Exploring the Old Blood

The Old Blood is a... complicated topic.

For one, it's a blatant reference to Bloodborne and likely will need a rename at some point. It's something that so far has had a somewhat vague and nebulous part in the greater "narrative" of SR. It made it's first appearance in the Paladin Oath of the Old Blood, with the intent of making a sustain/CC Paladin that wants to be in the thick of it and surrounded, ideally. In a recent discussion with Richard the two of us pushed the feelers out on it a bit, giving it some semblance of purpose and origin in the precursor era, hopefully giving it more of a foothold and place in the world. Even the "official" name, Progenitor Strain, is something I'm not 100% sold on, feeling it may lean too close to Resident Evil (especially with painful timing of Village).

The Old Blood, or Progenitor Strain, was something discovered in the mountains at the southern part of the continent, long in hibernation and awaiting a revival. The manipulation of the Strain became a cornerstone of this culture as they developed it into all kinds of biotech and used it to alter enhance their civilians and agriculture. The initial drafted intent is that this biotech eventually spun out of the culture's control, that possibly has some connections to the implied cataclysm, something academics and experts of the time feared may come in time.

The Blood itself is a curious lifeform, fully capable of self-replication it doesn't act purely with the goal of unfettered replication (some kind of RED Goo situation), content to convert host cells as directed, or naturally just to alter the host. Independent hosts or biomasses aren't actively hostile, content to keep to themselves, acting somewhat selfishly in that their primary goal seems to be survival of itself and the host. The Blood does have some negative aspects, at the very least increasing aggression or predatory behaviour, as well as a highly mutagenic nature making it something that CAN become a problem. The Tides of Sin mini-campaign is being slightly retconned to portray the events of It Sleeps Beneath the Waves as a rogue element of an escaped weaponised strain that was awakened by the inciting incident of the adventure.

We had a significant back and forth about the "realism" aspects of what is likely a virus, but I have a strong intent to leave "blank" parts in what I've put together for SR, with the intent that another DM can use as many elements in their own game without locking themselves in to my setting if they dislike it. To that end the true origin is left a mystery. In a more epic or high fantasy game I can see the Old Blood being "Godsblood", a remainder of the war between Gods and Primordials in the Dawn War. In a game with (somehow more) sciences fantasy elements it could be something like nanomachines or some kind of alien tech. A dark fantasy/cosmic horror intent could revert back to the Bloodborne equivalent of being some fluid of an Eldritch Being. This is a conscious choice I will work to maintain, even if I wind up evolving a specific origin in my own game.

The Old Blood is intended to be the origin of many of the parasitic items amongst others with some kind of biotech themes attached to them, with the implication that these are a stable offshoot of the Strain or even the results of some kind of biological manufacturing process. A good example of this being tied to the greater world comes from the Healing Stingers, the Stingers act as an alternative to potions, used as a bonus action to heal (like the common houserule). The insidious aspect being that repeated use leads to a Stinger Sickness relating to the Strain gaining a foothold in your biology. The Stonegraves region and it's ubiquitous qausi-radiation ties further into this, with the Wasting being something unaffected my magical healing and instead relying on natural healing, however the Stingers can counteract this by supercharging the body's natural healing, as such, the Stonebloods are heavy users of the Stingers. What the mechanical downsides are to the Stingers I haven't yet codified.

Currently there seems to be 3 quasi-factions or cultures developing as the backdrop of the precursor era, the biotech users whose power and influence revolved around a mastery of the Progenitor Strain, a magical/magitech faction who are arguably the least fleshed out in terms of their capabilities and limits and finally the sci-fi tech culture responsible for elements like the mechs, Mantles (as mentioned in the previous post) and the Waygates. So far these groups aren't portrayed as having any particularly viscous rivalry between each other as there's been some implied co-operation between areas (the Manufactory and Soul Forge are based in extremely separate locations). That said, I'm tempted to take this in a pretty unusual (in my opinion) direction and rather than having these be disparate nations/states and instead have them being something akin to corporations in either a united or disparate society, having a powerful influence over the peoples of the area without having a monolithic culture or ethnicity. Plenty of time for that to coalesce though.