The Thule Society
Devastated by their defeat in the Great War, in 1918, a group of thirteen German officers gathered to form a coven with the intention of placing a curse on the nation of France at the moment that the armistice was signed. To better facilitate their dreadful spell, the soldiers revived the spirits of three ancient magicians: the Hungarian vampire Count Varney Orloff; the spirit of Scandinavian winter, the Winter King; and the haunted sorcerer known as The Crimson Mask.
The Three wanted to do more than just place a curse on France; they wanted to remain in the mortal realm and seize control of Earth’s occult community. To prevent the soldiers from dismissing them as easily as they had been summoned, they bound the officers to a mystic compact in exchange for their help; if any of the Three were dismissed, the entire coven would die. Nonetheless, the sorcerers employed carrots as well as sticks, and the coven learned to enjoy the benefits provided by the Three: wealth and political power even during disasters of the 1920s and early 1930s. For their part, the Three found themselves comfortable in Germany, and the alliance went smoothly for decades.
Once they were settled, the Three pursued greater ambitions. The Winter King spoke of an enclave of supermen that troubled his dreams, the Hyperboreans of legend, and he believed Germany’s rightful conquest could be attained if they formed an alliance with them, whom he believed were the Progenitors of the Aryan People. They lived in a hidden place called Ultima Thule, and the coven dedicated themselves to its discovery. To fully dedicate themselves to this quest, they branded themselves the Thule Society.
Between the wars, the Thule Society had two main objectives: to expand their mystical knowledge and power, and to patronize German expansion. In particular, they sought to back German adventurers and explorers, increasing their expertise so they could find Ultima Thule. They desired to be the powers behind the throne, and those who showed magical aptitude would be taken directly into their ranks.
Obsessed with the Northern spirit of the legendary Teutonic Golden Age, the Thule Society quickly tied itself to the Nazi party, seeing them as the force that most embodied that spirit of nationalism. Rather than work directly with Hitler, the Society looked for an intermediary whose first loyalty would be to them. They found it in a young Austrian sorcerer and adventurer named Wilhelm Kantor.
The Thule Society achieved their goal when they discovered Ultima Thule in 1938. Unfortunately, the Hyperboreans were not receptive to the Winter King’s arguments for an alliance to ensure Aryan supremacy, and they erased all memories of the encounter, sending the intruders on their way.
It was a memorable year for another reason; Wilhelm Kantor visited the lost city of Seti-Ab and discovered his true nature as an eternally reincarnating scion of evil. Armed with the knowledge of a hundred lifetimes, Kantor went to the Three, claimed preeminence, and demanded obeisance. The Three, recognizing Kantor for who and what he truly was, offered to share their power with a kindred soul. Kantor agreed, and the Three became Four without bloodshed or even rancor.
World War II saw numerous triumphs for the Thule Society, but ultimately Allied sorcerers defeated them. As the vampire Nosferatu, Count Orloff was slain by the Bowman. After an attempt to bring a Fimbulwinter down upon the British Isles, the Winter King was defeated and imprisoned by Eldrich and Spitfire Jones within an artifact called the Summer Rose (an undying flower planted by Queen Elizabeth I at the start of her reign). Toward the end of the war, Eldrich cast a spell that undid the work of the Thule Society, negating the power of many Nazi superhumans. Kantor fled to South America. As for the Crimson Mask, Eldrich’s counterspell also broke the spell that prevented him from being pursued by the spirit of Stefan Báthory, and he was forced to flee to the ends of the Earth to escape his wrath.
Most of the sorcerers who belonged to the Society died in the war. The few survivors went into exile with Kantor, and struggled to regain their power in the aftermath of Eldrich’s spell. They were little more than Kantor’s lackeys during SHADOW's first climb to power in the 1950s. Nonetheless, they made slow but steady progress in rebuilding what they had lost.
In 1962, following the failure of the first Operation Inundation, Overshadow realized he needed to bolster his resources (including his magical ones), so he formed a new Thule Society. He tracked down the Crimson Mask and worked a ritual that freed him from Báthory’s curse. The Crimson Mask was charged with the task of rebuilding the Society.
No longer haunted by a centuries old Transylvanian Prince, the Mask was finally free to pursue his own ambition—to become the new Master Mage. He has slowly and carefully built up his forces, meticulously breaking the bonds Eldrich had placed on the old magic. Though ever loyal to Overshadow, he wonders if the years haven’t taken too much of a toll on him, whether he hasn’t sacrificed his passion to the clockwork precision of technology and genetic alchemy. The Mask is prepared to abandon SHADOW and set the Thule Society on its own course, but only if Overshadow looks like he is about to falter.
Based in a small castle on the outskirts of modern Budapest, the modern Thule Society is composed of thirty mages, three archivists, several alchemists, and an oracle. Their primary pursuit is the acquisition of arcane knowledge, but they also travel the globe to ensnare demons and elementals, which they plan to unleash en masse during the next Operation Inundation. They have also kidnapped at least fifty children from around the globe and press-ganged them into Hurstboer’s Academy for the Gifted, a black arts academy hidden in a pocket dimension. Several hundred SHADOW clones have been consigned to “spell mills,” where they recite incantations certain to eventually kill them, but the pronunciation of these dooming spells enhances the power of the Society.
Each year, seventeen Thule Society mages are designated as wandering agents, going into the occult communities to find out what is going on in the occult world, and work it into their designs.
More disturbing is their research into RMDs (“Rituals of Mass Destruction”). Last year, a German city was nearly destroyed when an experimental anti-pentagram weakened dimensional barriers and flooded it with demons. This caught the attention of a number of Earth’s prominent mages, but they have not identified who is responsible yet. The Thule Society is becoming a major threat in the mystic world, a shadow within SHADOW.
The Thule Society is expanding. Each year, five sorcerers are nominated into the ranks; whoever wins a test of magic is initiated (the test is nearly always fatal for the losers). The initiate is drained of blood, which is replaced with demon ichor. Although the body eventually replaces the lost blood, the Mask believes few white magicians would willingly sully their veins with the stuff of demons, making it an effective test of loyalty.
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