The Red Village

The Red Village exists on maps that pass between the brave and the foolish — stained with the handling of hundreds of hands that could not help reaching for them. People leave to find it. They do not come back. The Blood Queen rules the village and the Darklands that surround it. She is neither living nor dead, neither human nor demon, and she is driven by a desire for violence that nothing has ever satisfied. The finest warriors in the world arrive at the village drawn by something they cannot name — and she greets them with promises of eternal life and wealth beyond counting. None of them refuse. Those who remain become Champions: bound to the village, unable to leave, bought and trained by the Battlemasters who own them. They fight in Tournaments for entertainment. They are rewarded when they win and made to suffer when they do not. When the Blood Queen calls for blood, it will be provided. The only question is whose.