Truth in Shadow. Duty in Light.
The world beneath the town
Welcome behind the Veil
Opaline is built upon two truths: ordinary life must remain worth protecting, and the hidden world must never be allowed to destroy it.
Open the archive ↓Opaline, Alaska
At the end of the road,
the story begins.
Opaline occupies the southern Kenai Peninsula where Homer would stand in our world, overlooking Kachemak Bay. Mountains rise beyond cold water, fishing vessels crowd the harbor, and one road connects the town to the distant world beyond it.
Isolation has shaped Opaline into a place where neighbors depend upon one another and privacy remains a form of courtesy. That same isolation has also made it possible for the Born to build lives here—quietly, carefully, and beneath the protection of the Veil.
The Opaline archives
Explore the hidden world
Begin anywhere. Every subject leads back to the fragile peace holding the town together.
Opaline, Alaska
The town, its geography, its isolation, and the ordinary institutions that make supernatural coexistence possible.
→The Veil
The shared responsibility that keeps knowledge of the Born from reaching a wider world unprepared for the truth.
→The Concord
The compact that ended open conflict, established shared law, and gives the lineages a way to preserve peace.
→Factions
Three philosophies shape how residents respond to truth, duty, coexistence, and the authority of the Concord.
→History
What survives of the First Age, the Sundering, the Age of Concord, and the uncertain peace of modern Opaline.
→The Lineages
Six distinct peoples share the town: Hearthborn, Duskborn, Ridgeborn, Hollowborn, Tideborn, and Wildborn.
→The Veil
Some truths carry consequences.
The Veil is the collective agreement among the Born to keep the existence of the supernatural hidden from the outside world. It is not absolute secrecy within Opaline. Trusted Hearthborn—including civic leaders, select law enforcement officers, medical professionals, and others whose duties require the truth—may be entrusted with what they need to know.
The Veil exists because revelation would not bring simple understanding. Governments, corporations, researchers, religious organizations, and those seeking power would descend upon places where the Born were known to exist. Fear would follow discovery; exploitation would follow fear.
The Concord
Peace requires more than good intentions.
The Concord is both a compact and a governing promise. It established shared expectations among the lineages, provided a means of resolving supernatural disputes, and made preservation of the Veil a common responsibility rather than the burden of any one people.
It does not replace Opaline’s civil government or ordinary law. Instead, it addresses the supernatural realities that public institutions cannot safely acknowledge. Its legitimacy rests upon continued cooperation—and upon the knowledge that open conflict would endanger everyone.
Preserve the VeilProtect the communityJudge conduct, not lineageResolve conflict before it spreads
Factions and philosophy
Three answers to one uncertain peace
Faction does not replace lineage. It describes what a character believes—and what they are prepared to do about it.
Coexistence through common purpose.
Born United
Residents who believe the Born are safest when the lineages cooperate, respect the Concord, preserve the Veil, and build lasting lives alongside the Hearthborn community.No oath. No hidden masters.
The Unbound
Those who reject—or deeply question—the Concord’s authority and the restrictions of the Veil. Their motives vary from personal independence to the belief that the Born should no longer hide.We seek truth before judgment. We protect before we destroy.
— The Oathborn Oath
We preserve the Veil. We stand where others cannot.
A history remembered in fragments
From conflict to Concord
The oldest records are incomplete. What matters is what the surviving lineages chose to build afterward.
The First Age
The oldest accounts describe an era before shared law, when magical ambition, supernatural hunger, and the struggle for survival drew the early lineages into conflicts whose truth is now buried beneath legend.
The First Sundering
Open conflict devastated settlements, erased knowledge, and taught the surviving Born that victory for one lineage could mean ruin for them all. Much of what happened survives only in contradictory records.
The Age of Concord
Representatives of the lineages forged a common compact: disputes would be judged, the Veil would be protected, and no lineage would be permitted to endanger every other through unchecked violence or exposure.
Modern Opaline
Today, six lineages share a remote Alaskan town beneath an uneasy peace. Ancient rivalries remain, new factions compete for influence, and the wider world must never learn how much lives behind the familiar streets.
Six lineages. One town.
Meet the people of Opaline
Learn where each lineage came from, how they live, what they fear, and the traditions they carry into the modern world.