[BOOK]
TITLE=Blood Keep Tome

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TEXT=The Blood Kingdom first came into being during the Age of Legend when Vinga, Palatine of the Vampires, brought his eleven 'sons' and the rest of the Vampires out of the UnderRealm to settle in the Carpathian Mountains where they have ever been a blight since. Because both the Capricans and Tuskens were driven from their ancestral territories during this time, the two races have harbored the greatest enmity against the Vampires out of all Beasts.
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TEXT=Lord Vinga was mighty and his Blood Kingdom just as mighty. Neither Beast nor Undead nor anything else upon the land could resist for too long before they were overrun by the strength of the Vampire legions. Thus the whole of Europe was cast into Bleakness for two millennia, for while the Beasts did indeed attempt to resist, the many centuries old ban on arcane magic prevented them from having an edge against this new enemy.
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TEXT=It was the legendary Beast Atan and his White Shield that ended the long Bleakness and drove the Vampires back to the Carpathians, earning his place as the greatest of all Beasts; however, it was Sargon, mightiest of all Taurians, who ended the Palatine's rule only a few centuries later. With the death of Vinga, the Blood Kingdom fell into chaos as Vinga's seven surviving 'sons', the Vajs, fought over who would succeed him. From these seven Vajs, the seven Vampire Broods we know today were born.
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TEXT=The Vampires tried desperately to remain relevant in the end of the Age of Legend as a new enemy, Man, had come on the scene. Unlike the Undead or the Beasts, Man posed a threat to everything, being a race that only took for itself in the end. In an attempt to turn the tide in their favor, the Vampires captured many Beasts, creating the Ferals out of them. Unfortunately for the Vampires, the three Feral races borne of the Longtails, the Ursines and the Fangren, turned on their supposed 'masters' and proved just as dangerous to the Vampires themselves as to everyone else.
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TEXT=The Age of Man was just as troublesome for the Vampires as for all other living things on the Earth. Caught in a struggle with the Ursine and Fangren Ferals, the Vampires waged the Veiled War in secret as neither side dared to let the race of Man know of their existence save only in the realm of nightmares and dark rumor. When Man destroyed himself, the Vampires, like all other minions of Djall, saught to fill the void left behind by Man; but, this was stymied by the Gods who paved the way for the Reclamation and the return of the Beasts to Earth.
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TEXT=For centuries following the return of Gaia's Beasts, the Vampires remained quiet until something happened that had not happened since the Age of Legend. Lord Drakul, vampire Vaj of the Koltai Brood and 'son' of Koltai himself, gained control of the Koltai Brood, then one by one, brought the other six Broods into submission. With the help of the Goddess Sethis, Drakul gained might not seen in thousands of years among the Vampires and was soon declared the first Palatine since the death of Vinga. With Drakul now ruling the entire Blood Kingdom, the Vampires became fully active once more.
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TEXT=One of Drakul's own 'sons', Valkal, was placed in charge of the western reaches where he and the others soon began to expand the Vampire territory beyond the Carpathians for the first time since the Bleakness. Valkal eventually pushed deep into Beast territory, driving them back, only to be stopped deep in the Lurker Blackwater Vale near the edge of Swineland. Due to the chaotic nature of the Warpigs and the now very fortified Beasts, the vampires under Valkal found they could not proceed further.
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TEXT=The solution to Valkal's problem came in the form of a pompous Warpig calling himself 'Boss' Hawg who, for whatever delusional reasons, chose to openly invite the Vampires into Swineland itself, thinking he could use their power to gain control of the entire region. Seeing a golden opportunity, Valkal and his vampire hordes took advantage of this warpig's ignorance and began the push into what was surely the weak point in the Beasts' defenses.
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TEXT=Vampire Blood Keeps are well known to Beastdom. These fortresses are the seats of power for the Vampire legions. Each Keep possesses a Sanctum Sanguis, the source of vampiric power in the Keep. To truly destroy a Blood Keep, one must locate its Sanctum Sanguis and destroy it. Mind you, this task alone is gargantuan at best for the Vampires guard these Keeps well and only the Vampire Lords are permitted near their Sanctums.
