The Oldbloods are the oldest known vampire lineage — ancient, living curses created through a desperate bargain with Koschei the Deathless. Most vampires trace their existence, directly or indirectly, to the shadow of what happened to the Morozovs. Yet among the oldest stories, there are whispers of things that drank blood long before the Oldbloods ever walked the earth.
The Shadow of the Ancestors is one of several covens hidden throughout Chicagoland — an old Slavic order with roots in the former Soviet Union, built on blood, memory, duty, and the belief that the dead are not gone, only waiting to be obeyed.
Wolves are born, not made. Across Illinois and the neighboring states, packs survive through bloodlines, territory, family, and law. Chicago's Slavic pack is only one of them — loyal, territorial, emotional, and far more human than the monsters who underestimate them.
Chicago's Vampire Council manages secrecy, influence, punishment, and public narrative. It is less a throne room than a pressure system — political, elegant, and always watching.
The Morozov stronghold in Chicago: part mansion, part fortress, part old-world refuge, and part emotional pressure cooker for everyone unfortunate enough to live there.
The origin point. The wound beneath the myth. A mother's desperate plea became a curse that reshaped the supernatural world — and may not be finished with the Morozovs yet.
In the wilds of old Rus', Mira Morozova invokes Koschei the Deathless to save her children. The Morozov siblings survive — but not as mortals.
The Starokrovs become the source of vampire history: feared, misunderstood, imitated, and mythologized across centuries.
Vampires, witches, and wolves learn to survive in the hidden spaces of the human world, building laws, councils, packs, and old grudges beneath ordinary cities.
The Morozovs establish a foothold in Chicago and acquire the Gold Coast estate, one of their most important modern strongholds.
The city's supernatural balance rests on uneasy cooperation between vampire politics, witchcraft, wolf territory, and the fragile secrecy keeping mortals from looking too closely.
A psychic message, a murdered messenger, and rumors of an impossible cure draw the Morozovs back into Chicago — and pull Liza Belov into the center of a crisis she never asked for.
Beneath the lake wind, old money, glass towers, churches, clubs, brownstones, and back rooms, Chicago's supernatural world survives by pretending not to exist.
In Devils in the Windy City, every faction has something to protect, something to hide, and something to fear. The Morozovs did not create every monster in the city — but when the Oldbloods gather, every monster notices.