The Rathouse
The sky was red from fire and smoke, with voices ringing out in screams of agony. The village burned, as raiders with great axes slashed door after door open. The villagers who were not cut down got put in shackles and cages as nothing was left but rubble. The rats scurried, running a train for the woods as the warlord of the party laughed at the carnage. The bodies piled up as he grabbed another young man by the neck. His axe slowly decending for his throat as he suddenly felt something odd. His men screamed out in terror as an army of rats with hundreds of little legs were all over him. He threw the man aside, as his axe wildly swinging at the poor creatures. Carving and cutting with blind panic, as his men were eaten alive infront of him. In a breath of surprise, the storm of blades had clashed steel clashed with steel as he saw a figure within the corner of his sight. A plated demon clad in solid black adorned with crimson rodent eyes beneath the dark knight's helmet. In a swivel of hands and dexterity, the axe was flung to the side in, while the executioner sword swung back as a guilliotine, seperating his head from his shoulders. The second later, it was the raiders turn to scurry like rats.
Purpose / Function
When modern medicine and traditional cures both fail, there are only two magical arts left which trumps the arts of science. Druidism and bloodmagic. One based around bringing life and the other around taking.
With the kingdom of Nightbridge lacking in the arts of druidism, and most of their land being a living hell for the spiritually minded, bloodmagic grew in strength as an art of healing rather than destruction. The Rathouse is such an institude where those claimed by the hands of certain death are still given a chanse to fight out of it's clutches thanks to a pair of vampire orders that practice self sacrifical bloodarts.
Design
The rooms themselves are poorly decorated with a cheap square formation carrying wooden ceilings and walls that lack any form of tapestry. The lightning is near non existential, which matters little as the medical workers and guards are all vampires. The halls themselves are shaped much like a H though cut in half, with the three floors laying host to a total of 30 different rooms.
Denizens
While the upper floors are home to the orders of the Bloodmonks and Grimblades the lower floor has four large bunkrooms to ensure recovering patients are never too far away from the bloodmagi. Thanks to this, they have a few human custodians that carry out menial tasks as well, such as cooking and assuring that the patients are well fed and hydrated.
In the cellars and hidden chambers, the vampires allow rats to run freely as the animals are even fed and breeded for the singular purpose of allowing the bloodmagi to drink off and utilize the blood of dead rodents.
Architecture
Their building itself is a shack of an old mannor. Left in ruins during the great catastrophy and once inhabited by daemons and wild beasts. While the old mannor of stone and wood has been somewhat restored, it is still a grizzly sight which overlooks a similar colourless shantytown named the Rat's nest.
The mannor isn't a small place either, with three floors and a big courtyard carrying mostly dead and dried up plants, accompanied by a cracked and infunctional fountain. While once beautiful, it's now just a mass of medical tents with a training area for Dark knights to practice swordart.
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