You’ve heard the proclamations. A new Churning has started. Everyone’s a bit freaked out, and your nation’s armed forces have been running around doing things, but business has mostly continued on as usual.

Then a government official appears in town, asking everyone to line up and hold this fancy-looking rock while they wiggle their fingers and say some magic words. Whispers spread that this is a test for whether anyone is a Veilwalker; some people dread the idea, while the more adventurous types are praying to the Gods that they’re one of the lucky (or unlucky) few.

Everyone lines up, and it’s actually pretty boring. One by one, they hold the rock, and the government mage does their thing, waits a moment, and shakes their head, gesturing to the next person in line.

Then it’s your turn; the rock is warm in your hand, tingling a bit. When the mage says the words, you feel the magic flowing into the stone, and it buzzes, loudly, the vibrations rattling your arm and sending chills down your spine.

The mage pauses, looks you in the eyes, and quietly says “Congratulations, friend, you’re a Veilwalker. Put your affairs in order, you’ll be gone for about a month. We’ll get you set up and trained and then let you come home. When the Gates are about to open we’ll be calling all of you back up so that you can head into Veilguard.”

Stunned, frightened, excited, or some other emotion; however you feel about it, the next month is a whirlwind of briefings, personal training, and being offered ownership of a piece of capital that you’ll be able to use in Veilguard. It’s hard to decide, so you just pick the owner’s share of a general store in the nearest city to your village — more money’s always going to be useful, right?

Then the whirlwind is over and you’re home again, though over the next two weeks you forget half of what they tried to cram into your head. But then the call comes, and you’re rushed back to the city, waiting with a bunch of other Veilwalkers in front of a stone menhir, as a swirling portal slowly forms between the stones — a Gate, to the fabled land of Veilguard that you’ve only heard of in stories.

As you walk through, there’s a flicker of reality just… stopping for a moment. But a heartbeat later you’re somewhere else — a town surrounded by misty woods, with peoples from all the other nations of the Continent flooding through the Gates around you.

Welcome to Veilguard.

What Makes A Veilwalker

Nobody knows exactly why some people are Veilwalkers. It’s thought that there’s something about them that gives them the capacity for greatness, but that they’re not yet important enough to have any metaphorical weight in the world. This “Liminal Theory” is just one of many, however, and the exact “why” is ultimately unimportant. What matters for our purposes is that there are three specific traits that all Veilwalkers have in common:

• They are usually capable in some way. This can be capacity with magic or weapons, a knack for crafting, or some other talent. A number of Veilwalkers have made fortunes as merchants, and still more have become known across the Continent for the popularity of the pop-up taverns they run within Veilguard. Sometimes their talents aren’t obvious, but all of them have
• They aren’t important people when they first venture into Veilguard. No Veilwalker has ever started their career as a prince or general, or even a commander or governor. None of them had ever risen to a point where someone in a position of power knew their name or cared who they were, before they stepped through the Gate into Veilguard. That fact frequently changes after someone becomes a Veilwalker, but to start out they are never a person of great import.

Most Veilwalkers are above the age of 18, though there’s an odd tendency for the children or dependents of Veilwalkers to also be identified as Veilwalkers. This effect isn’t related to heredity or whether someone is a blood relative of a Veilwalker; rather, it seems that only the dependents of Veilwalkers are ever identified as Veilwalkers before the age of 18, as if it’s a trait that is passed down via raising the child rather than based on the child’s biological parentage.

Veilwalker Origins Q&A

What are the different ways a person can become a Veilwalker?

You don't know that you're a Veilwalker until you're tested with a stone inscribed with the Thuul rune after a Churning has started; if it vibrates, you know that you're a Veilwalker. Between Churnings, new Veilwalkers stop appearing (or stop being identifiable, there's scholarly disagreement on that point). Once you’re a Veilwalker, you only stop being a Veilwalker if you fully join the cultists or become something other than mortal.

How does a person get into Veilguard?

Veilwalkers get into the Veil through Gates that start appearing during a Churning, usually on ley-line crossings or near places where the Veil has been weakened by something else (spots along the Labyrinth boundaries or at the center of the Shimmerleaf Gardens, for instance). The Gates only stabilize for a short period, but they're visible for a week before they start being functional, so governments have a bit of time to get people assembled around them. After the Gates stabilize, there's a mad rush to get Veilwalkers through them and into Veilguard so that they can get work done before the Gates start to destabilize (i.e. time out at the end of the event) and people need to evacuate back to the material plane.

Who is out there testing people? How would we know who to test with the stones?