Soulblight

Soulblight is the ancient vampiric curse of the Mortal Realms, a dark affliction that grants near-immortality and terrible power at the price of an unending thirst for blood. It is Nagash's oldest curse, laid upon those who once dared to cheat his dominion over the dead, twisting their bid for eternal life into a hungering half-existence bound forever to the Great Necromancer's shadow.

Those afflicted with soulblight, the vampires who lead the Soulblight Gravelords, gain formidable gifts: superhuman strength and speed, resistance to wounds that would fell any mortal, mastery of dark sorcery, and centuries of life in which to hone their cunning. Yet the curse also chains them. They must feed upon the blood of the living to sustain themselves, and their power ebbs the longer they starve, until the mightiest lord can be reduced to a withered, feral husk.

Soulblight sits uneasily within the Death Grand Alliance, for its vampires are proud, ambitious, and resentful of Nagash's tyranny even as they serve it. Many dream of carving out their own eternal kingdoms, and some have rebelled outright, only to be reminded that the curse in their veins is the Great Necromancer's leash as much as his gift. To bear soulblight is to be both a predator-king and a prisoner, gifted eternity yet denied ever truly being free of the god who cursed them.