Blood Hunters and Hemocraft¶

The dark, self-sacrificial magic practiced by every Blood Hunter order in the setting — the shared foundation beneath the Diamondback, Stars, and the other orders described on this page.

Overview¶

How Blood Hunters first came to be is a mystery even within the setting, full of myths and rumors. What's clear is that Hemocraft — cutting and maiming oneself to draw on the power of one's own blood — is dark and dangerous, but can be turned toward good: "to become a monster to fight monsters." Hemocraft grants three broad tools, all requiring the hunter to draw their own blood:

Blood Curses — offensive magic turned against enemies.
The Crimson Rite — imbuing a weapon with elemental power.
Profane spells and bodily augmentation — casting outright magic, or enhancing one's own physiology.

Every Blood Hunter is made, not born, through the Hunter's Bane — a deadly initiation ritual every order performs differently, but which is universally a trial "few passed, many feared." Survivors are permanently changed by it, in ways specific to their order's tradition (see below).

The orders¶

Blood Hunter orders built strongholds away from civilization, training in secret. Each order below has its own dedicated page with full detail; this page summarizes the relationships between them.

Order	Stronghold	Sigil	Approach
Order of the Abyss	Castle Umbra	Black circle, bleeding eye	The First Order — Profane Soul hunters drawing power from the Abyss and demons
Order of the Unicorn	Castle Argent	(unspecified)	Ghostslayers acting as paladins; killing as a last resort
Order of the Diamondback	Castle Shain	Diamondback rattlesnake	Mutants — alchemical Mutagens enhancing the body
Order of the Dragon	Castle Drakenshield	Dragon wrapped around a sword	Ghostslayers; politically active diplomats, spies, assassins
Order of the Tiger	Castle Fang	Tiger before a crescent moon	All Lycans; lycanthropy as a way of life, not a curse
Order of the Succubus	Castle Sylla	Winged woman holding a bleeding rose	All-female Profane Soul hunters; poison specialists
Order of the Chimera	The Crucible	Chimera	Mutants pushed to extremes — alchemy, biology, experimentation
Order of the Wraith	Castle Mournhold	Ghostly hand clutching a bloody dagger	Ghostslayers specializing in the undead and the occult
Order of the Stars	Castle Orion	A constellation (per Elysia Moreau's etching on Hephaestus)	Founded by Trout Brightshield; no single method or philosophy

All orders originally cast in Abyssal, reflecting their descent from the Order of the Abyss, the "Grandfather Order." The orders were not fully isolated from one another — they communicated, shared information, and collaborated, with the Abyss as their unspoken central authority.

History¶

The vanishing of the Abyss¶

The Order of the Abyss simply disappeared — Castle Umbra went silent, "no bodies, no blood." Communication between the remaining orders fractured into fear and uncertainty.

The Schism¶

Not long after, the Order of the Dragon declared "the old way is dead," proposing a new central authority: switch the casting language to Draconic, replace single-grandmaster rule with a council, and pull away from Abyssal power and demonic pacts entirely. The Succubus and Tiger joined the new school; the Unicorn, Wraith, and Chimera kept to the old ways. The Diamondback fell into a full civil war over the question — the War of the Snake — before eventually adopting the new philosophy (see Quinon Hexshade).

The fall of the orders¶

Communication between the orders never recovered from the Schism. Three generations later, they began falling one by one:

The Tiger was burned to the ground by a mob of superstitious peasants.
The Chimera had an experiment break free and destroy their stronghold.
The Wraith was wiped out by Red Rot, a rare, deadly blood disease.
The Diamondback was destroyed by the Dread Gloom.
The Dragon devolved into civil war and destroyed itself from within.
The Unicorn drifted away from blood magic entirely and became an order of paladins, forgetting the Hunter's Bane.
The Succubus simply dissolved as members left, died, or retired — a rumored "cure" for the Hunter's Bane, which some blamed for their disappearance, was never real.

The Order of the Stars¶

Years later, Trout — a Diamondback survivor — founded the Order of the Stars at Castle Orion, almost by accident. See Order of the Stars for its founding and growth, which ultimately answered the Schism by refusing to pick a side at all.

Sources¶

Additional Materials/Blood_Hunter_Lore.md