The following could become a piece of anyone's metaplot for their WoD game, and could have serious effects any Wraiths in the Skinands too.

All abilities and levels are left open to the Storyteller's discretion.

  
Tragedy, Love and the Road to Madness

Around the time of the Crusades, Antonio Medici rediscovered old fragments concerning Leartes Rosaniertum: a renowned alchemist and scholar from around 213 AD.

Leartes studied with the some of the greatest academic tutors and resources available at the time, and his future looked promising. He married the lady Frenalia Destarmun, who shared his passion of philosophy and science. When she died in a freak accident at only 27, his social and academic life stopped while he recovered from the sudden tragedy.

Four years later his work ground to a permanent stop when she returned to him from beyond death's barrier.

Leartes died 36 years later in his villa. Regarded as a mad genius by his peers, he soon fell into obscurity after his death. For a short while rumors circulated of the villa being an unholy place, but before it could be demolished and rebuilt the entire area was destroyed in a great fire that razed everything in the area to the ground, and with it those who remembered Leartes Rosaniertum's villa.

Amongst the fragments Antonio Medici rediscovered were details concerning Leartes' wife, the lady Frenalia, whom - upon her unnatural return - was always drawn to a beautiful polished piece of amber Leartes had given her as a wedding gift. Leartes also recalled how he purchased and secretly hid the piece of amber until they wed, after it caught Frenalia's eye in a market one day.

Antonio spent years studying the fragments, which were written in an obscure Old Latin form of short hand, and searching for what the fragments revealed in their scribblings. When Antonio, too, passed on he had grown no closer to what he searched for.

Operation Valkyrie

In the years during WW II the journals of Antonio Medici found their way into the hands of Fraulien Catronia Hebrauklien. She was a gypsy working for the Third Reich under the comforting knowledge that if she didn't use her abilities to further the arcane knowledge of Hitler's covert occult power base within Operation Valkyrie, she would be punished and put to death in the camps, where many of her people had already died.

Resources were made available to Catronia, and with the fragments of Leartes Rosaniertum, and the theft of the archaeological discoveries from Greece and Italy she achieved what Antonio Medici had never done. The fragments and lost parchments of Leartes Rosaniertum, the journals of Antonio Medici and the precious amber stone of the lady Frenalia Destarmun were reunited once again.

Catronia's orders were to use the artifacts to establish contact with those beyond the grave. Anything learned from the experience, which might be beneficial towards Operation Valkyrie - and the war effort - was her objective.

With the knowledge that she would die even when she finished, Catronia decided instead to create her own weapon. She planned to infuse the amber with spirits, and break it when she was ready. In theory it would unleash quite a destructive force.

End of a Sorceress, Birth of a Monster

Risking everything, Catronia used herself as a conduit, with lady Frenalia's amber as its heart within the summoning arena. It was assumed that Frenalia, if summoned, would now be able to enter the modified stone, and communicate directly within the area of summoning.

Unknown to Catronia was the fact that lady Frenalia had succumbed to Oblivion centuries ago, but her legacy continued beyond her Oblivion. What did come, drawn by the ancient Fetter, and the growing doorway through the Shroud into the Skinlands by the Sorceress, was something completely unpredicted.

With the Shadowlands disturbances caused by the war making things a little chaotic, an ancient and dangerous Masquer of remarkable insight and ability - long believed to have succumbed to Oblivion - crossed over into the Skinlands. Unfortunately for both parties, as the Wraith came in contact with the magical fields, which required calm for the passage into the amber to work, its own Shadow stirred and threw the Wraith briefly off guard.

What became of the Wraith is a matter of conjecture, but its Shadow manifested within the ancient Fetter, unfortunately trapped within the amber. Still able to communicate beyond the amber, the Shadow's rage was answered, and a summons came from the Skinlands. Spectres came in immense numbers, and when they left, no one in the facility was left.

No bodies were found, no artifacts recovered, and no reference at all to what had been undertaken at the facility yet remained.

But it is said - quietly amongst the Spectres, and their most trusted and ancient allies - that from time to time, Spectres are called into the Skinlands by a woman who changes her appearance at will... a woman with a heart of amber.