Adventure Background

The Shroud and the Veilbreaker

No one knows exactly when the first veil-tear appeared. The earliest stories came from shepherds who claimed to hear voices on empty hillsides and from gravekeepers who found fresh footprints leading away from sealed crypts. Most people dismissed the tales. Pharasma's clergy did not.

Sister Mirela Voss believes the disturbances are connected. Ancient records speak of places where the boundary between the Material Plane and the Boneyard has always been thinner than elsewhere, usually battlefields or forgotten burial grounds. Something has begun exploiting those weak points.

The culprit appears to be a psychopomp once known as Keth-Veyr. During its watch in the Boneyard, it uncovered a fragment of the Shattered God's essence hidden within the Gray. Whatever the fragment truly was, it changed Keth-Veyr. It now calls itself the Veilbreaker and believes the cycle of life and death should end forever.

Wherever the Veilbreaker passes, the old places seem to change. Spirits linger where they should have moved on, mourners speak with voices no one else can hear, and a few of the living simply disappear for a time before stumbling back with impossible memories. Mirela has traced every report to a handful of ancient burial sites. If she is right, the next will be the Threshold of Souls, an old Pharasmin reliquary whose fall could leave wounds in the Veil far beyond Ustalav.

She cannot face the danger alone. She needs capable adventurers willing to enter places where the dead still speak—and where not every spirit wishes to be laid to rest.