After the end of the third Grail War, a group of magi separate from the London based Mage Association decided that they would copy the ritual. They only managed to copy part of the ritual, which lead to the loss of the Saber class and further loss of the definition of a "Hero." The magi eventually infiltrated the U.S. Government and for two hundred years manipulated events in Snowfield, California to replicate the Sacred Land needed to generate a Grail.