The first Battle with the OoG in 1554.

The cry first came from the mast-top of the merchant carrack Saint Brigid’s Mercy just before dawn, as pale gray light bled across the waters between England and France. What had seemed at first to be an unnatural bank of morning fog soon revealed itself to be moving against the wind. Sailors whispered prayers as the mist rolled low and thick over the black waters, swallowing the horizon whole. Bells rang from the decks of nearby ships while lookouts strained their eyes toward shapes emerging within the gloom.

Then came the silhouettes.

Three tall warships of the dreaded Order of Gabriel drifted from the fog like funeral barges from Hell itself. Their hulls were painted in stark white and ash-gray, each bearing the winged rose-cross upon blood-red banners snapping in the windless air. Strange lanterns of blue flame burned along their rails despite the dawn, casting ghost-light upon armored figures standing motionless upon the decks. Witnesses swore no drums beat and no commands were shouted aboard them. The ships moved in silence.

Yet they had scarcely turned their bows toward the waters of southwestern Avalon before the sea erupted around them.

From the east came two allied English vessels under the banner of King Edward Tudor, their hulls painted dark green and iron black. Falconets roared almost immediately, smoke vomiting across the waves as cannonballs slammed into the nearest Gabrielite ship. The thunder of battle rolled across the morning sea. One English captain later claimed the enemy vessel did not even attempt to evade, but simply continued forward as if crewed by the dead.

Then from the western fog came the Queen Sorcha.

The famed Irish vessel burst from the mist at impossible speed, her emerald sails already stained dark with seawater and blood. Upon her decks howled Garou warriors in war-form, towering shapes of fur, fang, and steel. Some stood near ten feet tall, clad in shattered armor and carrying axes meant for monsters rather than men. Others leapt directly into the sea itself, vanishing beneath the waves before striking upward against the Gabrielite hulls like wolves hunting from below.

The sea answered with horrors of its own.

Something massive moved beneath the water.

At first sailors thought it whales, until tentacles thicker than ship masts erupted upward from the depths. One wrapped around the stern of a Gabrielite vessel, splintering wood like dry twigs while men screamed and vanished into foam. Another creature surfaced near the second ship—a thing of gnashing jaws and pale lidless eyes, large enough to swallow a longboat whole. Witnesses later argued whether it resembled a shark, serpent, or demon, for terror had stolen clarity from mortal eyes.

The waters became chaos.

Cannons thundered. Garou howls echoed over crashing waves. Blue fire from the Order’s decks streaked across the mist like falling stars. One English ship caught aflame near the bow but continued fighting while sailors burned alive at their guns. The Queen Sorcha rammed directly into the side of the lead Gabrielite vessel, and moments later enormous clawed forms were seen tearing through its upper decks amidst sprays of blood and splintered timber.

By sunrise’s full light, the fog itself seemed alive.

Shapes moved within it that no sailor could name. Some claimed angels with burning wings descended upon the waters. Others swore drowned corpses climbed the sides of ships only to be dragged back beneath by clawed hands from below. The sea churned red for nearly a mile.

And then, as suddenly as it had begun, the fog swallowed everything once more.