The World
Two factions. One Veil. Neither side tells the whole truth.
Before the Radiant Dominion. Before the Dark Revenant. Before Crucibles had a name. Before Sorrem was even reality — there was the Empyreal Veil. Sorrem itself, and every mortal life on it, sprouted from the Veil. It records every feeling Sorrem has ever had. It explains none of them.
The Veil is also what stands between Sorrem and the chaos beyond. What waits on the other side, no one can say for certain. When mortal life turns chaotic and grief runs deep, the Veil weakens, and Sorrem feels the pressure.
Beneath Sorrem runs the Soul Stream — made from the emotions of mortal life, every joy, grief, rage, and love. It exists because mortals feel, and its resonance builds, endlessly, in the Veil above it.
Where that pressure grows past what the world can hold, it condenses into a Crucible. Every Crucible grows from a single heart, one enormous crystal, and everything inside it, from the halls to the things that stalk them, is the Veil's memory made solid. No one owns a Crucible. No one runs one. Shatter its heart and it collapses back into the Veil for good.
Crystallized fragments of that feeling are called Essence — Courage, Fury, Sorrow, Memory, Truth, Resonance. It can be claimed, carried, and shaped. Every Crucible holds only so much.
Even the name "Empyreal Veil" comes from somewhere. Mortals had their own words for this presence long before anyone called it a veil at all. Their words meant inheritance: something mortals came from, not something standing guard over them. The people who renamed it had their own reasons for choosing a word that means protection.
You were a nobody. Then it changed — one moment, unbidden, unasked for. Awe. Pain. Wonder. Fear. All four at once, indistinguishable, as more feeling than one mind was built to hold poured through you from somewhere older than you have words for.
It happens to perhaps one mortal in ten thousand, and most of them never know it. They age well, heal quickly, and call it luck. A handful are struck so hard that something in them breaks.
You were struck deep enough to notice. Slower to age. Faster to heal. Able to feel what the Veil feels — truth with no name for it, surfacing in dreams, in déjà vu, in rooms that seem to remember you. And inside a Crucible, the Veil running through you won't let death keep you. It takes its price in Essence instead.
That's what it means to be Veil-touched. Not a bloodline. Not a destiny you were chosen for. An accident that happened to be survivable. The Veil doesn't make you better; it makes you more of what you already were. Some become saviors. Some become tyrants. What you become is up to you.
The Radiant Dominion
The Radiant Dominion are the Veil itself, protection made manifest, radiant and absolute. They teach that they help shield Sorrem from the chaos beyond and guide mortals to keep the Veil whole. Their guidance, so the teaching goes, has let mortals grow and reach even greater heights. Their seers watch wherever Crucibles surface. The Veil-touched who delve them are tolerated, and noticed.
The Dark Revenant
Not all Veil-touched follow the path the Radiant Dominion lays out for mortals. There are those who question the Dominion's teachings and reject its claims. The Dominion has proclaimed them heretics, and they are hunted, so the Dominion says, to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
The Compendium
Sorrem's history isn't a record. It's an argument.
The Official Record
The Dominion's version: measured, orderly, and edited by the people who benefit most from your trust in it.
The Manifesto
The Revenant's version: urgent, angry, and just as selective about what it leaves out.
What the Veil Remembers
Personal accounts, raw and uncut, drawn from the Veil's own memory. No spin, and no context either — just whoever was feeling something hard enough for the Veil to keep it.
You won't get a clean answer here. That's the point. Every account in the Compendium is somebody's truth, not the truth.
The Veil is patient. It's still recording. What you carry out of Sorrem is up to you.