In 1993 Russell Gunnarsson, Marcus Kilbride, Carl Barret and another friend, David Patterson, graduated from college and for various personal reasons, signed up on an exchange visit to Romania where they served rebuilding the war torn state for three months in a post graduate experience programme.

Five years later, the group planned a reunion. Each had gone their separate ways and hadn’t spoken since. Meeting up in the area of Kartakass, a state of Romania, Rus, Marcus and Carl were horrified to discover their friend David murdered. A frightening adventure ensued, brought on, in part, by a mysterious woman named Akriel Luca. The daughter of a local businessman, Akriel had a dark secret. She was a Werewolf and her father, Harkon Luca, was the ruler of the Moon Clan, a tribe of wolves who walked as men. Embroiled in a war between the Moon Clan and the Sun Clan, the Miskarevska – men who used magic to run as wolves – our heroes tracked down an ancient shamanic staff and confronted and slew a witch named Radaga. The staff at the centre of the war was stolen from the Miskarevska many years ago, the cause of great contention.

Returning home scared and stunned, they spoke nothing of their ordeal for years.

Marcus buried the knowledge, throwing himself into his antiques business. Carl was soon locked away in an asylum and Rus became a leading figure in Internet supernatural circles, hunting for more evidence of the hidden other world.

Years later, Rus was approached by a shady contact, a man named Finn. He ran a team of mercenaries who had been hired for an unusual job which had gone badly wrong. The sole survivor, Wei Lin, was shell-shocked, telling tales of a walking corpse and a cross carved upon a tomb. She needed to uncover the truth.

Rus arranged a meeting between her and another associate, Casey Quinn, a research student at the British Museum who could help Wei Lin identify her unnatural assailant. But the meeting in a Soho bar was gatecrashed by an unknown assassin. The lives of all three were forfeit.

Bound together by some unknown fate, the trio set about fighting back, eventually tracking their assailant to a shady organisation known as Scriptorium, and then on to a seemingly ancient figurehead named Ambrosius.

Digging into the past, they discovered that Ambrosius was the apprentice of Magus Verditus, one of an ancient coven of wizards named the Order of Hermes. Slain in the 13th Century, Verditus had laid enchantments to protect his immortal soul against death, binding it into the very staff that our heroes slew the witch Radaga with. Giving Verditus just enough power to escape. Waking his body and setting himself, Ambrosius, the heroes and an ancient Vampire named Zarovich on a climactic collision course, Verditus attempted to reunite his body and soul to awaken once more.

Enlisting help, Rus called upon the assistance of his original companions, Marcus and Carl. Breaking Carl out from an asylum, they learned that the dreams that the doctors tried so hard to suppress were prophetic in nature and on occasion, Carl glimpsed the future.

In tracking down Verditus’ body, the group ended up once more in Kartakass, where Akriel gave a fateful gift to Marcus, infecting him with her blood and the curse of Lycanthropy.

Guided by papers, journals and a head in a glass jar left by another of the Order of Hermes, John Bonisagius Morlock and assisted by Balthazar, the headman of a Gypsy tribe, the group eventually confronted Verditus, calling upon Zarovich to cast him deep into the darkness.

But now Verditus is stirring. Rumours have reached our heroes that when he was slain his hand and his eye, the source of his power, were taken from him as tokens of his might. Now they have resurfaced. Long hidden cults have arisen and search for the Jade Eye, thought to be the eye of the ancient wizard. But what of the Hand ? And what of the motives of Harkon Luca and his errant daughter Akriel ? What is their part in all of this and what of their old enemies the Miskarevska ? Have they forgotten that it was their totem that Verditus stole ?