ANDERS MAGE PAGE 2.0

The Great War was a conflict few today can understand. Countless lives were lost, towns erased, spirits forever broken and undergirding it all the horror of trench warfare. Battlefields stretched for uncounted miles filled with trenches where men crouched in the rain and mud and wondered if death would find them before they were sent over the top to find death themselves.

Amid the fevered prayers and silent resolutions, desperate melees and numbing hours of tedium something happened to many men. The world they knew was stripped away like a rag blown by the wind. Comforting notions and familiar truths that covered them since childhood were obliterated like the countryside they slogged through. They were left naked and confused in a world indistinguishable from Hell. An Awakening none would wish for left them confronting a cold world where little made sense. These men found each other in twos, threes and small groups. Something told them they could confide in each other. Some found ways to influence their superiors and take advantage of strange coincidences to be assigned together.

As they fought together they tried to make sense of what they saw. Along with brave sacrifices and senseless slaughter they saw mysterious men who smuggled frightening weapons onto the battlefield and recorded the disasters they caused as neat little numbers on paper. Others with arcane powers rescued themselves or used the chaos to steal items of power from museums or each other. More frightening still, corpses walked the night pretending to be men and the specters of the dead howled from countless shadows. The newly Awakened soldiers discussed these things and remembered.

When the war ended the men who could no longer ignore the night kept contact with each other. They kept their trench coats as a symbol, a badge of office. They formed a society and called each other “trenchcoaters”. When they returned home they hoped to leave behind the stark visions of the war but it was not to be. Once the veil was lifted it could never be returned. They continued to see strange and unnatural things stalking the night, hiding from men’s notice during the day. In their early letters to each other after the war they traded the information their mystic senses revealed. They resolved to take back their homes if they could. The suffering men brought each other was enough. It should never be weighed down further by the supernatural.

In the 1920s and 30s their activity was fitful as their information network slowly grew. They dutifully passing information to each other when they uncovered proof of the supernatural. It was during this time that they established their first contacts with the Arcanum. Careful not to reveal their mystick abilities, they quietly traded information.

When World War II came the Trenchcoaters donned their long coats once again and made themselves useful where the fighting was fiercest. Numerous anecdotes from the time tell of men coming from nowhere to rescue soldiers stranded on battlefields and civilians trapped in shattered buildings. Odd notes lead officers to uncover lairs where the undead hid and scientists carried out gruesome experiments.

When the second World War concluded the Trenchcoaters hung up their coats and welcomed peace. They settled into an informal society of friends that drank together and treasured hard-won memories. The hidden dangers of the world still threatened but old men must accept the passing of years.

It was into one of these meetings that Victor Rogers, son of founding member Gregory Rogers, burst one night. A struggle in an alleyway that night with an attacker he swore was a vampire ended when a bolt of lightning struck. In the aftermath his ears rang but a voice inside him would not be silent. It lead him to the gathered men.

That night a conversation started among the Trenchcoaters. It spread to every member wherever they were. What they learned must not be forgotten. Their resolve must be passed down to the next generation. They began training the young people that came to them. They also found recruits among those they rescued from supernatural attacks.

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Next: Trenchcoaters Today