The Nightkin

“A century ago in Ishgard, this monster in mortal guise devoured all manner of forgotten texts, teaching himself everything from red magic to Mhachi summoning rituals. The secret to his seemingly inexhaustible power lies in his bloodline: he was directly descended from a Mhachi archmagus who had ingested the lifeblood of the voidsent queen Lilith! In fact, it was with this very archmagus that the vile practice of infusing oneself with voidsent blood first began. I believe I told you how the red mages later outlawed these rituals, but the damage had already been done...

Lilith’s insidious energies had been passed on to the archmagus’s heirs. This clan of aether-drinking spellcasters became known as those who were born into darkness ─ the Nightkin.” - X'rhun Tia

Viera Nightkin

Part 1

Born of an archmagus's ego to pact with a voidsent queen - and subsequently betray her - any descendant of Calowise, no matter how distant, inherits the powerful magic granted from this pact so long as Lilith remains alive and on this plane.

They also inherit a voidsent's voracious apatite for aether - which is unsurprising, given how much must be spent to perform these magics. Similarly, they seek that aether in the fashion favored by voidsent - by taking it from other living creatures.

Part 2

There are rites that those of Calowise’s lineage can perform to bolster their physical form, allowing them even greater potent magics, as well as the ability to control their aether siphoning abilities at will. No longer will the nightkin need to wait until the precipice of death looms near to feed on others to replenish their aether – they can do so whenever they fancy. It also all but eliminates the chance of succumbing to frenzy – while it can still happen, the threshold to trigger such a reaction is much higher that those who haven’t fortified their physical form.

Mastery over this ability is another matter, however. Many simply cannot control it – unable to proactively take bits of aether when they can, what usually happens is that when a nightkin’s aether is spent, they will lose all control. They’ll massacre anything within range, in order to feast on that aether – an otherwise normal survival instinct to do whatever it takes to stay alive, taken to its most extreme. Unless the nightkin's victims are able to subdue them - and subsequently find an alternative source of aether to nourish them before they wake - there are few solutions beyond fatal self-defense to this frenzy.

Part 3

At some point during the earliest centuries of the Sixth Astral Era, one of Calowise’s more...adventurous descendants found himself entangled with a viera woman. While children conceived from two different races are exceedingly rare, they’re not impossible. While the father of this child may have been a hyur, this information was inevitably lost to time. The impact of it remained, however – viera born bound to the void, completely unbeknownst to them. The nature of nightkin led to...not many of them having very long lifespans. At least, not long when measured against viera’s natural ones. Even so, enough descendants persisted through the years that Calowise’s blood continued to be passed down.

Relevent Characters

Other Notes

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