Blooded

Blooded are creatures of The Red Duke. They are cursed with an unnatural, insatiable hunger for the trappings of sentient life. While Blooded most famously feed on the blood of their victims, some eat the physical flesh while others prey on metaphysical concepts like memory or emotion.

The Red Dream

Every Blooded has been visited in their dreams by The Red Duke personally. Sometimes the duke is received with exultant expectation, such as by his closest faithful. More often, such dreams are a time of great fear and anxiety as the god of nightmares invades someone's sleep. Nonetheless, he cannot be denied.

Those who have traversed the Constellation of Dreams knows that the dreamer has all the power. Each dream its own private demiplane, a safe place for the master of such a domain once they have learned to harness their own inner power. Somehow, The Red Duke is immune to such norms. Any dreamer, no matter their strength or skill, is vulnerable to The Red Duke and by extension his cultists.

Their Blood

Vampiric blood is so potently infectious that a single drop of it is dangerous. Some factions have a policy that vampires cannot be contained once infected, and so refuse all contact with their kind and will immediately cut off any of their own who have been infected - that they can't exterminate, anyway. The most extreme about this are the Artificers, and the Valleymen.

Vampiric blood will sublimate when exposed to direct sunlight, leaving behind a dry salt that is shades of black, grey, sometimes red or a bruised purple. Vampiric salts can be used for rituals the same way regular vampiric blood can be, without the risk of infection.

Feral vs Noble

A Feral Blooded is like a mindless creature. It was once a living, sentient person but that privilege has been revoked. They, their soul, their mind, are totally bound to the will of The Red Duke. Very rarely, this means The Red Duke can choose to act through them in some limited capacity. More often, they are allowed to roam freely, perhaps under the sway of a vampiric necromancer or just on their own.

Noble Blooded are distinguished by being sentient. They retain much of their humanity, individualism, and they may even hate their circumstances. That doesn't mean they're safe. Noble Blooded are still pawns of The Red Duke, and are able to spread the Blooded curse wherever they reside. For more on them, see Vampires (though note that "vampiric" refers to anything Blooded related, not just noble vampires).

There are many types of special feral Blooded. Some of them are common knowledge.

Vampiric Ogres | Hulking behemoths, these creatures are nigh unstoppable.

Mimics | Able to assume the form and identity of anyone, Mimics are especially feared for their instinct to integrate with society.

Zombies/Undead/Fodder | The most common kind. They tend to cluster together, seek shelter during the day, and hunt at night. Fresh fodder have some glimmers of sentience left, but they quickly deteriorate into what appears to be madness. Famously, they are most of what's left of the Empyrean Empire, freezing over in the winter and then emerging in the spring like the most unpleasant of weeds. They bleed continuously from their gums.

Vampiric Thralls

A vampire may force someone to become their thrall by having them consume enough of their blood that they themselves take one point of Prowess damage.

The taste of the vampire's blood is sweet. The experience is unnaturally pleasant. The amount needed to create a thrall is more than could plausibly be hidden inside someone's food or drink or otherwise given surreptitiously.

If a thrall is given so much as a drop of blood from a vampire of a different lineage than the one who enthralled them, the two bloods begin to boil inside the thrall. This process is very messy, and very fatal. If the blood they are given is from a vampire of the same lineage though, it serves to reinforce their bond with the original vampire who enthralled them.

Effects

• A vampiric thrall finds the sun very unpleasant. It makes their skin itch and burn, like they have developed photosensitivity.
• A thrall finds it almost impossible to harbor negative thoughts toward the vampire who enthralled them. They are aware that these feelings are irrational. They will find themselves performing incredible feats of mental gymnastics to find reasons to respect, adore, and obey their new master.
• Thralls tend to find the idea of blood strangely appealing, be it the idea of consuming it, touching it, or even painting vivid illustrations of it. It becomes a sort of fascination for them.
• When a Thrall sleeps, they have strange dreams. It could be overly violent, like they're seeing through the eyes of a beast they're unable to control, or surreal. As if they are on the outside of something or somewhere, looking in on a dark forbidden place they're tempted to enter.
• Sometimes, their reflections are an image of them as if they were a fully fledged vampire, even when they are not. It's as if the reflection is another person, not quite looking the same direction or holding the same expressions.
• Each lineage has one trait unique to their lineage for their thralls, that all thralls infected by a vampire of that lineage have.

Twilit Blooded

Even when a vampire has had their soul consumed, they may still be sustained by the power of The Red Duke. Twilit Blooded are the reanimated souls of vampires who have been utterly destroyed, and are completely under the control of The Red Duke. They may still be sentient in a sense, but the moment the power of The Red Duke leaves them they will be destroyed anew. And if they are reanimated a second time, they will have no memory of anything up until the point of their first death.