Taint

Religious concept. Basis of hunter house doctrines. Generally considered bad.

Vampires are considered particularly prone to taint, according to House Jade (image credit: AllAvatars)

Taint is a crucial concept in the vampire hunter cult that reared Jaina Jade and other women.


Origin

The cult of the huntresses teaches that men brought the first monsters into the world, then denied responsibility for their actions and left their women to fend off the threat. Because of this, men are considered morally inferior to women, incapable of killing monsters without acquiring the beasts' full taint in the process. Monsters retain all taint from their feeding, regardless of will; for example, the soul of a man who becomes a vampire is tainted with every feeding even though the man's soul is helpless to stop it. He can only be freed from this enormous taint if he is slain by a huntress—death at someone else's hands does not remove the taint or stop his soul's torment.

Accumulation

The huntresses believe that all living creatures are born free of taint and that taint grows with each wrongdoing. Lesser animals do not acquire enough taint to affect their fates, but more intelligent species do. Humans are uniquely susceptible to taint becaue the first monsters were once human and fed on humanity. Other sapient races (such as elves) do not figure in the cult, but are generally believed to acquire taint as well.

Anyone who dies with sufficient taint is said to suffer ceaselessly in the afterlife. This can only be avoided by removing taint prior to death (in the case of undead, prior to final death, the death that ends their ability to affect the mortal coil).

Removal

A devout huntress stalks prey often as a religious rite. For each evil slain, their goddess cleanses the once-human monster of all taint. She simultaneously removes a degree of taint from the huntress, or from another person whom the huntress names as she strikes the killing blow. A capable and active huntress is generally considered effectively clean of all taint, so trainees and non-huntresses involved in the cult will sometimes request that a huntress absolve them on their taint in her next fight. This is also a factor in relationships between a huntress and a non-huntress devotee: what better way to keep constantly absolved than to bed your salvation? (This sometimes works better in theory than in practice.)

Adherents

Jaina Jade was cast out of the huntresses but still practices their faith, with a few modifications. She believes that, as an outcast, she cannot be saved, but she stills hunts monsters with the hope of rescuing Pasht from suffering someday.

Other hunters pages