Who Is Brencis? The Blood of Dawnwalker's Vampire Antagonist

The Vale Sangora has a new ruler, and he is not its king. This page covers everything confirmed about Brencis, the ancient vampire at the center of The Blood of Dawnwalker, at launch.

Who Is Brencis?

Brencis is an ancient vampire who seized control of the Vale Sangora alongside his vampiric followers while the kingdom was collapsing under plague and its king’s brutal response — the court he rules with is covered in the vampire court. His rule rests on a monstrous bargain — see the plague and the blood tax for the full sequence — and on power no living man in the valley can match.

What Did Brencis Do to the Vale Sangora?

The confirmed sequence of his rise:

1. A plague ravages the land. The king’s answer is to execute the infected.
2. Brencis intervenes. He cures the plague — using vampire blood.
3. The cure has a price. Brencis takes control of the kingdom and imposes the blood tax: at monthly gatherings, the weak are typically killed.

He is, in the developers’ framing, a savior and a tyrant in the same body — which is exactly what makes the valley’s population complicit in his rule.

Why Does Brencis Hunt Coen’s Family?

When the vampiric transformation was attempted on Coen, it failed. Brencis and his subordinate vampires read the failure as a death — Coen’s hidden advantage throughout the game. But the ceremony investing Brencis as Prince, one month out, requires sacrifice, and Brencis abducts Coen’s family for it. That abduction is the inciting incident of the entire game and the reason the 30-day clock exists.

What Role Does Brencis Play in Gameplay?

Brencis anchors the antagonist side of the reputation system — one of the two scales tracks your relations with antagonists. As a creature of the night, he is strongest in the half of the day that favors Coen’s vampire form. How confrontations with him resolve across the narrative sandbox branches with player choice; strategy pages for those fights will be written after launch from real runs.

How Does Brencis Fit the Game’s Themes?

Rebel Wolves pitches The Blood of Dawnwalker as a story about what a person will become to save his family. Brencis is the answer’s dark mirror: a being who saved a kingdom by making it prey. The day/night system page covers the vampire half of Coen that Brencis’s blood accidentally created; the systems overview is in the beginner guide.