mahe Ra (The TRUE Black Hand). I hope that most of you are aware that the “True Black Hand” (servants of the Antediluvians) occupy a city called Enoch (Caine’s 1st city), which is situated in the Tempest (one of the layers of the dead-lands). So the Ferrymen manipulated events so that the Hierarchy and after thousands of years Western Wraith Society (Stygia) become aware of this city of vampires in the lands of the dead and start organising an attack. They plan to attack the city with a huge ghost navy and for a knockout blow a group of wraiths begins priming a relic nuke.
Meanwhile, a young Void Engineer named Xerxes Jones has requisitioned a sprit nuke and wants to experiment with its effect on the detonating it by the mouth of the void (realm of Oblivion—generally a bad place). This has tragic consequences. He was in his solo exploratory craft deep within labyrinth when the wraith’s nuclear device detonates over Enoch. The resulting shockwave triggers Jones’ nuke, just before he reaches the “mouth of the void”. The two explosions and the position of the second blast combine to create the Sixth Great Maelstrom, breaking apart the labyrinth (releasing thousands of spectres). To no one’s surprise Jones perishes in the blast.
The Ravnos (clan) are fighting in India. Basically they’ve had a thing against the Kuei-jin every since they were created. They start loosing the war and attempt to fight using Sabbat tactics. They start embracing like mad. In the process of all this fighting, a lot of Ravnos (clan) blood is spilled.
This spilt blood awakens the sleeping Ravnos Elders and they start to get involved to. When they die, the potent Ravnos blood spilt everywhere wakes Ravnos (antediluvian), who's been under Bangladesh. There are also rumours that the presence of the “red star”/ “eye of the wyrm” has something to do with the antediluvian’s rising.
So the Antediluvian rises early for Gehanna, he’s insane and confused from the thousands of years of Torpor. This is bad! (No shit)
He starts to eat his clan. He's also causing havoc in the surrounding area. As such a powerful vampire, he's a beacon of evil for the entire eastern hemisphere. Everybody and their brother show up. This includes 3 Kuei-jin Bodhisattvas (Kindred of the East/Kuei-jin equivalent of Methuselah’s). These were the one's that kept Ravnos (antediluvian) busy for the week. To do so, one of them had to summon a storm large enough to block out the sun, since kuei-jin are just as weak to sunlight as western kindred.
The rising of the Antediluvian isn't a small event, and it didn’t just effect the Ravnos Clan, shockwaves were sent around the world by its rising and that’s why the week mentioned it known as the "week of nightmares". Seer's, Physics, Mages and Technocracy all became aware that something BIG was happening.
The Technocracy has gotten wind of Ravnos. “This is BAD!” they say. So bad it seems, that they pull out their all-purpose-world's-in-big- danger contingency plan, Code: Ragnarok. This allows the Union to use EVERYTHING it has to stop this threat. Everything else the Technocracy has planned goes on the back burner. Mind you, the Union doesn't know Ravnos is a Vampire, just a MAJOR threat. To that end the Union launches an unknown amount of Neutron Missiles to annihilate Ravnos (antediluvian). This doesn't work. It barely singes Ravnos and one of the Bodhisattvas, but it kills the other two, including the one holding the storm together. This allows for a part in the storm and the Union capitalizes on the opportunity to line up their mirrored satellites and uses a massive Prime 5 effect to fry Ravnos, and everything else within a hundred square miles. I don’t care if he has 10 fortitude Ravnos (antediluvian) is dead. Period!
Before he’s sent to final death the Antediluvian curses his entire clan sending them all into a cannibalistic frenzy, most of the clan is wiped out in this manner. Most Ravnos which survived this frenzy are Sabbat, their pack members staked them while this period of madness, it’s assumed that around a hundred Ravnos (neonates mostly) are left in the world and no powerful elders remain.
Ravnos was a friend of the unseelie court in ages long past, and had been permanently enchanted. As you can imagine, that means there was a ridiculous amount of glamour invested in him. When Ravnos died, that glamour ripped through the Dreaming in a huge shockwave; this had several effects including knocking holes in the magic that trapped the Adhene and the Fomorians (Enemies of the Children of Dana, aka most "good" faeries. The Formorians ARE NOT the same thing as Formori; they are very old creatures that live on human's darker emotions).
Thanks to the Union, Reality is upset and magic becomes more difficult on earth for all mages. At the same time. Concordia was under attack by the Union and Doissitep fell to Order of Hermes infighting and blew up. So many powerful mages died so close together that their avatars had no place to go but the underworld and into the maelstrom, which shredded them and sent them whipping about the gauntlet (The Avatar Storm is actually these shards, flaying other avatars when they cross it).
Meanwhile the underworld the 6th Maelstrom does a lot of damage; the Stygia (wraith Empire) totally collapses. The Maelstrom kills or ejects Thousands of wraiths across the shroud. These wraiths possess anything they bump into, hence the exceedingly high numbers of walking dead, possessed and Haunted houses which have sprung up since Summer of 1999. On a lighter note Charon finally achieves Transcendence (think Golconda for vampires), leaving the shadowlands in constant nightmarish storm.
In the Egyptian Shadowlands, Osiris (The Egyptian God of the underworld) wakes up and is obviously upset that all his mummies, most of whom were in the wraith part of their cycle, were killed by the Maelstrom. He sets to work binding their soul fragments into new beings, creating a new breed of mummy.
A secret society known as the “Orphic Circle” is a cult devoted to the worship of a (onceborn) Malfean known as Zathras the Destroyer, in an attempt to learn more about the secrets of life and death. At almost the same time as the beginning of the 6th Maelstrom the entire cult had gathered together at their HQ, Thessaly, Greece. The cult was beginning a ritual, I’m not sure of the details… it might have been an attempt to bring down the shroud. The Maelstrom in the shadowlands caused the ritual to backfire, and resulted in the skinlands and the shadowlands overlap. The area became saturated with many wraiths and risen (walking dead) which were forced across the shroud. I also believe that it brought Zathras the Destroyer into the skinlands, and it took the shape of a hideous tree, which is currently at the centre of what remains of the Thessaly HQ. Needless to say practically the entire cult was wiped out by Spectres. White wolf is not without a sense of irony, Xerxes Jones although not a member of the Orphic Circle was provided the materials to build his Spirit Nuke by the cult. The cult (aware of his experiment) was expecting a full report from him when he returned; it makes me smile thinking that his “experiment” resulted in the destruction of the entire cult.
If you’re not sure what I’m about to blather on about, Malfeans are basically ancient wraiths, putting them in terms of Vampire: The Masquerade, they could be considered Antediluvian. There are two types of Malfean, one kind are known as Neverborn’s, and these are the more powerful of the two. These Malfeans never lived; they existed before time. When God said, “let there be light” they formed directly from large amounts of “nothingness” that was around BEFORE EXISTANCE. They are oblivion embodied, they are like fish out of water, every second in which they exist is pure agony. They want to tear down the whole of existence to find peace. The Neverborn tend to be reclusive though, and have little concern with the mortal realm, so do not often get involved beyond the shroud. The second type of Malfean are know as the Onceborn. Basically these are Spectres which have lived a mortal life once, died a very long time ago and since then have gained a lot of power. Unlike the Neverborn, they tend to have a vestige interest in the affairs of the skinlands, and thus make them far more dangerous.
All this Chaos, which is as a result of the 6th Maelstrom, catches the attention of the Heralds/Messengers/... better known as Angels. God has disappeared, and with the world going to hell (quite literally). The Messengers realised that they cannot avert the coming apocalypse but they might be able to ensure that some of humanity survives, so they begin Imbuing mortals (Hunters) left right and centre.
As for the Nephandi (very evil mages who serve the Wrym), some of their darker masters are Inexplicably disappearing and they find they're powers vanishing just like their masters. Turns out that they’re masters have been nothing more than the “Dreams” of the slumbering Malfeans. The 6th Maelstrom started waking these bad guys up, hence they stopped dreaming, and hence the masters of the Nephandi started disappearing.
Oh yeah..... one more thing. The Maelstrom also had the effect of cracking open the very walls of Hell. Releasing the Fallen Angels (Elohim) after thousands of years of imprisonment, they’re back in the mortal world. Truly the end of the world is at hand.
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