The Veil

The Veil is the invisible, omnipresent barrier that separates our world from the Fade and keeps spirits and demons from crossing over. The Fade is right next to you as you read this, you just don’t know it. Well, hopefully, anyways. The reason you don’t know it’s there is the Veil. According to the Chantry, the Maker erected the Veil to separate his original creations, the spirits, from his new ones, most of us. While it is true that the Veil has been present for all of human history, humans often forget that there were civilizations before they arrived on Thedas. Now, as that was over 3,000 years ago, records from that time are hard to come by, I’m just saying that other explanations are possible. Wherever it came from, the Veil prevents spirits and demons from physically entering our world, and us from entering theirs. Of course, if it was a perfect protector, we wouldn’t have to worry about demons at all, but we do. This is because the Veil can be damaged and even completely torn, which allows the passage of spirits, the beings themselves and those contained within us, to move back and forth. Blood magic and lots of death in one area are two things that can weaken or destroy the Veil, and those effects can linger for centuries. Conversely, there are rare techniques that allow someone to close a tear, thus making an area safe again. My glowy hand was the simplest, most effective way to control the Veil that I know of, as it can open and close Fade rifts with a relatively small amount of power and effort. The Veil is a critical part of our world and tampering with it is a bad idea in general. In my trip to the future, I saw a world with no barrier between us and the Fade and trust me, it’s not a reality that any of us ever want to experience.