Discipline of the Veil

Overview

Veilwardens are practitioners trained in the perception, navigation, and safeguarding of the Veil — the liminal boundary between the living world and what lies beyond it.

They are not priests, nor do they serve any god.

They are not caretakers of the dead, nor do they involve themselves with bodies, burials, or funerary customs.

Their sole domain is the soul’s passage and the integrity of the Veil itself.

Purpose and Mandate

The Veil exists to allow souls to pass onward without obstruction. When this process is disrupted — through catastrophe, necromancy, mass death, or unresolved anchoring — imbalance occurs.

Veilwardens exist to:

• Identify disturbances within the Veil
• Ensure souls are not bound, trapped, or drawn back
• Prevent long-term scarring of the boundary
• Restore balance where passage has been interrupted

They do not judge souls, hasten death, or interpret divine will.

What Veilwardens Are Not

Veilwardens are often misunderstood. The discipline explicitly rejects the following roles:

• Religious authority
• Funerary officiants
• Body preparation or burial oversight
• Combat orders
• Enforcers of morality or law

All physical death rites remain the responsibility of families, communities, and priests of the gods.

Relationship with the Priesthood

Veilwardens and priests often operate alongside one another, especially in regions scarred by death or unrest, but their functions do not overlap.

• Priests address the living:
  • Farewells
  • Comfort
  • Blessings
  • Consecration in the name of a god
• Veilwardens address the unseen:
  • Ensuring souls are unanchored
  • Preventing Veil thinning
  • Resolving lingering echoes

Neither commands the other. Cooperation is customary, hierarchy is not.

Training and Discipline

Veilwarden training is long, inward-focused, and emotionally demanding.

Key disciplines include:

Veil Perception

Learning to sense disturbances without engaging them instinctively.

Students are taught restraint before intervention.

Emotional Detachment

Strong emotion can unintentionally anchor souls.

Veilwardens are trained to recognize grief, guilt, and attachment — and to act without them.

Lucidity Practices

Meditative and dream-based disciplines used to approach the Veil safely.

Early training emphasizes:

• Dream awareness
• Self-anchoring
• Maintaining identity while asleep

Advanced Practice: Dreamwalking

Some Veilwardens develop the ability to enter the Veil through lucid dreamstates.

Advanced practitioners may:

• Remain fully aware while dreaming
• Anchor others into a shared dream
• Allow all participants to know they are dreaming

Through this, Veilwardens can:

• Navigate Veil-adjacent spaces safely
• Guide others without physical death
• Investigate disturbances inaccessible by waking means

This is not prophecy, illusion, or divine vision — but controlled traversal.

Role in Scarred Lands

In regions affected by mass death or prolonged imbalance (such as Naquart after the undead plague), Veilwardens may be present for months or years.

Their work includes:

• Identifying persistent anchors
• Determining whether the Veil has healed naturally
• Advising when land is truly safe for resettlement

A region is not considered restored until both:

• The living may return
• The Veil no longer draws souls back

Social Standing

Veilwardens are respected but rarely celebrated.

Common perceptions include:

• Quiet
• Reserved
• Unsettling to some
• Reassuring to others

Many choose to remain within communities rather than travel endlessly, acting as local guardians rather than distant authorities.

Cultural Note

Veilwardens are not symbols of death.

They are caretakers of transition — present where endings linger too long and beginnings hesitate to return.