The Crimson Chronicle (Reborn!)

[Dakarne]

Yes, I've decided to finally get around to resurrecting this bugger from the depths. Now, anyone who was active way, way back on OmniverseZero will remember this 'verse; it was odd, and undefined, because it had precisely one focus and it's damn hard to build a 'verse just on that focus. That focus was, as all will recall, vampire literature. There were some mild elements of what you might call urban fantasy in amongst the Stokerian horror, but it wasn't really what you'd call substantial, to say the least; all I had was the bloody vampires. Pun is unintentional. Anyway; I was aiming for something between Blade and Underworld with a dash of Vampire: The Masquerade, and it didn't really have any depth beyond what I could do with the vampires.

As such, to fix that fatal flaw, I've expanded a bit with this one. Rather than aim for 'vampire literature', I am going to take a cue from the last few decent pieces of vampire fiction I've encountered and expand into urban fantasy, but I'm also at the same time going to subvert the fuck out of one of the big recent tropes of vampires. Or, rather, one of the single most annoying tropes.

Anyone who's read a vampire or watched vampire film that is from the last thirty years will know exactly what I'm talking about.

In the area of urban fantasy, the single most tempting thing to do would be introduce magic, sorcery and other such as major elements, perhaps also expand a bit into stuff like werewolves, demons, angels, and the like. But I'm going to go into this with a series of ground rules, which are very easy to follow;

1. This will not involve Judeo-Christian legends or Judeo-Christian myths of any type, unless they appear substantially in another iconic mythology.
2. This will not involve any watered-down Count Dracula wannabes.
3. This will in fact be very dark, but edged with a lace of comedy which is, I think, sort of essential for any project like this to work.
4. I am, like always, going to take inspiration from old-fashioned vampire legends far more than the new Hollywood crap.
5. The previous rule will be disregarded if the recent vampire film or story in question is in fact awesome.
6. And finally, the sixth is that vampires are an important part, but not the only part.

So, I've explained all of this, but what's missing? Ah yes, any actual explanation as to where I'm going with all of this. You may indeed find that a little useful.


Overview

The Crimson Chronicle is now a contemporary fantasy setting set mostly in what is, to us, modern-day Britain. The world at large, except for those who believe but are woefully mistaken and those who know but are keeping it rather covered up, has naturally long-since banished such things as magic and the supernatural to very crappy documentary programmes, television programmes of varying quality and a rather lot of novels that have rather declining quality. But for every hoax, for every weather balloon and for every nutcase with sharp dentures, there is something genuine to be found. Magic, vampires, werewolves, and many other even stranger things all happen to exist, but not in the way that films would portray them. This is only partly due to mistakes made by human ignorance; many things said about the supernatural are fabrications and lies made to propagate it as being an untraceable myth. Rumours spread regardless, and myths never truly seem to die down for various reasons, but they're often dismissed due to their sheer inconsistency and the sheer absurdity of some of them.

Humanity isn't ready to handle that which is in any way significantly different, but significantly similar to itself; it has enough problems with humans who have different skin colour, never mind humans who turn into wolves, supernaturally powerful humans who must drink blood to survive, or humans for whom reality itself is a plaything. It is best if humanity doesn't know what can hurt it.

Now, before I go any further, I am going to do my characteristic Influential Confession. As this is indeed a fantasy world, just one that's got a map, countries, cities and several other things named for me in a rather convenient fashion, I have got a lot of influences bouncing about. Fantasy is, after all, my typical sort of playing ground. In this case, Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, Sergei Lukyanenko's Night Watch, Kouta Hirano's Hellsing, Anne Rice's Interview With the Vampire and the 1980s vampire film The Hunger, among all of the classics such as Bram Stoker's Dracula, Joseph Sheridan le Fanu's Carmilla and John William Polidori's The Vampyre. A great amount of general influence comes from various sources of literature, film and music, some of which isn't entirely obvious. In the area of werewolves, most of my influence comes from An American Werewolf in London, which is just about the only werewolf film you ever need to watch. Some of my unmentioned influences fall into a 'how not to...' in some aspects (Rachel Morgan), but it's still had an influence. There is a lot of inspiration to be had here, as this is technically my oldest 'verse.


Major Supernatural Beings

I'm not going to call this primary lot 'races', but instead 'types of supernatural being' until I can find a new term for them.

1. Vampires; universally characterised by their tendency towards drinking the blood of other creatures, and having originally been human. There are many minor and major variants as to what a vampire can do, or what a vampire cannot do, but the universal fact of the matter almost always remains that vampires are immortal, and suffer from an addiction to blood, whether human or not. A vampire needs blood as part of their usual sustenance, otherwise they often either go insane and commit suicide, or die from personal blood loss even if they manage to retain their sanity. Most vampires begin life as humans, and vampires are almost universally infertile. Most cannot reproduce naturally. The process of turning a person into a vampire is variable, but it often involves the ingestion of the blood of an existing vampire or a blood magic ritual. It often takes between twenty-four hours and a full week for a person to become a vampire after the event. During this time, a fledgeling can often be weak and disorientated.
   1. Living Vampires; exactly that; alive. Contrary to many of the legends about vampires, a living vampire is neither dead, nor has necessarily died in the past. A living vampire has a pulse, and retains the intelligence they had in life. Though this may not be much, in some cases. Living vampires must still drink blood, however, and they are still considered immortal due to their unnaturally long lives, though they can most certainly be killed. A living vampire who is slain may turn into an undead or dead vampire, if measures are not taken by the killer to prevent such a thing occurring.
   2. Undead Vampires; a human who has been killed by some manner by the process of becoming a vampire, or a human corpse that was raised in the right way. Their bodies are dead, with neither a pulse or the need to breathe, but they retain full control of their physical bodies, and retain their ability to think. An undead vampire is often treated with disdain by living vampires, but they have even greater resistance to physical trauma than the living vampires. Most undead vampires will decompose or age unless they feed on blood. They are, however, able to mimic the appearance of life, and enjoy the same amount of power as a living vampire, but with a few more weaknesses in some areas and a few more strengths in others.
   3. Feral Vampires; there is always a chance of a vampire losing all sense of sanity, or even most of their intelligence. When this happens a vampire becomes Feral, regardless of whether they are among the living or undead, though it happens more often amongst the latter. This only happens in the rarest of cases, but it is still considered dangerous. The effects of Feral Vampirism range from merely going insane to losing all self-awareness and devolving into an almost animalistic state. Needless to say, a vampire having gone feral is always a cause for alarm among the supernatural community, and most particularly amongst the vampires themselves. Most Feral Vampires are killed upon discovery, though some can be enslaved by necromancers if they are amongst the undead. A vampire of the latter type is referred to as a zombie, in most cases. Though they do not resemble the slow-moving creatures of Hollywood legend, but instead they have all the speed, agility and strength of a vampire with all of the ferocity of a wild animal.
2. Werewolves; universally characterised by their ability to completely or partly transform into a wolf-like form from a basically human form. Werewolves are known to have several major variants upon themselves, with varying powers and abilities, varying weaknesses and varying triggers to the transformation; werewolves are possibly even more wide-ranging than vampires to the point where they are less able to be pinned down into a single category. It is known that all forms of werewolf have rapid regenerative abilities and some enhanced physical attributes such as senses and agility. There is also, however, a burgeoning movement in fiction to categorise werewolf-vampire hybrids that must be addressed. Werewolves and vampires can't and won't ever be able to interbreed or infect one-another, as the blood of one is inherently regenerative and far too resilient to be taken over by the other, regardless of which one is infecting whom.
   1. Infected Werewolves; an infection-carrying variant of werewolves, which is an infection often spread by biting. This type of werewolf is unable to control the transformations, often transforming at night in moonlight, but the transformation to a wolf-like form is often very partial, only ever becoming complete during the light of a full moon. The transformation does not, however, fully resemble a wolf as much as a strange and twisted bipedal wolf-man hybrid, and are often called 'wolf-men'. Most infected werewolves go insane, and there is no known cure to this ailment. It is known that women are greatly resilient to turning into this type due to most of the infection targeting the Y chromosome.
   2. Natural Werewolves; an inherited, naturally-born variant of werewolves. These werewolves can often control their transformation but will sometimes transform instinctively under conditions of great duress, which is often made harder to resist by the presence of the full moon. Their transformation to a wolf is almost always complete, unless they are skilled enough to only partly transform, though they have a constant wolf-like pack instinct, and are therefore inherently social people in either form. Their actual wolf forms do resemble ordinary wolves, though are in most cases bigger, stronger and faster than ordinary stock, with far more intelligence and reasoning skills.
   3. Spellwolves; a magically-created variant of werewolves. These werewolves have two sources. The first is a cursed human who is forced to turn into a daemonic, ravenous wolf at in the light of the full moon and must then go around slaughtering people while fully aware of their new wolf-like forms, and is often driven insane by the transformation's mental side-effects and the guilt of the occurrences. The second is a person gifted with the ability to transform into a supernaturally strong wolf at will as a gift of power in exchange for a service of some sort, or as a combat necessity where the power of a werewolf might be needed. These werewolves are internally varied in the extent of their forms, but the most favoured forms are similar to larger and stronger loup-garou.
3. Magic-Users; universally characterised by their ability to use the strange otherworldly force known as magic, and also being perfectly normal in almost every other aspect. Unlike with other types of supernatural creature, however, magic-users do not have many different types but are instead more or less continuous in what it is that they can and cannot do. This does, however, vary between magic-users as magic-users are all very individual in how they use magic and how they think about magic. Magic itself, and what can be done with it, is often considered to be another matter entirely. It is, however, known to be a fact that if a magic-user is changed by any of the other types of infective supernatural creature, that they do not necessarily lose their magical powers, but such a transformation is often a willing one anyway. Magic-users often have a certain level of immunity to transformational effects, though a sufficiently effective vampire can overcome such resilience.
4. Faeries; not much is known of them, except that they reside in a magical realm partly outside of our own, and are immensely powerful immortals with machinations and motives that only they can truly understand. They are universally characterised by their human-like appearance, but with various differences that set them apart due to their difference in physical and mental form. It is believed that they are allergic to iron, but this is the only thing that most members of the supernatural community know to be a genuine myth, as opposed to a partial myth. It is known that they can appear as almost anything, however, and that there are many types of faerie, but differentiating between them is nearly impossible and many don't know one from another. They are mysterious, and reclusive, but occasional Changelings - humans replaced by faeries or imbued with faerie blood at birth. It is known that faeries can breed with humans and other such; it is believed that Myrddin was perhaps a half-faerie.
5. Yokai; similarly to the faeries, to which they are distantly related, they reside in magical realms that exist partly outside of our own, but are often more likely to venture out into the normal physical world. They are most commonly known in Japan, where they worked their way into a substantial part of the mortal mythology. They are universally characterised by their possession of two primary forms; an animal form and a human form, and it is known that they are grouped by which animal they are associated with. They have less magical power than their faerie cousins overall, and are less mysterious, but they are known to be more common, and there is more known about them. They have the ability to interbreed with humans, and the offspring inherit the powers of the yokai parent. Whilst in human form, Yokai often display slight aspects of their associated animal.
   1. Kitsune; associated with foxes and fox-like forms.
   2. Tanuki; associated mostly with the raccoon dog.
   3. Hebi; associated mostly with snakes, can be mistaken for a lamia
   4. Mujina; associated mostly with badgers
   5. Bakeneko or nekomata; associated mostly with cats
   6. Ōkami; associated mostly with wolves, and can be mistaken for werewolves.
   7. Inugami; associated mostly with dogs, and can be mistaken for werewolves like the Ōkami.
6. Reapers; similarly to vampires, the reapers are universally characterised by a form of parasitic existence, having to live off of other creatures, and also having a very human origin. But the difference is that reapers, often called 'energy vampires' or 'psychic vampires', must drain the life energy of others in order to survive, as opposed to blood. There are several types of reaper, though they do not differ in that they must consume life energy or eventually wither away and die. This has the side-effect of making them highly immortal, as they can drain with a touch and physical hand-to-hand combat with them is made thus nearly impossible. Unlike vampires, reapers are not infertile, though reapers do have their origins amongst older versions of humanity, and it is possible for someone to become a reaper via magical methods, or by consuming the blood of a reaper. Even vampires and werewolves can become reapers, though such a thing cannot be done in reverse, and all reapers that aren't an incubus or succubus are in fact transformed from other creatures, and thus share many their older form's powers. Reapers can never be undead, and undead vampires turned by reapers are often restored to a more proper form of life. It is noted, however, that the undead are immune to being fed upon by reapers, due to lacking life energy.
   1. Succubi or Incubi; the only true form of reaper, noted for favouring sexual contact with their victims in order to feed, as the act of sex often stimulates the life energy. They are the most common form of reaper, possessing powers of mild shape-shifting and mind-reading, as well as the ability to charm others, though they often prefer to simply seduce and tempt their prey. They are often known for keeping a single victim alive, feeding from them in increments, as opposed to completely draining them. It is known that they are sexually compatible with base humans, and that there are many half-succubus children in the world. It is believed that Merlin is one of them, though there are those who say that he is half-faerie.
   2. Human Reapers or Half-Reapers; reapers which are originally transformed humans, or are born as the offspring of a fertile reaper and a human. Human reapers are not entirely required to feed upon life energy in order to survive, though they are able to do so and may indeed develop an addiction to it; the act of absorbing life energy extends their own lifespans to an indefinite amount, and grants them supernaturally high physical strength and various extra senses. Many human reapers can gain the powers of a succubus or incubus, given enough time and regular feeding.
   3. Vampire Reapers; reapers which are transformed from being vampire in nature, and therefore possess almost all of the qualities they possessed as a vampire. In the case of undead vampires, they are returned to full life upon first feeding using life energy. A vampire reaper can feed using either of their lust for blood or lust for life energy, as both may feed them. Their powers are variable, though they do not automatically receive powers outside of their ability to feed upon life energy by a direct touch. Vampire reapers do, however, gain significant increases to their powers after feeding upon life energy.
   4. Werewolf Reapers; reapers which were originally werewolves, and therefore possess all of the powers and qualities of their original werewolf forms, though the interference of various sources of conflicting magic can cause a spellwolf to lose his or her transformative powers. Like human reapers they are not required to feed, but they can gain an addiction to it, and the act of feeding can further empower them. They are, however, the least likely of all types of the transformed reapers to indulge in any actual feeding, due to their already increased strength and speed, as well as their nigh-immortality.

Major Groups

1. Vampire Groups
   1. Thorne Clan; established in the early 14th century in the Lowlands of Scotland by the living vampire Lady Thorne, and her consort, Lord Adam Thorne, primarily making the clan up of living individuals. Its influence spread to the rest of Britain in the 17th century after the merging of the monarchy, and the ascent of King James VI of Scotland to also become King James I of England, Wales and Ireland, and it soon established itself as a major player in the area of the supernatural political circuit. It grew large enough, and quickly enough, that it soon rivalled its closest magic-using equivalent, the Ordo Merlinus. During the 18th and 19th centuries, Lady Thorne began to grow weary of the running of the Clan, as she was approaching her own third millennium, and thus she bequeathed control to her consort. This caused a schism in both the Clan and in the relationship of the two vampires. Adam Thorne proved himself more than capable of handling the strain of this event after organising the stealing the sword Clarent from the Ordo Merlinus, and through his leadership the Clan came out even stronger after the event than before. Lady Thorne currently lives in an almost reclusive method of drifting from social event to social event under a myriad of different identities, amusing herself in various fashions.
   2. Societas Draconistrarum or the Order of the Dragon; the Order of the Dragon, in its vampiric form, was founded sometime in the late 15th century by the newly transformed undead vampire and former Wallachian prince, Vladislav Drakulya. The Dragon's Son proved himself to be a greatly powerful leader of vampires, and by the 19th century, most of the vampires in Romania and some parts of neighbouring countries were a part of this order. At the end of the 19th century, the Order lost its leader to the actions of the vampire hunter, Abraham Van Helsing. Though one of his brides escaped to continue his legacy, under the name of Lady Drakulya; under her guidance its influence spread even as far as Germany in the early 20th century, with Count Graf Orlok claiming membership. Currently, they are engaged in an attempt to raise their old leader from the grave.
   3. Les Anges de Sang or the Angels of Blood; they were formed in their current state during the Napoleonic Wars by a centuries-old living vampire, Christine Madoré, though their roots go much further back. They are currently the largest clan of vampires in France, primarily made up of living vampires; they rose to true prominence in the World Wars, wherein they were secretly behind several effective though minor movements of subterfuge against invading forces, much to the chagrin of those who would have supernatural concealment. They are most noted for their nigh-interventionalist influence of the formation of the French Resistance, and for this they are often held in contempt by those who would rather have it that humanity's affairs were left to humanity. They have been less active in recent years, however, having stopped most of their interference since the formation of the Fifth Republic under Charles de Gaulle.
2. Werewolf Groups
   1. Die Freien Wölfe or the Free Wolves; a relatively recent group that was formed during the second World War, as a product of Nazi experimentation on Jews, black people, gays and various 'undesirables' utilising werewolf genetics. The result is that some of these people effectively became full loup-garous with complete transformative power, though most only became wolf-men, and the testing was ruled a success. Before the Nazi scientists could move onto effective testing upon Germans to create werewolf supermen, the newly-created werewolves broke free of the Nazis, killed most of them and destroyed most of the research before escaping into the Schwarswald. They formed themselves as the Free Wolves to help the other, natural and unnatural werewolves of Germany some time after Nazism's reign of terror. Their leader is currently a Jewish loup-garou called Leben Cohen.
3. Magic-Using Groups
   1. Ordo Merlinus or the Order of Merlin; established in the 6th century, in honour of the famous mage, Merlin. It was established to carry on the work of Merlin, and bring an end to societal belief in magic in order to protect humanity from the darker influences of what lay outside of human knowledge, and also keep care of the swords Excalibur and Clarent (the Sword in the Stone) for the eventual return of Arthur. They also kept the secret of the true location of the island Avalon, and often used it as safe-ground in times of trouble. By the time of the Renaissance, the end of disguising magic had mostly been achieved, and the revolution of science was considered a godsend by many. In the later 18th century, however, the Order was mostly disbanded after the sword Clarent was stolen, and it fell into the hands of the vampires. The schism was devastating, but most of the Order survived in an unofficial state , and later formed what are now known the Hermetic Order and the Wiccan Sisterhood.
   2. The Wiccan Sisterhood and the Hermetic Order; though they are technically a single continuous group, holding the task of safekeeping the island of Avalon and the remaining sword Excalibur as a continuance of the Order of Merlin's work, they count themselves as separate in public matters. They give out the impression of being harmless Sunday Cultists who basically act as a small social group of friends who meet in someone's garage every other week and sprinkle water around a chalk pentacle. In practice, they are technically the same as the Order of Merlin, however.
   3. The Prospero Triad; a very small group, consisting of three English wizards from Elizabethan times; Christopher Marlowe, William Shakespeare, and John Dee. They took on the single continuous identity of Prospero, after the original illusionist who taught all three of them. It is known that they were involved in the running of the Ordo Merlinus and are now involved in the running of the Hermetic Order. Their number was reduced by one during a rather large battle at Tunguska in 1908, but it is not known which of the three Prosperos was killed. They soon found a replacement, the original identity of which is still, in 2008, more or less unknown.
   4. Children of Salem; a splinter group of the Order of Merlin formed in the aftermath of the deaths by various methods of twenty-five suspected witches in Salem in 1692 and 1693 in an event that is remembered as the Salem Witch Trials. At least three of those killed had some genuine potential to learn magic. The group was formed in order to protect the interests of magic-users in the colonial Americas, and attempt to keep such trials from occurring within the limits of the laws against overt interference. There had already been some notable movement against witch-trials growing in British territories since 1612, with the trials in Pendle, Lancashire. The Children of Salem operate publically in the 21st century as Wiccans, mainly centred around the city of Boston, Massachusetts, borrowing the idea from their more British cousins. The group is currently led by a triad of witches.

History of the Crimson Chronicle

In the early years of the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II, otherwise known as Ozymandias, a warlock of some skill and knowledge scribed the first version of what would become a greatly powerful grimoire. The warlock's identity remains unknown, but it is known that he wrote originally on papyrus, in the blood of a sacrificial lamb that was intended for the god Thoth, whom he viewed as a god of magic. For their time, the spells and notations of magic were said to be far beyond any knowledge possessed by any of his contemporary magic-users. It is said that the book was given to one of his students, who took it away and added to it, expanding upon the knowledge contained therein, and improving it. It is not known what happened to the book for over a thousand years afterwards, but it was next seen in the possession of the infamous Merlin, expanded upon to at least three times its original length, and bristling with magic in various languages.

Merlin added to the book himself, and it is said that the book was the source of his great power. The book was later stolen by his student and lover, Viviane, the Lady of the Lake, who used its power to trap him in stone towards the end of the first millennium. After this time, it was kept, but not expanded upon by her. She bound it in reddish leather, and gave it the name, however. It was eventually stolen, however, by an airy spirit at the behest of an exiled master illusionist named Prospero, a few centuries later.

Though the power of the book was sufficient to free Prospero from his island, it is known that his own mental state kept him there, and in many ways he was waiting for revenge. He expanded a lot upon the book, and used its knowledge to fashion a wizard's staff of great power, but he recognised a great amount of evil magic within the book. After his release from his island, he cast the book into the ocean, but it is not known where. He also broke the staff, and buried it next to where Merlin was trapped, on the island of Avalon, where its magic made it grow into a tree.

It is not known if the book even survives, or what powers it holds.


Rightio, any opinions, criticisms or comments to be made?

[Dakarne]

I've added information on various in-universe groups such as the Angels of Blood, Free Wolves, Order of the Dragon, Order of Merlin, the Hermetic Order, etc.

[Shroom Man 777]

It's an extensive description, and I'm certain that it will make for great stories - but that's what's important, stories. I wonder what the human side of things are like, mostly the same as in real-life, ala Harry Potter or something?

I'd like to see what the mere mortal men would do to face these magical things.

[Dakarne]

It's an extensive description, and I'm certain that it will make for great stories - but that's what's important, stories.

But of course. I mostly made the 'verse from my story ideas, after all. Though it's far from complete; I've got several other mythological aspects to include, many of them being literal monsters.

I wonder what the human side of things are like, mostly the same as in real-life, ala Harry Potter or something?

Yes, the supernatural keeps itself secret to protect humanity from the Darker Things. Though it's a lot like the Dresden Files in that respect; it all goes on in the background and humans don't notice it, or are kept from noticing it.

I'd like to see what the mere mortal men would do to face these magical things.

It all depends on the situation. You could theoretically face off against a vampire or werewolf armed with silver bullets, and ward them away, but it'd take a machine gun loaded with silver, or perhaps sufficient amounts of magical attack, to truly put them down.

[Peregrin]

As always I like the detail you put into your settings. I look forwards to more in this, perhaps so I can write a story in this 'verse starring an expy of Infra-nee-sama!

If there is any complaint I have with this, it is that unless you're careful things might become a bit too similar to World of Darkness.

One thing I took particular notice of: Nothing is said about vampires being hurt by sunlight. Is this an intentional cliché-aversion?

[Dakarne]

As always I like the detail you put into your settings. I look forwards to more in this, perhaps so I can write a story in this 'verse starring an expy of Infra-nee-sama!

Thanks. I would warn, however, that there is already someone a little similar to Infrared (not an intersexual cyborg vampire, however) in the main narrative as a side-character; Rhona McGregor, a bondage-obsessed lesbian vampire who delights in making the protagonist's life rather hellish at times. Though I would appreciate a giftsnap written for my world.

If there is any complaint I have with this, it is that unless you're careful things might become a bit too similar to World of Darkness.

It's a valid thought, but this world is more fantastical, and less dark.

One thing I took particular notice of: Nothing is said about vampires being hurt by sunlight. Is this an intentional cliché-aversion?

Yes and no. Vampires are in fact depowered by sunlight as in the original Dracula or Carmilla, but do not go up like a Roman Candle every time someone shines an ultraviolet lamp on them.

[Peregrin]

I like the idea of the Crimson Chronicle itself, a grimoire that the greatest wizards in history have each contributed to as they have gotten it into their possession. As for Rhona McGregor, what about making her a tall skinny chick with short blonde hair? That would get us a LONG way to making her more like Infra-nee-sama!

[Dakarne]

As for Rhona McGregor, what about making her a tall skinny chick with short blonde hair? That would get us a LONG way to making her more like Infra-nee-sama!

Ah, now let's think about it a bit... my answer is no. Rhona McGregor is remaining as the red-haired Perky Goth vampire type that she was planned as.

[Dakarne]

And now a biography for the Evil Overlord of the series;

Adam Thorne

Real Name: Unknown
Title: Self-styled Lord
Gender: Male
Type: Living Vampire, Magician
Birthdate: Unknown, at least 1,000 years old
Occupation: Leader of the Thorne Clan.
Residence: London, England
Parents: Lady Thorne, dam. No recognised parents.
Children: Sired many vampires, no natural offspring
Marital Status: Married (not legally recognised)
Spouse: Lady Thorne, wife
Associations: The Thorne Clan

Biography
Not much is known about Thorne's history, childhood, or, indeed, Thorne's real name. It is known that he was born in Scotland, sometime during the ninth or tenth century, the son of a woman with the potential to become a powerful witch who was nonetheless was killed when her power was discovered by humans of the time. He was turned into a vampire at some point after this, by the woman who would be his wife, Lady Eve Thorne. It is known that he and Lady Thorne established themselves quickly as vampires who weren't to be trifled with, forming the clan that bore their common name in the early 14th century. It spread to England shortly after the death of Queen Elizabeth I, during the unification of the royalty, a few centuries later. Adam Thorne first made himself known widely to the supernatural world in England during this time. His magical powers mixed with his various vampire gifts and incredible talent for swordplay had turned him into something that was nothing short of terrifying, though his method was established early on.

Lady Thorne reigned with him as consort until the late eighteenth century, when she began to grow distant from Adam, and from the clan, almost causing a schism as she began to devote her life less and less to leadership in the supernatural community and more to the goal of personal pleasure and hedonism. It is said that if not for the intelligent, calculated leadership of Adam Thorne, and the theft of the great sword Clarent, the clan might have capsized entirely.

His relationship with Lady Thorne was strained by these events, and it is rumoured that they haven't so much as slept with each-another since the Napoleonic Wars. For the extremely sexual vampires, this could be seen as being an even worse sign in a relationship than it would be in a human one. Though they both please themselves with other consorts.

Appearance and Personality
Adam Thorne is a higher-level vampire, and a greatly powerful necromancer, and as such his appearance is more or less at his own whim. His typical appearance is that of man of middling age with greying hair, typically dressed in formal business attire, and he conducts himself accordingly. He is known for his intelligent and reasoned approach to things, but also for his incredibly short temper.

Abilities and Weaknesses
Being ancient and powerful, his weaknesses are fewer in number than ordinary revenants. He cannot be de-powered by sunlight, and he can regenerate from almost any wound unless it effectively destroys the vast majority of his physical form. Silver bullets can seriously harm him, however. The most efficient way to kill Adam Thorne would be a traditional method of staking and decapitation; followed by an immediate cremation to stop him from regenerating, or turning into an undead vampire. If his ashes were to be saturated in a vat of blood, however, he would be ‘reincarnated’ and return to full strength within a few weeks, albeit as a now-undead vampire.

Though any person who could manage such a feat would have to be extremely well-trained and extremely good at their job.

His powers as a vampire are numerous, covering telekinesis, supernaturally high physical attributes, the ability to sense the auras of the living, the power to command most animals and people using the Dark Speech, reading minds, turning invisible, shape-changing, and the ability to 'ghost' through any solid object that is not made of silver. His powers as a mage are even more numerous, and he is one of the most powerful necromancers in existence, and is theoretically able to raise an army.

[Dakarne]

EDIT to the OP: added information on various types of angels in Crimson Chronicle cosmology. I'll add the actual cosmology later, maybe.

Now, I know I said that I wasn't going Judeo-Christian. Point is that I actually haven't. I've gone Hindu/Buddhist about it, and I was already quite up to my neck in Hinduism and Buddhism, so I've inserted it in. The cosmology isn't entirely one thing, however, and the actual position of gods is a big 'unknown' as far as I'm concerned. I know that several individuals seen as gods will have been powerful angels or powerful demons. Odin, for instance, was a powerful mage as opposed to a proper deity. Stuff like that.

In other news, I'm going to focus entirely on this wee miniature-'verse and keep E&D to one side until I know what I'm actually doing with it.

[Dakarne]

I've added a new type of creature; Reapers. Effectively, they are typical psychic vampires, which can sometimes be a literal label.

[Dakarne]

UPDATE: I've removed the angels, pending revision or entire removal. They're a later-on-in-the-metaplot feature, so I'll leave them to one side.

Also; I am going to put here a few notes on the tone of the Crimson Chronicle, which I believe need to be addressed before I continue on. Because there appears to be, from messenger conversations, the occasional confusion as to what the setting's meant to be about. Remember that this is going to be very dark, and very grim, even if it is not gritty. The main theme is that everything has a price, even if I haven't represented that in the main features of the opening post, and remember that I am going to have to make a few things work in a certain way in order to portray the thematics of this setting and story. Which, let's face it, are really fucking important. People often say that becoming a vampire/werewolf/other is a curse as much as a gift, and never deliver on the curse aspect, but I intend to portray the curse aspect of vampires/werewolves/others very intently.

A vampire, for instance, loses who they were after a while. Not immediately, but vampires experience a slow death of the original soul that the person was, very slowly turning into a monster, even if they were not one to begin with. A werewolf starts to find it easier to become the wolf, and harder to turn back into their human form. Again, not immediately, but their humanity slowly begins to wither away under the influence of the wolf, and soon it's easier to just be a wolf, and they have to try at being human. And becoming a reaper is the darkest curse of all; a great power to begin with, lacking any weaknesses. Except for their eventual fate, in which they become so addicted to feeding, needing so much life energy, that they start to devour their own life-energy from within, very slowly but surely wasting away into a mindless emaciated corpse that must continue feeding. Even then it still consumes itself and eventually there's nothing left but a hungry, soul-stealing wraith, devouring all that encounters it, unless someone well-equipped comes along and deals with it.

Everything has a price, everything must be paid for, and you'll find that it's sometimes damn hard to foot the bill without losing something you'd regret in the process. This is a world wherein Bad Things Happen. On top of that, most of this stuff is way-over-the-heads of normal humans. Becoming a vampire hunter is counted as 'suicide by bloodsucker' in many cases. It's certainly possible for humans to kill minor, or even major creatures, but it's never easy, never likely, and the million-to-one chance doesn't occur nine times out of ten.

Are there any questions?

[Peregrin]

How sympathetic are the vampires going to be? No more or less on average than humans? It seems here (at least from your choice of words) that you're emphasizing their monstrousness but in a somewhat "body horror" way.

[Dakarne]

How sympathetic are the vampires going to be? No more or less on average than humans? It seems here (at least from your choice of words) that you're emphasizing their monstrousness but in a somewhat "body horror" way.

It is entirely dependent on the vampire in question. Their loss of humanity isn't actually related to body horror as such but is more the thirst spreading to their minds and turning them into far more predatory creatures than they once were, but at the same time sometimes removing any ability for empathy or sympathy from the vampire. They turn slowly into sociopaths.

[Dakarne]

Some mild update, and a mild shift in tone, which needn't be readily apparent in the Opening Post. I've been latching more and more onto the idea of an urban fantasy storyline as opposed to the horror-based vampire storyline, and my ideas for an over-arching plotline are starting to form a little in the direction of the fantasy approach. I'm not going to name too many details, but it involves the reincarnation of Merlin and a few other things that - quite frankly - approach what you might call the utterly fantastical. Mind, I've already got wizards, and once they're in the game, literally anything goes.

[Ford Prefect]

To be honest, I don't think this inecessarily a good thing. Obviously it's good you've got a plot direction, yet at the same time it's about wizards again. You've tried urban fantasy about wizards in secret before (a lot, no less), and it's never worked out. Honestly, part of what I think make the Crimson Chronicle compelling is that it is not necessarily about wizards, compared to Essence and Descent which, let's be honest here, has it's primary focus on magicians.

I'm not exactly a huge fan of vampires, but the dynamics of underground vampire society was actually rather interesting. It is, in my mind, potentially far more interesting than any underground society of magi is likely to be, as at the end of the day, they don't have as much to loose as your average vampire. Sure, power corrupts, but it just doesn't have quite the same potential as the Darwinian nature of being a vampire does. At the end of the day, I would much prefer to read about one person's struggle against themselves - despite it being pretty common - than a world-shaking conspiracy between opposing magi fighting over the next Merlin.

Essence and Descent is built for that sort of thing, because it's a high fantasy setting and that's what high fantasy settings are for. But the Crimson Chronicle is not a high fantasy setting, it's a more or less modern setting. It is true that the scale of a modern setting has a tendancy to be actually larger than a more or less fantasy medieval setting*. However, at the same time, the world is not often suitable for mythic plots and plans of godlike beings. The World of Darkness tries this and while it is interesting, whenever I think about it's big deal stuff like the Antediluvians or Technocrats I think it just plain fails miserably. Comparitively, I think Exalted succeeds with its big deal stuff because of its mythic, fantasy setting. This isn't to say that it can't be done, but it's just that much harder to be convincing when using the real world.

That's just my two cents.

*For example, in one of the two Ilium books, ancient hero Odysseus is comparing notes with man from our era, Hockenbury; they are talking about Hockenbury's father (as I recall), and how he was a soldier in World War II. Hockenbury asks Odysseus how many people have died in the siege of Troy and the time period in which is takes place, and Odysseus' best guess is about ten thousand people over a period of ten years, Hockenbury replies that in one of the battles his father fought in, at Iwo Jima, over twenty thousand people were killed in just over a month. At the same time, the fields of Ilium or Olympos Mons are a much better setting for the war between gods that is going on.

[Dakarne]

The problem lies in the fact that pure vampires are hard to tell a story about any more. I mean, everything has been done; nerdy vampires (Moonlight), emo or angst-ridden vampires (Vampire Chronicles), lesbian vampires (Carmilla, The Hunger), supernaturally-styled vampires (Dracula, Hellsing, Vampire: The Masquerade), scientifically-styled vampires (I Am Legend, the Ultraviolet TV series, Blade, The Hunger), seductive vampires (film versions of Dracula, Carmilla, The Hunger), sunlight-immune vampires versus up-like-a-torch vampires, magnificent bastard vampires (Dracula, Buffy the Vampire Slayer), punk vampires (The Lost Boys), goth vampires (too numerous to count), half-vampires (Blade, Bloodrayne, Castlevania, Vampire Hunter D), and even fucking Count Dracula are all pretty much the most overused things in the universe.

And that is why I've been focusing on making my vampires a primary-but-not-the-only-primary-part-of-the-world.

They're also big players due to a few numerical issues. Wizards aren't very numerous, while the bloodsuckers are in fact very numerous. Though there are other forces which are always at play; the whole point of my magicians is that they're sort of the first-line-of-defence against everything else. They're sort of the protectors of humanity from the eclipsing darkness of the rising supernatural. It's why they've kept it all secret; it allows them to operate a little easier and do the morally questionable things for what really is the greater good. Besides, I like wizards. Or more specifically, I like magic. Magic is just plain fun - there's a whole fucking lot you can do with it.

Though I will keep Essence & Descent for a more epic fantasy approach, and this is more secrecy and conspiracy.

Note that I'll be moving most of my information here from now on, thanks to Siege being kind enough to grant me a forum.

[Mobius 1]

If 'oh no vampires have been done to death' (And Merlin hasn't? Secret wizards?), why the heck are you making them the primary focus/primary part of the verse? From what you've said over the chats, neither side of the natural or supernatural give a shit about the other.

Ford's pretty much has it right here, far better than I could.

[Dakarne]

If 'oh no vampires have been done to death' (And Merlin hasn't? Secret wizards?), why the heck are you making them the primary focus/primary part of the verse?

Ahem;

And that is why I've been focusing on making my vampires a primary-but-not-the-only-primary-part-of-the-world.

Vampires are a primary part for a number of reasons. The first and most important of which is that they're what I started with, and I'm a wee bit of a sentimental git who can't let go of some of his oldest ideas. The second is that they're easier to play off of something than to make a sole entity; vampires are a psychological contrast to something else, whether it's a werewolf (Underworld), or a human (Dracula), or many different things (like this is). The third is that there are many other things that play a primary role in this world; faeries, yokai, werewolves and reapers.

The secret wizards are done less than you think, actually. And this approach to Merlin is a new one that I've been working on; it's an idea in progress so many of the shared details over messenger may change, though I am not going to tell you which ones and I'm still going to ask you to keep quiet on the ones that I have revealed.

From what you've said over the chats, neither side of the natural or supernatural give a shit about the other.

It depends. Humans are often quite sentimental when it comes down to it, and many of the supernatural elements are originally human. I find it hard to believe that just because someone's a vampire or a werewolf now that they'll just up and abandon family and friends unless they're a complete and utter arsehole. Quite the contrary, in fact, someone who's undergoing the confusion of a vampire transformation will go straight to their family and friends for comfort; they'll need that which is normal to anchor them to sanity whilst adjusting to that which is abnormal. People are people after all, even if it is required that they drink blood.

[Dakarne]

Mild update; for those of you who haven't noticed, I have a Crimson Chronicle forum now (thanks again, Siege), where I have now posted something of a soundtrack and a little bit more information on our old friends, the vampires (well, in this case, a lot more information, covering a few different subtypes within the living and undead vampires).

Any questions I shall kindly ask to be transferred to a newly-created Q&A thread. So newly created in fact that I actually made it while writing this post.