Bloodlines

Two curses walk Eldermere, and both are older than the treaty.

The VAMPIRE'S line runs back to the Remembered, the preserved remnant of the world that faded: old blood that never agreed to stop. The WEREWOLF'S plague came up with the Underworld, carried out of the deep when the Crack opened. Neither is an affliction you catch by accident and keep; a true bloodline is EARNED, and the bloods do not consider you worth turning until you have been reborn twice. Ask before then and you will be found wanting.

Each blood holds a court, and each court sets a TRIAL. Fail, or walk away, and a month passes before they will look at you again. Succeed and you are turned: the gift raises what the curse costs, and the arithmetic is real on both sides. The wolf mends flesh faster the deeper the moon runs; the vampire's hunger pulls life from the living and the sun collects its debt. The turned carry six chapters of their own story, told by their elders.

What the turned should know before choosing:

A bloodline can be PASSED, briefly. The bitten carry a contagion for a few days; a temple can lift it before it sets.

A bloodline can be RENOUNCED. There is a place where the arcane runs pure enough to burn a curse out: the HALL OF CLEANSING. No signpost names it and no chart marks it. The cursed who want out must seek it, and the seeking is part of the price. What follows the cleansing is thirty days of penance, and a penitent who breaks faith wears the traitor's mark, which the kin never forgive.

The same blood never takes you back. The other may, after a year has passed and been seen to pass.

See also: help multiclass (rebirth), help classes.