Veil of Ashes is set in a dark steampunk setting in an alternative timeline of humanity. The game is set 200 years after a worldwide inferno that broke out on 13 July 1704. The dazzling light with which the flames came brought Cinium with it. Small stones, as white as angel feathers and radiating cosy warmth. Mankind began to utilise the Cinium and the incredible energy potential drove technological development forward with a whip.
In the 200th year after the catastrophe, mankind lives on an Earth whose habitat is becoming increasingly scarce. The ember and ash deserts, the heirs of the greatest inferno in history, are spreading unstoppably. Their winds devastate countless lands and the surviving forests suffocate for the time being under the ashes and the dreary sky. The unspoilt fertile lands are the most precious commodity – and they are also contested.
Despite the devastating state of the world, the Cinium has made humanity more powerful than ever. In the sky, sluggish airships endeavour to defy the ash winds, while on the ground the machinery roars and groans over fields and battlefields alike. Crammed together, the light as artificial as the additives in their food, the majority of the population live as workers in the cities. As in the Scorched Lands, the air here also tastes of ash and Cinium, dead and empty.
As the world continues to disintegrate, ideologies and empires, states and alliances fight for supremacy. The first glance falls on the bleeding heart of Europe. Ruled from the Aventine Hill, acting in the spirit of the translatio imperii and in the spirit of a new religion, the Sacrum Imperium lays claim to the world. North of the Alps, the Lohenreich are suffering under the attacks of the Imperials, and piece by piece, the cross-bearers from the south are taking the land from the once mighty empire. The knights in their armoured chariots are at war with each other, the Union itself cursed to sleep.
Meanwhile, in the west, where a Sun King once went down in history before the Inferno and another empire never saw the sun set, the fires of revolution are burning. The Communes are striving for liberation and their claim is no less than the one of the Sacrum Imperium. With the pliers they tear the corrupt nail of the aristocracy from the flesh of the masses, with the hammer they crush their enemies and with the circle of Verel they draw the future of an earthly paradise.
