The Tearing of the Veil: Another Option for Gamemasters

About two weeks ago, I wrote a post outlining one possible explanation for the bizarre conditions that exist in the world of the game I am writing.  I am still working on the game, poring through mechanics and solidifying the pre-game story of the world.  I am also still working on a title and am leaning towards something like: Through Broken Veil or The Broken Veil or something.  Who knows.  It will change again.


For now, I would like to throw out another teaser.  Much like Star Wormwood and the Hopi Prophecies of the Fifth World, here is another option for the gamemaster on how the world of the game got to be the way it is, how the Veil Between Worlds came to be torn, causing the Shift.

By a route obscure and lonely,
Haunted by ill angels only,
Where an Eidolon, named NIGHT,
On a black throne reigns upright,
I have reached these lands but newly
From an ultimate dim Thule-
From a wild clime that lieth, sublime,

Out of SPACE – out of time.
- “Dream-Land” by Edgar Allan Poe

It was hard to believe that it was already April.  Nazi Germany was losing the the war on all fronts.  This wasn’t how it was supposed to happen.  Heinrich Himmler and Lanz von Liebenfels had made fantastic promises of an unlimited supply of fresh troops to fight for the Reich.  They claimed they knew how to access Ultima Thule and call forth the guardians of the place, those ubersoldat of lost Atlantis, to fight for the glory of the Fatherland.  He had done everything they had asked.  The castle at Wewelsburg had been prepared according to their specifications.  The mosaic and the twelve columns had been meticulously put into place.  He had financed the Schafer expedition to Tibet to find the Black Sun Artifact, which they had taken to Wewelsburg.  He had annexed Austria and transferred the Hofburg Spear to their possession.He had publicly renounced the teachings of Liebenfels and “banned” him from publishing his works. He had even publicly severed all ties with and formally disbanded the Thule Gesellschaft.  They told him that this was necessary to prevent the enemies of the Fatherland from learning of their true plan.  In reality, Liebenfels, through Himmler, was one of his closest advisors and the Thule Society was secretly alive and well.

Himmler had come to him with the plan more than eight years ago and had not embraced it at first, but when they told him about tearing open the Veil and gaining access to Ultima Thule and its armies of ubersoldat, when he learned of their knowledge of these things, he agreed to give him the resources necessary to carry out the operation.  Delays.  There were always delays.  The Veil was supposed to have been torn years ago.  Time had grown short.  But still, they  had come through enough times to warrant his continued support.  After all, last July they had come to him with the news that there would be an attempt on his life, but not to worry.  They said that “the Horseman” would save him from death.  ”The Horseman” turned out to be Heinz Brandt, who moved the bomb just in time to save him.  Brandt, a former equestrian gold medal winner at the 1936 Olympics, had died from injuries sustained in the blast, but “the Horseman” had done exactly as they had said.

Now they had told him that it was his destiny to cross the Veil and lead the Atlantean Armies to victory alongside the German Wehrmacht.  They asking him to make the ultimate sacrifice.  In order to step through the Veil that had been torn open, he would have to take his own life.  His armies had held the barbarians back from the gates as long as they could.  They were frighteningly close now, but the time was upon him.  The time was upon them all.  When  Himmler had first told him of the need to sacrifice himself to accomplish their plans, he had called his guards in and had Himmler arrested.  Now, it somehow seemed less crazy.  Tonight was Walpurgis Night.  A night when it was even easier to pass through the torn Veil.  Using the Black Sun artifact and the Spear of Destiny, it was his time to become “Der Neue Messias” the New Messiah.

—

When it was over, Liebenfels claimed that the ritual was unsuccessful.  That Hitler was of racial stock too inferior to have been selected as Der Neue Messias.  Still, there were signs that at least some parts of the ritual had been effective.  The Veil was still slightly torn.  The sacrifice had apparently not gone unnoticed.  If someone brought the Black Sun Artifact and the Spear of Destiny back together, it might be possible to complete the ritual and tear the Veil open wide enough to pass through into Ultima Thule.  As long as his calculations had been correct…