The Blood Bowls Of Verespia
"Three vessels, thrice damned, each a mirror to madness, each a whisper in blood."In the shadowed annals of Hemomantic lore, few artifacts inspire as much fear and fascination as The Blood Bowls Of Verespia. Crafted by the infamous witch-queen who later drank deep of vampirism, these three dark vessels are more than mere tools, they are echoes of obsession, war, and betrayal. Said to be forged from bone dust and grave ash, and bound by blood and unspoken curses, the bowls grant their user unholy sight across vast distances. But such power is never freely given. Those who gaze too long into the blood-stilled waters risk not only madness, but the gaze of something far older… and still watching.
Appearance
The bowls are wrought from a sickly smooth composite of blackened grave clay, bone dust from elder skulls, and ash gathered from pyres where traitors were burned. Their interiors are unnervingly reflective even when dry, giving off a sheen akin to still water. Faint red sigils, almost invisible in daylight, coil around the rim and pulse slightly when fresh blood is poured inside."Not metal, not stone, something in between, like hardened sorrow. And the blood inside... it didn’t ripple. It watched."
Mechanics & Inner Workings
The Blood Bowls of Verespia function through an ancient and corrupt form of Blood Magic, drawing on the life essence within freshly harvested human blood to pierce the veil of distance. Each bowl must be filled with blood from a unique, living donor, no older than one hour, to properly attune to the user’s will. The user concentrates on a known person or location while gazing into the blood, causing an image to form, silent, vivid, and disturbingly precise.
When the bowls placed one inside of another and slowly rotated, they act as mystical lenses, enhancing focus, allowing the user to zoom, pan, or shift the viewpoint with uncanny clarity. However, these bowls lack safeguards, using stale or repeated blood sources corrupts the vision, producing false, misleading, or even haunted images from the past. Some believe the bowls tap into a hidden “Blood Realm” of stored memory and shadow, but their true power source remains a mystery even to master sorcerers.
Manufacturing process
Verespia never documented the creation of the bowls, though legends persist of a moonless night ritual, where she bargained with the dying cries of a Blood Elemental, and used her own still-beating heart as a key component, cut from her chest before she embraced undeath.
The forbidden tome “Veins of Sight”, written by an anonymous vampire scholar, theorizes the bowls draw power from a blood realm, a plane of existence formed by spilled lifeblood across the ages, where all things seen are preserved like echoes in crimson stone.
"Each bowl drinks from a different soul, only then do they see clearly. Mix the blood, and they dream instead… in lies, in echoes, in madness."
History
The Blood Bowls of Verespia were created during the height of the Blood Wars between the misty realm of Malstrigoi and the kingdoms of Nosveren and the Mirusi Lands. Forged in secrecy by Verespia, a powerful witch who later embraced vampirism, the bowls served as her eyes across the world, allowing her to spy on councils, troop movements, and even her enemies’ dreams. No record exists of their exact creation, only whispered accounts of a moonless ritual and blood sacrifices too grim to recount. After Verespia’s fall, the bowls vanished, but traces of their use appear in multiple historical records marked by paranoia, betrayal, and sudden, unexplainable deaths.
The small bowl, nicknamed The Whispering Sight, was held by the Cult Of The Crimson Echo in the ruins of Banov. The medium bowl, known as The Vein’s Eye, was stolen from the treasury of a mad Nosveren king who had locked it in a room filled with poisonous plants and thorns. The large bowl, referred to as The Sanguine Lens, was unearthed from the ruins of Verespia’s tower in Malstrigoi, guarded by blood-drinking statues. All three bowls currently reside in the museum of the Sonians, in the free city of Memoria.
Significance
The Blood Bowls of Verespia are cursed vessels of immense dark power, crafted by the witch-turned-vampire Verespia to spy upon distant targets through blood-fueled scrying. They are relics of forbidden Hemomancy, capable of revealing visions across any distance, so long as the user sacrifices fresh human blood and risks their own sanity. The bowls are a symbol of obsession, violation, and the seductive cost of forbidden knowledge, often corrupting their users as they delve deeper into the unseen. Their continued existence poses a dire threat, as they can pierce the veil of secrecy that protects even the most powerful of realms.
"Verespia needed no spies. The bowls were her spies. Her lovers. Her mirrors. In them, she saw the world’s bleeding heart, and tore it open."
Item type
Magical
Owning Organization
Related Condition
Rarity
Unique. These appear to be a one of a kind set of three bowls.
Comments
Author's Notes
Rewritten for May-be 2025 Gold attempt.
Generic article
| Apr 26, 2025
May-be This Could Be Done Better
Unofficial May Challenge: Time to rewrite your old articles.