Death Begetting of Death

Death Begetting of Death is a tome discovered through use of Study-related Inquiries by Arnica.

## History

After growing concerns surrounding the ongoing activities of the Onyx Shroud after a visit to Last Gasp Isle, upon which the Crypt of Maledict's Pulse was discovered, efforts were made to further learn about the Onyx Shroud's interests and efforts.

To her disappointment however, the topic proved too niche, or otherwise unknown to literary texts given the secrecy of the organisation. Nonetheless, she managed to find a tome that seemed to pertain to the history of vampires in Ahlus, which no doubt served at least somewhat to shape those that remain into what they are at present day.

## Research

### Completed by Arnica - Inquiry (Study)

Shortly after Aita's Second Gift, when the Principal Races surged into being, guided and accelerated by the aid of the Sixteen, civilisation was born, and the civility between the Principal Races that came with it. Within a few years cities sprawled across the continent, shaped by hands ephemeral and empyreal alike, knowledge blossomed and spread, as did the teachings of the very Gods that made this so. The Principal Sixteen had found their victory over their malign foes, those foes that harried and lusted after the lands of the continent, and with it came peace. Into this peace were they spread, creations of malice and malediction, cruelty and curse. Just as joy and love, understanding and communion flowed through the populaces, just as the noble blue blood of Tohmos served as bastion onto which settlements were affixed and guided, this darkness in the stagnant veins of a few infiltrated, feasting and multiplying by the blood moon. A plague, not of disease, but of the dead, who brought with them further death.

The lands present many dangers, and there were always those that wandered too far from the path, suffering the consequences of such actions, but when those that stood strong and together, like iron, likewise fell to malice and malediction, actions were taken, were demanded. For this purpose, the Order of the Two Eyes was created, clerics and paladins dedicated to Taranis and Emes both, their shields and armour emblazoned with the sun and moon, the eyes of the Morning Light and the Custodian of Starlight. Two breeds came from the curses of the Black Blood, the accursed varlet of the Weaver of Serpents, though the threat they offered was not equal. Those created of the full moon were more numerous, but could be quelled, cured, curses broken, normality restored and pruning of foul memories scrubbed from their minds. Instead, it was unto those created of the new moon, when the sky grows dark, for those could not be cured, only guided into that which they already were - the deceased. Death fell upon both sides like a hungering beast, and war raged between the accorded and the accursed with blades of divine radiance and stakes of ash, aspen, buckthorn, juniper and willow against fangs and claws. Such violence and bloodshed delighted the Black Blood, and so they grew bold, stepping beyond scaled grasp.

Such a step took them from the shadows into the proverbial light however, for shortly after, it is said that Venari's understanding of how to share the New Moon's Gift faded, stolen as if by a thief in the night. The call of the Morning Light and the Custodian of Starlight continued to be heard, and so the Order of the Two Eyes continued their onslaught, a costly onslaught, but an onslaught nonetheless - and with it vampires, which had been able to share their gift and feast so freely found that they could do neither. They sired halfbreeds, devoid of their strength, their longevity, their secret and quiet places were engulfed in radiance, and they burned where they cowered. By the end of the first century since Aita's Second Gift, the creatures, deliverers of death had found the same beget unto them, and the lands rejoiced for it.