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See, that’s why we can’t have nice things,

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My only comment with this is that the dialogue between the two guys in Chapter 1 was a tad too long. I guess it's okay since the purpose of NaNoWriMo was to write novel length stories but reading all those paragraphs in front of a screen isn't as gripping as reading it on a real book; especially if you have an entire chapter devoted to two people talking casually in a single location without much action or movement- A Bottle Episode as TV tropes calls it. But it does work as a quick glimpse into the setting.

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By the way, I googled the Holy Kommenian Empire and found nothing about it. Did you make it up or perhaps it's a reference to the Holy Roman Empire?

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Seeing as our 90 (+ 30+ whatever year he was born) year old Vampire aristocrat bears a Polish name.

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And speaking of setting, Istanbul?! It's the cursed Ottoman Turks and their blasted Bombards! Quick, send in the Uhlans to route their artillery! Their cannons won't be firing a single cannon ball today if I can help it.

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However, there was one particular item he would not leave behind at any cost. At the back of the locker there was a single silver dagger. At first sight, it seemed to be an article more suitable for an aristocrat’s silverware collection than combat, what with its having an ornately decorated hilt and guard, a velvet-coated scabbard and – as he picked up and unsheathed it – a delicate, slender blade that threatened to break with the least of manhandling.

And yet Wladislaw could vouch himself as to how durable that blade actually was, as well as how combat-worth it would prove even in the heat of battle as a killing weapon. His father before him had used it to take many a werewolf lives back in the border wars of the fifties of the previous century. And now that he was but an old and paralytic old noble on his porch back in their family holding in Poland, the duties fell on Wladislaw’s shoulders.

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HA HA HA NO. Someone other than him will, though.

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enck

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I just find it rather funny that a bunch of men in scale armor are waltzing around in modern city like it was no one's business.

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Those facial features, unfortunately, were the only things bystanders could agree about regarding his looks. Depending on whom one would ask, they would receive a completely different answer. Some would describe his garment as an average, smudgy and oily oil rig worker’s jumpsuit. Others would see the same garment as a Turkish army technician’s uniform, complete with a pen in the front shirt pocket and a clipboard in his hands. Still others would say it was a sailor’s uniform, the sort of texture associated with both skilled mariners and Japanese high school girls alike, that he was donning.

If only the onlookers would compare their answers, they might have discovered such a stunning contradiction and reacted accordingly. Unfortunately, the bystanders had next to zero reason to do so. To the busy citizens of Istanbul, he was just another passer-by, a stranger to the city not at all unlike the dozens of thousands who came and go to their bustling ports on a daily basis. If that particular stranger they caught a glimpse of on board a perfectly ordinary ship was anything out of the ordinary, what difference would it make?

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Anywho, care to give a hint on what this common foe is that the Kommenian vampires and the Dragon Wolves need to form a temporary alliance?

By the way, will we have Oni in this story?

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When you walk into the street every day as a well-adjusted adult with a job and a business in mind, you would not expect vampires, werewolves and demons or anything out of the ordinary walking around, and you would most likely ignore or rationalize things that look out of the ordinary as "It's just a passing thing/someone is doing a film/not my business". This "cloaking" device takes advantage of that tendency and create an illusion of what the bystander unconsciously wants to see to mask the user's real form.

The core concept behind this device is that it only works when the being in question is unaware of the existence of supernatural beings and passively takes measures to try to disbelieve any proof to the contrary. This, unfortunately, restricts the use of the device in the sense that it plainly doesn't work on anyone who is aware of the existence of the supernatural world. So when a non-supernatural person looks at a HKE soldier, he would see not the reality of a muscular dude who wears antiquated armor and a bigass lance/sword/scythe, but the illusion of someone who his unconscious mind would most associate with that particular situation.

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foremost to hunt down my universe's equivalent of Ciel-sama

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Instead, they went about carrying their business in a manner that could be best described as "Mimicking Nero Chaos, only with more discretion"

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In short, it's just a technological equivalent of Mystic Eyes and Suggestion? Ciel did the same thing in their school and no one wondered about her having a French name.

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And by Ciel's equivalent do you mean Church executors? People rendered immortal by the will of the planet due to reincarnation loop holes? Or just people who love curry? Lol.

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You mean the vampiric cataphracts ate their foes and licked every blood stain to get rid of the evidence permanently?

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I built an entire faction based on the general concept of one guy

spoiler:

A little designers' note: Think the Cats are already great? Try the High Wolves' Varangian Silver-Shield Huscarls, who were basically veteran werewolves with the skills of Danish Viking Age raiders on steroids and discipline of the eponymous Makedonian Argyraspidai, who had overcome their weakness to silver through unspeakably hellish training and conditioning, and who could - and had, in the backstory - eat Cats for breakfast and spit out the saddle.

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Also, in my opinion, the "<insert horrible monster here> is actually cute pretty teenage girls with <insert horribly broken power here> who also have <insert sympathetic personal issue here> / <insert cutey trait here>" gimmick is interesting the first few times, but it grows old real fast.

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D-Did you just deconstruct the "Beach/Hot Springs Episode"?

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Anyway, I seem to be getting the grasp of the atmosphere you're building. Sakurasaki reminds me of me setting in Kara no Kyoukai; Ryougi Shiki's mountain home to be exact.

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Anyway, quite a soothing chapter. Our young Suichi is proving to be an interesting character.

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There are one or two names in the opening Chapter/Prologue I don't entirely understand. Are they in Turkish or something?

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What does the nobility seal mean?

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The Noble Sigil is the family symbol of a vampire noble family received upon swearing vassalage to the Basileus ton Komnenoi. Aside from being, well, the symbol of the family and carried on their and their retainers' banners, the Sigil is also imbued with a special kind of especially powerful magic unavailable by any other means as a reward for their service. Essentially it allows the holder - the head of the family or his legal successor - to use this magic at will. As long as he/she has the kind of blood reserve to afford it, that is - you see, magic in my setting run on blood.

Unfortunately, some of this special magic are so powerful that they are for the most part useless, and serve only as a symbol of the family's status and prosperity. Case in point: the reason why Julian was terrified of the Potocki family sigil is because it essentially allowed the holder to nuke a rather large area at the cost of his own life. Obviously he had never, ever used that.

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I wonder how he missed by a mile?