Sixth Great Maelstrom

In Ends of Empire, for Wraith: The Oblivion, the final Great Maelstrom of the Old World of Darkness is unique, caused entirely by events in the Underworld rather than the Skinlands. Metaphysically, it is the most important event in the World of Darkness until the Time of Judgement, even eclipsing the Week of Nightmare.

The Maelstrom occurred during the assault on Stygia by the Yellow Springs, the underworld of Asia and the empire of Yu Huang. The soldiers of the Dark Kingdom of Jade, with the treasonous aid of the Smiling Lord assaulted major Stygian strongholds throughout the West, with the Hierarchy barely holding on only due to the bravery of its defenders and the extremely shoddy equipment Yu Huang had manufactured in bulk for the assault.

The Stygian military at the time was partly paralyzed, due to much of the Stygian navy laying siege to Enoch. This siege had been implemented through subtle manipulation of Stygian society by the Ferrymen, who in turn were fulfilling an ancient debt to Anubis, the grave god of Amenti. To the Undying, Amenti was an obscenity, and its destruction a major victory in the eternal struggle between Horus, Osiris and Set. The Hierarchy sieged Enoch for several weeks until they finally used a relic nuclear weapon to destroy the city.

At the same time, in the Labyrinth, a Void Engineer, Xerxes Jones, prepared his greatest experiment - detonation of a nuclear device with the Underworld. Interesting idea, bad timing.

The result was the most potent physical and spiritual destruction in the history of the Underworld. The carnage led the labyrinth to vomit forth armies of Spectres under the control of the infamous Nephwrack, Coldheart. These armies in turn assaulted the Isle of Sorrows, Stygian outposts, soldiers of the Yellow Springs, anyone they could find. Stygian society buckled under the strain.

And then Charon, absent since 1945, returned, only to Transcend almost immediately after beating back the spectral horde. Stygia, both the city and the society collapsed, the Yellow Springs retreated after taking damage far beyond their worst-case expectations, and the Shroud thundered as hundreds of spirits were thrown out of the Underworld and back into the skinlands. The Underworld was now enveloped in a storm of indescribable fury which continued until the end of the world.