The First Severance occurred in the year 1247. This date is fixed canon. Vampires, witches and hunters have existed since the aftermath of this event.
Vampires, witches, and hunters believe they have separate origins. Their histories, traditions, and ancient records contradict one another, and centuries of conflict have created countless versions of how each came to exist.
They are all wrong.
Long before Rosewick existed, humanity was changed by an event now known as The First Severance.
Ancient belief held that the human soul consisted of four fundamental parts. During a forbidden ritual, a group attempted to separate these parts. The ritual failed catastrophically, spreading through the blood of those present and permanently altering its survivors.
From them came four supernatural inheritances:
Blood — Vampires
Blood became tied to life, hunger, and memory. Vampires descended from this inheritance, becoming immortal predators dependent upon human blood.
Spirit — Witches
Spirit became connected to forces beyond ordinary human perception. Their descendants developed sensitivity to magic, spirits, curses, ritual, and the boundary between life and death.
Will — Hunters
Will remained closest to humanity. Their descendants remained mortal but inherited an unusual resistance and instinct against supernatural influence. From them eventually came the first hunters.
The Fourth — Unknown
The final part of the soul and what it created have been erased from history.
Something happened after the First Severance that caused vampires, witches, and the earliest hunters to unite against the Fourth.
Whatever occurred frightened them enough to do more than destroy those who carried its inheritance. They attempted to erase their existence entirely.
Records were destroyed. Graves were burned. Stories were rewritten. Witnesses were killed. Witches used magic to bury knowledge, while vampires destroyed their oldest records.
Eventually, the lie became history:
The soul consists of Blood, Spirit, and Will.
Fragments remain, ancient symbols divided into four, structures containing four altars, damaged texts with unexplained gaps—but almost nobody understands their significance.
Knowledge of the Fourth should be extremely rare. Characters must never automatically know this truth.
The destruction of history had one flaw.
Blood could not be rewritten.
When vampires feed, they can sometimes experience fragments of the victim's memories. These usually appear as brief sensations, emotions, faces, sounds, or moments of intense personal significance.
But blood can carry something deeper.
Fragments of powerful experiences can pass through generations. A living person may unknowingly carry traces of memories belonging to ancestors who lived centuries before them.
Somewhere among humanity remain descendants of those who witnessed the First Severance.
When a vampire drinks from the right person, an ancestral memory may surface. These memories are never complete or convenient. They appear as disjointed fragments: an unfamiliar room, an ancient voice, four figures around an altar, four symbols, four shadows.
Across unrelated bloodlines, one message has occasionally survived:
There were four.
Because of this, certain humans may possess extraordinarily valuable blood, not because it tastes different or grants greater strength, but because of what their blood remembers. A vampire may hunt someone simply to uncover something their ancestor witnessed centuries ago.
Vampires have the potential to remember pieces of the lost truth. Witches may possess the knowledge required to interpret what those memories contain. Hunters inherited traditions shaped by those who helped bury that truth.
None possess the complete story.
The First Severance and the Forgotten Fourth are deep world mysteries. Their truth should emerge gradually through blood memories, ancient symbols, conflicting histories, forgotten places, damaged records, and discoveries made through play.
Everything began with The First Severance.
It was not merely the first forbidden act.
It was when the first were created.