Thelka Hellriegel was a visionary in her field, a Hunter, of Novoselic's legendary caste, who sought to catalogue and thus understand the Beasts that plagued the Novosel wilderness. In her volumes, she describes travelling the length and breadth of Europe, much of Eurasia, and even a locale she gives the name 'Vaust', which houses the strangest of the Bestiary's entries.
The Royal Bestiary Corps, a government institution under South Novoselic's control, continued to use updated editions of Frau Hellriegel's work for well over a century after its publishing.
The cities of Europa house a grand evil. However, my treatise on the nobility will have to wait. For now, we talk of the Blood-Glut, the Passion Eater, the Leech of Slum and Schloss: The Vampyre.
In truth, many bloodlines of these beasts infest the world, and many beasts besides are known by the name. However, in this chapter, we shall focus on two of the Novosel Bloodlines - The Mircean and the Mircallan.
The Mircean Vampyre, the Blood-Glut, has existed since antiquity, but the oldest and strongest known bearer of this curse is Mircea II, Prince of Vallakia. When the young prince and his father were slain by General Hunyadi in the Vallakian War against the Ottomans, the Curse of Drăculești blood mingled with the present Irkallan energies, making a true monster out of Mircea. Empowered by both his bloodline, and the darkness of Lucifer's Abyss, Mircea turned the rest of his living kin, and formed an underground kingdom of blood-suckers that has plagued Northeastern Novoselic ever since. It is hypothesized that a series of subterranean tunnels, a network of sorts, links the morgues of Novoselic's cities, converging in a hypothetical Deep City of the dead. No evidence exists for this, other than deep, filled-in holes appearing wherever a Blood-Glut appears. It seems that Mircean Vampyres are turned through a Knighting Ceremony of sorts. Scenes of a starved man drinking from a bloody chalice before his master feature heavily on engravings known to belong to Mircean aspirants.
The Mircean varies greatly in appearance, from the regal and terrifying lords, to the starved bat-like peasantry. As if it were not enough for the dead to form a mockery of Medieval Novoselic beneath the earth, they seem to follow centuries-old caste systems religiously. Their claws, teeth and rusted blades are deadly, but their true power lies in their mastery of the dark. A shadow of any size may harbour a Mircean, though alleys and castles are their favourite haunts. It is known that a Mircean Vampyre needs but a pint or two of blood in intermittent bursts, but their thirst is often so strong that they will drain any human they come into contact with, operating on mad instinct at the faintest whiff of blood. Novosels have known for a century or more to never travel with a wound, lest Mircea Dracul sniff it out.
The Mircallan Vampyre, the Passion Eater, comes directly from the energies of Irkalla. The desperation of the void is said to have first touched one Mircalla Karnstein, a noble from Styria, Novoselic, in her dying breaths. Countess Karnstein, a homosexual in an era of repression, slaked her undead thirst for love with other young women. First, reports of a sickness amongst the Styrian nobility surfaced, with girls growing ill and being taken by Consumption. This pestilence took just under a hundred in Karnstein's first spree. The Second Spree, another series of sicknesses linked to the Vampyre, occurred a mere two years ago in rural Styria. The account of one Laura Wachter, a young woman who was fed upon by Karnstein, provides the clearest account of the Mircallan strain's physiology. This account is provided in the papers of Doctor Arthur Hesselius of the Albian Royal Institute of Psychosexual Maladies, and out of professional courtesy I will not recount the paper's contents here.
The Mircallan feeds off of blood, but not exclusively. A debt of the spirit is paid to the Vampyre, taking the form of love, or passion, or other strong emotion. The Vampyre has some of its soul pieced together, while the victim has some of theirs stolen away. Recovery from the Mircallan's soul-drinking is possible, but unlikely. Even lingering affections for the beast can be deadly, and those who continue to yearn for it face certain death. When a pale, beautiful stranger comes to your door, offer what hospitality your custom dictates, but do not get attached. Attachment is food for the Mircallan, and when it feeds, the victim will likely die, slowly withering. Most Mircallan Vampyres are homosexuals, though this is not a hard rule.