I do not own Vampire Diaries or Immortals After Dark
Excerpt from the Living Book of Lore
The Lore
"... and those sentient creatures that are not human shall be united in one stratum coexisting with, yet secret from, the man's."
Most are immortal and can only be killed by mystical fire or beheading.
Immortals are born mortal until the reach their mortal prime, usually around 20s or 30s. where they "freeze" into their mortality.
A vow "to the Lore" is binding, both physically and mentally, no immortal can break one
The Vampires
"In the first chaos of the Lore, a brotherhood of vampires dominated by relying on their worship of logic and absence of mercy. They sprang from the harsh steppes of Dacia and migrated from Russia to New Orleans."
Each adult male seeks his Bride, his eternal wife, and walks as the living dead until he finds her.
A Bride will render his body fully alive, giving him breath and making his heart beat, a process known as blooding.
The Fallen are vampires who have killed a victim by drink to the death. Distinguished by their red eyes.
Two vampire armies continue to war: The Horde, which consists mostly of the Fallen, and the Forbearers, a legion of turned humans, who do not drink blood directly from the flesh.
The Valkyrie
"When a maiden warrior screams for courage as she dies in battle, Wöden and Freya answer her call. The two gods give up lightning to strike her, rescuing her to their hall, and preserving her courage forever in the form of an immortal Valkyrie daughter."
They take sustenance from the electrical energy of the earth, sharing it as one collective power, and giving it back with their emotions in the form of lightning.
Eyes fire silver with strong emotion.
Without training, most can be mesmerized by shiny objects.
Currently Lead by Nïx the Ever Knowing, Proto-Valkyrie, Nucking Futs Nïx
The Horde
"In the first chaos of the Lore, a brotherhood of vampires dominated by relying on their worship of logic and absence of mercy. They sprang from the harsh steppes of Dacia, and migrated to New Orleans, were the seat of their king still rests."
The Horde revere two things in their King: that he worships the Thirst, and that he is a legitimate.
The Horde was created by Esther over a thousand years ago, using blood from Dacian Vampires to do so.
Dacian vampires are born, Horde vampires, with the exception of the Mikaelsons, are made.
The Kingdom was split in two with the establishment of Elijah as the King of the Vampires in the Western Hemisphere and his uncle, Demestriu as King of the Vampires in the Eastern Hemisphere.
With Demestriu's death at the hands of his own daughter, the Horde kingdom is now ruled by a single king from the Western Hemisphere.
Currently ruled by Mikael, who seized power by imprisoning the true heirs, his own children.
The Forbearers
"... his crown stolen, Kristoff, son of Demestriu and cousin to the Mikaelsons, stalked the battlefields of antiquity seeking the strongest, most valiant human warriors as they died, earning him the name The Gravewalker. He offered eternal life in exchange for eternal fealty."
Do not drink directly from the flesh
Maintain clear eyes, free of bloodlust
The Lykae Clan
"A proud, strapping warrior was taken in his prime by a maddened wolf. The warrior rose from the dead, now immortal, with the spirit of the beast latent within him. He displayed the wolf's traits: the need for touch, an intense loyalty to his kind, an animal craving for the delights of the flesh. Sometimes the beast rises..."
Each Lykae possesses the Instinct, an inner guiding voice, like a voice whispering in the mind
Mate for Life. Over eternity, they seek their fated one above all things, revering matehood as other species do gods.
When the beast rises, Lykae's eyes are ice blue.
Ruled by Lachlan and Emmaline the Unlikely, from the Royal seat in Kinevane, Scotland
The House of Witches
"... immortal possessors of magical talents, practitioners of good and evil."
Mystical Mercenaries who sell their spells.
Separated into five castes: warrior, healer, enchantress, conjuror, and seeress.
Lead by Mariketa the Awaited.
The Sept of Sorcerei
"The Sept forever seek and covet other's powers, challenging and dueling to seize more - or more darkly, stealing another's sorcery..."
Born with one innate power, their root power.
One of the physically weaker species of the Lore, they use elaborate armors to protect their bodies. Eventually they held metals - especially gold - sacred.
A sorceress becomes a Queen, when she masters a power, no other could rival hers
Ruled by Morgana, Queen of All Sorcerei
The Accession
"and a time shall come to pass when all immortal beings in the Lore, from the Valkyrie, Vampire, and Lykae... must fight and destroy each other."
A kind of mystical check-and-balances system for the ever-growing populations of immortals. Occurs every five hundred years. Or right now...
Prologue
There's a world that lives just out of sight of the one we live in now, hiding in plain sight, we brush off the miracles that they achieve as mere coincidence. Located in party rich cities they flourish, where tourists excuse their antics as alcohol rich delirium. They are the Lore, the immortals that secretly run the city, and many have called New Orleans home for the last century. Valkyries, vampires, witches, berserkers, werewolves and many more, walk the city while an ever-present war is coming to a boil right in the heart of the French Quarter. Niklaus Mikaelson, and his older brother Elijah, two of the world's oldest immortals sit on the dual thrones of New Orleans, a cruel and capricious King of the Hybrids, ruling beside the icy King of The Vampires, slaughtering all who oppose them. To the forces of Veritas, the alliance for good and protection of mankind, Klaus represents everything they fight against. However, just when Veritas planned to strike against Klaus, he and his siblings vanished. The planned strike was seventy years ago, and there had been no sign of the Mikaelson siblings since. The Lore was stunned when rumors surfaced of his capture, whispering that every second he endured captivity was a moment more excruciating than the last. Some said he burned alive repeatedly almost every day, others believed he had sunken next to the Valkyrie Queen Fury at the bottom of the ocean, doomed to drown over and over again for the last seventy years. His surviving hybrids searched relentlessly but none found him. The forces of Veritas soon realized they needed to find both kings, no longer was he the tyrant to be deposed, but the unfortunate lesser of two evils, at least with Niklaus and Elijah there were rules and boundaries. Horrifying rules and boundaries, but rational beings could be negotiated with, madness could not. With his disappearance, his father had taken the vampire throne of New Orleans in his iron fist. It was well known the forces that ruled the Louisiana city would only accept a true heir to the thrones of both Vampire and Hybrid, every pretender was been drawn and quartered in the middle of Royal street.. With Elijah Mikaelson's disappearance, the throne of the Vampires of the western hemisphere remained vacant, until the arrival of Mikael to the French Quarter. Three hundred years ago, the kingdom of the vampires had been deemed too large for anyone regent, and was split into two, the Western and Eastern hemispheres. Elijah had ruled the Western Hemisphere, and his uncle Demestriu had ruled the , with Elijah missing and Demestriu now dead, Mikael united the two hemispheres placing the vampire capital in New Orleans.
Veritas thought Klaus harsh? His father Mikael was a hundred times worse. He was a venomous tyrant, slaughtering tourists and locals alike, littering the streets with their bodies, causing New Orleans to become renowned as a murder capital. Having control over the Vampire kingdom, but struggling daily against Klaus's remaining hybrids, who only answered to their king. The human council, composed of the mayor and other important public officials, some of the very few humans who knew of the existence of the Lore, pleaded with the forces of Veritas to rid the city of the plague of Mikael, even if that meant finding Klaus and returning him to the throne. Veritas agreed that something needed to be done about the vampire….