- Nobility has nothing to do with bloodlines and birthright, nor some nebulous moral concept. Being noble is a metaphysical quality that literally turns your blood blue.
- Similarly, wickedness turns your blood green. Greenskins and wicked witches were human once, before their evil deeds turned them into a wretch.
- Blue blood makes one more beautiful, intelligent, healthier and longer-lived than normal humans. Extraordinarily virtuous nobles will one day find a set of wings growing from their shoulders.
- Only those of blue blood may hold land or serve as knights.
- Green blood makes one stronger, tougher and more ugly than normal humans. Wretches of unprecedented depravity will eventually be twisted into quadrupedal beasts incapable of speech, who can nonetheless punch through a stone wall.
- Your blood does not change all of a sudden, but rather every good or evil deed shifts it little by little. The art of bloodletting can separate this changed blood and remove it from the body, slowing any effects your behaviour might have.
- Blood transfusions can be used to completely stave off green blood, though this practice is less well-understood and much more dangerous. Some people will still turn to it in face of a looming wretchedness; such miserable creatures are called vampires.
- Transfusions of blue blood into a normal human let the human enjoy some perks of nobility for a short while, helping them to heal from a grievous injury or a serious disease. Many legends feature a noble sharing their blood with an ailing companion to save their life. The stories about nobles kidnapped for their blood, to prolong the life of some old, wealthy and unscrupulous man, are only whispered, though.
- Some greenskins, on the other hand, have forcibly conscripted more of their kind by injecting their blood into humans.
- Mixing too much of both blue and green blood in one body can have horrific consequences. At least one assassination is known to have been carried out by injecting a great noble with green blood. Accidental mixing (such as when someone kidnaps a noble for nefarious purposes of blood transfusion, unknowingly turning most of their blood green in the process) are much more common though. The resulting abominations would be pitiful, if they were not so frenzied and hostile.
- The flagellant knights train themselves to reinforce their will while weakening their bodies, bleeding themselves every day with barbed whips. Thus they reduce the amount of blood they have, making every deed count more, thus bringing them more rapidly towards the angelic metamorphosis.
15 June 2022
QHW, Day 15: Crowns
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An interesting idea, especially if you want to play a game in a very odd world, or one inspired by teen dystopia stories. Though perhaps it's just me, but I feel that if virtue turns your blood blue, shouldn't your blood turn yellow if you do evil deeds?
ReplyDeleteHaving the altered colors be blue and green is odd to me, as they are quite similar colors. Maybe making them opposites is too on the nose, but I still feel like there should be more degrees of separation between them.
Maybe. :) I wasn't really thinking about the colours this way, it was more the association of blue blood and green of envy. It seems to me that many monsters in fiction have green blood.
DeleteI figured that. And I assume the latter is because green is associated with nature, thus wildness + savagery.
DeleteYou see that in Magical Girl shows, or in series where characters are color-coded, like the Power Rangers. There are rarely characters with a green color scheme among the heroes, but plenty of reds, blues, yellows and even the occasional black, white or gold.
Yes, it's a bit strange. Green is a rather soothing colour, after all, and as you say associated with nature. It should be more "good" than it often is. At least the deep, forest green.
DeleteOn the other hand, we all know that poison and radiation and likely acid as well are all toxic green. :D