Pictured: The Council, photo believed to be taken circa early 19th century. The position of O5-13 would not be established until 1891.
Administrator Franz Williams, circa 1891.
Every individual and organization with knowledge of the anomalous is aware of one simple fact; all events behind the Veil will leave ripples in front of it. The opposite is also true. Nowhere is this principle more evident than during the (as of writing) seven major anomalous conflicts, colloquially known as Occult Wars, that have occurred in recorded history. The first four of these Occult Wars are largely irrelevant to the history of the Foundation; several's existences are heavily disputed due to their antimemetic natures, such as the Third Occult War, believed to be a conflict between Daevites clashing with Central Asian Sarkic cultures.
The Fifth Occult War occurred parallel to the 7 Years War as the paranormal and magick communities of Europe were contracted by their monarchs to increase their sovereigns power through weaponization of their anomalies. Her Majesty's Foundation for the Secure Containment of the Paranormal, Estate noir, the Special Investigations Board of the Council of the Dutch East Indies, and The Knights of the Military Order of Borja y Aragón were all major participants in the War, and carried out global operations to increase their respective nations' strengths. HMFSCP's extractions of anomalous items and exploitation of anomalous lands contributed in no small part to Great Britain's victory in the 7 Years War, and are thus considered the "victor" of the Fifth Occult War.
Following the simultaneous conclusion of both wars, refugees flooded into the colonies in the New World. One such refugee was Franz Williams, a minor Austrian noble with a vested interest in the occult who had until recently been employed in the fight against Prussian interests in the anomalous. Seeing first hand the brutality of the fighting, Williams grew disillusioned with the system of anomalous organizations pledging fealty to European monarchs. Amassing a small fortune, he fled to the colonies with dreams of an organization dedicated to preventing another Occult War, independent of any king or queen. Using part of his fortune, he purchased a large manor in rural Virginia that would come to be known as Site-01.
Site-01. Date of photo unknown.
Williams assembled a group of twelve like-minded individuals, some old friends from Europe, some new contacts throughout the colonies. All were powerful financiers, scholars, and socialites, with a wealth of resources for Williams to draw on. In a midnight meeting that would be later referred back to as the birth of the Foundation, the thirteen colleagues drew up plans for a Prime Directive of the fledgling Foundation.
But all knew that as long as Great Britain maintained its hold, however loose, on the colonies, their Foundation would always be beholden to a monarch. Which is why on March 5th of 1770, one of their agents fired into a squad of British soldiers in front of Boston City Hall. The path from the Boston Massacre to the American Revolution is a well-known one, but its continued support from the Foundation for Containment of the Abnormal is not. Following America's newfound independence from the mother country, the Foundation was quickly able to establish a near monopoly on anomalous items and locations in the colonies. The government was preoccupied trying to establish a sense of order after the war to pay attention to the politics of the anomalous, and so the Foundation grew to a dozen additional safehouses and sites through the colonies. This pattern of unregulated expansion contributed to the Foundation becoming the superpower it is today.
The Foundation
The Danforth Company
An industrial conglomerate that was a driving force in the 20th century American economy. Founded by Charles Danforth in 1907, the company had become a powerhouse of industry by 1925, when it tried and failed to expand into the automotive sector. The company remained influential in the industrial cities of the Midwest, expanding into the profitable industries of distilling, meatpacking, and arms. But by 1972, the company was in decline after the death of their founder. The current Danforth Company is headed by his son, Robert Danforth, and focuses on new technological applications and software thinktanks. Robert is more focused on shaking off the shadow of his father, with the litany of scandalous rumors it carries with it.
The Chicago Syndicate
The Chicago Syndicate was the biggest and baddest paracrime group in the 20s. Led by the charming and charismatic reality bender Richard Davis Chappell, the group exploded in size during prohibition by freely utilizing anomalies in their activities, which were primarily smuggling moonshine across the nation. The UIU having been neutered by the federal government, the Syndicate (then called simply the Chicago Spirit) spread unchecked across the country until 1935, when Chappell was arrested during a raid on his hidden mansion in downtown Chicago. The Syndicate splintered into scores of smaller regional gangs, and former bosses declared war on each other. In the ensuing bloodbath, only a handful of large paracrime groups remained and the Spirit had been broken forever. Richard Chappell lived in Foundation custody until his reported death and cremation in 1965. However, some maintain that he struck a deal with the Foundation and now resides in one of the many Nexuses in Europe.
PENTAGRAM
PENTAGRAM is now a division of the United States Department of Defense specializing in warfare applications of paratechnology, but their origins are as morally dubious as the organization itself. PENTAGRAM began as two distinct organizations operating during the American Civil War: the 1st Paranormal Regiment of the Union Army, and the Abnormality Savannah Confederate Institute (ASCI). The Paranormal Regiment accompanied General Sherman on his March to the Sea under orders to seize the Savannah Institute and their research. The unprecedented success of what was then known as paranormal warfare inspired the Union, during Reconstruction, to combine the remnants of the Institute with the Paranormal Regiment into a dual-purpose research and military division of the army, christened with the official moniker "Paranormality Division". The hostility between the formerly at-war groups fostered a culture of distrust in the fledgling group that continues to this day. As years passed, more and more was invested into the exceedingly successful division, culminating in the large facility under the Pentagon that earned the group its new and permanent name: PENTAGRAM.
Global Occult Coalition
The Global Occult Coalition's story is a famous one; born out of the end of the Seventh Occult War/WWII as the United Nations first convened. Governed by the Council of 108, it is guided by its Five Points: Education, Destruction, Protection, Concealment, and Survival. Contrary to popular belief, the GOC is not a group of bloodthirsty marines executing every anomaly they see — they employ a wide variety of anomalies in their technology and missions, and only have a no-exceptions kill order on one-type of anomaly: the notorious Type Greens. Notorious for their highly advanced warfare paratechnology, such as their Orange and White Suits, the Coalition invests billions into development of newer and more advanced ways of eliminiting threats, the most famous of which is the Though the GOC is significantly more militarily powerful than the Foundation, their limitation of only being able to operate in UN-allied countries and requiring approval from a 66% majority of the Council of 108 for major operations hamper their ability to use their full strength in most situations. The House Accords, a series of treaties signed in 2002 by the GOC, PENTAGRAM, and Foundation, govern all interactions between the three most powerful anomalous organizations in the Western Hemisphere.
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NAME: William Tecumseh Sherman
DOB: 2-8-1820
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| The Danforth Meatpacking Plant in Chicago hasn't seen use in decades. But despite that, the shadow of the 20s still hangs over those stockyards. There's something sitting under the basement floors that was never supposed to be part of this world. The Foundation is about to have its' first encounter with Danforth's Pig. |
| The Pig isn't Danforth's sin—merely a symptom of it. Charles Danforth has committed atrocities, and nowhere is that more evident than in the rubble that was once Danforth Detroit Automotive. The rest of the world might have forgotten what happened in 1925, but Albert Harcourt still remembers, and he wants answers. |
| The Foundation used to be on the bleeding edge of experimentation. Something changed. A "Department of Inter-Anomaly Experimentation" that no one in the Foundation seems to want to remember. An isolated Site-05 located in the Siberian Tundra, expunged from the rest of the database. A skeleton crew of doctors and researchers forbidden from leaving the Site. And a containment cell located 1000 meters into the Earth with something inside of it. Welcome to SECOND SIN. |
| Nowadays, the Foundation has a formidable militarized division and armies of Task Forces that can be scrambled at a moments notice. Treaties with world superpowers granting them use of carriers and jets. It wasn't always like that. A series of events in the 70s brought the Foundation to its knees, and it vowed to never let something like that happen again. |
| The Foundation's intelligence and communications network is, bar none, the most advanced monitoring network ever. It's backed with redundant systems, air-gapped servers, and enough support personnel to fill multiple dedicated Sites. So what happens when it goes dark? |
| There is a paraweapon satellite in orbit, able to fire anywhere on the planet with only a simple kinetoglyph. The Foundation has it. PENTAGRAM wants it back. |
| O5s aren't supposed to die. But the Foundation is prepared for everything. |
| The Foundation is constantly being assailed by divine threats, and never more so than now. It's time to evolve and take the fight to them. In a forgotten facility buried in the Mojave, the Foundation tried to synthesize its own messiah. |
