The mysterious Council of Six, ruling body of Veles:
гордость
(Gordost')
~~~~~
вожделение
(Vozhdelenie)
~~~~~
гнев
(Gnev)
~~~~~
зависти
(Zavisti)
~~~~~
жадность
(Zhadnost')
~~~~~
леность
(Lenost')
~~~~~
For those of you who are wondering, where the names came from? They are translated as follows (in order from top to bottom):
Pride, Lust, Wrath, Envy, Greed and Sloth~....
[update 2010]
Sometime in October 1941, an alien race came to our world. Whether they were attracted to the destructive nature of the human race or merely curious about the radio signals that had traveled miles beyond the Earth is unknown. The ship traveled silently through our skies, undetected by radar and the spy planes that scored through the skies during the Great War.
On August 6th, 1945 they were flying over Japan just as Hiroshima was bombed by the United States. The impact of the Atom Bomb combined with the radiation outburst ionized their navigation and propulsion, forcing them to crash land in Russia. Upon landing in Blagoveschensk, Russia, many of the crew members perished save for six lower ranking crew members. Their only way to return home was to find a way to charge their power cell which had not been damaged in the crash--or so they thought.
When the aliens (otherwise known as the Six) opened their ship, they had unleashed a bacteria that was harmless to them, but lethal to Earth's lifeforms. While the Six traveled westward to find a way to charge their power supply, the bacteria within their ship spread, killing animal life at an alarming rate with no hope of survival. This bacteria was quickly pegged as Solanum by the rapidly declining human race.
Unable to continue because of their flagging strength and the sudden awareness of humans and animals perishing, the Six stopped at the bombed out capitol of Minsk, Russia. The inhabitants of this city were trying to protect themselves from the zombie forces by encapsulating the heart of their city with a massive wall of rubble and demolished buildings. The six quietly sneaked into the inner city limits before the wall was completed, setting a plan in motion to use the city as a base until their could return to their ship with a fully charged power supply.
The power cell had been discovered by the city dwellers by accident, almost revealing the Six themselves at the same time. Not knowing what the item was, people began to believe that the artifact was the item that would become their salvation. It was titled the Flux and brought to the main temple for worship. A patriarchal religion was born from it, coinciding with the rural beliefs of the land. The Six did nothing to stop them from believing this, thinking that there would be no harm done.
The people had other plans. Believing that the Flux was going to be their salvation, the desperate parents in the city committed their children to the Flux, believing that the Flux would provide a safe haven to them. At this time, the Six didn't see too much of a problem with this. The Flux was starting to gather power with the sacrifice of life energy. However, the increase was very small. If the people sacrificed everything, including themselves, there wouldn't be enough energy to power the Gate. And if the city died, so would the Six.
In a desperate move, the Six slowly revealed themselves to the Czar of the city, forming a pact. If the city proper stopped their suicide runs, the Six would provide blood samples so that the scientists could begin working on a vaccine. The Six would also help organize and direct the rebuilding of the city as long as the Czar and a few of his closest advisories kept the Six a secret.
The Czar began working under the direction of the Six. The Flux became an iconic idol, food was rationed, and technology was stunted. The Six wanted to ensure that their food source (the people who could farm and raise animals) would remain in this city that they quickly renamed Veles.
That was in 1946.
In the year 1951, the Flux began to pulse and throb with a new energy. While it was tied into the city's electrical system to provide energy with minimal consequences, it started to spit objects out onto the Temple floor. These objects were completely foreign to Veles, sometimes looking like futuristic items or sometimes things that no one had any explanation for. Many of the items were deemed "unholy" and destroyed.
And then the people started to arrive.
The Six weren't prepared for the power supply to malfunction in this manner, and there seemed to be no explanation for it. However, if things and people could pass through, it was possible that the Six could use it to go home without needing to return to their ship. They could see the benefits of this, but became even more concerned when some of these people possessed supernatural powers. People with super powers weren't readily containable and could easily upsurp all that the Six had been trying to do for the past five years. However, the Flux proved to be an asset. It gained power as the people came through, sucking off the power of those people who had them and charging more quickly than it ever had before. The Six strove to keep the people contained, "Gate Walkers" included, in order to charge their precious power supply so they could go home.
That's all they ever wanted to do. To go home.