It has been millennia of conflict and hatred since Humanity began their first crusade to eradicate the Vampire race, and even longer since Vampires were cursed with immortality and blood-thirst.  Down the ages, Humans have fought to destroy Vampires and Vampires to dominate Humanity. It took the iron will of one Vampire, Kain, to force a resolution to these conflicts, subjugating Nosgoth under his rule and establishing his unassailable court in the Heartlands.

Those Humans not corralled as playthings, servants and fodder for the Vampires were pushed out to the edges of the world, carving out an existence in the mountains and deep forests of Nosgoth, or exiled across the Great Southern Sea to the Hinterlands beyond.

Then, not long after executing his first-raised Lieutenant Raziel by casting him into the Lake of the Dead, Kain disappeared. Gone, in search of a way to deliver Nosgoth from the corruption that had overcome the land, Kain left the throne and his Empire in the hands of his five remaining Lieutenants. Riven by jealousy and conflicts, it was not long before their respective Clans began fighting among themselves.

With the Vampires focused on their internal squabbles, Nosgoth’s Human population seized the chance to grow stronger. Cities were rebuilt, skills relearned and Humanity’s power recovered to the point where they could launch a devastating attack on their Vampire masters. This attack reunited the warring Vampire Clans in the face of a common enemy. Now, each race is pitted against the other.

This is a war for Nosgoth; this is a war for the survival of each race.

Nosgoth's iron-willed Emperor Kain has disappeared, leaving his throne empty and the world in the hands of his Lieutenants. Riven by jealousy and conflict, it was not long before the Vampire Clans began fighting among themselves.

Only the threat of a newly resurgent Humanity launching a war of extinction against them could reunite the warring Clans. Now they turn their inhuman strengths on a common enemy, to stop the genocidal march of Humankind.

A Legacy Under Threat

After centuries of persecution, the Vampires of Nosgoth now revel in their place at the top of the food chain. Their dark gift grants them spectacular physical strength and speed, and they see no reason to temper it. Having become the undisputed masters of the land under Kain’s imperial rule, Nosgoth’s Vampires see Humans as cattle. They prey on Humans for blood, but they also recognise Humanity’s potential to become extremely powerful warriors, having launched numerous crusades against Vampire-kind in ages past.

With Kain having seemingly absconded his throne and with Raziel, his first-raised, cast into the Abyss, the Vampires are now ruled by Kain’s five remaining lieutenants – Turel, Dumah, Rahab, Zephon and Melchiah – each having sired a Clan of their own Vampiric progeny. Each Clan is named after its respective lieutenant-patriarch; each is in possession of jealously guarded territory.

Over time, the Lieutenants and their Clans have developed powers and skills of their own, changing and evolving to become different, distinct close-range killers. Some of these mutations stemmed from the curse placed on Kain’s soul, but not all of these changes occurred naturally, with some Clans forcefully inducing their own terrible metamorphoses through eldritch magic and ritual self-mutilation. These differences were one reason for the civil war that sparked between the Vampire Clans, each claiming superiority over the other.

The other reason was pure decadence; this civilisation had everything, but wanted more. Without Kain to command them, Vampire fledglings forgot the deaths of earlier generation and focused on pleasure and power.
Kain had allowed the Legions their intrigues, even tolerating assassinations, but he forbade outright warfare between the Clans – it was wasteful and could lead to Humans having dangerous ideas. Kain, as ever, had been characteristically prescient.

With the Razielim now bereft of a leader, the other Clans fell upon their territory – some wanting to seek glory by mirroring their Emperor’s actions, others to expand their influence by seizing precious land and resources, and a few simply to settle pernicious old scores. Once hunting season was declared on Raziel’s brood and in the absence of Kain’s vice-like grip on events, it did not take much for the latent hostility between the self-serving Clans to erupt in full-blown civil war.

Time passes fleetingly for Vampires who, in their arrogance, paid little attention to breeches in the now poorly guarded blood farms and breeding pens. Only a couple of centuries after escaping, new generations of Humanity had settled and then flourished in territories outside of the Lieutenants’ direct control. Soon they had raised an army. It took the devastating loss of a few outposts for the Vampires to realise that Humanity’s resurgence was no mere nuisance, but a formidable threat to their civilisation.

And so the Clans have put their differences aside, at least for now, as the Vampires fight to stop the bloody march of man and to re-establish their hard-won dominance over Nosgoth.

Thousands of years on from when their ancestors attempted to extinguish the race of Vampires from Nosgoth, the remaining Humans have been paying the price for that war ever since.

Having risen from slavery and rebuilt their civilization, Humans have joined forces from all corners of the world to exterminate the Vampires once and for all. Growing in number, their rediscovery of lost expertise in weapon-crafting and new technologies in alchemy now makes them formidable warriors.

From Slaves to Soldiers

The blood feud between Humans and Vampires has spanned the entire history of Nosgoth. Indeed it can be noted as its one immutable trait. Vampires have preyed on Humans since time immemorial – drinking their blood, violating everything that it is to be Human. In Human eyes, every Vampire is an abomination worthy only of extermination.

Thousands of years on from when their ancestors attempted to eradicate the race of Vampires from Nosgoth, the remaining Humans have been paying the price for that war ever since. Split into disparate communities, often without any communication, Human communities developed their own identity. Accents, fighting styles and skills varied from settlement to settlement.

Forced from warriors and Vampire hunters into being slaves and food for their masters, Humans eked out a miserable existence. Generations of Humans were reared by the Vampires in blood farms, the numbers tripling or more each generation, and the ease with which each Vampire could feed grew. Newborns were denied light, taken at birth from the breeding pens and drained until they were near death before being allowed to recuperate.
However, as the Vampire civil war took more and more of the Vampires’ attention, the Humans seized the chance to regroup. Growing in number, stealing new technologies in alchemy and rediscovering lost techniques in weapon making, Humans have now expanded from rough villages to retake and rebuild their lost cities.

Those Humans who survived battle with their former masters passed their skills and experience onto new generations. So it was that a new Human army came into being, fighting for the same cause as those in eras past – the utter extinction of the Vampire race.