ORIGINS

Long before the Hollow Age blackened the skies and silenced the bells of empire, the Bleaksown were revered. They were physicians, fleshwrights, and plague-scholars tasked with stopping what could not be stopped. When the first waves of the plague began to twist flesh and shatter reason, it was the Bleaksown who stepped forward not to seal it away, but to embrace it.
 

Where others saw infection, they saw transformation. Where generals called for fire, they called for samples. They walked into quarantines not to save the living, but to speak with the dying. They recorded the moans of mutation like scripture. They gathered blood in vials and prayers in pus.
 

And when the plague grew teeth and tore through the world, the Bleaksown did not flee.

They adopted the rot as kin.
 

They opened their bodies to it willingly, invited it past their skin, and listened to what it whispered in their marrow. They did not seek a cure. They sought communion. Over time, they discarded medicine in favor of mutation. Their lungs were replaced with alchemical respirators. Their skin grew stitched seams like ceremonial garb. Their flesh became fertile ground for engineered disease.
 

When they finally reemerged from the ruined wards and collapsed hospitals, they were no longer medics.

They were missionaries of the flesh.
 

PHILOSOPHY

The Bleaksown believe that the plague is not a catastrophe. It is an inheritance. To them, the Hollow Plague is not a curse placed upon the world, but the world correcting itself. A kind of sacred inflammation, burning away weak bloodlines, flawed designs, and stagnant forms.
 

To become infected is not to be sick. It is to be touched by truth. The body should not remain static. It must swell and tear and regrow in new configurations. Their greatest leaders are revered not for purity, but for how thoroughly the plague has sculpted them. Flesh is raw material. The plague is the tool.
 

Pain is a form of understanding. Mutation is not endured. It is invited.
 

There is no such thing as too far gone. There is only too stubborn to evolve.
 

DOCTRINE

The Bleaksown follow a living scripture known as the Book of Incisions, a constantly growing codex of surgical notes, fever dreams, vivisections, and postmortem revelations etched into metal plates and preserved flesh. It is not bound by pages, but worn on bodies, passed from host to host.
 

Their core tenets are recited during surgeries and whispered to the dying. Each act of violence, each ritual injection, each revival attempt is a sacred rite.
 

1. The Plague Is The Path
   Infection is the light that reveals the way forward. That which refuses the plague must be remade until it understands.

2. To Suture Is To Preach
   The blade teaches. The needle comforts. The wound listens. Each cut is a syllable in the sermon of salvation.

3. Every Corpse Is A Seed
   Death is not an end, only a moment of stillness before rebirth. The dead can be stitched anew. The host need not be willing.

4. Rot Perfects The Form
   Only through decay can the body be purified. To wear sores and swellings is to carry the mark of devotion.

5. Do Not Preserve What Should Transform
   The body clings to its old shape out of fear. Show it a better one. Help it forget.
    

Each Bleaksown warband operates like a surgical team. Field-chirurgeons are both commanders and caretakers, overseeing battlefield "procedures" with cold expertise. Enemies are not foes. They are future converts.
 

And when the battle ends, the dead do not rest.

They are reclaimed.