The Current

The Current is the source. It is the raw, chaotic energy of whatever dimension lies beyond the Veil, and it existed before the Rupture tore holes in the barrier that once contained it. Now it leaks into our world constantly, pooling in Thin Places, corrupting the land, warping the fauna, and offering power to those desperate or foolish enough to reach for it.

The Current is responsive to thought and emotion, but it has no morality. It creates Fen-Wraiths as easily as it heals a wound. It doesn’t care about your intentions, only about the opening you provide.

Practical effects:

• Psionics channel the Current through a Focus to produce supernatural effects (see the five Disciplines).
• Veil-Born creatures are spawned by Current-saturated reality: Hollow Men, Fen-Wraiths, Stormcallers, all the things that crawl through the wound.
• Erosion is the Current’s tax on those who touch it; touching it is touching radiation that hates you.
• Thin Places are where the Current pools: Ojo del Diablo, the Fen of the Fallen, the Red Mother’s Maw, the cracked landmarks scattered across the Killing Grounds.
• Salt disrupts the Current. Iron grounds it. These are the Frontier’s universal countermeasures.

The Circle of Ash studies the Current and seeks to understand it. The Redeemers consider it inherently corrupting and would purge every trace. The Consortium views it as a resource to be regulated and exploited (their Psi-Division). The Dust Vultures drink it through twisted fauna’s blood to build immunity. Each faction’s relationship to the Current defines their relationship to everything else.

(See the Veil for the barrier, and Rupture for how the barrier broke.)