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A Brief History of the Veil

This volume is the first edition and has been reprinted many times. This edition is of course out of print and copyright, but because of that it’s available online for all to read.

Pre-History

Paleo

There was no written record or writing for that matter during this time, however we have been blessed to know much due to the few surviving immortals that were created at this time. What we do know that it was a time of great fear for mortal man. Everywhere they went they were in danger. Superstition was abound and shy monsters would become their nightmares.

However those monsters that were in the spotlight were those alongside early man became part of daily life. Cave images in Spain and France have revealed this interaction between early man and monster through many cave paintings. During this early part in Human and Monster history we did not hid our faces, but lived alongside humans as if we were a part of their family units. This was the era of the Paleolithic or the Old Stone Age, a period of about 2.5 million to 11,500 years ago.

When mankind started to burst from its bounds of Africa, monsters were already in the lands that they came to. Many scientists argue if ‘monsters of human origin’ exist before the arrival of man and in many ways, other than witches and wizards, yes. The only species that needs a human bodied host are witches and wizards. Monsters such as Vampires and werewolves could, in theory bite a member of another species to turn them into one of their own.

Besides the movement of monsters and man around the world, there is one other notable feature about this time frame is the nomadic hunter-gather societies. Instead of farming for their food they forged for it. Finding animals for meat and vegetation for meals was how people of this era survived. Usually the tasks were split evenly. Men would hunt and the woman and old would forge. Will the tasks may seem gender bias by today’s standards, woman brought home most of the food that was eaten.



The Neolithic period was the next change for humans and monsters. This change happened from 11.500 to 1,500 BCE. What made this era different from the last one is that humans started to farm. With the change from hunter-gather to farming and animal husbandry, the nomadic life style started to change to more permanent housing. Early cities and cities such as Jericho started to form. Most of these early cities and towns were in the Indus valley, northern Mediterranean, Middle East, Egypt, and in East Asia.

Man and monster start to learn the changing of the seasons and what each season brought with it. Floods, monsoons, heat, cold, and much more that affected their daily lives. Floods would bring soil worthy of planting good crops and most else would destroy their ways of life. Though observation the figured out the best times of the year to plant and grow the food they needed.

They also learned to tame animals to use for herding and meat. In the Middle East cattle, pigs, goats, sheep, and horses became options for protein.
As people settled and food became plentiful new crafts arose. There was more time to create objects and people started to set themselves apart for the task of creation. Some man and monsters would only tan hides, sew, metal works, art, pottery, and many other goods, however, the most important thing that came from this setting apart of people for special task was that it also arose with some creating a written language.

Who invented written language is a mystery though some myths suggest that there was a supernatural element to the creation of language. Some human religions believe that the gods or goddesses taught man to write, but that could also be part of the human imagination. Another theory suggests that it was created by women who found their roles more tied to the house than the fields. Whatever the case may be the earliest form of writing that came into existence was cuneiform used in Mesopotamia. It was followed soon after by Egyptian Hieroglyphs.

Early kingdoms and city-states own much the creation of writing. With writing came the ability to create records about the amount of goods and from there came the ability to understand how much taxation should be. This taxation supported the division between the peasant class and the ruling class. The ruling class was more than the chiefdoms that we find with hunter-gatherer societies and more of kingdoms and kingships.

Some of these early kings where of the monster variety. There were two types of monster kings and rulers. The first was those who ruled monster townships and the second was those who ruled mixed group town ships. Some of these early monster kings many have also been half-breeds who raised themselves to an elevated status by using their powers to claim themselves as gods. This however is theory and can’t be proven since the monster population is unknown in the amount of bodies at this time. Some suggest it was much lower than today and others suggest the monster to human ratio was much bigger.

These early monster-only towns were created for the reason of prejudice. The prejudice was two ways, first from the monsters to the humans and second from the humans to the monsters. The humans feared power and that was what made the creatures of the night a reason to hate and fear. The kings who would rule over the human nations would marry humans and have human children. This intermarriage and breeding with humans and monsters is what created the witch population that didn’t exist in large numbers before. We see plenty of examples of so called ‘heavenly rulers’ throughout the world and at different times and following these rulers come with a rise in the population of witches and wizards.

It is in this time frame that we see one of the most famous Wizards born. His name is Imhotep and he is very much still alive. What information we know about the man has been passed down through the years from the tombs as his many great works. He doesn’t really says much himself about his past. He was born about 2650 BCE to an aristocratic family. His name means ‘the one who comes in peace’ and because of his families ranking and his own wizarding powers, he was able to reach the rank of high priest to the sun god Ra and Chancellor to the Egyptian King Djoser and to an unknown Queen.

As a high priest and wizard he was instrumental in the early education of witches and wizards everywhere. Many aristocrats would send their children to him to learn how to properly use magic. Indeed he could be arguably being the first magic teacher. Much of today’s magic is based on the theories that he thought of. Some of his students later achieve high rankings including his student who married the daughter of the unknown queen, though they both died young.

He also did much more such as become the first named architect, pottery maker, engineer, sculptor, and doctor. Sometime when he reached the age of thirty-five he was turned into a vampire. According to some records the vampire who changed him was the father of all vampires or the first vampire. The man disappeared in 2600 BCE for unknown reasons and after an unnamed queen died. Soon after his disappearance he was declared a god of medicine and healing, but that did not stop stories about him spreading.

A biography of Imhotep appeared in the 2nd century CE that proclaimed that his father was the god Ptah, god of creation, the arts, fertility, and of craftsmen, his mother was Khereduankh and his younger sister was Renpetneferet, of whom Djoser lusted after. It’s suggested that Imhotep rescued his sister and also battled against an Assyrian sorceress. A stela during the Ptolemaic period declared that Imhotep was responsible for ending a famine during the reign of King Djoser.