Chapter 1:

Location: On the roof of a building near an inner city warehouse near a train yard that is being used by a gang to move illegal cargo around.

Time: Midnight

Year: 20XX

Goal: Eliminate all gang members, and secure additional resources for Alice and her cabal.

Initiate - You peer over the ledge at the ground below you. It's a long way down. So far down that it makes you dizzy. You peer over at your mentor Violet, the woman in purple and your guide into the world of Hexenites.

Hexenite: A mortal branded with a rod made of pure white-silver. Its tip resembled an ancient Mesopotamia symbol in the Sumerian alphabet. After being branded, the Initiate undergoes a transformation brought on by the infection of their wounds. After a day of agonizing pain and blisters, the mortal undergoes the final stage of the curse and becomes a fully-fledged Hexenite. A giant humanoid creature branded with pink scars. The mortal's face becomes more ape-like while their legs elongate into hind legs similar to a reptile's. A long prehensile cat-like tail winds around the hips of their long torsos. Sharp claws, horns, membrane-winged arms, and fangs along with nocturnal eyes make Hexenites a natural predator above humans on the food chain. In modern nights, many Hexenites stick together in cabals as their numbers are few. They are the second major player in the fight to control reality alongside their rivals, the Wykins. Hexenites do not require a catalyst to cast spells because of their cursed metamorphosis and only need to perform the right gestures to create sorcery. This form of sorcery is known as Biohex and is only used by Hexenites. Whilst they are technically mortal, there are rumors of a rune that could reveal the secrets of immortality and that it is possessed by those of the highest order within the Wykin Consortium. Thus, most Hexenites are akin to referring to regular humans as mortals.

Initiate - She glances at you and your mind is immediately flooded with memories of how you were chained to a post in the basement of a local bar called Grundy's. You don't recall what all exactly happened that night. Why and what brought you there doesn't matter anymore anyway. You're just thankful you came out of there alive. After having your flesh seared and the long hours of waiting as your blood vessels became corrupted with black bile. If you hadn't been tied up, you would've split your head open on the concrete pavement. The torture was brutal, and what you became afterward was something that could only be described as a monster. Yet, you accepted what you saw in the mirror's reflection without disagreement. Perhaps the curse affects more than just the body. The mind is malleable if you know how to work it in the right way.

Fang Lords: A local gang in the dense metropolitan city of Fayteville. Crime is common everywhere in the city, but it remains well organized despite the threat of several heavily armed militias hanging out in the middle of the United States of America. Gangs war with each other and the cops stay out of it. For the most part, everyone tries to get along with each other in these dire times. The local crew of the Fangs wear tattered shirts and sweats. Most members are recruited from off the street, and while that may not mean a disciplined army, their feral tactics of charging the enemy without care for their own lives due to being hopped up on so many drugs was a scary sight. They carried barbed wire bats and small submachine guns. Most of them had various tattoos scattered about their faces and bodies.

Violet - She pats you on the back, "I want to show you something." She says as she ignites her right hand on fire. With a graceful leap, she hops down to the ground below. Two Fang guards are leaning against the wall of the warehouse, next to a well-lit lamp post. One of them takes note of the small ball of flame moving in the pitch blackness of night.

Guard 1 - "What's going on over there?" he scratches his scabby beard full of crust and dead skin.

Guard 2 - "Whoever it is better to make themselves known before I fill you full of lead!" he says brandishing his automatic firearm. The small barrel was able to shoot about thirty bullets per second. It wouldn't take long for a trigger-happy guy like him to tear apart someone limb from limb with that kind of firepower.

Violet - She takes a deep breath in and exhales a wide stream of fire that engulfs the guards in flames. They scream as she steps forward into the light, revealing her monstrous features. The bodies, now turned to ash are blown away by the wind as more gangsters poured outside to investigate the screams of their brothers. They are met with a nightmare made real and stop to stare in horror.

Initiate - You take advantage of the opportunity to generate a current of electricity between your palms. With a loud clap of thunder, a lightning bolt springs from your hands and arcs through the group of thugs, turning them all into white ash. You can hear the commotion of more troops inside, gathering around crates, shelves, and whatever other cover they could find. It's apparent they think they're being hit up by another gang. If only they knew what they were up against.

Warehouse: Along its metal exterior, a boarded-up fence protected the transformer transmitting power to the facility. The interior was covered in filth from the Fang Lord's operations, but the cargo they protected was well-maintained. Guns, drugs, and dirty money. All of which could be put to better causes than organized crime, but no one was going to stop them. The police force of Fayteville was spread to thin as is, plus the deal negotiated with the local corrupt cops should mean that this warehouse was protected turf. The Fangs figured that whoever was raiding them must be armed to the teeth and so were they. They tore the wide hallway apart to create whatever kind of cover they could and filed to the front door. None of them were prepared for your clever thinking.

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Initiate - Searching for any opening inside the warehouse, you spot the poorly maintained wooden fence separating you from the transformer powering the place. You give Violet a heads-up before you ignite the breaker box, shutting off the lights inside. The guards are going crazy, and some start pre-firing before anything has even happened. The uproar will turn the advantage in your favor.

Gang member - "They shot me!" One cries, but of course it's friendly fire.

Gang member 2 - "Dust 'em boys!" Another one screams as the roar of gunfire fills the air.

Initiate - You sit on the upper floor, preparing the same spell as before. With sufficient rotations of the hands, a larger bolt of electricity could be made. As bullets continue to whiz through the air, you don't let your concentration break on this spell and finally, you release an arch of lightning. As quickly as the gunfire had started, now only the sound of the wind blowing could be heard against the thin tin metal walls.

Biohex and Rune Carving: The manipulation of the Hexenite body's chemistry to produce fire, electricity, harden the skin, etc., all require a specific gesture to activate. However, their rivals, the Wykins, use a alchemy and catalysts to replicate the effects of Biohexes. Using metallic orbs made with an element known as white-silver as a catalyst, they can carve runes into these objects to replicate sorcery. To the regular mortal, the effects of Biohexes and Rune Orbs are imperceivable thanks to the magic of the Veil, a ritual created by the Wykin Consortium to prevent mortals from discovering the supernatural. Wykin's are mortals that can perceive beyond the Veil due to their connection with their Rune Orbs.

Initiate - Hastily, you and Violet load up what you can into a van and flee the scene before the cops can arrive. What they'll report will eventually find its way into the hands of the Consortium, but the deaths will be swept under the rug by the media as another reason why the police need more funding. Eventually, pundits and politicians will spin the issue so far out of what the original incident was that by the time there is a proper investigation, the Consortium will have already obfuscated your (and their) footprints.

Wykin Consortium: An ancient faction of warlocks, wizards, sorcerers, witches, druids, etc., who hold onto sacred knowledge concerning reality shaping magic through the use of Rune Orbs. Despite their claims of guiding humanity toward a mature and responsible collective that could properly wield the power of the catalysts. However, from the outsider's point of view, it only appears that those in charge aren't willing to relinquish their unimaginable power. The Consortium operates under a corporate hierarchy, with the most experience and resources often holding the power of authority. To maintain their secrecy, they uphold nightly rituals to renew the spell of the Veil which prevents the general masses from recalling supernatural events. Through the use of magic and media campaigns using old money, the vastness of the Consortium and its agents are truly unknown. It's rare for the Consortium to act aggressively, so they remain reactive and rather slow whilst in the midst of a shadow war. Yet, if deemed necessary, the Consortium has the power to puppeteer and mobilize armies to do their bidding.

Initiate - You drive through the city, turning along its winding roads as you traverse up the steep hills. Despite the potholes' best efforts, your tires somehow trudge through the wide cracks in the asphalt. You pull up to Grundy's Bar squashed between a bookstore and a vape vendor. Backing the van into a narrow alleyway, you put it in park and help Violet open the back to unload your rewards. Violet calls up Styx and Lisa, two of the stronger Hexenites who help Alice, the Speaker of our cabal, run the cult. Once it's done you're met with Alice.

Cabal of Solomon: One of the many Hex Cabals that exist in the modern nights. Hexenites are seen as a risk of exposure to the Wykin Consortium and are killed with prejudice. Alice runs the Cabal of Solomon and dons the title of Speaker to represent her role. Her mind is addled from branding her flesh with countless runes and glyphs. She can view into the future and receives visions of runic artifacts. Underneath Alice, Lisa and Violet manage the bar's finances and hiring while Keith handles the bar. Styx, the bodyguard keeps to himself for the most part. While it's not as big as some cabals, each member of the Solomons is treated as family and eventually grows into a powerful all-around wielder of Biohex. Violet, the woman in purple, was a mistress of the night who lured in stragglers to feed upon. Keith was a smooth talking bartender who knew every corner and every person that was hustling in the streets. Lisa was a tough, no nonsense leader who aided Alice when she was unavailable due to her condition. Many cabals come from a single person or small family who happen to come into possession of Hexenite rituals.

Alice - Dressed in a red robe and a long brimmed hat of the same color, she doesn't greet you as you come in, nor does she look up from her meditation. Violet stirs her awake with a whisper and Alice looks up enough to reveal a toothy grin. "Impressive Initiate," she coos. From her robe, she pulls out a blank piece of paper and hands it to Violet who stares at it for a bit before passing it to you.

Initiate - It takes a second, but the blank sheet of paper suddenly reveals a map to you. You realize that Alice has used some form of biohex to encode the message. Yet, the longer you stare at the map the easier the image is to picture until you can hear the echoes of Alice's mind as she pieces together the vision which brought about this knowledge.

Wykin Operations: The Consortium acts globally to recover any ancient artifacts it can find to study. Runes are understood to be instructions for gestures to utilize catalysts such as the Rune Orbs made of pure white-silver. The more gestures and runes they can horde, the more powerful their arsenal of magic becomes. To counteract these operations, the Hex Cabalists often enact missions to steal from private Consortium museums, galleries, and mansions and recover what knowledge they can.

Violet - As you and Violet exit Alice's den, you ask her about the map you received. "It's a secret passage into a private museum where the Wykin Consortium stores some of their artifacts. We have to go through a labyrinth of catacombs before we can reach our destination."

Initiate - You ask Violet what Alice is hoping to find and she merely shrugs. It's not frowned upon to ask such questions, but often the visions Alice had were hazy at best, however, they've always led to a deeper knowledge of the occult and arcane. Without her, the Cabal of Solomon would collapse.

Chapter Consequences:

- Unlocked Glyph Sight (Perceive beyond the Veil)

- Unlocked Biohex of Electricity

- Gain Ally Violet