GLoGtober Day 2: the Blood Bank

 On the first day of GLoGtober, the bloggers gave to me…

           Two drops of crimson

And some gun rules for you and me

Most blood banks are only banks in name. They are exchange houses, drawing crimson from your veins in exchange for gold to line your pockets. However, there is one institution that is truly a blood bank, a bank to say that you get back what you deposit with interest. This is the Sanguine Exchequer. Vastly popular, especially to bloated nobility who seek to make money and slim down and those afflicted by wasting diseases or blood-plagues, this organization is often pushed to the fringes of society or even into the criminal markets due to a bad reputation, despite it being a (relatively) safe and clinical affair.

The Exchequer acquires and transfuses blood using surprisingly similar methods to the ones we currently use today in the real world, even including the bland cookie. In cases of massive doses taken at once, the Exchequer uses a drug colloquially known as Bloatsbeer. Bloatsbeer increases clotting so as to allow as little blood to escape the body as possible, making the imbiber virtually invulnerable to conventional weapon attacks. However, this causes intense nausea, drowsiness, lowered cognitive ability, migraines, blurred vision, and a whole host of other impairments. (MARROW drug rules: Immune to conventional weapon attacks, but DISADVANTAGE on all rolls.) The Exchequer occasionally sells doses of Bloatsbeer to other parties, but it takes personal negotiation with a higher-up.

The donor always expects the blood to be returned to them, naturally. That is the main draw of the Exchequer over a more conventional organization. So how do the receivers get their blood back? This is through the deployment of clockwork constructs known as “Bloodseekers”. Bloodseekers are brass, with humanoid faces that fall squarely in the uncanny valley. Their fingers end in impossibly sharp glass needles, and their barrel-like torso is composed of tall glass tubes, some of which are filled with blood. Their role is to take blood from the original receiver and return it, unerringly, to its owner, with proper interest. What this means and entails is up to the creative and malevolent DM.

The Sanguine Exchequer is not run by vampires, as many believe. After all, where does the bank fee go, if not to blood-hungry undead? Instead, the SE is run by the Claret Collective. The Claret Collective worship blood, in a very literal sense. They drink it in semi-religious ritual, bathe in it, inject themselves with it, experiment on it, and do all number of other strange procedures on or with the blood they shave off the top. What their goals and motivations are is unknown to any but the innermost circle of the Collective, but it can’t possibly be all benevolent…

The Sanguine Exchequer, a new faction/business with plenty of hooks for adventure inbuilt! I can easily imagine a mystery adventure with the Exchequer at its center. Who knows, perhaps I’ll write that adventure sometime on down the line…

Thanks for reading, and happy GLoGtober! Day 2 going strong, I’m glad to see so much participation.