Introduction
Semblant: Blood Chronicles was more of a jam than a job. It was forged in a fledgeling friendship and started at the right moment, at the right place with the right people. It's not your regular vampire story, with blood and guts and pieces of people flying... well, ok, it is, but it has a deeper meaning both for the audience and for the creators. It's an adventure about family, loss, and responsibility. It's not a tale of pride or "doing the right thing" but a journey through what fear really means when it's your most valuable possession and the only thing keeping you going. And how you start over when you don't deserve it and yet the very destiny of mankind depends on you. Blood chronicles is metal, anger and philosophy. And we made it just for you.
The Universe of Blood Chronicles
300 years in the future, mankind is at the brink of extinction under the grip of the supernatural.
The vampiric society that existed in the mere shadows of folklore, in a silent truce forged in the historical witch hunts, now opens itself to mankind as the new top of the food chain.
The bloodsucking demons, sovereigns by nature, believe now that hiding in shadows is a futile and humiliating shyness, only justified for their curse, their kind’s real torment.
Now with a powerful military leader, they turn their efforts to populate the world as a primordial race, preying on their own human heritage by turning them into cattle, in a cannibalistic industry, cultivating men, women and children in concentration camps, slaughterhouses and blood factories.
Taking hope that the ancient myths provide some real knowledge, the resisting armies sought refuge in deserts, on riversides and faraway islands. The few human cities left gave birth to vampire hunter clans of all sorts. They balanced the fight for survival for a while, but today, they resist by a fine glorious thread that is about to break.
Respected by some, feared by others and a legend to all. Bad Blood Angus is an experienced vampire hunter, acknowledged in many circles as one of the few remaining of an order that existed when hunters still were a dangerous challenge to the vampiric nation
After his family was killed by Malakai, an ambitious and sadistic vampire, the old man exiled in an old bunker waiting for his death until one day, karma put him back in the face of responsibility when a desperate group crossed paths with him, carrying a girl to an impossible destination. Forced to yet again raise stakes and close his fists, Angus saw himself in a road that would end in a door to the past that would never close again.
Bad Blood Angus
Characters
Billy, The Kid
Billy is a rockstar-like vampire hunter with platinum hair and a righteous pistol that doesn`t respect danger nor denies a smile. He helped spread a rumor that the legendary Bad Blood Angus was hidden in a bunker in a dead area with the hopes of grouping a good number of other hunters to help in a dangerous rescue. Part of a group known as the Heaven`s Devils, he gave himself that name for being an extremely competent gunman. His rockstar act and nickname seem to impress nobody other than humself but his faithful pistol, his gut and devotion to The Hunt make him an adversary that shouldn't be underestimated.
Kay
An efficient and proud fighter, Kay is a hunter that allows
no survival to anyone who crosses her path. Using a combination
of hand-to-hand martial arts and hidden blades, she is adaptable
to many different combat situations. In spite of the flaming
red hair, what actually draws attention to her are her adornments.
A collection of fangs extracted from the vampires she killed in her hunts. Part of the Ronin clan, she and her master Haiachi along with other companions were given the suicidal mission to take
a stray girl to a Warlock camp behind a cursed forest. As their number diminished through the mission, they found refuge
in a hidden church, attracted to the tale that a legendary hunter
was hiding there.
Amy
Amy is a 16 year-old girl that lost her mother and only family left
in an unforgiving vampire army attack. Rescued by Haiachi and his group of Ronins, she does not possess much combat experience.
On her hand she carries an alchemist tattoo drawn by her mother that glows a dangerous and magic glow when in the presence of
the creatures of the night, that allows her to enhance the strength of holy artifacts like holy water and hurt whoever dares to come
too close.
Without a place to go, the Ronin decided to take her to a Warlock - a clan of hunters known for using alchemy in their culture - camp at the top of a mountain to the north. The convoy was reduced to two people until they ran into Billy, The Kid, a hunter who helped them complete their mission.
Humanity
Political wars, socio-economic disturbances, religion, venereal diseases and pandemics. Humanity has always traced an ascent in its scientific and technological discoveries, but its sin remains in its nature. Nothing, however, prepared her for the day when medieval romances and horror stories came true. After a wave of disappearances around the world, a horde of vampires has emerged, dethroning and destroying social structures and overpowering political hierarchies. Anarchy, fear and violence were gradually turning cities into deserts and encampments into fortresses. Groups of guerrillas and soldiers formed societies over the centuries and for an entire era, there was a balance in the war between humanity and vampires. The church again became a political power.
Hunters
What is known today is separated by communities that developed their own cultures and follow their own creed. Mankind may be in a bloody war against vampires but there is much more than that going on. There was a time when our numbers were superior and fighting the creatures of the night was a common effort. But as nations crumbled and human population was drastically reduced, nomad communities and fortified feuds became once again a common reality. Priests and sorcerers became vital members of society. Magic, alchemy and the mystical became cultural knowledge and superstition, ghosts, werewolves and creatures of the night became basic learning at schools. The Holy Catholic Church started to rise along the centuries and today it’s the only one to pose a real threat to the Scarlet King’s empire in numbers and holy resources.
The Ronin
Martial artists and monks, the Ronin are a clan of errant hunters with a rigid honor code inspired by the ancient Japanese warriors. With an incomparable knowledge, they’re trained from young age in the art of fighting the creatures of the night. In spite of the popular belief, they are allowed to use firearms but their mastery resides in hand-to-hand combat.
Templars
God’s Messengers, Protectors of Mankind, Servants of Faith among so many other titles they give themselves, there are some who think that considering The Templars a mere clan it’s to underestimate their uncanny strength and their countless numbers. The only organized potency to pose a threat to the vampiric empire, these God’s Warriors have the life purpose of bringing the Creator and Only God’s light into the world, purifying and carbonizing anyone who opposes them with the flaming sacred sword of the Archangel Michael… whether you’re a vampire or not. Born from the holy catholic church, the rites, faith and sacred artifacts gave them a true way of facing the threat of the Scarlet King. Templars are not only an arm of the Holy Church, but they’re commanded from two lines. The Holy Army of God and The Holy Inquisition. The last one, a cell focused on purifying the souls of their children, hunting down demons, finding witches and punishing the heretics.
Warlocks
People of mystery, science and the occult, Warlocks might be mistaken by shamans, but they are in fact alchemists. The discovery of magic among scientists of old brought back the sense of the study of the art of equal trading and quantum energy. Something really complicated that few people actually have good training for. To mess with magic is like messing with gasoline and matches. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it might have violent and unrecoverable consequences.. Pursued by the church as heretics, the Warlocks of today are nomads and drifted into a more closed-up familiar culture. A culture that is today on the brink of extinction. For the holy church they are but heretics and devil worshipers that must be eradicated from the face of the earth
Vampires
The vampiric society is a puzzle of happenings and visions through the eras that are too complicated to understand. Refugees in the shade of superstition, these mystical creatures have always been subject to tragedy, irrational fears, witchunts, violence, lust and pop culture. But one day, the recluse and disperse society, by will of unknown gods or an ideological rupture was tired of the backstage and threw itself on a conquering predatory campaign with no precedents. Assimilating humanity on a large scale, what was left among survivors either fights for their very existence or is cultivated in concentration camps as fresh food to serve the new dominant strain of the food chain. The Red Apocalypse to which many poets and writers refer to, overpowered our history and today it’s a race that changed the existence as we know it. A vast empire that changed the very climate of the world.
The Creature
The vampire is a strange creature but not in the simple sense of its looks. Born of a mutation generated in the mixture of cursed blood with a human soul and body, some consider vampirism a cureless disease, others, a parasite and the most religious ones, a contract. Many, though - and not only among the members of their species - consider them an evolution.
There are, however, peculiarities so vast that there isn’t a plain definition of what is indeed a vampire, except for what is understood by their form of nutrition to consist invariably of blood, preferably human. Some die as they have their heads separated from their bodies, others can change their very anatomy to hide their vital organs in their skin like deformed puppets. The curse seems to vary from individual to individual. While some can’t cross a stream of running water, others look reptilian. Even the scholars of vampiric society still consider their kind, a curious and complicated puzzle to be solved.
The Scarlet King
The vampire emperor known as the Scarlet King is the military and religious sovereign from whom the vampiric society prospered in an unprecedented evolution. While there are many tales of his ascension, from superstitious fables to epic poems, there is a true popular knowledge that he nurtures an unconditional love for their species and aims to take their society to a new era under the shade of the Black Sun.
“Daylight dies, fading stars The alignment, the eclipse, eternal night”
The Black Sun
Vampires possess their own religion. A lecherous and hungry clergy, the Black Sun is represented by a black sun with an old face carved in its core, and its doctrine relies on the practice of necromancy, orgies seeking the purification of the soul through the sacred blood. A very organized cult spread in every aspect, from daily rituals to art, architecture and even in their military actions.
Other Creatures
The emergence of vampires wasn’t an isolated event. Whether by the effect of the strange magic around them or a simple nod to their daring in showing themselves to mankind, ghosts, werewolves, the undead and all sorts of weird creatures started to appear, attack and make deals with human beings. What was before pure superstition and nocturne anxiety, now is simply life. There is a new meaning to walking alone in forests and there is a great respect for rituals and offerings. To be an atheist in this world is still an option though, if you desire to be a fool that is.
Hollows
The first creature besides the vampire that shows its colors in Semblant: Blood Chronicles is a strange sort of zombie.Different from the classical, the hollow is a creature whose only objective is to satiate their thirst by attacking and drinking the soul of whatever source there is at its front, with no distinction. However, every species reacts in a different way to a hollow attack. Any living human being that has been attacked becomes another hollow with the same thirst. Vampires on the other hand, simply lose their essence and become an empty flesh shell. Curiously, though, they don’t become ashes like one would expect from a proper vampire kill.
When a person becomes hollow, they stay in a semi-vegetative lethargic state in which the subject commonly mumbles disconnected phrases associated with their human experience. There is no knowledge however of what happens to a human blessed with the sacred blood of a vampire. More information from this and other creatures will be added as studies continue.
The Graphic Novel
We wanted to tell a story whilst mixing our love for music and great movies and games. So we made a case that the narrative
would be fluid and swift like the music it was based on.
The authors
This is a different beast. Music, literature and visual art connect with the help of two resonant minds. Sergio and Andre picked a few songs and together gave birth to a whole universe that has presented itself to the world in the shape of Semblant: Blood Chronicles. Sergio brought the raw materials and the music, Andre the concept and expansion and suddenly they had an unique tale of the end of things...and a new beginning.
Sergio Mazul is a musician, entrepreneur and the happy owner of the infamous Blood Rock Bar in the city of Curitiba. He’s also the male voice of the band Semblant, one of the big exponents of the world of metal with four released albums and over 30 million organic views on its Youtube Channel. As a collector of rare comic books, Vynils and avid horror enthusiast, Blood Chronicles became a dream come true.
Me, Andre Meister? I was looking for something to mix the things that I love. Writting, music and visual art. It was an important project because it took my vision of art to another level. Most people in this industry are focused in one task whereas for me, it’s not about being a jack of all traits, but seeking a whole vision of what is a good project. Blood Chronicles is an incredible source of inspiration in that sense.