Half-Cursed
Origins
Although the reasons as to why they exist are unknown, they do. Their population is small but the Half-Cursed do exist despite some efforts by others over the centuries to remove them from existence. Whether changed by the blood of vampire or wolfkin, the Half-Cursed are at large a people stuck between worlds. They cannot belong to the worlds of the blood that tainted them entirely, but neither can they still entirely belong to the Mortal world.
Blood Cursed
Those cursed by the blood of the vampire are doomed to suffer the bloodlust and extended life but gain few of the benefits that comes with Turning. Most often they only get one increased trait, sometimes two, and only the rarest get three. Even then, these improvements are weak, barely bringing them up above mortal standards. They die just as easily as a mortal does and sometimes their body after several years will simply reject the blood, causing gruesome pain and torment until they die. If this occurs, the only solution is for the one who infected them to fully Turn them. However, given that any Half-Cursed spawned by a vampire are usually abandoned to their own ends, this has a 0.2% chance of happening.
Moon Cursed
Rarer still than even the Blood Cursed, those who are cursed by the bite or blood of a wolfkin may not gain much but they will gain something. While the majority of those who run the risk of being infected by the beast blood come out without any effects from it, there are the rare few who do. Those who gain some effect of the curse are unable to transform in any way but they generally become more animalistic in their behaviors. Like full wolfkin, they can also have their moods affected by the moon but are often more intensely affected by the waxing and waning of it. The rarest showing of the beast blood is in some of the Moon Cursed developing permanently sharper teeth, more excessive hair growth on their bodies, or eyes that turn permanently a golden shade.
Becoming Half-Cursed
While the Moon Curse is spread in the same way as any other that becomes wolfkin, either through blood or bite, there are very specific instances that caused someone to become Blood Cursed.
Most Blood Cursed are victims of torture. While a vampire can technically created a Half-Cursed by giving them their blood to extend their lives, these Half-Cursed are considered the weakest of the lot as they have little more than extended longevity. The weakest who carry the Blood Curse are usually lovers or relatives of a vampire, not victims. In the case of those tortured, so long as a victim is not driven to the brink of death, a vampire can keep them alive long enough that their blood will begin to change the victim. Many of these victims are killed in the end but there are several who are left alive by their torturers, released into their new life as further punishment.
The other instance of the Blood Cursed are the rarest: children born of the tortured. The practice is frowned upon but has occasionally happened when the most sadistic of vampires have found reason to torture a woman who is carrying a child. There is a roughly thirty percent chance of the blood changing the child in turn, making them also Half-Cursed, but a much higher chance of it merely killing the child still in the womb. Children born with the Blood Curse in them are generally very normal children until they reach anywhere between the ages of fifteen to eighteen. At this point, the vampiric blood inside of them that lay dormant activates and they have the chance to become Half-Cursed by going through a similar painful process of Turning as a vampire. As with the normal process, not all survive.
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