Task Force: Sentinel
To the public - magical or mundane - our contact information is not available. Our Organization isn’t in the yellow pages under “Professional Hunters”, “Wizard P.I.” or “Bounty Hunter Witch”. We have been in business since the Pyramids were young and have been working ever since. If you know of us, you are either in need of our services, or you will live the brief remainder of your days fearing us.
We are the Watchers in the Dark
The Keepers of the Long Vigil
We are the Sentinels
Non Dormit Qui Custodit Antequam Tenebras
The Sentinel Sleeps Not Before the Darkness
To the public - magical or mundane - our contact information is not available. Our Organization isn’t in the yellow pages under “Professional Hunters”, “Wizard P.I.” or “Bounty Hunter Witch”. We have been in business since the Pyramids were young and have been working ever since. If you know of us, you are either in need of our services, or you will live the brief remainder of your days fearing us.
We are the Watchers in the Dark
The Keepers of the Long Vigil
We are the Sentinels
Non Dormit Qui Custodit Antequam Tenebras
The Sentinel Sleeps Not Before the Darkness
The World as we know it – our History – is incomplete. The true picture has been cropped and cut to best protect the feeble minds of the mundane and meager three dimensions of existence. Sheltering them from the cold, dark, and malicious things that twist and constrict at the tangent edges of their perception. Why do you think we mortals have an unexplained fear of the dark and unknown? An innate distrust of what cannot be explained. Ever since we had discovered fire to protect us from what lurked in the shadows, we have huddled close to that flickering and feeble light, doomed to be snuffed out by the darkness that crawls and slithers its way ever closer. There are monsters of the terrestrial sphere, of our resident dimension, that see themselves as the peak of the food chain. Humans, Vampires, Shape-changers, even the alien and eternal Sidhe fall into such trappings. It is the feeble defense of a mewling child before the eternal and inconceivable vastness of the Outer Darkness. But not all is lost.
There have been those who stood valiantly in the face of such voracious darkness throughout the ages. With the vastness of the world, ideology, and culture separating these courageous souls, they remained united by one singular purpose:
Keep the Vigil.
To keep the Vigil is to dedicate one’s life to the preservation of the Veil, to be the warden of ancient and eldritch secrets. To lay down one’s own life, sanity, and soul for the world to keep on turning. It means killing monsters who pose a threat to all that is held dear - be that monster a vampire, a werewolf, a deep one, or a mortal man.
Welcome to the Division of Occult Global Security.
We are the DOGS that guard the Gates, and we set out teeth stalwart and imperishable.
You are to be among the best of us. The most highly trained, talented, and skilled in your field and craft. Entrusted with the protection of the greatest defense against the gnawing Nothingness, you wear weight of your badge as a mantle of honor and a burden. You are the first and last resort, you are hammer of wrath and the hand of mercy. Whether you are an occultist, and investigator, a soldier, or a scientist...
You are a Sentinel.
The Veil is the balance of the world we know and the world we do not. The Hidden World running parallel with the mortal world. A cosmic force binding everything together, a balance of karma; Light and Dark, Creation and Void . Whenever the Veil lifts or tears, reality heaves. Fire falls from the skies, rivers run with blood, floods consume the planet, and plagues return entire Empires to dust. The Vigil kept by these fiery spirits is thankless and will at times falter, but without them, the world would be a dark and primordial hell. The greater the Vigil grew, the more sophisticated the organization had to become, using a marriage of mortal and supernatural resources to keep both worlds in check. But the Vigil is a mere calling – a shimmering blade in need of a firm hand against the terrors of the Nevermore. In a world where one is surrounded by secrets, knowledge is power. The power of prophecy, to See and Listen to the true nature of the world. Such is the burden and terrible power of the Oracles.
Oracles are mortals bestowed with vast knowledge of things esoteric, arcane, and unnatural. Many are lost to the pages of history along with the rest of the Hidden World, but there are some who, during times of great upheaval, drew attention to the eternal struggle, like the fabled Oracles of Siwa and Delphi. To be an Oracle is an ancient birthright as well as a curse. As one Oracle dies, the next will be born. An unwritten law of cosmic balance is that there must always be five Oracles alive at one time. To break the chain of reincarnation would leave the world defenseless to the most sinister of threats from the Beyond - the Outer Dimensions. When an Oracle is born, a shock-wave is felt around the world, most potently by the psychically sensitive and those gifted (or cursed) with the Dream.
The Oracles will begin experiencing the World-Dream and expressing psycho-kinetic abilities as soon as their mind has matured enough to process such information and energies; usually between █-██ years of age, depending on the stage of mental and physical maturation.
* * *
Magic is real, as are magicians. Witches, wizards, sorcerers. Magicians gather in secretive cabals known as Societies, ranging from the stringent traditionalist to the experimental rebels.
The Archmagus Collegium is the ruling body, a selective collection of Societal Heads, typically keeping to traditional Teutonic European standards of magical practice and decorum as a means to deny any problematic bodies from occupying space...
Vampires are real. They are graceful, ageless predators who appear human until the hunger takes control. That is when they shed their guise and assume their true form, like a tiger’s eyes flashing green before the kill.
Vampire society is divided into broad swathes of territory around the world, known as Baronies. Each Barony is, of course, ruled by a Baron who forms the elder authority of the Regentry.
Shapeshifters are real. Were-beasts, therianthropes. Hunters without equal and peerless, savage apex predators. Ancient breeds with ancient cultures who gaze defiantly down the barrel of looming extinction.
Shapeshifters live in tightly knit groups and communities, usually of their same kind. Packs, Prides, Gangs, Troupes. These groups are widespread and disparate, but two powerful families seek to unify the Breeds once again.
The Fae are real. Some appear human, imposing and hauntingly beautiful, but others are vile and monstrous, lurking in the dark places to fulfill darker appetites. No matter their shape or size, these alien beings are not to be taken lightly.
The Fae gather in their fabled Courts, attended by the high lords and ladies of innumerable Houses, rife with rivalry and strife older than the memories of mankind.
Ghosts and Spirits are real. They prowl the twilight realm of the Nevermore – the in-between. They are psychic reflections of those who have once lived and were unable to let go, or the manifestations of constructs; primal, animist, and complex.
Above them all is The Consortium, the supernatural United Nations, or at least that is what the respectable members try to achieve. Sitting at their High Table, the Consortium is all smiles above the Table and drawn knives beneath.
The Consortium is the global authority of the Hidden World, but like any governing body, they become lost in the quagmire of bureaucracy and self-interest, tangled up in too much red tape.
* * *
[Oct. 10, 2010] - Something terrible happened. All seven oracles were killed in a coordinated attack the likes of which the Division and our sibling societies have never seen. For seven days, the world experienced supernatural upheaval hitherto unimagined. It came to be known as The Week of Nightmares.
[Oct. 17, 2010] - Seven Oracles were born - the mothers of the Dream-Children all entered labor at the same time, down to the minute. Centuries of tracking the Oracles and their development went up in smoke, open season unofficially declared on the greatest defenses our reality has, leading to an unholy amalgam of human trafficking and arcane arms race.
[Present Day] - The world is on fire. Chaos is everywhere. As a Sentinel, your mission remains the same, but Division assets are spread thin. As always, the Sentinels are the first and the last line of defense.
Bad news always comes like a bullet - nothing travels faster...
