House Correa

Run by Matriarch Maribel, the Correa family is born from the blood of the coven. The vampiric curse that binds them offers them many a boon, hardening their bodies against the blades of men and the test of time, but only as long as the sun stays below the horizon. The fire of dawn burns away at their flesh and robs their strength, limiting them to dark corridors and musty caves until night descends yet again.

All Correa vampires are awarded two things: the ability to create thralls with a bite and a sigil painted in blood, creating a bond that allows the thrall to draw upon the vampire’s power; and the power to transform into the Dip, a large, shaggy black dog the size of a horse.

Due to the essence of the curse, for its true nature is somewhere between an affliction and a demonic patron, one can possibly negotiate terms for a second transformative form. For Maribel, it is a gargoyle. For Vasco, a blackbird. It functions much like a type of rabies or a cordyceps fungi, infecting the brain so it may hijack it to find more prey to further its existence. In this form, it has no conscience, only a function. It is when it infects the brain and becomes one with the host does it begin to develop a higher understanding, borrowing much of the host’s wants and needs while injecting its own. Whether this is the disease developing a true identity or the host developing a psychosis to cope with it is… not apparent, and the way one chooses to present it may vary. Maribel sees it as a looming dark shadow that she speaks with frequently.

The affliction does have the ability to communicate with other infected individuals and chooses the most powerful host to be the leader, hence why Maribel has been picked as the matriarch. If communication has been cut off entirely, as Laszlo was, the affliction will seek another leader on its own and the host will be able to negotiate other terms than was previously thrust upon them.

At current, House Correa has little more than twenty five thralls. Twenty of them are Maribel’s children and one of them belongs to Vasco. The rest are displaced and unknown. They have taken over a settlement decimated by the mists and intend to grow their influence and power from there. They have renamed it "Sevintera."