The Sundered Veil
In a world where the gods have vanished and the fabric of reality is fraying, you are a mortal caught in the machinations of ancient powers. Forge your path through a land of myth and ruin, where every choice echoes in the silence of the heavens.
0
Plays
4
Characters
7
Events
📖 Story Backstory
The introduction and setting of the world, including its history.
The world of Aethelgard was once cradled by the Pantheon of Nine, who wove the Veil to separate the orderly mortal realm from the chaotic, archetypal realms of Myth. A century ago, during the Celestial Schism, the gods turned upon each other and vanished. Their last act was to sunder the Veil, not destroy it. Now, reality is patchwork. In the Sunken Marches, it is always twilight and the rivers flow with liquid memory. The Ironwood grows where logic dictates a desert should be. Mortals eke out a living in the shadows of these wonders and horrors. The greatest powers are now the mortal kingdoms, like the austere Theocracy of the Silent God and the mercantile Brass League, and the ancient, semi-mythic beings who are slowly awakening to find their makers gone. The central mystery is the fate of the gods and the true purpose of the Sundering. A unique lore rule: 'The Law of Echoes' – powerful emotions, events, or magic in one location can create a resonant 'echo' in a distant, mythologically linked place, allowing for indirect travel and communication, but also unintended consequences.
👥 Characters (4)
Characters in this story. You will choose who to play as when you start.
Kaelen
Protagonist
Once a Seeker for the Theocracy of the Silent God, Kaelen was tasked with hunting down heretical relics. During a mission in the Sunken Marches, he encountered an echo of the lost God of Chains and witnessed something that shattered his faith. He deserted, becoming a freelance 'Echo-Walker', navigating the Bleed-lands to uncover truths the Theocracy buries. He is driven by a gnawing need to understand what he saw and a deep-seated fear that he is being manipulated by forces beyond his comprehension.
Lyra of the Brass League
Neutral
A Master Artificer and high-ranking agent of the Brass League, Lyra deals in information and mythic artifacts. She believes the Sundering is not a catastrophe but an opportunity—a new frontier to be mapped, catalogued, and exploited. She funded the expedition to the Temple, seeing the obsidian shard as a potential key to 'stabilizing' Bleed zones for safe resource extraction. Ambitious and brilliant, she sees people as assets and the world as a puzzle to be solved.
The Stonereader
Neutral
A mythic being, an Echo of the Earth Titan who slept beneath the mountains. Awakened and confused by the Sundering, the Stonereader is a neutral force of ancient memory. It does not think in human terms but perceives the world as layers of geological and emotional strata. It can 'read' the history of a place or person by touching stone. It is drawn to places of great sorrow or power.
Sylas
Neutral
A former archivist of the Theocracy's Forbidden Texts, Sylas became obsessed with the Celestial Schism. He believes he has discovered the true, horrifying reason the gods vanished: they were consumed by a 'silence' that exists between realities. He now operates as a heretic and a prophet of this 'Great Quiet', seeking to complete the gods' work by unmaking the last echoes of their power. He is a fanatic, but terrifyingly knowledgeable.
⚡ Key Events (7)
The Shard's Whisper
The protagonist stands before the obsidian shard in the Temple of the Silent God. The air hums with latent power. Visions of possible futures flash before them: a path of grasping power, a path of defiant rejection, a path of cautious study. Kaelen observes from the shadows, while Lyra's agents wait outside. The moment of decision arrives. This event establishes the core mechanic of choice, introduces the mythic tone, and sets the protagonist on their initial path based on their interaction with the shard (Grasp, Shatter, or Study).
Echoes in Lament
After leaving the temple, the protagonist and Kaelen navigate the crumbling city of Lament. The Law of Echoes is active here. A child's laugh from a now-empty alley might be an echo from before the city fell. A phantom market appears and vanishes. Lyra contacts them, demanding a meeting at a safehouse. Meanwhile, the protagonist's action with the shard has created a sympathetic echo that either draws the interest of a Theocracy Seeker patrol (if they grasped it), causes localized stone to weep water (if they shattered it), or makes forgotten street signs legible (if they studied it).
The Ironwood's Logic
If the protagonist goes to the Ironwood (either with Lyra or independently), they enter a forest where trees have bark like polished metal and leaves like razor blades. The 'logic' of this Bleed is 'survival of the fittest idea'. Physical strength matters less than the strength of one's will and the clarity of one's purpose. The forest tests intruders with illusions and philosophical riddles posed by whispering winds. The 'Tear' is guarded not by a beast, but by a concept given form: 'The Doubt That Gnaws'.
The Sunken Marches: River of Memory
If the protagonist follows Kaelen's lead, they journey to the Sunken Marches, a twilight land where rivers flow with liquid memory. To navigate, they must drink from the river, experiencing fragments of the past—Kaelen's traumatic vision, the last moments of a dying god, a forgotten love. These memories are not passive; they can influence the present, summoning echoes of the remembered. The goal is to find the 'Anchor-Stone' Kaelen believes is here, a relic that can stabilize one's sense of self amid the chaos.
The Brass League Safehouse: A Deal in Shadows
If the protagonist negotiates or accepts Lyra's contract, they are taken to a Brass League safehouse hidden within a giant, dormant clockwork construct in a Bleed-zone. Here, Lyra reveals her true ambition: she wants to create a permanent, stable 'Bridge' through the Veil to a mythic realm of pure logic to mine its principles. She offers the protagonist a significant reward—wealth, protection, a unique artifact—for retrieving the 'Tear' and later, a 'Heart-Cog' from a different location. However, Sylas makes his first move here, sending a psychic 'quiet' that temporarily nullifies all magic and technology in the area.
The Weeping Caves: Audience with the Stonereader
If the protagonist shattered the shard or otherwise gained the Stonereader's attention, this event can be triggered by seeking out a place of deep stone. The Stonereader leads them to the Weeping Caves, where the walls cry slow tears of mineral water that hold the memories of the earth. Here, the being attempts to communicate its grief for the lost Titan and its confusion about the Sundering. It offers a gift: the ability to 'listen' to stone once, to ask a single question of the earth's memory.
Sylas's Gambit: The Chapel of Echoes
Sylas lures or corners the protagonist in a 'Chapel of Echoes', a place where every sound is preserved and repeated eternally. He confronts them not with violence, but with a sermon. He uses the chapel's properties to replay the protagonist's own doubts, fears, and morally ambiguous choices back to them, weaponizing their own history. His goal is to convince them that their 'noise' (their actions, their resonance) is causing pain and that embracing the Quiet is mercy.