The Shattered Sects

THE SHATTERED SECTS

File Origin: Tribune Vesta, Directorate of Intelligence
Classification: Level 1 Threat Network
Date: February 1955

Overview

The Shattered Sects are the fractured remains of the Crimson Wake, an ancient occult order founded sometime in the early 9th century.
For nearly a thousand years, the Wake sought dominion through communion with the supernatural — shaping its influence across empires, religions, and wars. But the First World War destroyed what even centuries of secrecy could not: cohesion.

Betrayal, ideological conflict, and catastrophic misuse of Veil energies tore the Wake apart.
By 1918, its hierarchy collapsed. By 1930, its archives were scattered across continents. From those ashes rose six surviving factions — each born from a single surviving branch of doctrine, each warped by isolation, regional myth, and desperation.

The Organization refers to these remnants collectively as the Shattered Sects.
They are not allies, nor enemies to one another only siblings bound by the same curse.
Where one seeks silence, another hungers for rebirth. Together they represent the six directions in which humanity might fall should the Veil shatter completely.

Unified Characteristics

Despite their differences in appearance, faith, and method, all Shattered Sects share several defining traits:

  • Origin in the Crimson Wake: Every sect descends from a pre-war hierarchy devoted to controlling the supernatural for mortal power.

  • Doctrine of the Veil: Each believes the Veil — the barrier between worlds — is not sacred but meant to be torn. Their dogma frames the Veil as a prison that limits human potential or divine truth.

  • Regional Assimilation: After the fall, surviving cultists blended with local folklore, adopting indigenous legends, mythic archetypes, and ritual practices to mask their beliefs.

  • Fragmented Goal: They no longer seek one apocalypse, but six. Each sect pursues its own interpretation of ascension: silence, dominion, purity, rebirth, knowledge, or equilibrium.

  • Intermittent Cooperation: Historical records show brief alliances during crises — notably in 1939 and 1945 — suggesting they still share a form of communication or shared prophecy.

  • Persistent Threat: Each sect maintains contact with entities beyond the Veil. Some worship; others experiment; all invite disaster.

The Sects differ only in how they wish to break the world.

Operational Summary

Each sect remains autonomous but displays the same operational pattern: infiltration, ritual establishment, manifestation, and silence.
Their cells often appear harmless — monasteries, rural missions, burial cults, scholars, or artists — until activity converges on a Veil-thin region. Once established, removal becomes exceedingly difficult.

The Organization considers all Shattered Sects to be persistent global-level containment hazards.
While their modern forms are weak and divided, the possibility of reunion remains a catastrophic scenario.
Analysts estimate that if the six sects were ever to align their doctrines again, it would recreate the full power of the Crimson Wake, potentially enabling a permanent breach in the Veil.

The Bleeding Silence

Region: North America — Great Lakes, Upper Midwest, Appalachia, coastal Maine
What they are: A fanatical sect devoted to “stillness” and erasure.
What they do: Infiltrate small towns via faith fronts and relief missions, conduct fasting and sonic rites (Hollow Sermons), and produce high-risk initiates called Stillborn. They pursue dissolution of identity rather than territorial conquest.
Threat: High memetic and social-engineering hazard; localized auditory null zones and disappearances.

The Red Covenant

Region: Europe — Western and Central Europe, former Crimson Wake urban centers
What they are: An order that seeks to re-establish dominion through ritualized compacts with aristocratic patrons and state actors.
What they do: Recover and weaponize relics, corrupt institutions via patronage, and perform rites that bind denizens to human hosts. They favor political influence, sabotage, and subtle domination over mass annihilation.
Threat: High strategic risk; clandestine influence in government and academia, artifact weaponization.

The Ashen Court

Region: Middle East — Levantine corridors, oasis enclaves, ruined temples
What they are: A syncretic sect blending pre-Islamic rites, Sufi mysticism distortions, and Veil-taught liturgies.
What they do: Maintain hidden sanctuaries, broker pacts with local spirit custodians, and use devotional secrecy to protect and conceal Veil apertures. They traffic in living relics and guarded knowledge.
Threat: Medium-to-high; localized breaches, occult knowledge dispersal, and dangerous relic caches.

The Veiled Lotus

Region: Asia — South, Southeast, and East Asian highlands and temple networks
What they are: An esoteric order that integrates temple ritual, geomancy, and subtle memetic disciplines to bend perception.
What they do: Employ meditation disciplines, mantra harmonics, and geomantic wards to open, control, or hide Veil seams. They produce a class of ritualists who can walk the edge of the Veil for brief periods.
Threat: High technical threat; sophisticated memetic defenses, difficult to penetrate cult discipline, and temple caches of ritual instruments.

The Ebon Tongue

Region: Sub-Saharan Africa — Sahel, equatorial rainforests, coastal trading posts
What they are: A loose federation of mask-cult priesthoods and secret societies that treat the Veil as ancestral memory.
What they do: Practice trance possession and mask rites to commune with Denizens; defend and sometimes exploit natural thin-zones; trade in spirit masks and guarded rites. They are both custodians and opportunists.
Threat: Variable; strong local influence and unpredictable spirit conduits, occasionally cooperative with external collectors.

The Blooming Grave

Region: South America — Amazon basin, Andean foothills, riverine settlements
What they are: A nature-centric sect that merges corpse-cult practices with botanical and fungal symbioses.
What they do: Use burial-gardens and sacramental growth rites to convert corpses into grafted hosts and territorial spirits; trade in living relics and “seeded graves.” They cultivate sites that become persistent thin-zones.
Threat: High ecological and contagion risk; persistent, self-renewing sites that resist destruction and spread memetic spores.