Literature / Empire of the Vampire

From holy cup comes holy light; The faithful hand sets world aright; And in the Seven Martyrs’ sight; Mere man shall end this endless night.

And in sight of God and his Seven Martyrs, I do here vow;

Let the dark know my name and despair.

So long as it burns, I am the flame.

So long as it bleeds, I am the blade.

So long as it sins, I am the saint.

And I am silver.

—The Vow of San Michon

Empire of the Vampire is a Dark Fantasy series by Jay Kristoff, author of the ''The Lotus War Trilogy'' and ''The Nevernight Chronicle''. The first book was released in September 2021, with a sequel, Empire of the Damned, published in February 2024. Very heavy on Gothic Horror, Fantastic Catholic imagery and all the associated Vampire Hunter tropes, the series is at the same time a love-letter to staples of the genre while also reinventing many of the classical elements into new and interesting combinations.

Gabriel de León, the Last Silversaint, the Black Lion of San Michon, is ready to meet his end at the hands of abominations he has hunted his entire life. Weary, broken and content with one last blow he had just inflicted upon the undead who, in but a few decades, had risen to take over a continent-spanning empire, Gabriel thinks himself ready to Face Death with Dignity. And yet, on the same eve he is sure he shall be executed, one of his jailors gives him an offer instead - he bids Gabriel de León, the last and most legendary of the Silversaint vampire hunters, to tell him his life story. Eventually, Gabriel obliges - and so begins the tale of how he grew into his own dark legend, how the world of the living was lost to the Dead, and of his own last, desperate gambit meant to bring mankind salvation...

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Provides examples of:

• Alchemy Is Magic: Though alchemy is also said to exist as a separate discipline, chymistrie is the art which the Silversaints use to concoct some of their tools, such as bombs, ointments, poisons, and of course, ''sanctus''. It is explictly described as "something between alchemy, witchery and lunacy".
• Always Chaotic Evil: Vampires within the setting all gradually become soulless, hollow and utterly inhuman husks of their former selves, obsessed with nothing but their own survival and satiating their endless hunger. Invariably, by the time they've existed for a few decades, they become so utterly removed from the human experience they are left dangerously ambivalent at best and actively malevolent at worst.
• Anti-Hero: Though he begins as an Ideal Hero - skilled, devoted, chivalrous and above all, determined - the years of hopeless struggle and grievous losses against the vampiric conquest leave Gabriel de León falling squarely into this trope. By the time he joins the Company of the Grail, he has become a surly, wrathful, perpetually intoxicated Naytheist with little loyalty left even towards his own old friends. He has only mild concerns about sacrificing innocent (as far as he knows) lives to save his own skin and even using his own allies as bait to draw out his own intended targets. In his own word:
  Gabriel de León: “Who the fuck told you I was a hero?”
• Battle Strip: Justified. Armour is largely useless against even juvenile vampires, who have enough raw strength to twist metal with their grip. Thus, Silversaints employ an "aegis" instead - a set of beautiful, complex tattoos writ with silvered ink, depicting holy images and icons. Such a pattern is difficult to so much as look at for most vampires, and actively burns them should they touch it, whilst also allowing the hunters to enjoy maximum mobility and agility thanks to being unencumbered.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Many vampires sport these, particularly the completely inhuman, ancien higbloods. Younger vampires tend to have merely disconcerting, glassy yet intense stares with regular human eyes.
• Blood Magic: Sanguimancy is the vampiric power to channel magic using blood itself, feared even by other vampires. It can be used to make the blood within both living and Dead boil, forced to bend shape and form to the will of its user and even reshape the user's own body. However, little is known for certain about it, as it is associated with the ancient, now presumably extinct Blood Esani.
• Byronic Hero: Gabriel de León is the greatest among the Silversaints of the Ordo Argent, a prodigy with the blade whose faith in God once burned so strong upon his skin it burned the eyes from the sockets of any vampire who beheld it. He is also currently a broken shell of a man, addicted to both sanctus and alcohol whose faith in God, as well as everything else, has been thoroughly shattered. He now prefers solitude, walks his own path and only cares about avenging himself upon the Dead who took everything away from him.
• Cannibalism Superpower: Blood Esana vampires dedicate themselves to consuming others of their kind in order to "save their souls from damnation." It helps that the process of draining another vampire allows the Esana to steal all their accumulated strength and access powers belonging to other bloodlines, making the Faithful some of the strongest beings in the world. The process does have a flipside, however - consuming too many souls will eventually lead to most Esana developing some form of insanity, usually a multiple personality disorder, as the burden of carrying so many cursed souls takes its toll on the Faithful.
• Character Narrator: The story is framed as an autobiography which Gabriel narrates to Jean-Francois, one of the vampires keeping him prisoner. The chronicler will occasionally even interrupt the Silversaint's telling for the sake of expanding on the worldbuilding, as his stated mission is to "preserve (the setting's) image long after (Gabriel's) world has been forgotten by future generations".
• Charm Person: All highblood vampires radiate some kind of a dark aura, a sensory pressure which either draws or repels every mortal around them, without exception, like wolves walking among flocks of sheep. Most bloodlines can further channel this supernatural charisma buff into some kind of mind control, and all of them can command their wretched cousins to some degree. The vampires' paleblood offspring also inherit this power, though their is much more subdued.
• Crapsack World: What was until barely three decades past a rather by-the-numbers Medieval European Fantasy setting went rapidly downhill after a falling star crashed into the planet, sending up clouds of dust and particles thick enough to conceal the sun itself. The initial problems were bad enough - most harvests failed, millions of people were rendered jobless and pennyless, and a continent-wide famine was only narrowly averted. And that was before the Dead took advantage of the fact that the sun, though still faintly present, was now too weak to burn them. Fast-forward twenty-seven years, and most of the continent has been rendered a barren wasteland, with forests of dead black trees constantly smothered in downpours of ashen grey snows and filthy muddy rain. Nothing grows except potatoes and mushrooms, much of the larger fauna has been rendered extinct and the last of humanity's food stores are finally running out. All that without taking into account the hordes of ravenous corpses rampaging across the Empire, draining entire cities and enthralling the survivors into chattle slavery for their ancient overlords. In the words of the protagonist himself:
  Gabriel de León: “Besides, who the fuck would want to inherit an earth like this?”
• Creepy Catholicism: Given the heavy and liberal usage of high medieval Gothic architecture, dark clothing, Ominous Latin Chanting or a plethora of rituals and rites involving the drawing and imbibing of blood, Kristoff definitely enjoys making use of this trope. This not even mentioning the more mundane horror within the Church, including priestly corruption, rising fanaticism or certain priests being exposed as allies of the Dead. That said, for all their many flaws and sinister imagery, the Ordo Argent and the Church factions aligned behind them are undoubtedly on the side of good.
• Crystal Dragon Jesus: The Redeemer, the central figure of worship of the One Faith, is a very straightforward example. Son of God sent to Earth to spread His word among the people, he was eventually captured and tortured to death by the priests of the "old gods", though instead of a cross, they hung him from a chariot wheel, which serves an identical purpose. His death also acted as the catalyst which eventually spread the One Faith across the Empire which originally executed him. Instead of Virgin Mary, the Redeemer was birthed by the Mothermaid, and instead of the Twelve Apostles, His word was spread by the Seven Martyrs. The names of many angels are also lifted over from Christian canon, though their attributes are switched up - angel Gabriel is now angel of fire. There is even a figure named Jezebel associated with harlots and prostitutes, much like her Biblical counterpart.
• Deadpan Snarker: Plenty of characters fall under this trope. Gabriel himself is quite partial to biting sarcasm, particularly when conversing with his jailer Jean-Francois, who gives as good as he gets. Every other word from Astrid Rennier's mouth is some witty jab, quip or insult. But Ashdrinker, Gabriel's Empathic Weapon, quite possibly takes the cake with her mix of Ye Olde Butcherede Englishe and sudden, vicious bouts of barbed tonguelashing.
• Depraved Bisexual: Whether vampires start out as straight, gay or anything in between, they all eventually tend to fall into this trope. As one of them puts it, after years of immortality, all the differences sink into eternity in their perception, physical beauty being the only deciding feature when it comes to lovers.
• Dhampyr: All brothers of the Ordo Argent are palebloods, children born of a vampiric father and mortal mother. The result of such a union, if any, is invariably a boy who inherits some traits of their undead sire, such as a measure of Super-Strength, Super-Speed, Super-Reflexes and a potent Healing Factor, as well as the talents particular to their own bloodline. However, along with these gifts, the palebloods inherit their father's curse as well, feeling the same burning hunger which drives them to consume the blood of the living, and radiating a similar, if more subdued, aura of dark charisma which either draws or repels everyone around them. To atone for the sin of their conception and salvage their own souls from damnation, palebloods are recruited into the Ordo Argent and tasked with ridding the world of their coldblooded progenitors so that no more such as they may be sired in the future.
• Empathic Weapon: Ashdrinker is a legendary vampire-slaying sword which Gabriel winds up wielding via means unknown. She is made from Meteoric Iron, called starsteel, and is the most legendary vampire slaying weapon in the world. However, the point of her blade has been broken off, leaving the sword with a sort-of speech impediment, which means she usually merely repeats things Gabriel already knows, much to his frustration. Whenever she is not mocking him that is.
• End of the World as We Know It: Due to Daysdeath, a perpetual shroud of dust and smog smothering the world's atmosphere, there is an acute lack of sunlight across the entire continent. Beyond the immediate problems such as crop failure, the resulting risk of famine and the gradual decline of all natural food chains, this also allows the formerly minor and endemic threat of vampires to spiral out of control through targeted mass turnings by a handful of ancient, powerful highbloods. As hordes of ravenous Dead sweep away the last bastions of old civilization across a starving, dying world, it seems reasonable for many characters to conclude that the End Times have come.
• Face of an Angel, Mind of a Demon: Most highbloods go for this trope hard, being forever frozen in their life's prime, but counting among the most evil and depraved beings in the world. Of particular note are those turned as children, who look beautiful and fae, but are just as capable of horrific slaughter and vile perversion.
• Fantastic Catholicism: The One Faith is mostly a one-to-one reskin of the Catholic Church cca. the 1400s, complete with Almighty God, the Redeemer, The Testaments, angels, saints, High Pontifex, nuns, crusaders and even the Inquisition. The few differences are mostly aesthetic - the Redeemer died on a wheel instead of a cross, which, along with the seven-pointed star, became the icon of the faith. The most prominent divergence is that the Emperor of the continent-spanning empire remains the nominal head of the Church, much more in lieu with Byzantine and Russian emperors and their Orthodox churches.
• Fantastic Drug: Sanctus is a powder made from extracted vampire blood, smoked through a pipe by the Silversaints in order to slake their own thirst for human blood and boost their own powers before going into battle. Vampiric blood itself is highly addictive and repeated consumption renders one enthralled to the undead from which it came. To avoid this, and dull its potency in general, the blood is distilled and powdered, and only smoked once a day at most, usually during evening mass. Even so, sanctus is incredibly potent and almost as addictive, with the highs it provides to the palebloods unlike any other sensual experience, and sooner of later, all Silversaints will wind up completely dependant upon it.
  Gabriel de León: “There’s an art to smoking sanctus. Hold the flame too close, the blood will burn. Hold it too far, it’ll melt too slow, liquefying rather than vaporizing. But get it right… God Almighty, get it right, and it’s magik. A bright red bliss, filling every inch of your sky... Words can’t describe it. You might as well try to explain a rainbow to a blind man. Imagine the moment, that first second you slip between a lover’s thighs. After an hour or more of worship at the altar, when everything else has run its course and there’s naught but want for you in her eyes and finally she whispers that magic word … please... Take that heaven and multiply it a hundredfold. You might be close.”
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture: The Empire seems to largely consist of several reasons of Old World cultures in late medieval or early modern period. The centre of the empire, Elidaen, has a heavy French and Mediterranean vibes and has been the traditional centre of power, culture and innovation on the continent. Nordlund seems a mix of Germanic countries, and is renowned for its geography and hardy people, though still culturally and ethnically unremarkable. Ossway is a mix of Ireland and Scotland, with highland clans brimming with red-haired warriors with heavy accents. Finally, Sudhaem appears to be a mix of Arabic and African cultures, with it's people dark-skinned and naming conventions taken after the Muslim world. All realms of the Empire are united by the One Faith.
• Femme Fatale: Astrid Rennier, all the way through. Beautiful, intelligent, resourceful and very aware of it, Astrid is an almost textbook example of the trope, down to the raven hair, ivory skin and near-constant smoking. Laure Voss tries to put up a simmilar air, but winds up somewhere between The Vamp and The Brute due to her fundamentally childish mindset.
• Feral Vampires: Those vampires whose Becoming occurs later, after their body and brain has decayed significantly, wind up as animalistic, mindless walking corpses more in line with original Eastern European myths about the undead. These beings are named wretched by mortals, who view them with hatred, and foulbloods by ancien vampires, who view them with contempt. Originally they were merely the unfortunate victims of a vampire's feeding, discarded after death and left to fend for themselves should they happen to reanimate, for to sire a foulblood by accident was seen as a mark of shame within kith circles. Even without a hunter's intervention, most wretched were left so feral and brain-damaged that their hunger completely consumed them, and they were often simply caught out in the open by sunrise, swiftly burning to a crisp. However, after Daysdeath, their numbers began to naturally surge as the sun could no longer harm them. This led Fabién Voss to discard the traditional kith stance on siring wretched and begin spawning an army of Dead under his command, an approach which was quickly emulated by the other bloodlines. Currently, the wretched form the bulk of the Endless Legion, a mindless, starving horde forever enthralled in service to their callous creators.
• Gratuitous French: The setting takes heavily after early modern France and characters will liberally pepper their speech with basic French words and expressions, such as "oui", "frére", "famille" etc. No actual French is used, however.
• Hemo Erotic: Feeding on blood is akin to foreplay for vampires, as it inflames their passion and is generally more pleasurable for them than any other sensation, sex included. While palebloods take more after their human half in this regard, they still become excited by merely seeing or smelling blood, and it is easy for them to mix the passions.
• Holy Burns Evil: Vampires cannot stand anything associated with true faith, be it iconography depicting saints and angels, consecrated ground, holy water or even the sound of earnest prayer. This is taken to its logical extreme by the Silversaints, who cover their bodies in sacred tattoos and thus become literally blinding to their foes, who are unable to so much as look at them.
• Horror Hunger: The curse of the vampires involves the perpetual, unending thirst for fresh blood, so powerful it drives the lesser vampires into downright suicidial frenzy. Though it can be slaked off by devouring animals, human blood will always be preferred, for it is the sweetest and most varied. The ''palebloods'' inherit this hunger from their undead parent, among other things, and it eventually always either consumers their mind until they're too weak to resist, or lose their minds supressing the urge. Smoking vampiric blood in the form of ''sanctus'' staves the urge off, but never truly sates it.
• Hunter of His Own Kind: The palebloods are Dhampyr children born of vampiric fathers and human mothers, and inherit many traits from their monstrous progenitors. Believing their birth to be a heavy sin against nature and God, the Silversaints of the Ordo Argent recruit and train these children to dedicate their lives to the destruction of His enemies, be they vampire, demon, fae or any other monster of the dark, so that they may redeem their own cursed souls. Vampires are their most common quarry, and indeed much of a Silversaint's training focuses specifically on combating their undead relatives.
  • The vampires of the Blood Esana take this to another level entirely. Founded by one of the first five vampires in history, Illia, who after centuries of existence came to believe her own existence a curse and sought salvation through the One Faith. Believing the souls of every vampire damned to Hell, Illia and her followers developed what they thought a remedy - drinking other vampires to death, devouring their souls and preserving them within their own bodies, forestalling their damnation with the intent of awaiting Judgement Day, when God would cleanse them of their taint and usher them into Heaven. As such, the Esana practiced Monstrous Cannibalism to the point where all the other feuding bloodlines banded together to annihilate them. And though driven to the brink of extinction, the remaining Esana continue their hunts all the way to the present.
• Immortality Immorality: The older the vampire gets, the more distant their memory of the human experience becomes, until the only thing which still holds value to them is their own unholy existence. As such, by the time vampires reach mediae status, they are essentially completely hollowed out and dedicated only to their own survival. No sin is too heavy, no atrocity too great, if it means the vampire can live to see another night. In the words of Law the Fourth:
  "The Dead feel as beasts, look as men, die as devils."
• The Lost Lenore: Astried Rennier for Gabriel de León. What exactly happened to her remains uncertain, and her exact status is left murky due to frequent dreamy visions and hallucinations Gabriel recalls, but it seems safe to say, whatever became of her, she is lost to de León by the present time.
• Monstrous Cannibalism: All vampires qualify to some degree, preying primarily upon humans, though they only rarely eat the flesh of their drained victims. Blood Esana take this to another level, however, being vampires who feed on other vampires for practical and religious reasons. Other vampires view these cousins the same way humans view ordinary vampires.
• The Necrocracy: As Daysdeath expands across the world, the ancien vampires figure out that the sun can no longer destroy them, and, more importantly, it can't harm the lesser, Feral Vampires they can beget. Fabién Voss, the eldest of Blood Voss and possibly the eldest vampire in the world, used this to create a vampiric army in his thrall, the Endless Legion, with which be conquered Talhost, the westernmost kingdom of the continent's Empire. After successfully taking it over and massacring much of the populace, the Legion's numbers swelled, and Voss styled himself the Forever King, now intent on seizing the entire Empire for his own. Though the vampires cause slaughter aplenty and often put entire cities to death (and later undead servitude), they are not wholly genocidal, and as the war begins winding down, vampires begin enthralling human survivors en masse rather than simply slaughtering them, now intent to secure their status atop the Forever King's new hierarchy.
• Night of the Living Mooks: The Endless Legion is the Forever King's undead host, composed of a handful of ancien vampire commanders, or bloodlords, and tens of thousands of mindless, bestial ''wretched''. When let loose upon an area, the wretched act instictively, searching out any centres of population and slaughtering them wholesale, with little in the way of tactics or concern for their own survival. When commanded by a bloodlord, however, the lesser vampires turn from slavering corpses into dangerous, superhuman footsoldiers, easily capable of outmatching even the finest infantry The Empire can bring to bear. And, of course, those killed by the Legion rise to join its ranks.
• The Night That Never Ends: Daysdeath is the term used to describe the sudden shroud of ash and smoke which rose into the sky twenty-seven years prior to the beginning of the story. The exact cause remains unknown, though most people suspect a falling star which crashed into the earth with enough force to send tons of debris into the lower atmosphere, blanketing the skies and preventing more than a smidgen of sunlight from passing through the shroud. The shroud has not abated in strength over the following decades, and the results have been devastating - repeated crop failure and abysmal harvests, the withering of forests and other natural greenery and the resulting food and material shortages, but perhaps worst of all, the undead no longer being constrained be the daily need to hide from the sun, their numbers quickly multiplying as the lesser vampires were no longer destroyed by the sunlight. The ancien vampires soon realized the opportunity this afforded, and not only have they embarked on a campaign of global conquest, they actively work to eliminate any chances of mankind dispelling the shroud through artificial means.
• Ominous Knocking: Fabién Voss knocks three times after he tracks down Gabriel at his home. And worse, he is confident the Silversaint will answer, seeing as his daughter Patience is currently grasped in his hands. Things only go downhill from there...
• The Order: The Ordo Argent, a Church Militant branch of the One Faith hierarchy operating out of the ancient San Michon monastery deep in the mountains of Nordlund. Though the order also counts regular staff, such as a group of secretive smiths known as "Blackthumbs" and an order of nuns called the Silver Sorority, its main members are the palebloods, cursed children born of union between vampires and mortal women. To attone for the sin of their birth and rescue their souls from damnation in Hell, young palebloods are conscripted into the Ordo and trained to hunt their vampiric kin, as well as other horrors of the night. The Ordo languished in obscurity for many centuries after its founding, but after Daysdeath, with the numbers of Dead soaring, it found itself enjoying the favour of Empress-Consort Isabella, allowing them to broaden their operations.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires within the setting largely fall into all the classic vampire tropes of a standard Gothic Horror setting. They are referred to as vampires, coldbloods or the Dead by mortals, and refer to each other as kith. Their curse is passed via bite and the draining of all blood from a victim, although it is a fickle process over which the vampire itself has no control. Depending on what state they rise in, they are classed either as highbloods, the eternally youthful and beautiful midnight aristocrats, or foubloods, also called the wretched, feral, mindless walking corpses whose only instinct is the consumption of blood. A vampire's offspring is completely subservient to their sire, and cannot in any way defy their will. Based on their age, vampires are divided into fledglings (a few years old and still somewhat human), mediae (a few decades old and only barely human) and finally the ancien (centuries to millennia old and utterly inhuman). They have the standard set of strengths (Super-Strength, Super-Speed, Super-Toughness, Super-Reflexes, Healing Factor, Hypnotic Eyes) and weaknesses (sunlight, silver, fire, decapitation, impaling, holy objects and icons, running water, dwelling thresholds etc.), as well as more unique gifts particular to the four great bloodlines to which all vampires belong. Finally, despite being technically dead they are apparently alive enough to maintain certain bodily functions, so much so as to couple with mortal women and sire Dhampyr children, known as palebloods, who inherit some of their supernatural characteristics.
• Our Werebeasts Are Different: The duskdancers are, by Silversaint accounts, similar to werewolves from common myth - humans cursed via bite to assume a bestial, feral form between dusk and dawn. In reality, they are far more akin to a human tribe than the vampires they are compared to. Refering to themselves as wealdlings, their curse is in fact purely hereditary, and its bearers control whether they wish to shift shape, albeit they can only do so during sunrise or sunset. Repeated shapechanging does, however, take a toll on the wealdling, as their forms gradually begin to merge more and more. Though their bites are not cursed, they certainly are enchanted, being one of the few things which can scar a paleblood and tear even the iron hide of a Voss vampire. Three distinct bloodlines are known to exist, primarily in Ossway - the cat-kin leófuil, the wolf-kin velfuil and bear-kin úrfuil. Little love is lost between them.
• Outside-Context Problem: Aside from the hordes of vampires now free to roam much of the land as they please, Daysdeath has also caused the death of much of the larger plantlife across the continent, including most trees. These have been gradually overgrown and devoured by varying species of fungi, now covering entire forests in a grim parody of their original greenery. On its own, this would have been a challenge to both human logistics and natural food chains. However, in the enchanted woods of the Ossian weald, the lichen somehow mutated into horrific, chimeric abominations of human, animal and fungi, driven by naught but blind hunger. How and why this happened none can explain and few try to uncover.
• The Quest: A large part of Gabriel's retelling revolves around his part in a quest seeking the Holy Grail, the ancient artifact thought to be mankind's last hope at defeating the Dead for good. Then most of the Company of the Grail is killed off midway through the first novel and the story becomes a race to arrive at his original destination with the Grail intact.
• Power Tattoo: The aegis is a beautiful, intricate full-body tattoo worn by the Silversaints of the Ordo Argent. It acts as both a conduit for channelling the power of their faith and a supernatural armour/repellent, since it is painted with silvered ink and depicts holy inconography, positively blinding to all creatures of the dark. It has three segments: the chest is inked after the Trial of the Blood, after the initiate Silversaint survives his first fight with a lowly vampire and their bloodline is determined; the left afterr the Trial of the Hunt, after the initiate survives his first hunt out in the field; and, finally, the sword arm is decorated after the Trial of the Sword, where the initiate has to slay his first beat with his own sword. The chest centrepiece usually depicts the crest of the bloodline to which the particular paleblood belongs, but other designs are also known to exist.
• Proud Warrior Race: The highlander clans of Ossway count among the toughest warriors in the Empire, with an incredibly ferocious, martial culture and endemic warfare between clans even in times of peace. The high prevalence of duskdancers among their number, as well as their religious dispute with the rest of the realm, only serves to entrench their already fierce indepence. As the saying goes:
  I war with my sister, until,
  We war with our kinfolk, until,
  We war with the Highlands, until,
  We war with the world."
• Public Domain Artifact: The Holy Grail shows up, initially described a near carbon copy of the real-world artifact. Apparently, it was held by San Michon to "catch the blood of the Redeemer as he lay dying on the wheel". Later it was carried forth by crusaders spreading the One Faith across the Empire. As it turns out, the "catching blood" part of the saying was a bit more metaphorical than people assumed, since the Holy Grail is actually the Redeemer's descendant, Dior Lachance, invested with His powers.
• Red Baron: Badass titles and nom de guerres abound within the setting, particularly among the undead aristocracy. Examples include:
  • Gabriel de León: The Black Lion & The Last Son of Lorson
  • Fabién Voss: The Forever King
  • Dior Lachance: The Prince of Thieves, The Lord of Liars & The Holy Grail
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Vampires and palebloods who have freshly fed will have their eyes redden, often to the point of completely colouring their whites. This also happens whenever Silversaints smoke sanctus.
• Reforged into a Minion: Every mortal killed by vampires has a chance of rising again as one of their kind. Though the highblood vampires themselves have no control over this selection, they simply reason that, if they slaughter enough people, a decent chunk will reanimate under their thrall no matter what.
• Religious Vampire: Blood Esana, the Faithful (or alternatively, Esani, the Faithless) are less of a vampiric breed at all, but rather a strange, religious sect of vampires who find converts not among mortals, but among other coldbloods. The Esana believe their undead state to be a curse, a damnation by God who has consigned them to Hell, along with the rest of their Dead kin. To avoid this fate, they believe they are charged with collecting the souls of their kin, protecting them within their bodies till Judgement Day arrives for God to cleanse them of their taint. Other vampires rarely appreciate their ministrations, mostly because this involves the Esana draining other vampires to ash. The fact that this twisted form of cannibalism allows even fledgling Esana to grow exponentially in power only compounds the fear and loathing all other Bloods have for the Faithful.
• The Renfield: Thralls are mortals sworn to the service of vampiric masters, seduced through a combination of vampiric domination, blood addiction and plain old human greed. Drinking a vampire's blood on three separate nights is enough to become permanently enthralled, which is part of the reason why palebloods smoke vampire blood rather than drinking it. Thralls gain a measure of additional strength, speed and fortitude, though not much, and their natural lifespan is slightly extended (albeit few survive long enough to enjoy it).
• Shout-Out: Being an unabashedly tropey piece of work, the series contains many, clearly visible to any fans of Gothic Horror, Dark Fantasy or Post-Apocalypses:
  • The dhampyrs of the setting are explicitly referred to as "palebloods" and wear road leathers identical to the base outfits of the Hunter from Bloodborne. They likewise hunt creatures of the night and use special blood to heal and empower themselves (albeit they smoke it as powder, rather than drinking or injecting it into themselves).
  • One of the officers in the army of Empress Isabella is known as "Capitaine Belmont". Some of the Silversaints also use flails as their weapons of choice.
  • All palebloods eventually succumb to the sangiré, literally called the Red Thirst, a gradual rising of their bloodthrist which eventually leads to either madness or corruption. Much like another group of vampiric warriors.
  • Dior turns out to be a young lesbian girl with a special condition which renders her desirable to several factions in the group. Making her way across a desolate landscape riven with zombie-like creatures, she gradually develops a parental bond with her initially unwilling guardian who previously tragically lost his own young daughter. The novel culminates with one of the factions attempting to sacrifice Dior's life to potentially save humanity, only to be stopped and slaughtered by Gabriel before they can do so. Ring any bells?
    • To a lesser degree, Dior is also a young, white-haired girl with a special lineage and mystical powers locked within her blood, who has the potential to save her world from the apocalypse. She is eventually found and adopted by a veteran monster hunter who has given up hope on starting a family of his own. Except instead of a White Wolf, her new warden is known as the Black Lion.
• Silver Has Mystic Powers: Silver burns evil almost as much as holy objects - combined, the two make for the best vampire hunting gear one could ask for. Silversaints use the metal for everything, from their weapons, forged from the silversteel alloy, to their equipment and even the aegis tattoos upon their bodies, painted with an ink infused with colloidal silver.
• Slowly Slipping Into Evil: Eventually, if they live long enough, all palebloods will succumb to the hungry curse passed onto them by their fathers, the thirst within them becoming unbearable. When this happens, rather than risk losing their minds or becoming no better than the beasts they hunt, a Silversaint is taken to "Heaven's Gate" by his brothers at San Michon. There, his throat is cut and his body cast into the waters of the river below, ensuring an honourable death and a short path to Heaven, or so it is said.
• Training from Hell: The initiates at San Michon are trained vigorously and harshly, since the elder brothers believe it is kinder to kill them than to send them fight the horrors of night unprepared. It involves not only rigorous exercise and demanding study sessions, but also live sparring with sharp (albeit only steel) blades which do inflict real injuries. Since Good Thing You Can Heal is very much in effect for all initiates, this is not as dangerous as it sounds... but exactly as painful.
• Traumatic Superpower Awakening: Gabriel's powers fully manifest for the first time right as he is having sex with his girlfriend, who is then on her period. Instinctively, he begins drinking her blood, and only realizes what he is doing and stops himself when the girl is inches away from death. Naturally, she panics and screams for help, which most likely would have gotten Gabriel executed if not for the timely arrival of the Silversaints. Gabriel continues to be haunted by this for many years after, enough to swear off relations with women completely... for a time, anyway.
• Unreliable Narrator: Gabriel de León serves as the primary narrator of the story, his words being scribed by the vampire historian Jean-Francois Chastain to essentially narrate his autobiography. However, how much of what he states is true is left up in the air, and Word of God declares that he is not being honest about everything he tells his jailer.
• Vampire Hunter: The Silversaints of the Ordo Argent are sworn to hunt creatures of darkness across the Empire, with vampires constituting their primary and most common quarry, though they are also mentioned to have hunted witches, demons, faekin and duskdancers.
• Vampire Monarch: Fabién Voss, the eldest of Blood Voss and possibly the eldest vampire in existence. After initiating the first undead rising which overran Talhost, he styled himself the Forever King and began conquering the rest of the Empire. Following his demise at Gabriel's hands, Margot Chastain tries to claim his throne and styles herself Empress of Wolves and Men.
• Vampire Variety Pack: Beyond the basic powers native to all vampires, four distinct bloodlines exist among them, each endowed with an additional powerset particular to their sires:
  • Blood Voss, or Ironhearts, can make their already tough skin as hard as steel, tough enough it can withstand silver and fire. Additionally, they can also read the minds of anyone within their vicinity. Their symbol shows a crowned white raven.
  • Blood Chastain, or Shepherds, can speak to and bond certain kinds of animals, most often bats, rats, crows or wolves. The best can also shapeshift directly into animal forms. Their symbol shows two black wolves beneath twin moons.
  • Blood Illon, or Whispers, take the common vampiric mind domination to the next level through emotional control, inflaming or supressing feelings and sensations at their leisure. Their symbol shows a heart-shaped shield set with a weave of roses and serpents.
  • Blood Dyvok, or Untamed, are gifted with strength even other vampires find unholy, beng capable of punching through fortress walls, shaking the earth with their steps and tearing even other coldbloods apart with disgusting ease. Their symbol shows a white bear on a broken shield.
  • Blood Esana, or Faithful, are less a Blood and more of a cult, composed of those vampires who come to view their undead status as a curse to be redeemed from. To do so, they hunt and drain other vampires, so as to imbibe their souls and stave them from damnation in Hell, which also grants them access to the powers of other bloodlines, as well as their own sanguimancy.