Crucible:Eclipse
Eclipse
[edit]"Gold is only the beginning. Power is the true transmutation."
Eclipse is an ancient international criminal conspiracy whose origins reach back to the Middle Ages. Founded by European alchemists who successfully created the legendary Philosopher’s Stone, Eclipse used its command over transmutation to build an empire of hidden wealth, secret armies, enchanted weapons, and global influence.
For centuries, Eclipse has pursued domination from the shadows, blending occult knowledge with modern military science. Its agents have wielded both assault rifles and enchanted blades, deployed armored vehicles alongside summoned horrors, and used alchemical laboratories to produce weapons, gold, poisons, and impossible materials.
Origins
[edit]Eclipse began as a brotherhood of medieval alchemists obsessed with the transformation of matter and the conquest of death. Their greatest triumph was the creation of the Philosopher’s Stone, an artifact or process capable of transmuting elements into other elements.
With the ability to create vast quantities of precious metals, the founders of Eclipse gained wealth beyond any king or merchant house. They used that fortune to build fortresses, bribe nobles, fund wars, acquire forbidden grimoires, and seed agents throughout Europe.
Over time, the alchemical brotherhood became something far more dangerous: a permanent hidden order dedicated to reshaping the world according to its own designs.
Methods
[edit]Eclipse combines modern technology, magical techniques, and alchemical science into a single doctrine of power. The organization has used conventional military hardware, cybernetics, aircraft, armored vehicles, enchanted weapons, ritual devices, occult surveillance, and chemically altered soldiers.
This mixture makes Eclipse unpredictable. A strike team might arrive with modern tactical gear, only to deploy cursed ammunition, transmutation grenades, animated statues, or blades forged from impossible metals.
Its laboratories are equally dangerous, producing experimental alloys, magical toxins, longevity treatments, and unstable alchemical engines.
Rivalries
[edit]Eclipse has frequently come into conflict with superheroes and global security organizations. For decades, it was also a major rival of HAVOC, with the two conspiracies competing for territory, influence, artifacts, scientists, and control over criminal networks.
Where HAVOC often embraced terror, destabilization, and technological warfare, Eclipse preferred older forms of power: wealth, ritual, secrecy, occult prestige, and dynastic control. Their rivalry occasionally erupted into open conflict, though both groups were careful to conceal the scale of their wars from the public.
Conflict With Nexus
[edit]Throughout its long history, Eclipse has repeatedly clashed with Nexus, the secretive organization of heroic mystics, sorcerers, and occult guardians dedicated to protecting humanity from supernatural threats.
Where Nexus exists to preserve balance and prevent the abuse of magical power, Eclipse views mysticism as another tool for conquest and domination. The two organizations have fought a hidden war across centuries, battling over ancient artifacts, forbidden rituals, lost grimoires, dimensional gateways, and sites of mystical significance.
Many of Eclipse’s greatest defeats came at the hands of Nexus heroes, who repeatedly disrupted alchemical experiments, exposed occult conspiracies, and prevented the organization from unleashing catastrophic magical forces upon the world.
Their conflict intensified during the Modern Age, when Eclipse began combining occult knowledge with advanced military technology, creating hybrid weapons and alchemical devices unlike anything Nexus had previously encountered. This forced Nexus to evolve from an isolated mystical order into a more active global network capable of confronting modern threats.
Although Eclipse has declined in recent years, Nexus scholars warn that the conspiracy remains extraordinarily dangerous. Eclipse possesses centuries of accumulated occult knowledge, hidden sanctuaries, and alchemical secrets that even Nexus has never fully uncovered.
To many within Nexus, Eclipse represents one of the oldest and most persistent examples of magical corruption in human history.
Lazarus X
[edit]In the late twentieth century, Eclipse and all of its assets were taken over by Lazarus X, who transformed the conspiracy into a vast personal empire with bases, laboratories, and armies of agents throughout the world.
Under Lazarus X, Eclipse became more aggressive, militarized, and technologically ambitious. Its occult traditions remained, but they were increasingly fused with modern command structures and global operations.
When CounterForce came too close to exposing his activities, Lazarus X launched an all-out war against the organization. The campaign ended in defeat, shattering much of Eclipse’s operational strength and damaging its international infrastructure.
Current Status
[edit]In recent years, Eclipse has entered a period of uncertainty. Lazarus X’s defeat left its leadership unclear, its resources fragmented, and its forces in retreat. Rival factions now compete for control of surviving assets, including alchemical vaults, occult libraries, hidden bases, and dormant armies.
Some intelligence agencies believe Eclipse is collapsing.
Others warn that the organization has survived wars, inquisitions, revolutions, and centuries of secrecy. A conspiracy that endured from the Middle Ages into the Modern Age may only be waiting for the correct alignment of wealth, magic, and ambition before it rises again.
Reputation
[edit]Eclipse remains one of the most dangerous criminal conspiracies in the world. Its combination of ancient wealth, occult power, and modern weaponry makes it uniquely difficult to predict or eradicate.
Its enemies have learned that Eclipse rarely vanishes completely.
It merely passes into shadow.