Cursed Blood, part 2 - Larkhill Village
Cursed Blood Old School Essentials
Cursed Blood is the codename for a Castlevania inspired setting of psychoactive horror.
The Boot #
The Larkhill estate is the home of the Baron Larkhill, an ancient, insane, grieving vampire who lives in the spiny tower at the center of the sprawling collection of castle buildings and farmland.
The Larkhill estate sits a dozen or so miles from the borders of the city of Basarab, and the presence of Larkhill's small army and it's vampire commanders hangs like a guillotine over the thriving port city. A visitor to the Larkhill estate, however, will be first struck by the scenic pastoral nature of the Larkhill village where those indebted to the Baron and his family still work the land. An ancient grain mill hangs amongst the hilly outcroppings.
Larkhill Village is known by those who live there as "The Boot", and it is kept a dry village by Lakhill mandate, as they, in a quirk of their appetites, find the taste of alcohol filtered through human blood to be disgusting.
The village is occasionally tormented by the nighttime antics of the Baron's oldest son, Fergie. Fergie is a great enthusiast of hunting, and loves to ride his horses at night. He has tired of foxes, and will sometimes use the villagers as an alternative. The Baron's second son, Shaw, rarely visits the village but spends a great deal of his time adminstering the finances and politics of the village. Lyra, the youngest child of the Baron and his only daughter has a temperament something Fergie but without his cruelty, and therefore spends much of her time deeply bored.
The Baron himself only visits the village on the occasion of his feedings, where he is presented with a young adult from the village.
Because of these things, the villagers are often discontent. The Larkhills overcome this by keeping the villagers laboring all hours, and by allowing only Church sects friendly to the vampires to flourish there. A sect known as Church of St June of Obeisance, or otherwise "The Small Church", is the main outlet for the religious amongst the serfdom. There is also folk magic. A witch known as Mother Stone has lived in this village and provided folk rememdies to its people for many years. She is an excellent point of contact for the players here, who will find little else of interest amongst the poor and overworked people of The Boot.
In fact, a group of player characters will likely only pass through on the way to the Larkhill castle itself, which we will discuss soon.
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"Scary castle" by Michał Koralewski - mobile photography is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
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