The Underworld Archive

Reference files from Empire of Blood.

Lore records for the Great Houses, cities, terror assets, public spectacles, and sealed projects that define the Underworld.

Great Houses Cities Blood Games Death Heads The Vault

Four Pillars

The Great Houses

The Empire Eternal is sustained by four Great Houses: Draconi, Sabre, Veisik, and Provak. Each controls a different pillar of Underworld power — dominion, war, science, and industry.

Dominion

House Draconi

Population: One million
Sigil: Purple bat set against a black void
Colors: Purple and black
Ancestral city: Grelock (Berlin, Germany), capital city of the Underworld
Trades: Governance and dominion
Motto: Alle müssen dienen. (“All must serve.”)

House Draconi is the iron fist that rules the Underworld, having long ago conquered the other Houses. Cousins to the Imperial bloodline, they are a faceless aristocracy: cruel, corrupt, and utterly self-absorbed.

Every Draconi wears a mask from the moment they come of age. The tradition strips away any remaining humanity, leaving rulers without faces and predators without mercy.

At the pinnacle of their House sits the Imperial Council, known as the Empress’s Hand: five Archons whose governance is fear and whose judgment becomes law.

War

House Sabre

Population: Twenty-five million
Sigil: Three blood stripes slashed across a black banner
Colors: Red and black
Ancestral city: Kronos (Rome, Italy)
Trades: Military and policing
Motto: Victoria per cruorem. (“Victory through blood.”)

House Sabre is the Empire’s sword: the most disciplined and martial of the Great Houses. Claiming descent from the ancient legions of Rome, the Sabre are bred for war from birth or turning.

To their enemies, they are terror made flesh. To the Empire, they are the iron bulwark that keeps rebellion and invasion at bay.

The Praetorians are their corrupted branch: private enforcers of Draconi rule, valued less for discipline than for blind loyalty and cruelty.

Science

House Veisik

Population: Eight million
Sigil: White star set against a dark-blue banner
Colors: White and blue
Ancestral city: Novacrypt (Cambridge, England)
Trades: Science, engineering, and medical
Motto: “Perfection by any means.”

House Veisik is the brain of the Underworld: the cold engine that designs, dissects, and perfects. Logic is their faith, progress their creed, and anything that obstructs either is discarded.

From Novacrypt, the Veisik produce the Underworld’s wonders and nightmares: cybernetics, genetic design, experimental medicine, and the biomechanical craft behind the Death Heads.

At the peak of their hierarchy stand the Necromancers, masters of cybernetic and biomechanical engineering.

Industry

House Provak

Population: One hundred million
Sigil: Gold industrial hammer set against an orange-and-black banner
Colors: Gold and orange
Ancestral city: Vulcaneum (Los Angeles, the United States)
Trades: Industry, commerce, and entertainment
Motto: “By hammer and iron, our chains are broken.”

House Provak is the beating heart of the Underworld: laborers, merchants, entertainers, miners, builders, and sellers who keep the vampire economy moving.

They are the largest Great House, swollen by Converts drawn from the surface. For most, the promise of eternal life ends in debt, labor, appetite, and chains.

At the top stand the Barons, corporate elites who measure worth in Digits rather than bloodline or honor.

The Underworld

A civilization buried beneath civilization.

The Underworld is not a cave of monsters. It is an organized subterranean empire: cities, routes, checkpoints, laboratories, markets, arenas, and military corridors hidden beneath the mortal world.

Imperial atlas record of the Underworld — Imperial atlas record · Grelock, Kronos, Novacrypt, Vulcaneum, Vicestatt, Purgatory, and Seraphel.

Grelock

Imperial capital beneath Berlin. Command center of Draconi dominion.

Kronos

House Sabre’s Roman military seat, built for discipline, policing, and force.

Novacrypt

House Veisik’s cold engine of science, medicine, engineering, and Necromancy.

Vulcaneum

House Provak’s industrial heart beneath Los Angeles: foundries, commerce, entertainment, and appetite.

Vicestatt

The city of vice, spectacle, casinos, mass entertainment, and the Blood Games.

Purgatory

Customs Checkpoint One: surface access, processing, control, and House Sabre security.

Imperial Capital

Grelock

Grelock is the capital beneath Berlin: the seat of Draconi power, imperial command, and the institutions that keep the other Houses obedient.

Its beauty is not softness. It is authority made architectural — black stone, violet light, military corridors, and gothic machinery built at imperial scale.

State Spectacle

The Blood Games

The Blood Games are not random brutality. They are state spectacle: combat, punishment, betting market, propaganda ritual, and public entertainment.

Every match teaches the Underworld who matters, who can be sacrificed, and who profits from suffering.

Restricted Terror Asset

Death Heads

Death Heads are resurrected weapons: fallen vampires rebuilt through the fusion of flesh and machine. Officially, they are instruments of imperial order. In practice, they are terror soldiers deployed when the Draconi want ruin, not intimidation.

They descend from the Dead Legion, the Empire’s sealed nightmare beneath the Vault.

Customs Checkpoint One

Purgatory

Purgatory is the threshold between the surface and the Underworld. Citizens, Converts, Thralls, goods, and restricted travelers pass through House Sabre security, processing screens, and controlled entry routes.

It is not just a border. It is the first lesson the Underworld teaches: everyone has a category, and every category has a price.

Restricted Record

The Vault

The Vault is a sealed facility tied to the Dead Legion, the Empress’s unfinished army. Most citizens know it as a children’s warning. The truth below its doors is worse than folklore.

For if the Vault opens . . . out they’ll pour.