Adventure Background

The Shroud and the Veilbreaker

Since the Age of Darkness, Pharasma's Veil — the metaphysical membrane separating the Material Plane from the Boneyard — has held firm. But three months ago, a psychopomp named Keth-Veyr discovered a fragment of the Shattered God's essence buried in the Boneyard's Gray. Consuming it granted terrible power but shattered Keth-Veyr's purpose. Now calling itself the Veilbreaker, it seeks to tear down the Veil entirely, believing that death is a prison and souls deserve freedom — even if that freedom means oblivion.

The Veilbreaker's method is insidious: it plants "shards" of divine essence at sites of mass death, where the Veil is already strained. Each shard creates a veil-tear, a localized rupture where the dead refuse to pass on and the living risk being pulled through. Three tears have opened so far. A fourth, at the Threshold of Souls — an ancient Pharasmite reliquary — would be catastrophic, potentially collapsing the Veil across all of Ustalav.

Sister Mirela Voss has identified the pattern. She needs heroes who are willing to walk where the dead still linger — and perhaps bargain with them.