The Collapse

The Inevitable Comes

The Collapse was a period during which Tawdrii fell to The Void, eradicating most of the Kindred and forcing survivors to flee, eventually arriving on Earth.

I could see it, colossal and pitch black and voracious. Consuming everything in its wake, The Void ravaged everything and in its wake left chaos; refugees as far as the eye could see. Nothing was left, not even the Memories, everything devastated by an inexhaustible hunger. Yet we marched on towards it - or what little was left behind it - towards The Veil.

- Memory of a Kindred refugee during The Collapse.

The Only Way is In

Their worldly plane ripped asunder during by The Collapse, the only possible path to continued existence was through the rifts left in the wake of The Void manifesting its touch upon Tawdrii. Influential patrons lead their followers through The Veil and into a new world on the other end of what seemed like an eternity. Emerging with who few managed to follow them through to the other side, they emerged in Earth with far fewer of their Kindred than before, and in a world hostile to their arrival.

He claimed he could hear them - voices - he said, and we all believed him. "They will see us through to the other side!" he cried into the inky blackness - illuminated only by his faith in the twinkling lights too far off for us to ever reach. Some of us started to doubt. It was impossible to tell by that point, how long we had been pacing, how many steps into that beautiful darkness we had taken before the first of us began to give up, splitting off into their own little groups & setting off - back towards a home we all knew wasn't there.
I wish I could say that I dream they made it - but to be honest, I can't even remember their faces anymore.
We stopped counting 'days', it was pointless - no clock ever worked, and our guesses became impossibly erratic; at a certain point everything became pointless... and there was only the marching, and the arguing, and the hopelessness.
"I will save you, please!" I still remember him pleading with the last of them. "We are so close!" Their stares said everything - at a certain point, any direction seemed just as dire, and why not set off for home? Back towards memories, memories of a place we forgot. Sometime back when we forgot what time was. They couldn't remember what direction we came from - 'back' was good enough.
One day we .... arrived... it was so anticlimactic... nothing like I thought it would be. Like walking into a cold room we simply 'emerged' into a new space, confused & suddenly aware of how fucking cold it was. Mountains, the sound of running water, I almost cried. It didn't matter how many people had gone, or that I had forgotten home entirely, just that I was somewhere.

- Memory of a Kindred refugee during The Collapse.

Driven by their Patrons, the few Kindred who arrived on Earth during The Collapse were united by powerful bonds which drove them together around powerful leaders & lead to their eventual emergence into the new world. However, their arrival didn't go unnoticed, and the en-masse arrival of the Kindred on Earth attracted the immediate ire of those most dedicated to the status quo.
Precursors to The Hunt, the angry & capable of Humanity formed militia against the sudden & random appearance of new species of Kindred emerging into their territories. Across the globe, Kindred were arrested & segregated or killed - all while international political discussions boiled on their right to life. While certain factions found strength to stave off the wave of Humanity's earliest attempts to divide them, others fell prey to the mechanics of the world & found their fates cut short in the process of trying to set down roots.

The Great Unifiers

The Grand Courts, the greatest authority of Tawdrii, was both the first to push into The Veil and the last to leave Tawdrii. Dedicated to the pursuit of knowledge & the leadership of all Kindred, their many orders first began & further expedited the exploration of paths through The Veil well before The Collapse was actually upon their footsteps. However, until the very end, the courts placed their hopes on saving the world.

They were still there, even as the earth crumbled & we saw cities pulled into the gaping maw of The Inevitable the Guardsmen were standing guard at the palaces, Oracles rushing between the universities & our lord's Grand Commissioner commanding the legions in the governor's absense. Like there was anything they could do.
Where were they now, on this frigid cold ass of the world? After an eternity, of marching and so many lost, I had brought only a handful, and now would it be that the world would take them? That was when I heard them, coming through the trees. Footsteps on the wind, and the six of us were left with nothing but our wits - I reached for an amulet I didn't know would work.
"It's the guard!" The brilliant white of the Guardsmen of The Grand Order was unmistakable; burned into my memory like the back of my hand. But how? Even with the assistance of the gods I had barely managed this... how?

The Order of the New World recruited the best which The Grand Order could muster early into The Collapse and began investigating Greater Arcane methods to traverse The Veil into a new world. Granted wide immunity from any oversight & allowed even reckon with the gods in the hopes of exploring every possible path to sanctuary should The Void take their world from them.
Enlisting the aid of Order of the Illuminated & Order of Auditors to rapidly investigate & dismantle religious & secret societies throughout the old world, under orders from The Grand Courts, eventually the Order of the New World unveiled secrets which would lead them through The Veil & to their new world - Earth.
Arriving before even some of the earliest refugees, the Order of the New World set up defenses & put down early dessent against the courts, establishing some of the earliest equivalents to Havens that allowed Kindred to set down their roots in the new world.