1914–1920 – WWI, New Avalon Echo, Sabbat Probes

🜂 1914–1920: The Red Veil and the Shadow War

“Madison is quiet on the surface, but its echo marched with the war.”

— Gwydion Kelly, from the journal Umbral Deployments of the Western Front

When World War I erupts, the Order of Hermes deploys operatives through a secretive project called Chapel Red Line, designed to study and neutralize magickal threats in warzones.
Gwydion Kelly, already a respected Hermetic within New Avalon, volunteers to go to Europe.
- Officially: He serves as a military chaplain and advisor on “morale and spiritual resilience.”
- Secretly: He is charged with locating Node fractures caused by mass death and investigating rumors of Nephandi war magick.
In 1916, Gwydion uncovers a Weaver-corrupted battlefield spirit in Verdun. The spirit is stabilized using a glyph developed from a dream of Jay Dee, thought lost to time.

While Traditions and Garou are focused on the war effort or spirit-world incursions, Sabbat scouts arrive in Madison through the rail lines and slaughterhouses.
- These vampires are Lasombra and Pander-led, and seek to awaken the Neverborn beneath Lake Mendota.
A Nameless cult, left behind from the 1904 fire, is co-opted by the Sabbat and turned into a recruitment cell called The Spiral Choir.
The Gahara Pact activates dormant Umbra-bound wards, barely repelling the Sabbat with help from:
- A local Euthanatos death-adept, and
- A Lupine warpack led by Black Wolf’s Daughter, an Uktena who walks in both flesh and Umbra.

With Gwydion abroad, leadership of the New Avalon Chantry falls to Ann Johnston, a Mind-specialized Akashic convert and Dreamspeaker initiate.
She oversees the Umbra Projection Project, designed to:
1. Extend the Chantry’s defenses into the Near Umbra,
2. Map the deep spirit terrain of Teejop, and
3. Trace the resonance link between the Capitol Node and the other two anchors (New Avalon and New Eden).
Success: In 1916, a temporary Umbra-reflected Chantry is established—called New Avalon Echo—floating above a mirrored image of Lake Monona, where time bleeds sideways and spirits appear without names.
Failure: The Echo reflection begins to show signs of resonance fracture in 1919, likely due to growing global unrest and early signs of the 1920s Technocratic expansion.

As the war ends, a wave of mass death resonance floods the spiritual layers of Europe and North America.
A Wraith legion arrives in the Shadowlands of Madison, some benevolent—but some controlled by Spectres drawn to the pain under the Capitol Node.
Gwydion returns with a shattered sword and a scar across his soul, speaking of a trench “that bleeds sideways through time.”
- His mission in Europe unearthed an echo of the Nameless on the battlefield—proving that the curse transcends continents, and that its anchors are less stable than believed.

Year	Event
1914	Gwydion Kelly departs for Europe; Chapel Red Line project begins.
1915	Sabbat probes Madison through rail systems; form Spiral Choir cult.
1916	New Avalon expands into the Umbra; Echo Chantry founded.
1917	Lupine and Euthanatos prevent a Sabbat ritual beneath Picnic Point.
1918	The Red Veil falls: war resonance weakens the Third Seal globally.
1919	New Avalon Echo begins fragmenting due to paradox storms.
1920	Gwydion returns; the Capitol Node’s resonance becomes unstable.