You have a dream that shakes you to the core of your being.  It could be prophesy, or just the manifestation of your sleeping mind, but it feels so real and important that you can’t just let it pass…

You are outside, the night is dark and cold.  You are standing in a clearing, the city lights are nowhere to be seen, and the light of the moon and stars are the only thing providing light.  As the moon starts being eclipsed with the Earth’s shadow, the pale light dims, until, at its totality, the stars in the sky begin to disappear.  First, one-by-one, then many, until they are all gone, and the night is pitch black.

Then a red light appears.  The Eye of the Apocalypse Has Opened.  In the sky, a red star, burning down upon the Earth; it heralds what is to come.

Time streaks by, you see many events at once – The populous begins to suffer from night terrors.  No child is safe, no adult can put aside the sense of dread, for The Dead Have Invaded the Dreams of the Living.  The terrors persist beyond the night, night terrors become waking dreams, and people find difficulty differentiating the dreams from reality.  Soon the dead act through the living to their own ends.

You look down to your side and see a small child, somehow, she alone has maintained her innocence in the horror that has begun to reveal itself.  She reaches out a hand, but before you can grasp it, a hooded figure steps behind her and slits her tiny throat.  She falls forward onto an unrecognized pattern on the floor; the pattern begins to glow, and you know The Innocent Has Been Sacrificed For The Depraved.

With reality weakening and the sacrifice of an innocent, The Banished Return From Beyond.  They bring with them strife and war beyond anything imaginable.  All manner of beings throw away any pretense and slay their enemies and their brothers as one.

With the death count rising, The Earth Sunders, and darkness covers all.

…The dream ends, but the unsettling feeling does not.  A year has passed since then.

Though you thought you were prepared, the red star lighting the sky still brings a sense of dread, as your heart drops and your skin crawls.  Whether Awakened or Kindred, Gaian or Imbued, your quest has just begun.