The Capital Parkland - Part 01 - Beaumont – La Dérivation du Sang

  

“Where the wine is dry, the nights are long, and l'appel du sang never fades.”

 

A Western Prairie town with bite.

While the vampire families of Québec rebuild in shadow and snow, Beaumont stands as a small shadow in the west. Being many things: a pilgrimage site, fortified hamlet, and cultural redoubt.
Originally a modest Franco-Albertan settlement known for its church on the hill, its golden fields of canola, and stubbornly bilingual culture, Beaumont endured the Hodgepocalypse through a pact: one part blood donation program, one-part spiritual preservation society, and one part militarized religious covenant.

By day, the gold of the blossoms hides the truth beneath—root systems fed by the iron-rich waters of the Banque de Sang de l’Ouest. By night, lanterns glow crimson, and liturgies are sung in Old French. The vampires—well-fed and beautifully dressed—walk among their mortal cousins as protectors, patrons, and priest-kings.

The beautiful hill has eyes, and they are connected to sharp fangs.

The Golden Fields and the Crimson Pact- An Unofficial History 

Roots in the Soil

Beaumont began as a modest Franco-Albertan farming town, proud of its church on the hill and its fields of golden canola stretching to the horizon. Faith, language, and crop cycles were the anchors of life here. Every June, the town would vanish beneath a sea of yellow blossoms, and the air smelled sweet with promise.

In those days, the town’s leaders prided themselves on keeping Beaumont “true” — bilingual masses, parish-led schooling, and festivals like la bénédiction des semences (the blessing of the seed). Outsiders called it quaint. Locals called it home.

The Patrons from the East

It started small — visitors from Québec who claimed distant family ties, arriving to “support Francophone heritage” in the West. They donated to the parish roof repairs, paid for a bilingual cultural center, even helped fund experimental canola processing equipment.

They kept strange hours, but no one minded; farmers understood the rhythm of work and weather. When they began sponsoring nighttime lantern processions through the fields, people assumed it was just a new festival. The older generation whispered that the patrons brought more than money — they brought protection.

Oil with a Bite

A few years later, locals noticed something odd: certain sections of the fields bloomed stronger, richer in color. These plots were reserved for huile bénie — “blessed oil” used in church rites and civic celebrations. The priests said it was the soil, or a new blend of fertilizer.

In truth, the patrons had struck the first version of the Compact of Crimson: in exchange for regular blood donations — “for medical research” — Beaumont would enjoy guaranteed food security, pest protection, and immunity from the strange livestock sicknesses plaguing nearby towns. The leftover byproduct was quietly returned to the fields at night, feeding the roots.

The Quiet Guard

Odd sightings began to circulate. Motorbikes without headlights riding the range roads after dark. A man in a cassock carrying a halberd along the ditch line. Strange claw marks on fenceposts at the field edges.

The name L’Ordre de la Veille Rouge started to pass between farm families like an unspoken prayer. If your tractor broke down on the far side of town at dusk, sometimes they’d be there before you finished calling for help. They didn’t explain themselves, and you didn’t ask.

The Turning Season

As decades passed, Beaumont’s economy shifted subtly. Grain elevators closed, but the Crimson Mill expanded. The co-op became a blood bank with attached oil-pressing facilities. The parish mayor’s office began holding most council meetings at night.

The town became known for its Fête de la Dernière Moisson, a twilight harvest celebration where the golden fields were lit with hundreds of oil lanterns. Strangers were welcome to attend but rarely stayed past dark.

When the World Cracked

Then came the Hodgepocalypse. Crops failed across the province. Power grids went dark. Strange shapes stalked the highways. Many towns scattered or burned.

Beaumont did not.

The patrons sealed the roads and called the Compact into full effect. L’Ordre de la Veille Rouge patrolled the perimeters, and the fields still bloomed — fed by whatever it was the Mill now pumped into the soil—Golden by day, crimson at night under the lanterns.

From the outside, Beaumont looked untouched, almost idyllic. From the inside, it was a closed system — a canton of the République de la Nuit, ruled from shadow but bound in survival. People might argue about quotas or curfews, but no one questioned that they were still alive.

The Psychic Accord

In the chaos, Beaumont’s isolation was broken by the rise of Mayor Larry in Ed-Town — a powerful psychic with an iron will and a silver tongue, equal parts showman and strategist. His influence stretched far beyond Ed-Town’s borders.

Recognizing the strategic value of Beaumont’s stability (and the danger of provoking its vampire elders), Larry initiated secret talks with the town’s leadership. His psychic abilities allowed him to meet them on their own terms — thought for thought, shadow for shadow — without ever being dominated.

The result was the Golden-Red Accord:

• Beaumont would supply Ed-Town with surplus oil, ritual goods, and carefully rationed blood products.
• Ed-Town would respect Beaumont’s internal governance, enforce the Compact’s borders, and avoid interference in its nocturnal affairs.
• Disputes would be settled in person, by the mayor and the elders, without armed conflict.

To most citizens, this looked like better trade and safer roads. To those in the know, it was an understanding between two power blocs — one psychic, one vampiric — that neither could afford to break.

And Now…

Generations have grown up in the Compact, never knowing the world before it. The golden blossoms are as much a part of Beaumont’s identity as its church steeple. The fields hum in the wind, and the air still smells sweet — though some say there’s an undertone of copper now.

When travellers arrive, they’re greeted warmly, fed well, and told the same thing every Beaumont child learns before they can walk:

“Que la nuit vous garde.”

Beaumont’s society follows the rhythm of an old parish, but with fangs hidden in the hymnals. Each quartier is a bonded cell of interlinked families — some entirely human, others mixed-blood, and a select few fully vampiric — united not just by kinship but by spiritual obligation. Every household pledge fealty to one of the founding Maisons de l’Est, ancient clans who serve as both patrons and confessors, binding their followers through blessings, feast-day rituals, and the quiet exchange of blood in place of bread and wine. The structure mirrors Catholic parish life: a central chapel as the beating heart, seasonal processions through lantern-lit streets, and an unbroken chain of catechism that teaches the Compact alongside the catechism of saints. The vampire’s style themselves as pères et mères spirituels, shepherding their flock with a mixture of pastoral care, Old French liturgy, and the promise that loyalty will keep the night at bay — even as it welcomes it into the home.

Quartier Customs of Beaumont

1.      La Veillée du Lampion (The Lantern Vigil)

• When: On the eve of a saint’s feast day or a blood anniversary.
• What: Families place golden-hued oil lamps on windowsills, filled with huile bénie pressed from the quartier’s canola harvest. The eldest lights the flame, the youngest whispers the prayer: “Que la nuit vous garde.”
• Twist: The length of the burn is believed to predict the quartier’s fortune — or trouble — for the coming season.

2.      Le Baiser de Minuit (The Midnight Kiss)

• When: At the start of Lent and Advent.
• What: Instead of exchanging bread or wine, the père spirituel of the quartier makes the rounds at midnight, offering each household a ceremonial sip of vitae. Families kneel as if for Communion, making the sign of the cross before drinking.
• Twist: In mixed-blood households, the head of the family decides which members receive the sip, and which abstain “for their health.”

3.      La Bénédiction des Semences (Blessing of the Seed)

• When: Early spring, before planting.
• What: Seeds are brought to the quartier chapel in burlap sacks, where the officiant sprinkles them with blessed water — sometimes tinged faintly red — and recites a litany that mixes scripture with the names of vampire ancestors.
• Twist: Some families slip a drop of their blood into the sack, a private pact between farmer and patron.

4.      Le Chapelet de Veille (The Vigil Rosary)

• When: During funerals or after dangerous nights.
• What: Each quartier has a communal rosary made from polished canola seeds hardened in blood wax. Passing it from hand to hand, participants recite prayers in Old French, thanking the dead for their service to the Compact.
• Twist: If a bead cracks in a participant’s hand, it’s taken as a sign that a feeding debt must be paid.

5.      La Messe des Ombres (The Shadow Mass)

• When: Once per season, at dusk.
• What: The quartier gathers in near-darkness, with only the altar and the icon of its patron Maison lit in crimson light. The liturgy is half-whispered in Latin, half-sung in French, with the congregation facing outward toward the doors, “keeping the dark in.”
• Twist: Outsiders are welcome — but must sit in the outermost pews, under the gaze of the Garde Noire.

6.      La Corvée du Sang (The Blood Chore)

• When: Rotates monthly by family.
• What: One household is tasked with maintaining the quartier’s banque locale, ensuring blood and oil are delivered to the patron’s cellar on time.
• Twist: Failure to complete the chore on schedule means a public penance — often cleaning the chapel’s threshold barefoot at night.

7.      Les Litanies du Moulin (The Mill Litanies)

• When: After harvest, before the first pressing.
• What: Workers at the Crimson Mill chant a mix of psalms and field calls, each stanza naming a saint or elder vampire. Families attend, bringing loaves to dip in the first press of oil.
• Twist: If the oil pools gold with a red shimmer, the quartier’s patron is said to be “pleased.”

Beaumont – The Everyday Nocturne

In Beaumont, vampirism isn’t a curse — it’s a condition. The Maisons de l’Est see themselves as stewards, parish leaders, and community elders first, predators second. They dress well, speak with courtesy, attend Mass, run farms, and file paperwork — they happen to drink blood instead of coffee.

By night, the streets are alive with polite commerce and parish duties: candles lit in windows, Garde Noire patrols passing quietly, oil lamps glowing over doorstep conversations. Market stalls offer both mortal goods and vampiric staples: plasma preserves in mason jars, crimson-infused canola oil, and fortified breads baked with trace vitae.

The Ed-Town Connection

• Purpose: While Beaumont can grow food, brew beer, and press oil, it can’t produce all the tools and comforts it needs.
• Trade Goods:
• Exports: Blessed oil, blood barley ale, artisan-crafted goods (candlesticks, furniture, religious carvings), select blood products under the Compact’s trade allowance.
• Imports: Fabric, metals, tools, preserved foods, medicinal supplies, books, and entertainment media.
• The Trips:
• Travel caravans leave after sunset under Garde Noire escort, moving along La Route des Morts to Ed-Town.
• In Ed-Town’s night markets, vampires shop just like anyone else — haggling, gossiping, and sampling mortal cuisine out of curiosity.
• Social rules apply: no feeding without consent, no “turning” without paperwork, and no carrying unsealed relic weapons into civic districts.

Technology in Beaumont

• Reluctantly Modern: Technology is limited but selectively adopted — anything that preserves food, refines oil, or improves night travel is embraced.
• Common Tech:
• Lantern drones (slow-moving, oil-powered light sources for night patrols)
• Hand-cranked refrigeration units for blood storage
• Modified farm machinery for nocturnal harvesting (glow-lamped combines)
• Battery-powered phonographs and film projectors for parish halls
• Rare Tech:
• Anything requiring a constant power grid — Beaumont runs mostly on oil, wind, and barter.
• Imported electronics from Ed-Town are prized but carefully rationed.

Cultural Quirk – The “Vampire Next Door” Effect

• Vampires greet neighbors, discuss crop yields, and complain about municipal taxes like any rural resident.
• Children grow up treating the family’s patron vampire as a distant but familiar elder — like a godparent who happens to also drink from a bottle of “special wine.”
• Many households display both a crucifix and their patron Maison’s crest side by side above the hearth.
• In public, vampires eat human food for appearances — though it passes through them unchanged — and often remark on flavor even if they can’t truly taste it.

Potential Adventure Hooks with This Tone

1. “Midnight Mall Run” – The party is hired to escort a Beaumont trade caravan to Ed-Town during a rare lunar blackout, when the roads are at their most dangerous.
2. “Return Policy” – A vampiric patron sends the PCs back to Ed-Town to retrieve a faulty relic, only to find it’s already been resold… to someone who doesn’t want to give it back.
3. “Import Trouble” – A shipment from Ed-Town arrives tainted — not with disease, but with an unfamiliar psychic influence that starts affecting Beaumont’s elders.

The Heresy of the Beast

In Beaumont, vampirism is meant to be orderly — a covenant between patron and parishioner, bound by the Compact of Crimson and sanctified in the parish’s rites. Feeding is measured, blood is blessed, and hunger is kept at bay.

But those who reject the Compact — out of pride, desperation, or outright defiance — risk La Déchéance (“The Fall”). Without proper, consecrated blood, the refined predator decays into something feral: a walking hunger in ragged flesh.

The transformation is not merely physical. Parish elders say the soul twists first, snapping under the strain of thirst until only instinct remains. The Church teaches that it is a form of damnation — and that it is merciful to destroy them before the change is complete.

The Outcasts

Nonconforming vampires are exiled from the community; their crests struck from chapel walls and their names scratched from the parish rolls.

• Why They’re Exiled:
• Refusing to follow the blood quota system.
• Turning mortals without Maison sanction.
• Feeding outside the Compact (especially on children or clergy).
• Rejecting the authority of the parish in spiritual or civic matters.

Once exiled, they are denied access to the Banque de Sang de l’Ouest. Most can only stave off La Déchéance by hunting in the wilderness — or in desperate cases, on the fringes of Ed-Town.

The Beasts They Become

Without proper blood, an exiled vampire’s body and mind degrade over days or weeks. Elders recognize two main patterns of degeneration, each as dangerous to vampires as to mortals:

Chiropterans (Chirosses) – Bat Monsters

• Bodies twist, the ears lengthen, and their faces collapse into leathery muzzles bristling with teeth.
• Can fly into the darkness.
• Their shrieks can rattle the nerves of even elder vampires.
• Hunt in ruined buildings and silos — anywhere with high, dark perches.

Lupins – Wolf Monsters

• Bones thicken, jaw and claws lengthen, and their posture shifts toward a half-wolf crouch.
• Masters of pursuit — they stalk prey for hours, howling to disorient and drive it toward ambushes.
• Often seen in the canola fields, their shapes briefly visible between the golden rows before they strike.

The Shared Enemy

Beaumont’s vampires and mortals may have their disagreements, but both fear La Déchéance.

To the Vampires: The fallen are an insult to their dignity — proof to the Republic’s critics that vampires are just beasts in robes.

To the Mortals: They’re a predator without a leash. The Compact offers protection; the beasts offer only bloodshed.

The Garde Noire treats hunting Chirosses and Lupins as holy work, carrying stakes soaked in blessed oil for Chirosses and silvered polearms for Lupins.

French Equivalent of “Plebs”

In this context, vampires refer to dangerous outsiders (feral mortals, bandits, or wild exiles) as les badauds — literally “loiterers” or “idlers,” but with a spit of contempt.
The worst insult in Beaumont is to call someone “un badaud avec des crocs” — “a loiterer with fangs.”

Adventure Seeds

1. “The Lantern Goes Out” – A Lupin is prowling too close to a quartier. The PCs must track it through the fields before it strikes during the Lantern Vigil.
2. “Blood Debt” – A Chiross in the ruins swears it was wrongly exiled and offers information on a rogue Maison in exchange for one vial of consecrated blood.
3. “Hunt the Hunter” – The Garde Noire hires the PCs to help with a rare “dual fall” — a bonded pair, one Chiross and one Lupin, coordinating their attacks.

L’Ordre de la Veille Rouge

 

(The Order of the Red Vigil)

“Nous veillons lorsque les autres dorment. Le sang se souvient.”
“We keep watch while others sleep. The blood remembers.”

 Overview:

L’Ordre de la Veille Rouge is a vampiric martial order bound by sacred oath to protect Beaumont and uphold the Compact of Crimson. While the Republic’s secular arms handle diplomacy and quotas, the Veille Rouge moves unseen through back alleys, forests, and twilight roads—neutralizing threats before they reach the church steps.

Their members are drawn from vampires, Kamidavers, and a select few mortals, who have shown unwavering loyalty to Beaumont and its spiritual cause. To outsiders, they are myths. To locals, they are a whispered warning: “Don’t test the red eyes in the dark.”

Founding Myth:

It’s said that during the early days of the Hodgepocalypse, a circle of bloodbound monks and knights made a pact with the first vampire bishop of Beaumont to defend the town’s soul through shadow. They swore to never break vigil—even in undeath.

Their original commandery was beneath the church on the hill, and their first oath is still carved into the crypt stones:

“Si la nuit est notre sanctuaire, que le silence soit notre épée.”
“If the night is our sanctuary, then let silence be our sword.”

Structure & Ranks:

Rank	Title	Description
Primus Veilleur	Grand Watcher	Supreme commander, often a vampire elder or blood bishop.
Chapelain de l’Ombre	Shadow Chaplain	Oversees the spiritual integrity of the order. Leads blood rites and funerals.
Chevaliers de Cendre	Knights of Ash	Veteran enforcers who have a free hand in leading the lower ranks
Veilleurs Rouges	Red Watchers	Core agents—patrol at night, guard sacred routes, enforce pacts.
Écuyers de Minuit	Midnight Squires	Mortal initiates or junior vampires are undergoing a trial. Ride mopeds, not motorbikes. Yet.

Uniform & Symbolism:

• Armor: Reinforced cassocks lined with silver stitching and red piping. Many wear tactical balaclavas or helmets with red-tinted visors.
• Symbol: A red candle burning in the dark, encircled by thorns and the phrase “La nuit vous garde.”
• Weapons: Polearms with silvered points, relic pistols, alchemical canisters of blood mist, and cruciform stakes known as les croix dormantes (“sleeping crosses”).
• Vehicles:  Motorcycles are surprisingly common within this order.  They include a Red Shroud, A collapsible canopy frame mounted to the bike’s chassis, unfolding like a bat’s wing to cover both rider and machine.  While not perfectly safe, it reduces sun exposure enough for vampires to ride in filtered daylight — useful for urgent missions.  It also looks dramatic when they ride information, crimson sails snapping in the wind.  Each patrol bike has a detachable armored sidecar that is vaguely shaped like a sleek coffin.
• PC Options.  These vamps are often Adventurers (Prowlers, Scouts, and Scrapfoots), or Channeler (Sentinel), or Combatants (Brute-New Age)

Role in Town:

• Patrol La Route des Morts, ensuring no corpsemen or ferals slip through.
• Serve as bodyguards to high-ranking vampire nobles or priests.
• Act as judges and executioners for violations of the Compact (especially rogue vampires or illegal feedings).
• Organize Bloodlight Vigils: town-wide alerts when spiritual threats or outer horrors breach the veil.

Adventure Hooks:

• “The Red Veil Slips” – A member of the Order has gone rogue and is feeding indiscriminately. The party is asked to investigate—but the Order will not tolerate failure or scandal.
• “Trial by Moonfire” – A PC is inducted into the Order. To prove their worth, they must walk a haunted road while hunted by a restless shade from the pre-Hodgepocalypse.
• “Secrets Beneath the Steeple” – A crypt beneath the church reveals forbidden relics that even the Veille Rouge has long sealed. Why are they waking now?

Species

Cats

Cats in Beaumont are far more than mascots or spiritual omens — they are sapient “inspired” descendants of the household companions that once lounged on windowsills before the Revelations. Disappearing in the world’s final quiet years and reemerging after the Necromantic Wars, they now speak in multiple tongues and weave their tangled politics into the town’s Compact. In Beaumont, they are treated with reverence; a cat refusing to enter a home is cause for mortal families to flee, and many Maisons consult feline advice on matters of luck and danger. Yet their loyalty is rarely singular. A quiet understanding exists between the canny elders of the feline community and Mayor Larry of Ed-Town: cats, with their natural stealth and insatiable curiosity, serve as his discreet informants, slipping between quartiers to watch for unrest, breaches of the Compact, or rival psychic influences. As PCs, Beaumont cats are consummate observers, agile hunters, and cunning go-betweens — equally at home basking in a vampire salon’s candlelight, prowling the red-lit fields for signs of Lupin tracks, or purring in a mortal kitchen while mentally cataloguing every whispered secret for later use.

Feylin

Feylin are pop culture–obsessed fae who have found a comfortable niche in Beaumont’s nocturnal society, thriving as entertainers, gossipmongers, and masters of the theatrical flourish. Bound to the Compact by custom rather than blood, they flit between quartiers as couriers of news, sellers of charms, and masters of presentation for Maison ceremonies. In a town where vampires take themselves very seriously, Feylin act as both the comic relief and the necessary sparkle — hosting night markets, dressing elders for feast days, or scripting elaborate oil-lantern parades through the canola fields. As PCs, they are agile diplomats and agents of controlled chaos, moving easily between vampire salons, mortal households, and Ed-Town’s midnight markets. Some embrace the role of loyal heralds to their patron Maison; others quietly collect secrets for themselves, knowing that in Beaumont, information is as valuable as blood.  They often dress as they expect the vampires to be, complete with plastic fangs,  which usually annoys the local humans and vampires alike.

Human

Humans in Beaumont are not passive livestock — they are parishioners, farmers, craftsmen, merchants, and squires who live within the Compact of Crimson. Every mortal household is bonded to a patron Maison de l’Est, trading loyalty and regular blood tithe for protection, prosperity, and a place in the parish’s rituals. Many serve as mortal squires in the Ordre de la Veille Rouge, day-active caretakers of the fields, or trusted caravaners on Ed-Town runs. A human PC may be a proud defender of the Compact, a reluctant participant born into it, or a quiet dissenter working within the system. Whether carrying a relic for their patron, escorting trade goods through dangerous roads, or investigating threats to their quartier, humans have freedom of movement under vampire protection — making them the perfect intermediaries between Beaumont’s golden fields and the shadowed world beyond.

Vampire

Vampires of Beaumont are children of the Maisons de l’Est, embraced into undeath under the Compact of Crimson and raised in the parish tradition. While elders serve as spiritual leaders, political negotiators, and keepers of the fields, younger vampires often take on the dangerous work — riding with the Ordre de la Veille Rouge, guarding trade routes, or representing their Maison in Ed-Town. They are the most common nonhuman PCs from Beaumont: old enough to have the thirst and the strength, young enough still to test the edges of their Maison’s patience. Some are ambitious scions eager to rise in the parish hierarchy; others are restless souls looking beyond the golden fields for glory, knowledge, or forbidden freedoms. Whether dutiful knight, charming envoy, or reluctant heir, a young vampire carries both the blessings of the Compact and the constant risk of La Déchéance — and every choice they make reflects on the Maison whose crest they wear.

Notable Locations

Brasserie du Sépulcre

Built on the bones of the old Sea Change Brewing taproom along Beaumont’s main drag, the Brasserie du Sépulcre is half brewhouse, half crypt, its fermentation tanks sunk deep into the earth to keep them cool and steeped in the scent of stone. The house specialties — blood beers, iron-rich ales, and vitae-infused saison — are poured from taps shaped like reliquary flasks, each brew named for a saint or a fallen Maison. Beneath the taproom lies the Barrel Crypt, where disputes between vampire houses are settled in equal parts negotiation, blood duel, and drinking contest, all under the watchful eyes of neutral Garde Noire arbiters. Mortals are welcome, so long as they don’t ask what’s in the casks that are chained shut.

Plot Hook: A long-simmering feud between two Maisons is about to erupt during a scheduled duel in the Barrel Crypt, but someone has tampered with the cask meant for the winner’s toast. The PCs must uncover the saboteur before the Brasserie’s “neutral ground” becomes a killing floor.

Chapelle du Cœur Nocturne

Rising on the slope just below Beaumont’s famed hill, the Chapelle du Cœur Nocturne is the spiritual and political center of the canton. Once a Catholic parish, its altar now bears both crucifix and the crests of the Maisons de l’Est, and the chalice of Communion brims with consecrated blood oil during high rites. Here, mortal and vampire elders meet under red-stained glass to bless the fields, settle disputes between quartiers, and debate policy in the same breath as prayer. Incense mixes with the copper tang of vitae, and the outstanding bell tolls only at dusk — its peal said to call not the faithful, but the night itself.

Plot Hook: When the chapel’s bell tolls at noon for the first time in living memory, the parish leaders claim it is a divine omen — but the Garde Noire suspects sabotage. The PCs must determine who or what has altered the heart’s rhythm before the congregation turns on itself.

The Crimson Mill

Rebuilt atop the cracked foundations of Beaumont’s last grain elevator, the Crimson Mill rises like a rust-red reliquary against the night sky. Its towering silos no longer hold wheat or barley, but iron-cooled tanks of donated blood, sorted into ceremonial, medicinal, and recreational grades by cloaked technicians in the huile bénie-scented air. The elevator’s conveyor system has been reforged into a pumping network, moving the lifeblood of the Compact as efficiently as grain once flowed through the prairie. Lanterns in the shape of old harvest moons hang from its frame, casting gold-red light over the surrounding quartier — a reminder that Beaumont still “feeds” its people, just in a different way. Cats patrol the catwalks, warding off Chiross infiltrators and Lupin scavengers.

Plot Hook: A key refining vat has been tainted with a slow-acting toxin, threatening the next shipment of ceremonial blood oil. The PCs must investigate before the elders call for a quartier-wide blood recall — a move that could starve both mortals and vampires alike.

Le Bloc Maudit

Squatting at the edge of a quiet quartier, Le Bloc Maudit is a looming slab of brutalist concrete that appears on no map and in no parish record. Its windows are dark, yet shapes sometimes shift behind the glass; the front doors are always unlocked, but stepping inside leaves most with the sense that something is walking just behind them. Some claim it was “built overnight” after the Hodgepocalypse, others that it’s always been there, waiting. Those who try to live within its walls rarely last more than a week — moving out pale, thin, and unwilling to speak of what they saw.

Plot Hook: A mortal child has gone missing, last seen chasing a stray cat into Le Bloc Maudit. The PCs must venture inside before the building decides to keep its newest resident.

Le Marché de Minuit

Le Marché de Minuit – Housed in the repurposed halls and covered walkways of the old Place Beauséjour, Le Marché de Minuit awakens only after sunset, its doors barred during daylight with chains etched in fleur-de-lis wards. By lamplight and crimson lantern, vendors hawk wares both practical and profane: forbidden tomes wrapped in oilcloth, parasols stitched with sun-screening spells, polished thermal coffins, and jars of plasma preserves steeped with herbs. Mortal and vampire customers browse side by side under the watchful eyes of the Garde Noire, while cats perch on the rafters listening for whispers worth passing to Mayor Larry. The air is thick with roasting grain, incense, and the scent of hot metal from a smithy that only works in silver and bone.

Plot Hook: A shipment of sun-screened parasols bound for Ed-Town has been stolen from the Marché’s loading dock, and all evidence points to an inside job. The PCs must track the goods through the black-market stalls before they reach a Lupin pack along La Route des Morts.

La Route des Morts

Once the mundane 50th Street artery connecting Beaumont to Edmonton’s southeast, La Route des Morts is now a straight-line corridor of shadow and silence, its cracked asphalt flanked by fields of gold canola and wind-twisted fencelines. The road is claimed by the Ordre de la Veille Rouge, who use it for nocturnal courier runs to Ed-Town and back, their black-and-crimson motorbikes leaving only the scent of huile bénie in their wake. Rusted-out bus shelters stand as waypoints, each repurposed into a mile marker daubed in red oil to honor fallen riders and warn ferals away. At night, the air is so still that the hum of an approaching engine carries for miles; in daylight, the road belongs to scavenger crews, wandering plebs, and the occasional Lupin pack lying in wait in the ditchgrass. The last stretch before Edmonton’s edge is lined with the skeletal remains of power poles — said to be hung once a year with crimson lanterns to mark the Accord between Mayor Larry and Beaumont’s elders.

Plot Hook: A Veille Rouge courier carrying a sealed reliquary never arrived in Ed-Town, vanishing somewhere along La Route des Morts. The PCs must ride the highway, following whispered sightings at the mile markers, before the relic falls into the hands — or claws — of something lurking in the ditchgrass.

Maison Chartier

Standing where an old fine-dining restaurant once welcomed the living, Maison Chartier is now Beaumont’s most exclusive “blood bistro” and cultural salon. Its candlelit dining hall serves ancestral recipes adapted for the Compact — mortal fare paired with vintage blood blends, each decanted with theatrical precision by servers in fleur-de-lis waistcoats. Presiding over the floor is Monsieur Mew, a sleek AI maître d’ automaton cat whose glowing eyes scan guests, quietly assigning seating based on both reservation priority and unspoken political hierarchies. Patrons don’t book tables by time, but by donation — a sealed vial of vitae grants you a seat, with rarer bloodlines earning the choicest spots. It is here that vampire elders entertain Ed-Town dignitaries, mortal patrons negotiate quartier alliances, and the occasional duel of etiquette plays out between courses.

Plot Hook: Monsieur Mew has been behaving erratically, misplacing guests and seating sworn rivals together. The PCs are asked to discreetly investigate before a scheduled dinner with Ed-Town’s Mayor Larry turns into a diplomatic disaster.

Adventure Hooks

• “Red in the Vines” – A new blood harvest is spoiled by a mysterious contagion. Vampiric rot spreads among nobles and donors alike.
• “Les Disparus de la Lune” – Locals have vanished from a nearby hamlet. Rumors point to rogue vampires violating the Compact.
• “L’Aube d’Or” – A faction of Beaumont vampires seeks to break away from the République and create their western kingdom, with risky daylight experiments in progress.

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