**Wraithborn Apostates – Heretics of the Hollow Vein** --- ### **Overview** The **Wraithborn Apostates** are a rogue sect of undead who have rejected the authority of Queen [[Callidora]], the [[Vein Law]], and the sacred bloodlines of [[Hexa Landing]]. Once members of noble vampire houses or high court, they have forsaken their oaths and embraced spiritual decay — becoming incorporeal wraith-vampires fueled by hunger, memory, and vengeance. To the Queen, they are outlaws. To the [[Ebonclaw Conclave]], they are forbidden experiments. To the [[Vein Sentinel|Vein Sentinels]], they are traitors marked for death. Yet to the desperate, forgotten, or broken — they offer freedom. --- ### **Philosophy and Rebellion** The Wraithborn believe that the [[Vein Law]] is a lie — a gilded cage trapping vampirekind in stagnation. They see the binding of bloodlines, the hoarding of ancient power, and the rigid court hierarchy as a betrayal of what vampirism should be: unshackled immortality. By severing their physical ties to blood and body, they become something else — **wraith-like**, untethered from material form, able to move through the world as ghostly predators sustained by raw soul essence and forbidden rites. They call this transformation **The Hollowing**. --- ### **Structure and Secrecy** The Apostates operate in hidden crypts, shattered ruins beneath the city, or hollowed districts long thought lost to plague or curse. Their hierarchy is nontraditional — they follow **Echo-Sovereigns**, incorporeal visionaries who commune with a force they call _The First Hunger_. These beings are revered like prophets. Members include: - **Whisperborn**: Initiates trained to sever their corporeal forms. - **Graven Wraiths**: Former vampires who’ve survived The Hollowing. - **Shadow Apostles**: Mouthpieces of the Echo-Sovereigns. - **Wailbinders**: Casters who manipulate emotional residue and soul-threads. Some say the Wraithborn number only dozens. Others believe they infest entire catacombs beneath Hexa. --- ### **Forbidden Magic and Powers** Wraithborn Apostates are immune to most traditional vampire weaknesses — sunlight, radiant fire, even holy wards. Their incorporeality renders them resistant to mundane weapons, and their magic often bypasses standard defenses. Their known powers include: - **Wail of the Hollowed**: A psychic scream that forces targets to relive their worst memories. - **Phase Veil**: Allows them to pass through walls or vanish into shadows. - **Soulbite**: A feeding method that drains personality and will, rather than blood. - **Fragment Graft**: They steal pieces of others’ memories and stitch them into their own. --- ### **Conflict with the Queen** No faction has drawn the wrath of Queen [[Callidora]] more than the Wraithborn Apostates. Their very existence is a rejection of her sacred order. While open war has not erupted, the **Elite [[Vein Sentinel|Vein Sentinels]]** are often dispatched to root them out — though many return without results. The Apostates have attempted: - Sabotaging bloodline rituals. - Corrupting newborn vampires. - Whispering anti-royal rhetoric into dreams. - Stealing or destroying Red Ink documents. Some even claim a Harpy turned Wraithborn… but no one dares name her. --- ### **Player Hooks** - A noble NPC is revealed to be a Wraithborn sleeper agent. - PCs are hired to recover a memory scroll, only to discover it leads to an Apostate lair. - One of the players begins hearing whispers at night… and dreams of floating. - The Echo-Sovereigns offer the PCs freedom from the [[Vein Law]] — but at a terrible cost. --- ### **Tone and Presence** Whispered. Ethereal. Terrifying. The Wraithborn are the spiritual horror beneath [[Hexa Landing]]’s political nightmare — incorporeal heretics who see the city's foundation as rot to be erased. Their presence signals a **war of the soul** is coming.