Circle of the Veil

🏛️ Basic Info

Type: Secretive Arcanist Collective
Purpose/Mission:
To observe, interpret, and gently influence the planar echoes and illusionary fluctuations affecting Velquora—ensuring the city’s stability without disturbing the natural balance between realities. They believe in subtle guidance over control, and in protecting knowledge that is "not yet meant to be known."
Headquarters: Hidden within a disused wing beneath the Obsidian Archives
Notable Members:
- Kein Saldo – Founding member and philosophical guide.
- Velesi Orundra – An illusionary cryptographer specializing in encoding memories into spatial illusions; rarely speaks aloud, preferring ambient illusion to communicate.
- Brother Cahl – A former monk turned planar linguist who transcribes echoes from unstable dimensions using a self-devised grammar. Widely respected, mildly unsettling.
- Natharyn Sol – A scholar who uses chronologically stabilized illusion fields to model alternate outcomes. Known for being emotionally distant but fiercely protective of Velquora’s metaphysical integrity.
- Iriel Fenlocke – A cartographer of unreal spaces; maintains a vast hidden chamber filled with evolving maps that update based on the shifting planar strata.
Allies/Rivals:
- Allies: Select researchers within the Obsidian Archives, planar-sensitive illusionists
- Rivals: Certain elements within the The Ethereal Academy pushing for planar manipulation and artificial dimensional constructs

Founding Story:
The Circle of the Veil formed shortly after the first Planar Echo Storm, when several illusionists and scholars—unsettled by how easily the veils between dimensions were thinning—banded together to quietly monitor the situation. Founded not as an official body but as a mutual agreement among those who saw too much, the Circle remains deliberately unrecorded in public ledgers.
Major Conflicts/Involvements:
- Played a behind-the-scenes role in resolving the Prism Collapse, using subtle counter-illusions to stabilize breached time-loops without attracting institutional scrutiny.
- Discreetly sabotaged a planar engine prototype developed at the Academy that risked opening a sustained rift to a dream-tethered dimension.
Current Status:
Active and cautious. The Circle operates in shadows and footnotes, sharing knowledge through metaphor-laden scrolls and encoded illusions. It neither recruits nor expands quickly,0 . preferring to trust only those who “see past the shimmer.” 321

Leaders:
While Kein Saldo is the most visible face, the Circle has no formal hierarchy. Authority flows from insight, not title.
Key Locations:
- Obsidian Archives (lower levels, sealed and unmarked chambers)
- Occasionally convenes in phased alcoves only accessible during moments of planar alignment
Artifacts:
- The Dimming Prism – A shard of refracted illusion anchored to the first Planar Echo Storm, used by the Circle to detect veil disruptions in Velquora before they manifest physically.