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Character bio: Ichtaca

Ichtaca, the Flayed One they call her and Keeper of Secrets, bringing fear, death and blood in her quest for vengeance against her own people. Chicomecoatl is the goddess of maize of nourishment and every September a young virgin is skinned alive and the priest dances in her flesh. Ichtaca was one of these virgins, a beauty at the age of 14 and the daughter of a local noble. Every boy in the tribe wanted to marry her and claim her for their own. She was smart, well educated and fiercely independent, much to her fathers dismay. That year the harvest was devastated and people began to starve, the old and the weak perished though this her people accepted as a part of life. Then the next year came and again the crops failed and this time the whole city starved and grown men and women began to wither away and die.

The city's people were in uproar and the high king had to fight in the streets of his own city, fight his own people to restore order. Eventually the people gathered before the great temple and the high king told them that every year they honoured Chicomecoatl with the skinning of a beautiful virgin but this was now not enough. The gods were displeased and punish them for their meager offerings. He ordered that in the coming year that instead of just one virgin, 20 would be flayed alive and the greatest celebration would take place to honour the great god of nourishment. Only then will the crops flourish.

They came without warning on the eve of her 16th birthday and took her before the priests. They had gathered to the city, one priest for every virgin and skinned each in turn with their obsidian blades. Lured by their screams and the stench of blood, Camazotz, the Bat god, the bat of death came to her in those last moments as the sun set remade her in his image and vampirsm in the America's was born in that moment. She lived each night ever since, empty and cold, filled with hatred and anger, craving her revenge and a never ending font of human blood.

Character bio: Ixchell

In the great forest of the Yucatan peninsula and under the shadow of the growing Mayan city state of Chitchen Itza Ixchell's tribe lived in peace as hunter gatherers with a simple but happy existence.
It was a great temple that these mayan's built and though it was drenched in blood and the skull racks at its base were full and plentyful, the gods forever thirsted. Soon the smaller tribes began to disappear, their women and young sold into slavery and their fathers and brothers given as offerings to the great sun god.
The time came for Ixchell one day. A raiding party sweeping into their village burning and killing. They took her hostage and tied her with others to be sold in the market next to the great temple. For three years she was a slave having been sold to a high ranking noble and for all that time she did not see or hear her family. She served her violent master who beat her often until the day she stood at the base of the great temple and watched the heads and bodies of her father and brothers tumble down the its steps one by one.
In a fit of rage she killed her master and ran into the jungle never to be seen alive again. Surviving alone in the jungle would not have been easy but she was never given much of a chance as Ichtaca soon claimed her and called her into the ranks of the undead.
Together they gather power and worship the true god, Camazotz. Both seeking revenge, and blood.

Character bio: Camazotz

Camazotz, Sudden Bloodletter, Bat of Death. All these names have he has been given to the father of vampirism by the humans of the Living Lands. Since 100BC this demon has been worshipped by man and the cult of Camazotz has grown and grown from the time long ago. From a time when the Underworld and the Living Lands were practically as one and his demon brothers roamed the earth as it was their own. That time is long past and only Ichtaca can understand his chittering language. For all accounts he doesn't talk to his followers and often never leaves his cave, his House of Bats, where he slumbers day and night until thirst over takes him and the trail of those to be sacrificed to the bat of death roams down the mountain side never-ending.

Character bio: Hunts-in-the-Dark

On the edges of the great plains the Apache and Navajo made their new home after their great migration from Asia down from Canada's north west territories as the ice sheets slowly retreated. His tribe came down the Rocky Mountains and worked hard to build a new life for themselves away from the freezing North and made the New Mexican badlands their home and thrived.

Hunts-in-the-Dark was born with another name but he will not speak it for his name died with the rest of his people when a warring tribe slaughtered them all to man woman and child.

Part of a hunting party, Hunts-in-the-Dark came back to the bend in the river where his family lived with the rest of his people to find it burning. Like those with him he waded into battle screaming for the death of their enemies but one by one they fell until he was the last.

He lay where he fell as day past into night and still death did not take him. Then the Dead Man came and gave him part of his spirit. On the field of his last battle he was reborn into death, a Dead Man and drinker of living blood and hunted through the night becoming Hunts-in-the-Dark. He failed his people and could not protect them when they needed him most and now that he is immortal he tries to make amends by protecting the peoples of the northern tribes from beasts "beyond the imagining of man" trying desperately to seek redemption or to finally put away his guilt.

Character bio: Neccalli

More than anyone in his tribe Neccalli wanted to learn and understand the mystery's of the underworld and unlock its potential. As a teenager he became apprentice to the old and grizzled village shaman who bore the scars of the great Jaguar. He believed himself touched by this revered and sacred beast and given its power.
When he became of age he too stood before the Jaguar and lived, baring its mark and took over when the old shaman died. He knew their was great power waiting in the underworld, ready to be called forth and controlled.
Soon all of his tribe feared him and his power and his reputation spread throughout the area and before long the Flayed One drew him to her and kept him close and watched him as he worked. It was many months before she showed him the spear and explained to him that Chamer, one of many gods of the underworld who went by many names had used it to open a gateway between the lands of the living and the realms of the dead.
She charged him with unlocking that power and through his great knowledge and after nearly a whole cycle unlock it he did. Through his arrogance he was unprepared and released a powerful spirit which invaded his body and mind. He fought a battle with this dark biting mass and lost and the being now possesses his slowly rotting corpse.
The demon inside him is a dark and cunning creature and wants what all demons want, power. Power over other demons and over the humans and he could not let that power rest in the hands of the vampire.
He took it far to the north and there he spread fear and death far and wide.but