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| Species | Heartless |
| Order | Corporeal Undead |
| Classification | Undead |
| Dominion | Srisian |
| Sphere | Darkness |
| Origin | Mortals whose hearts were taken in infernal rituals |
| Lifespan | Inmortal |
| Habitat | Dark temples |
| Food | Blood and hearts |
| Description | The corpse of a person with a gaping hole in their chest, without a heart. |
| Corruption | Heartless are formed as byproducts of sacrifices to one of the three Divines of Darkness that involved the removal of a heart. A mortal whose heart is removed by the clergy of either the Serpent Mother, the Mother of Blood, or the Webweaver might become a heartless if the trauma and fear corrupt their souls enough. The heartless arises several days later. |
| Esoterica | Heartless are beings of infernum and msawhat. In death, they retain only some of their powers from life, and only those that are not qi, the gates, or heavenly essences. They cannot use any emotional resonances. They do sometimes learn new arts of spirits, blood energy, or shadow energy. |
| Special Powers | Heartless cause unease in those who are near them. Heartless can sense beating hearts. They have unnatural strength, can make an area pitch dark, and can unleash demonfire once a new moon. To hear one is to be repulsed. To see one, with its rotted appearance, is to be gripped by fear. To be touched by one is to experience agonizing pain. When they drink blood, they gain strength briefly. If they drink enough blood, they get the ability to tear people's souls. They are immune to fire. They can at times grab the shadows of living things and take them. Those that they kill often rot instantly after the heart has been taken. |
| Necromancy | Intentional creation of a heartless requires the same sacrifice of a mortal, removal of the heart by a dark clergy person. However, in the ritual, the clergy person and/or an assisting user of msawhat must fill the hole where the heart was with msawhat and infernum. These energies will be absorbed and the heartless will rise immediately. To control a heartless, either a dark clergy or a user of msawhat and/or infernum must be the one who removed (and usually destroyed) the heart. If one isn't, raw infernal or msawhat power (14) can do it if applied into the chest cavity. Summoning one can be done either by invocation of the heartless's name or through similar power from someone who has control of one. To capture one and draw its power, one must have some of the blood from the heartless in a glass vial or bottle, which can be used to draw the heartless. Once it is near, one must apply energy to their chest cavity (msawhat, infernum, or some other fell energy that allows for draining). |
| Sending | Completely draining a heartless of blood will destroy it. |
| Weaknesses | The 12 main heavenly lights harm them especially, but any heavenly essence, qi, or the gates can send them. |
| Behavior | A heartless lurks in the dark temples where they were created, waiting for a victim to come near, killing them, eating their hearts, draining their blood. Many are controlled by the dark clergy who made them and used as guards, soldiers, or hitmen. |
| Dominion Culture | In the Srisian Dominion, heartless are used as guards for temples. They are a lower-ranking part of the warrior class, slaves to the dark clergy and greater powers of the Dominion. |
| Other Dominions | The only other Dominion a heartless might be in is the Raesian Dominion, and then only in conjunction with the Spider Trinity. This is very rare. Other Dominions have no access to them; the Godless Dominion views them as anathema and destroys them. |
| Mortal Interactions | Heartless are mostly only known within the realms where the Dark Divines are worshipped. They are used by Dark clergy as a warning against violating any rules of the faith. They are sources of terror for mortals. |
| Afterlife | Because heartless are sometimes created from innocent victims, they have a chance of redemption. This only happens if they are purified by heavenly essence or qi. Other forms of sending, including the gates, leaves them trapped in the in-between for millennia, and usually they end up in the Hells. |
| Notables | Hawise Caer, Heartless Manifest, Ancient Sacrifice, Slave-Crone of the Blood River |
| Special Classes | Slave, Hunter |
| Sample Stats | PRO 19 ATH 16 STR 22 AWA 14 Heart Sense 19 WIL 6 ROG 15 Unease Presence 9 Dark Area 14 Demonfire (New Moon) 14 Fear Visage 14 Pain Touch 14 Soultearing 14 Shadowsteal 11 |
GrandGuignol
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