Long ago, there was a man who was very skilled in the magical arts. He sired five sons and adopted one, and all of them inherited his Gift. The boys were sent to the best masters around the world, to be taught and to learn the best of their abilities.

Fifteen years later they all share the same vision; they're back home, walking an aisle to a casket on which they leave a tree branch. They wake up having a strong feeling, that something is not right with their father. They pack their things, summon their entourage and head back home. There they meet their long-lost brothers, more or less changed from their childhood, and are told that their father is in Durenmar.

In the Black Forest, the birthplace of the Order, they find their father on his deathbed. He has a strange prophecy for each one of them, one that each has to complete in his own way. Now they need to find a place and the right to build a covenant, and to start the life of a Hermetic Magus in the Rhine Tribunal.