Hunter: The Reckoning/Headscratchers

• I was reading back over the Hunter: The Reckoning books - yes, I'm a big fan and I miss my old game - and I realized that I had no idea who the mysterious man and woman were. You know, the ones from Fyodor's visions (a woman with a ruby ring and a man with an opal ring) and from, I think, the Storyteller advice in the Hermit splatbook, about the woman in a red dress and a man in black giving a Hermit his visions? I've either forgotten the answer to this (it's been a while) or just missed something the first time around, but who exactly are they? Were we ever told? All that comes to mind is Heylel Teomim and his twin stars/Avatars from Mage's Ascension book.
  • Word of God says they're the Scarlet Queen and the Ebon Dragon from the Kindred of the East backstory. The Hunters are more or less their second try at creating a race of heroes (after the first one screwed the pooch).
    • Does that mean the Hunters were also a failed experiment, and the Wu Tian mummies were a "third time's a charm" thing? Or was that just the Eight Immortals' independent action...
      • Could someone explain what all of the above just meant? I never followed Kindred of the East and have absolutely no idea what those people have to do with HtR.
        • Short version: the sort-of gods (Think very powerful Umbral spirits, like Luna from Werewolf: The Apocalypse) running the show in the Far East tried created a race of immortals to defend the world or at least Asia. It worked for a bit, but then they were corrupted, probably by the Wyrm, and became the Kindred of the East. One version of the Hunter backstory had the Imbued be the next try at that, but I don't think it was the backstory White Wolf went with.