The Seven: The Blood Moon Campaign
The Seven is a dark story campaign. Seven half-turned survivors serve a blood moon god, and they need living hands to do the work they no longer can. You run their errands, climb their ranks, bind yourself to one of them, and finally choose how it ends.
How to start
- Go to any trader and choose "Ask about the red moon."
- Choose "Take the sealed page." The trader drops it at your feet.
- Pick it up and read it. The first mission, Something Worth Counting, begins.
Level 15 is the earliest it makes sense. The campaign is 42 missions long, and the later chapters expect gear that can survive a blood moon. Any trader takes your turn-ins.
How the missions work
- Pages start missions. Most missions end by handing you the page that starts the next one. Read it to continue.
- Night pages can only be read at night. If a page won't open, wait for dark.
- Blood moon rites only run on a blood moon. Ask any trader for "the red errand" on a blood moon to get a rite page. Read it out in the open; it marks a place where something will be waiting. You get one a night.
- "Day job" missions are breathers you can do any time: kill a set number, then report back.
- Only your own kills count. In a group, each player has to make their own kills.
- Fights come to you. Missions spawn the Seven's dead, and later the Made (the god's bosses), where you're told to go.
The chapters: I The Opening Count, II Night Work, III First Communion, IV The Routes, V Borrowed Repair, VI The Red Debt, VII What the Ground Keeps, VIII The Truth Beneath, IX The Counting Nights, X The Black Seat. The subtitle of every mission shows where you are, for example "12/42".
Currencies
| Currency | Where it comes from | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Blood Coins | Mission rewards and the Seven's work | Marks, pacts, caches and the Seven's shop pages |
| Shards | Scraped from the turned | Lesser tithes and caches |
| Dead Letters | Taken from corpses | Deeper rites that need proof something was witnessed |
| Moon Ash | Rare | The Elder Hand rite and Ash-Cast crafting |
You spend them by reading the Seven's order pages, which you find in loot. Each page trades your coin for a cache, a mark or a pact. Spare pages can be sold.
Ranks (Marks)
Your standing with the Seven rises through five marks:
- Open Hand: the god has noticed you (50 Blood Coins).
- Witnessed: you survived work done under its eye (100 Blood Coins and a Dead Letter).
- Red Debt: you paid beneath the blood moon.
- Elder Hand: the Seven know your name (175 Blood Coins and Moon Ash).
- The Black Seat: the end of the road.
Pacts and gifts
Bind a pact with one member of the Seven for 250 Blood Coins to take their permanent gift. Only one pact can live in you at a time. The members are the Hollow, the Pale, the Warden, the Brand and the Rot.
The campaign has its own skills tab. Each member offers a line of gifts, for example:
- The Pale: more maximum health.
- The Hollow: carry more without slowing down.
- The Brand: better weapon handling.
- The Warden: faster crafting.
- Plus the Rot, the Cipher and the Seventh.
Rites you can use
- The Vigil: use it at night, out in the open, and stand exactly where you are. The god tests the ground for five minutes in waves. Step off it and the vigil fails; survive and you're paid for the ground you held.
- The Long Count: the god's open ledger, a descent of floors without end, each deeper and richer than the last.
The Arsenal
The Seven have their own weapons, armour and ammo: member melee weapons, guns, armour sets, Ash-Cast ammo and, at the very top, the Black Regalia. You buy them through order pages and craft Ash-Cast gear from Moon Ash at a workbench.
After the ending
The campaign ends in a choice, and the road you pick gives you a standing duty that keeps going:
- The Eighth Seat, "The Quota": the god feeds through you; kill until the count fills.
- The Unmarked, "The Hunted": you refused the god, so it sends collectors after you.
- The Keeper, "The Knocking": you keep watch while the god's dead dig at the door.
The God's Hunger (everyone level 50+)
Not just campaign players: from 10:30pm to 3:30am on every blood moon, every player level 50 and up has to keep killing. Each kill resets a 5-minute clock. If it runs out, you lose 4 health a second until your next kill.
The Eighth
Seven were taken on the first blood moon, above ground. An eighth was taken below, and never came back up. If you also play the Undercity, the story reaches down there: see The One Below in the Undercity guide.