Nightbred
Contents
Nightbred
"His men feared me; they knew what I had become."
Introduction
The Nightbred are an undead faction, headed by Vlad Țepeș. Their intent is to rebuild an undead empire. Their power is derived from Nuit, goddess of the night. Due to Ra's hatred of Nuit and her followers, vampires are extraordinarily weak to sunlight.
Nightbred Types
- Vampire Lord
- Vampire
- Nosferatu
- Ghoul
- Blood Slave
Nightbred Locations
Unit Types
Vampire Lord
The Vampire Lord is an ancient vampire, having had centuries to grow into their power. They are extremely powerful and influential vampires, able to command vast armies.
Vampire
Vampires thrive on life's blood. They think of themselves as powerful, able to use and discard weaker humans without a second thought.
Nosferatu
Nosferatu are gangly vampires, more focused on strength and shapeshifting. They tend to be more instinctual. Nosferatu who don't eat become Starved, who are purely instinctual and become mindless killing machines.
Ghoul
Ghouls are slaves to the vampires. They are pale creatures, drained of life but still retentive to their memories.
Linked Page: Ghoul
Blood Knight
The Blood Knights are the royal guardians of the Countess Elizabeth Báthory. Many of these vampires are well over three hundred years old and have served her in death as much as they served her family in life. Vehemently honor bound, they eschew the normal political intrigue and backstabbing common to vampires and follow strict regimental conditioning. These types of minions are what truly allow Domnitor strain vampires to remain in power. Báthory brought contingents of her knights with her when she came to Portland. Bringing her entire army would not only likely cause Ivor to respond with force, but also posed a greater chance of being witnessed by humans and their governments. Donning heavy, red plate armor and wielding an assortment of weaponry, these veteran vampires are feared even among the undead.
Linked Page: Blood Knight
Blood Slave
The blood of Vlad the Impaler is so potent that it can overwhelm people with just a touch. These people become blood slaves, bound to the power and an extension of Vlad.
Bone Forger
Nightbred Bone Forgers create terror among their enemies due to their abilities to literally reshape flesh and bone. Their only weakness is that their work takes time and that they can focus only on one target. However, in the cramped Shanghai Tunnels, they have the perfect place to cut off their prey’s escape and do their dark work. Generally, these Nightbred were spell casters even in life turning to darker magicks in death. They usually don armor shaped from the bones of the dead and wearing billowing capes. Almost without exception, they will carry staves or staffs which are also made from the bones of the slain. Linked Page: Bone Forger
Flesh Golem
Flesh Golems are made through the twisted blood magicks of Bone Forgers. The forgers warp dead flesh and bone, sometimes incorporating many corpses into one golem; these massive undead giants can inflict terrible damage. The forgers will occasionally give them weapons or armor to make them that much more formidable. However, if the bone forger that created the flesh golem is killed, then the flesh golem will cease to be animated, crumbling to meat, bone, or ashes.
Linked Page: Flesh Golem
Bride
When Ivor comes across a particularly beautiful or treacherous woman, he has the tendency to want to collect her. Once bitten, the female will rise again, and with Ivor being one of the few nobles left that were turned by Vlad himself, the women have a tendency to be incredibly shackled to his will. Often, their personalities are warped beyond comparison, and they have a sick devotion to the very creature that procured them like objects. However, Ivor also tends to quickly lose interest in these new toys and turns to other conquests. His harem, however, cannot help but to adore him, even as they languish lonely together.
Linked Page: Bride (Nightbred)
Assassin
Nightbred assassins are some of the most feared on Earth. With vampiric speed and agility, the ability to see in absolute darkness, and no need to breathe, these assassins stand as the most formidable of all. Their first uses originated in ancient Egypt as Nuit tried conquering the world. They were trained by their goddess and those original ‘night blades’ as they were often called, were beyond anything the modern vampire world can achieve. In the end, they were wiped out by Ra along with most other Nightbred, yet one survived. Over time, she took the moniker of the Reaper, and never failed a single contract until Brone Lorcan escaped. Lord Ivor uses the assassins sparingly, preferring to use direct methods to get what he wants, but the Countess Elizabeth Báthory uses entire squads of these assassins to counter her enemies and defeat them from afar. Page link: Assassin (Nightbred)
Gashadokuro
In Japanese folklore, a gashadokuro (literally "starving skeleton") is also known as Odokuro (literally "giant skeleton"). In truth, they do not starve, but they are quite monstrous. Created by powerful necromancers, liches, or bone forgers, a gashadokuro constitutes the assemblage of many skeletons. Pieced together like children’s building blocks, the dark magicks fuse and animate the bones. They can have many arms, be shaped as humanoid or not, and be as tall or short as the conjuror desires. Bound to their creator’s will, they wreak havoc without fear or remorse and have no sense of identity or self preservation.
Linked Page: Gashadokuro
Penanggalan
In Malay folklore, the penanggal or penanggalan is a nocturnal vampiric entity or ghost. Its name comes from the word “tanggal” meaning to remove or take off, because its form is that of a floating disembodied woman's head with its trailing organs still attached. From afar, it twinkles like a ball of flame, providing an explanation for the will-o'-the-wisp phenomenon. The penanggalan exists by different names in every country of Southeast Asia. It is known as balan-balan in Sabah, leyak in Bali, kuyang in Kalimantan, palasik in West Sumatra, kra-sue in Thailand, kasu in Laos, ap in Cambodia, and manananggal in the Philippines. In most of the folklore, the penanggalan is a living person by day and a monster by night, but in reality, the penanggalan is a type of physical undead.
They are typically created when an Asian witch, one that practices black magic, is killed or dies during ritual. By the next moonrise, her head will tear from her body and seek out prey every night until killed. They can also be Risen, in that a corpse can become a penanggalan through the use of necromancy and death magicks. In either case, little of the original person remains and the penanggalan will seek out the living. Penanggalans have long tongues that work like an insect proboscis. It will slither into the mortal, and appear as a kiss, when in fact the penanggalan is sucking out blood and the lifeforce of their target. Their floating entrails are akin to tentacles that also have a stinging effect like a jellyfish, though it stings the very soul rather than harming the body. Once killed by a penanggalan, their victim will rise as one as well and so continue to spread.
Linked Page: Penanggalan
Starved
Nuit’s corruption of human blood works similarly, to some degree, as that of other demons from the Outer Darkness. Being a goddess more aligned with the night and death, her minions walk a line between the living and the dead. However, while her curse affects the spirit and is spiritual in essence, blood is a physical corporeal substance native to the Physical World. Like all genetic material in this chaotic place, every time a vampire forms, there stands a chance for mutation within their strain. Oftentimes, on these rare occurrences, the afflicted vampire obtains a singularly useful ability- perhaps to shape-shift or to sexually reproduce. In some cases, due to circumstances in a given area or population, a vampire strain might spread like wildfire. It could also be that people of certain descent and DNA might be more prone to become particularly affected by strains of vampirism.
The Starved Strain or simply “The Starved,” are devolved Nightbred vampires with green, blue, gray, or discolored and veiny flesh. This state is permanent for a vampire. If a Nightbred does not drink human blood, little by little, their strain breaks down. Regardless of the original strain, they become hairless and gnarled. Their faces become twisted and their ears grow long and pointed. Their teeth grow sharp and their vampiric master (if it still exists) loses control over the vampire’s will. If the vampire feeds at this point, their devolution will cease, but they will remain forever in this state, a nosferatu. If they still manage to hold back the lust for blood, they will slowly lose the ability to reason or think, until they become the monstrous creatures known as the Starved. At this point, there is no absolution.
Mindless and rabid, starved only desire flesh and fornication. They are led by the simplest instincts. They can hear extremely well and even though they have precision eyesight, they also use sonar to aid them in locating prey. Effectively the demons of the Nightbred, these beasts consumed blood, meat, and bone, leaving almost nothing of their prey behind. The nosferatu, Brone Lorcan, is the only known nosferatu that has made it more than a few years without blood. In fact, he has somehow maintained control of his mind and faculties even after more than two centuries avoiding becoming a starved- at least for now.
Linked Page: Starved
Warrior
The Warriors of Ivor are just that: these were some of the greatest foes that he ever managed to conquer. Turning them into his personal guard, Ivor uses them as his last line of defense. They are akin to the Blood Knights of the Countess Elizabeth Báthory, but they wear less armor for better mobility and are all female- just as Ivor likes them. They often have hundreds of years of fighting experience and can be incredibly difficult to defeat. Ivor was forced to deploy them as the Night Stalker, Absinthe Van Gothen, closed in on his position below the streets of Portland, Oregon in the Shanghai Tunnels.
Notable Nightbred
Vampire Lords
Vampires
Nosferatu
Ghouls
Biography
Desideratum: Blood Bonds
In Desideratum: Blood Bonds, the Nightbred are the faction of the antagonists and the protagonists. Vlad's presence is within the Blood Suit that Absinthe Van Gothen wears, whom is allied with Brone Lorcan. They are preventing Ivor and Eleanora Blackwood from gaining untold power through artifacts.
Gallery
A gathering of various vampires from around the world & from various points in history.
A group of vampire assassins.
A jiangshi
Rasputin & Anastasia
The Reaper
