The bloodleech is like many creatures of the night and comes in two forms. Their human disguise and their true form. One is only unsettling, the other the stuff of nightmares.
In their human guise, a bloodleech looks almost too perfect. They have symmetrical features, smooth skin, or even a radiant beauty about them. That perfection is like an idealized painting or statue, which generates a sense of awe and wrongness all at once. An aura and natural charm, lightly scented with old cinnamon that unnerves those who see them up close. But by then, it’s often too late.
There are other hints and clues that a person may be a bloodleech in their human disguise. The most obvious is that they have an unusual stillness. They don’t blink as often, have cold skin, or at times will have faint, but artistic, shadows under their eyes. Survivors claim it’s a hint of undeath, but it’s merely a suggestion of their true form.
The Horror Beneath
When a bloodleech reveals its true form, it shows the horror beneath the façade. Their bodies wither until their gaunt, almost mummified skin stretched like ancient parchment. Eyes roll back into their head, turning into solid black, watery orbs while their fingers extend into skeletal talons, tipped with black, ink-like claws. Their mouths twist and reshape to house multiple rows of needle-like teeth. Last, when in their true form, their cinnamon scent turns sharp, bitter like decaying paper or parchment.
The nightmare only grows worse when they feed. To eat, a bloodleech must be in its true form. When they eat, their mouths twist even more to extend into a large sucker-like appendage. This latches onto the back of a victim’s neck, where the bloodleech’s needle teeth slide into the victim’s veins and spine. A bloodleech is strong, much stronger than the average human, and more dexterous. Predatory abilities honed over long generations, like many creatures of the night.
A Particular Taste in Cuisine
Bloodleeches are uniquely dangerous among all the creatures of the night. This isn’t because of their all too perfect human disguise but also for their eating habits, and a lich-like obsession with power, legacy, and their false immortality.
When a bloodleech eats, it latches onto the back of a victim’s neck with their sucker mouth and rings of needle teeth. The creature consumes not only plasma from a victim’s blood, but also the victim’s essence. Through their connection to the victim’s spine, the bloodleech consumes memories, small amounts of brain fluid, and vitality. Fragments of the victim’s very identity are siphoned away. All the while, the bloodleech’s veins pulse a purple-red while they drink down their meal.
Drained victims become mummified husks, features unnaturally sunken. They look decades or even centuries old, drained of all fluid. The only mark left on them to suggest what happened is a ring of needle marks on the back of the victim’s neck.
“He died screaming, but I swear the monster took something. I watched the flicker die in his eyes. Almost like it drank his mind.”— Anonymous survivor
Despite how it looks, feeding isn’t a frenzied, primal activity for a bloodleech. Instead, it’s a ritual. A means where the bloodleech believes they honor their legacy and the existence of their victim through the act of feeding on them. Sometimes a bloodleech will leave cryptic marks at their feeding sites from odd spirals to even clawed patterns that resemble ancient script. Marks that are more often than not dismissed as graphitti or ravings of a mad serial killer.
“I found her body under the old oak. No blood, just withered. There was a mark beside her, like someone carved a circle of ink into the trunk.”— Sheriff Roy Branham, Gloamstead
An Unusual Anatomy
Beyond their appetites, bloodleeches have an unusual anatomy. Rumors and myths suggest that bloodleeches are undead immortals. Bloodleeches themselves spread those stories, as nothing could be further from the truth. The creatures' incredibly long lifespans come from a combination of their morbid diet, anatomy, and a mysterious object called a Bloodbound Relic. The latter being the foundation of the mix.
Origins of Bloodbound Relics are lost to time. These are powerful containers that a bloodleech infuses with their essence. This causes a second heart to grow and beat inside the relic. These relics come in all sorts of sizes, from a small sealed, but ornate, box to even a small hooded lantern. No matter the object, the soft, muffled heartbeat that echoes from inside the relic’s chamber can always identify them as what they really are.
When combined with the relic, a bloodleech needs to only feed once or twice every few weeks to a month. Slowly absorbing their meal over time in small amounts. This slow digestion with the second mysterious heart grants them an unusually long life. But despite their claims, it isn’t immortality. A bloodleech still needs to sleep, drink, and eat. If they don’t, like any creature, they will starve to death.
“You’ll know a Bloodleech has fed when you find the victim- drained, dry, and twisted like parchment. If you’re lucky, you’ll never see the monster that did it. If you're unlucky? You won't see anything again.”— Elias Brindle Hawthorne
Gap in the Dark Armor
Bloodleeches are dangerous but not invulnerable. They have weaknesses and vulnerabilities like any creature.
First, and most obvious, is their relic. Breaking the Bloodbound Relic is the fastest way to kill a Bloodleech. But this isn’t as simple as it sounds. These relics are always kept some place safe, hidden away from prying eyes. Also, the relic itself isn’t fragile. They’re always made of a strong steel or similar material to prevent tampering.
Second would be their vulnerability to certain materials of purity. A bloodleech can be hurt and killed if struck or stabbed with materials made of pure iron or silver. Even touching these objects will cause a bloodleech pain as it will burn their skin like an acid. To a bloodleech, those items made of pure iron feel as if they radiate an intense cold. Which is where the bloodleech term for them comes from for ‘cold iron’ or ‘cold silver’.
Rumors suggest sunlight will harm a bloodleech. But this isn’t true. Direct sunlight does very little to a bloodleech other than weaken and rob it of its strength. Enough sunlight will cause them to lose the ability to maintain their human disguise and shape. Mirrors are another myth. Bloodleeches have no trouble with mirrors and are fond of seeing themselves in them.
“Bloodleeches? They’re dangerous. But they bleed like anyone else.”— Cassidy Bardarik Hawthorne
Society After a Fashion
Like any creature of the night, bloodleeches live at the edge of human society in a dark culture of their own. These hidden communities, called colonies, appear near most any highly populated human city or area. But they are more common near places with a wellspring of Darklight. The mysterious force draws bloodleeches like poisonous moths to a dire flame.
“Bloodleeches like to be dramatic and call their societies ‘domains’. I call it a cesspool, and have cleaned more attractive things out of my garbage disposal.”— Cassidy Bardarik Hawthorne
Bloodleech colonies weave wide ‘social webs’ that they use as food, protection, and more. These social webs are alliances with other bloodleeches, the few other creatures of the night that will deal with them, and humans they have charmed. In the case of the latter, they are slowly fed on over time. Drained, docile and willing servants that retain enough of themselves to know who they are, but are utterly loyal to the bloodleech colony.
These social webs also allow a bloodleech colony to slowly establish willing servants across criminal and other circles in human society. Avenues to provide the creatures with resources they want, and food they require.
A Certain Kind of Hierarchy
Most bloodleeches view others, especially other bloodleeches, as rivals. Which leaves their colonies a hotbed of strange intrigue. But this isn’t always the case. At times, a particularly charming or old bloodleech rises in a bloodleech colony to form enough alliances to bend others of their kind to their will.
It’s a dark type of social class system where the bloodleeches involved answer to an ‘elder’ or a ‘sire’. But upward mobility in this system is only really guaranteed through murder. Provided the ambitious bloodleech has the resources and cunning to accomplish the deed.
A Shared Obsession
One common ground that unites a bloodleech colony and causes the most friction is their obsession with ‘legacy’. Since part of their ‘food’ is the memories and related brain fluids from their victims, bloodleeches have a keen interest in written records, journals, manuscripts, and old family heirlooms. Bloodleeches have an unusual belief that these items, especially if they are from the victim or the victim’s family, are somehow keys to the true immortality that all bloodleeches crave.
“They collect all sorts of things from their… food… thinking it’ll let them live forever. That is, until I catch up to them with an iron crowbar.”— Cassidy Bardarik Hawthorne
This is a cool and terrifying hybrid of a lich and a vampire. I like the concept that they are the ones spreading the rumors about them being immortals. I could also picture them spreading false rumors about the mirrors. Very great article.
Thank you! I like that idea about the mirrors! Given their nature, that would so be something they would do!