The earliest known mention of Veilbound appears in fragmented monastery journals and battlefield letters, always written with the same tone: confused certainty.
“He died. I watched him die. And then he stood up as if the world forgot to finish the sentence.”
Early accounts cluster around three kinds of locations:
Battlefields where the dead were never properly mourned
Shrines and crossroads where vows were spoken in desperation
Places where storms, curses, or planar bleed had thinned the world
In one coastal ledger, a fisherman is recorded as drowning during a squall. His body washed ashore hours later. He woke at sunset, coughing seawater, skin pale and soft as kelp silk, with a faint scent of saltwind and candlewax when his hands cracked. For the next year he never missed a tide schedule—never. Villagers claimed he could walk into the fog and vanish. He never boasted of it. He simply said, “The sea didn’t keep me. It lent me.”
In another record, a dancer fell from a high balcony during a festival. Her neck snapped. The priest pronounced death. But her closest friend—half-drunk, half-praying—grabbed her hand and whispered, “One more song. Please.”
The dancer rose hours later. Not weeping. Not dramatic. Simply… breathing, with a glow like lamplight through cloth. When she bled, the air smelled of wildflowers and old paper. She danced again within a week, and people swore they felt their grief lift while watching her move, as if the world remembered how to be kind.
Not all sightings are gentle. Some early Veilbound—those anchored by hunger—left trails of drained animals and blanched plants, not because they had to, but because the new self found it intoxicating. These accounts are the reason many cultures still fear Veilbound as predators by default.
That fear is misplaced. But it is understandable.
VII. The Core’s Hunger — Blessing, Curse, and Choice
Every Veilbound must eventually face a simple question:
What feeds you?
Not “what do you eat.” Not “what do you want.”
What makes the core feel full?
Some can refill their core through harmless acts aligned with their Anchor: art, music, generosity, curiosity, ambition, love. These Veilbound live almost like anyone else, only with strange talents and an odd scent in their blood.
Others find their Anchor is hunger—an appetite for vitality, control, domination, or sensation. These Veilbound are not automatically monsters, but they are walking knives: sharp even when sheathed. They must set rules, boundaries, disciplines—or eventually become the sort of tale people whisper about at night.
This is why Veilbound are never purely tragedy or purely blessing.
They are choice made visible.