Deep of Blood-Gorged Heroes
Aspect: Abyssal Rating: ••• Hearthstone: Blood-Gorging Carbuncle Bearer: Sesus Chenow Attuned: Sesus Chenow, Sesus Zhoutai, ?
The Deep of Blood Gorged Heroes is a large estate in the hilly eastern reaches of Eagle Prefecture, close to the small town of Blood and Iron. Its purpose as a military fortress is obvious from its thick walls and low reinforced structures, housing quarters for some members of the Chenow branch of House Sesus as well as military drill yards, armouries, and extensive dungeons sinking far below the ground. A central chamber serves as a military command center, and next to it a sunken arena can seat hundreds to watch blood sports and depravities equal to those seen in distant Pangu... even those Chenow who do not dwell within are sometimes entertained at grand family galas here. The whole place is filled with a feeling of violence and foreboding, and the scars of a great battle are still evident: large sections of the walls appear melted from great blasts of heat, what was once polished white stone scarred black, some doors half-buckled on their hinges and metal lamps twisted in their wall sconces. Efforts to repair this damage have proven futile, the manse itself refusing to allow such changes to remain in place for long, and the scions of the Chenow branch have come to embrace the raw brutality on display across every inch of their ancestral home.
It is said that the Deep was once a far more powerful manse, and of purer aspect untainted by death, the lair of a terrible Anathema in ages long past. When the Immaculate Dragons led their uprising, the Anathema swore that every drop of his blood which struck the ground would taint the land beyond any recovery with evil and sin. A great disciple of Hesiesh led the attack, and when he confronted the Anathema he made the ultimate sacrifice... while his brethren held the beast down, he bit deep and drank down every drop of its tainted blood. The vitriolic poisons coursed through his body and slew him then and there, but from his sacrifice only a single drop of the Anathema's blood escaped to fall upon the ground. The manse was forever tainted, but a much wider swathe of Creation was saved.
For many years Sesus Chenow himself dwelt here, and though he has departed to rejoin his brotherhood in the Western Threshold he still bears its hearthstone.
