Subject: Week of Nightmares

??? (Saved by Gimli Son of Gloin) - 07/29/2004 21:00:49 - N/A

Brief 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.