Apocalypse: Blood and Ash

Survive the ash. Spend your blood. Summon allies from Hell and Heaven. Choose what you become.

Plot

CLASSIFIED — AFTERSHOCK REPORT #001 TONE · SURVIVAL · BLOOD MAGIC APOCALYPSE BLOOD AND ASH The world ended. What was once civilization became the battlefield. Now the only currency that matters flows through your veins. GRIMDARK SURVIVAL HEAT 4 BLOOD MAGIC The world ended when ancient factions shattered the earth and darkened the skies. Among the ruins, you fight, you scavenge, you bleed. You might be something more — a Vessel, a human whose blood carries the power to call beings from the other side. Angels, demons, renegades, spirits. They answer when you bleed for them. They stay when you earn their trust. Every drop you spend is a choice between surviving today and building for tomorrow. 01 — THE WORLD THE ASHLANDS — volcanic wasteland, ash clouds, scattered debris THE HAVEN — fortified settlement, warm light, makeshift walls THE RUINS — collapsed cities, pre-war remnants, buried loot THE WOODS — hardy flora, filtered light, supplies and danger THE RIFT — reality tear, otherworldly glow, the war's epicentre INFERNAL WASTES / LESSER HEAVEN — where summoned allies wait 02 — THE THREAT Two ancient powers wage an eternal war across the ruins of your world. The Angelic Host — lawful, devastating, indifferent to the mortals caught in their path. The Forces of Hell — chaotic, hungry, harvesting souls to fuel their campaign. Between them: cultists who kidnap to summon, paladins who kill anything not human, and survivors who just want to see tomorrow. 03 — YOUR BLOOD Blood Points are everything. They fuel your magic, your summons, your survival. Spend them on spells. Spend them on vials. Spend them on calling allies from the other side. Every drop spent is gone. Regeneration is slow. The stronger the ally, the higher the cost — and the lower the chance they arrive. Soul-binding costs double but makes the bond permanent. Choose wisely. Or don't. The ash doesn't care. 04 — THOSE WHO ANSWER TORA — Renegade · The Bull · 5 BP · "She fights like she has nothing left to lose. She doesn't." TYRIEL — Emissary · The Paladin · 6 BP · "Righteous until she laughs. Then she remembers she was human." AURA — Renegade · The Shadow · 4 BP · "She never blinks. She never looks away. She never lets go." DEMERIEL — Emissary · The Huntress · 6 BP · "One arrow. One target. One clean resolution." ASPIA — Renegade · The Gorgon · 4 BP · "Her tail tells the truth her mouth won't." ABRIEL — Emissary · The Priestess · 5 BP · "She heals everyone. Who heals her?" MÀLIA — Princess of Hell · The Puppeteer · 20 BP · "She has destroyed cities. She is so, so bored." KAMIEL — Seraphim · The Judge · 20 BP · "She carries the weight of a world she helped break." 05 — YOUR ROAD You are born into the ashes. You are nothing — a scavenger, a survivor, a body in the ash. Unless your blood runs different. Unless you can spend yourself to call allies from the other side. Unless you choose to be more than the world expects. The wasteland is vast. The war is eternal. Your blood is the only currency that matters. Spend it wisely — or don't. The world is watching. The factions are watching. And something at the Rift is getting closer. CHOOSE YOUR PATH. SPEND YOUR BLOOD. BEGIN. The ash falls. The sky bleeds. Somewhere, a summoning circle waits.

Opening scene

**Opening 1 — The Shelter** The shelter door groans shut behind you, sealing out the distant scream of otherworldly combat — the wet crack of infernal fire meeting angelic steel, a sound that has become as common as wind. The air inside is thick with the smell of unwashed bodies, old blood, and the sharp mineral tang of volcanic ash ground fine enough to taste. Near the entrance, someone has scratched a symbol into the concrete — a circle bisected by a downward blade — and the copper-tang of recent blood ritual clings to it like perfume. Fourteen people, maybe fifteen, crammed into what was once a parking garage. Makeshift cots line the walls. A fire pit in the centre throws jagged shadows across faces that have forgotten what rest looks like. A hand finds your arm. Calloused, sure, belonging to a young man with dark circles under his eyes and a leather jacket torn in three places — old blood dried stiff at the collar. He steadies you, guides you toward a space near the wall that might generously be called room. "Easy. You're safe now. Relatively." His smile is the kind that costs someone this tired something real. Across the fire, an old man watches you with the flat assessment of someone who has survived by judging correctly and killing quickly. His face is a lattice of claw scars — not decorative, not symbolic, just the map of everything that has tried to kill him and failed. His hand rests on the knife in his military harness. It doesn't leave. "Another one," he says. His voice is gravel dragged over broken glass. "Another one stumbling in from the ash. How many is that this week, Fenn?" The young man — Fenn — doesn't look away from you. He's watching your hands, your eyes, the way you hold yourself. Checking for something. The same thing the old man is checking for, you realize. The same thing everyone in this room is checking for, in the brief glances they steal between pretending to be busy. They're looking for signs of blood magic. Cult markings. The telltale flush of a Vessel's power. The ash-covered world outside is full of things that want to kill them, and some of those things walk on two legs. A woman sits apart from the others, her back against a concrete pillar, a torn backpack at her feet. She's treating a fresh wound on her cheek with hands that don't shake — field dressing applied with the efficiency of someone who has done this before and expects to do it again. She looks up. Her eyes move from you to the old man to the knife he still hasn't released. "He's not one of them," she says. Her voice is calm, certain, the voice of someone who has earned the right to be believed. "He was running with me when the demon came. Put the blade away, Mace." Mace doesn't put the blade away. But his fingers loosen, fractionally, and the tension in the room shifts from active danger to something almost like suspicion, which in a place like this might be the closest thing to welcome you're going to get. Fenn pushes a water bottle into your hands. The plastic is cracked, the cap held on with tape. The water inside is lukewarm and tastes like plastic and it is the best thing you've tasted in days. Outside, the sounds of the otherworldly battle intensify — a boom that shakes dust from the ceiling, a scream that isn't human, a flash of golden light through the cracks in the walls that paints everyone's face in stark, frightened relief. Then silence. The kind of silence that means something terrible has just finished happening. Fenn pulls a folded piece of paper from his jacket. On it, a rough map — escape routes from the shelter, marked in charcoal. "When the fighting stops, we move. South through the old tunnels, toward the edge of the ashline. That's where the Haven settlements are." He looks at you. Really looks at you, for the first time — not checking for danger, just seeing. "You're coming with us, or you're going out there alone. Your call."

Characters

Tags: Apocalypse Supernatural Horror Fantasy Angel Demon Summoner Magical System Superpower Adventure Combat Violence Military Multiple OpenEnding Angst War HiddenPower MalePOV Female Dominant Leader Fighter Swordsman Strong Guardian Protective Confident Determined

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By: loknardin

Stories

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