"Divine? Your imprisonment has damaged your mind, Janos. The curse of vampirism is no mark of divinity." - Kain
Raziel as a vampire
The Blood Curse, also called The Dark Gift or Vampirism is a malignant metamorphosis that was first introduced into Nosgoth as the malediction cast on the Ancient vampires by the Hylden. The curse had many effects including blood-thirst, sterility, immortality and aversion to sunlight and water; those afflicted with the curse became known as Vampires. Due to the effects of the curse, some later vampires would view it as a divine blessing rather than an affliction.
History[]
A Vampire Guardian
The Ancients were said to worship a God whose primary function was to recycle souls, and it was every Ancient's honour to be spun in this Wheel of Fate. However, the opposing faction of the Hylden rejected their God, and the Ancients ignited a war between the two species. The Hylden ultimately lost this war, but did not end their campaign quietly. They cursed the Ancients with a predatory bloodthirst, and worse still, immortality. This inability to die naturally drove many of the Ancients to despair as the act itself cut them off from their God, unable to reuse their souls. Many ancients committed suicide in order to restore the cycle, but the curse also granted sterility. The race would die out with no way to continue on, and their numbers were declining rapidly with the mass suicides.
The Pillars of Nosgoth now began to choose human guardians due to the Ancients' inability to produce children (as Guardians are chosen at birth). They adopted as well as abducted these human successors and when they came of age they were transformed into vampires, and deemed it a necessary evil. When the Pillars of Nosgoth were erected to bind the Hylden to the demon dimension as only Vampire Guardians could adequately serve the Pillars and their governing forces.
Humans inevitably rejected the curse, fighting off their Vampire oppressors (led by Moebius and Mortanius) and claiming the Pillars as their own. Unable to properly tend to them, the Pillars' power slowly dwindled and the Binding weakened, allowing the Hylden to slowly infiltrate back into Nosgoth. As history became forgotten, the humans eventually simply lost sight of the point of their work, unaware of the evil the Pillars were holding back.
Traits[]
Vampirism causes the subject to become immortal. While they can still be killed through specific means, they will not age or deteriorate like a mortal nor die of natural causes. Their human needs are replaced almost solely by a craving for blood; which they are required to slake in order to maintain their stamina and facilitate the rapid regeneration of injuries. Vampires are also sterile, though there are ways that one can create a vampire from another creature. Vampires are also significantly stronger and faster than mortals; able to jump higher and farther than humanly possible as well as move heavy objects that would be otherwise immovable to a living creature.
Although a slow and subtle process that spans centuries, vampires become progressively more powerful and less human as they age. When evolving from fledglings to adults, they will enter a period of hibernation and undergo a state of physiological metamorphosis; receiving new abilities, new physical features, and also becoming more resilient - able to withstand more punishment before succumbing to death or needing to consume blood to heal.
Reproduction[]
As above, vampires are sterile, though a few methods were discovered to create vampires from other (not necessarily) living beings, although many of these methods have not been entirely explored or explicitly elaborated upon in the series.
It is known that one can use necromantic magic which is the only way for a Human to create a vampire, as was the case when the Necromancer Mortanius turned Kain, though Mortanius also used the vampiric heart of Janos Audron to do this.
The Ancients could pass their dark gift onto humans in order to prepare them for life serving the Pillars. One of the first turned vampires was Vorador, turned by Janos Audron for crafting the Reaver blade, not for guardianship. In time the practise of turning humans to an uprising by the humans who overthrew the Vampires, rejected their gift, and took control of the Pillars.
It is also known that Kain found a way to "breath[e] his vampiric gift" into the corpses of the Sarafan lieutenants: snaring their souls from the underworld and resurrecting them as vampires. Using this method, he created a small cadre of vampires who shared some of his powers - and this process became the de facto method of reproduction in Kain's empire. This could be done with any sized fraction of the soul, though the more was used, generally, the more powerful the vampire was when they returned to life.
Janos turning Vorador
See also[]
- Vampires
The Blood Curse at Dark Chronicle (by Ardeth Silvereni).
References[]
to be added
