Order of the Crimson Vanguard

Role in Aetheris

The Crimson Vanguard stands wherever fiends, vampires, necromancers, revenant armies, and infernal cults threaten mortal realms. Their fortress-temple, the Crimson Bastion, rises over catacombs filled with the remains of slain vampires, serving as a war college, reliquary, armory, and execution ground for horrors that do not stay dead easily.

Members of this order are often deployed to:

Suppress undead hordes before they become regional catastrophes.

Lead strike teams against vampiric courts and fiend-bound tyrants.

Defend settlements during supernatural sieges.

Destroy necromantic engines, blood altars, and infernal summoning circles.

Train militias and allied soldiers in anti-undead and anti-fiend tactics.

Command hunter-warbands when the Claret Concordium declares a major purge.

Order of the Crimson Vanguard Features

Blood Hunter Level	Feature
3rd	Vanguard Training, Rite of the Scarlet Pyre, Blood-Bound Formation
7th	Warden of the Battleline
11th	Purging Onslaught
15th	Crimson Standard
18th	Avatar of the Bloodforged Bastion

3rd Level: Vanguard Training

When you join the Order of the Crimson Vanguard, you are trained as both a hunter and a battlefield officer.

You gain proficiency in heavy armor and one of the following skills of your choice: Athletics, Intimidation, Persuasion, Religion, or Survival.

If you already have proficiency in the chosen skill, you gain expertise in it instead.

You also gain proficiency with one of the following:

Proficiency Option
Firearms
Smith’s Tools
Alchemist’s Supplies
Military Vehicles, if used in the campaign
One gaming set used for battlefield strategy, such as Dragonchess

Vanguard Doctrine

You have advantage on Intelligence checks made to recall information about fiends, undead, vampiric bloodlines, necromantic armies, infernal warbands, battlefield formations, siege tactics, and supernatural military threats.

In addition, when you roll initiative and are not surprised, you may choose a number of creatures you can see within 30 feet of you equal to your Intelligence modifier, minimum of one. Each chosen creature gains temporary hit points equal to your Hemocraft die + your proficiency bonus.

You can use this initiative benefit a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

3rd Level: Rite of the Scarlet Pyre

You learn to cloak your weapon in burning vitae, the signature hemocraft of the Crimson Vanguard.

When you activate your Crimson Rite, you may choose for the rite’s damage type to become radiant or fire instead of its normal damage type. While this rite is active, your weapon burns with disciplined crimson light, and each strike leaves the brief outline of a chalice, shield, or burning brand in the air.

Once per turn when you hit a creature with a weapon attack empowered by this rite, you can invoke the Scarlet Pyre against the target.

The target takes additional radiant or fire damage, your choice, equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die.

If the target is a fiend or undead, the additional damage increases by an amount equal to your Intelligence modifier, minimum of 1.

You can invoke Scarlet Pyre a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

No Rest for the Damned

If a fiend or undead creature is reduced to 0 hit points by damage from your Crimson Rite or Scarlet Pyre, it cannot regain hit points until the start of your next turn.

If the creature has a trait that would allow it to survive at 1 hit point, such as Undead Fortitude or a similar feature, it has disadvantage on any roll or saving throw made to do so.

3rd Level: Blood-Bound Formation

The Crimson Vanguard survives because its hunters do not break formation.

When you activate a Crimson Rite, choose one willing creature within 10 feet of you. Until your rite ends, that creature is considered part of your Blood-Bound Formation.

While a creature is part of your Blood-Bound Formation, it gains the following benefits while within 10 feet of you:

Formation Benefit	Effect
Steady Advance	The creature has advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Shared Discipline	When the creature takes damage from a fiend or undead, it reduces the damage by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus.
Punishing Step	If the creature hits a fiend or undead with a weapon attack, it may add 1d4 radiant damage to the damage roll. This can happen once per turn.

At 11th level, the range of this feature increases to 15 feet, and at 18th level, it increases to 30 feet.

You may have only one creature in your Blood-Bound Formation at a time. Starting at 15th level, you may have two creatures in your Blood-Bound Formation at the same time.

7th Level: Warden of the Battleline

By 7th level, you have learned to turn pain into command. Your blood does not merely empower your weapon. It steadies the shield wall.

When a creature you can see within 30 feet is hit by an attack, you can use your reaction to issue a blood-command. The target gains a bonus to its AC against the triggering attack equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die. If this causes the attack to miss, the protected creature may immediately move up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks.

If the attacking creature is a fiend or undead, it also takes radiant damage equal to your Intelligence modifier, minimum of 1.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Iron Oath Discipline

You also gain resistance to necrotic damage.

In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against being frightened by fiends or undead.

11th Level: Purging Onslaught

At 11th level, your hemocraft becomes a weapon of campaign warfare, turning a single strike into a command for the whole line to advance.

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack empowered by your Crimson Rite, you can unleash a Purging Onslaught. The target takes additional radiant or fire damage equal to two rolls of your Hemocraft die, your choice.

Then choose one of the following effects:

Onslaught Effect	Result
Drive Them Down	The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw against your Hemocraft DC or be knocked prone. Fiends and undead make this saving throw with disadvantage.
Break the Host	Each hostile creature of your choice within 10 feet of the target takes radiant damage equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die.
No Retreat	The target’s speed is reduced by 15 feet until the end of your next turn. If the target is a fiend or undead, it also cannot take reactions during that time.
Rally the Line	One creature in your Blood-Bound Formation may immediately make one weapon attack as a reaction. If that attack hits a fiend or undead, it deals extra radiant damage equal to your Intelligence modifier.

You can use Purging Onslaught a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

15th Level: Crimson Standard

At 15th level, you can raise a blood-wrought standard that transforms the battlefield into consecrated ground.

As an action, you take necrotic damage equal to two rolls of your Hemocraft die. This damage cannot be reduced in any way. You then manifest a Crimson Standard in a space you can see within 10 feet of you. The standard may appear as a blood-lit banner, a rune-carved spear, a blazing chalice hovering above the ground, or a spectral shield marked by your order’s sigil.

The standard lasts for 1 minute, until you are incapacitated, or until you dismiss it, no action required.

The standard creates a 20-foot-radius aura. You and friendly creatures of your choice in the aura gain the following benefits:

Standard Benefit	Effect
Hold the Line	Advantage on saving throws against being frightened, charmed, or possessed.
Consecrated Advance	Once per turn, when a friendly creature in the aura hits a fiend or undead with a weapon attack, it deals extra radiant damage equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die.
Blood-Wrought Resolve	When a friendly creature in the aura is reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, it can drop to 1 hit point instead. Once a creature benefits from this effect, it cannot do so again until it finishes a long rest.
Purge the Profane	Fiends and undead treat the aura as difficult terrain.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest unless you expend two uses of your Blood Maledict feature to use it again.

18th Level: Avatar of the Bloodforged Bastion

At 18th level, you become the living heart of a hunter-warband, a walking fortress of burning blood and unbreakable command.

As a bonus action, you enter the Avatar of the Bloodforged Bastion state for 1 minute.

For the duration, you gain the following benefits:

Avatar Benefit	Effect
Bastion Flesh	You gain resistance to necrotic, fire, radiant, and poison damage.
Unbroken Commander	You cannot be frightened, charmed, possessed, or magically compelled to attack an ally.
Scarlet Execution	Once per turn when you hit a fiend or undead with a weapon attack empowered by your Crimson Rite, the target takes additional radiant damage equal to three rolls of your Hemocraft die.
Warband’s Fury	Creatures in your Blood-Bound Formation gain a bonus to weapon damage rolls equal to your Intelligence modifier, minimum of 1.
The Damned Shall Kneel	Hostile fiends and undead that start their turn within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw against your Hemocraft DC. On a failure, the creature is frightened of you until the start of its next turn. A creature that succeeds is immune to this effect for 24 hours.

In addition, while your Crimson Standard is active during this transformation, its aura increases to 30 feet, and friendly creatures in the aura gain resistance to necrotic damage.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.

Playing a Crimson Vanguard Blood Hunter

A Crimson Vanguard hunter is not the brooding loner in the tavern corner. They are the one checking exits, counting arrows, inspecting armor straps, and quietly deciding who survives the next siege. They believe discipline is a kind of mercy. Panic kills. Formation saves lives.

They often speak in clipped battlefield language, treat wounds without ceremony, and regard heroics without coordination as a form of assisted suicide. To them, courage is not roaring into the dark alone. Courage is standing shoulder to shoulder while the dead climb the walls.

Suggested Order Mannerisms

d8	Mannerism
1	You clean your weapon after every fight, even if the battle is not fully over.
2	You unconsciously arrange allies into defensible positions when entering a room.
3	You recite the names of fallen squadmates before sleeping.
4	You keep a vial of consecrated oil tied beside your Blood Hunter brand.
5	You refer to dangerous ruins as “battlefields that have not admitted it yet.”
6	You distrust anyone who claims a supernatural threat can be negotiated with too easily.
7	You sharpen stakes, silvered blades, and firearm components during conversation.
8	You stand between civilians and doors, windows, graves, mirrors, and suspicious wells.

Suggested Characteristics

Personality Traits

d6	Trait
1	I do not raise my voice in battle. Orders should be sharp enough without volume.
2	I measure people by what they protect when fear takes them.
3	I am grim with enemies, but careful and patient with recruits.
4	I never enter a settlement without identifying its most defensible building.
5	I believe every monster has a breaking point. The trick is surviving long enough to reach it.
6	I keep a soldier’s humor: dry, bleak, and usually delivered while bleeding.

Ideals

d6	Ideal
1	Sacrifice. My blood is worth spending if others live.
2	Discipline. Fear is natural. Disorder is chosen.
3	Protection. Civilization survives because someone holds the gate.
4	Retribution. The damned took too much. Now we collect.
5	Unity. A lone blade cuts. A formation breaks armies.
6	Purification. Corruption must be ended before it learns to spread.

Bonds

d6	Bond
1	I was the only survivor of a failed purge and still carry the company standard.
2	A vampire lord knows my true name, and I intend to take theirs first.
3	I owe my life to a Warden who died buying me one more round of breath.
4	The Crimson Bastion is the only home that ever made sense to me.
5	I train local militias wherever I travel because one day the Vanguard may arrive too late.
6	I carry a silvered weapon forged from the chains of a destroyed necromancer-prince.

Flaws

d6	Flaw
1	I struggle to see the difference between necessary sacrifice and needless loss.
2	I expect civilians to obey battlefield orders without question.
3	I am too willing to condemn the corrupted before searching for a cure.
4	I cannot tolerate cowardice, even when fear is reasonable.
5	I carry survivor’s guilt like a second suit of armor.
6	I trust military hierarchy more than my own heart.

Order Equipment and Aesthetics

Equipment	Description
Bloodforged Greatsword	A massive blade inscribed with hemocraft channels, designed to ignite with burning vitae.
Radiant Revolver	A firearm modified to hold silvered rounds, consecrated shot, or rite-charged cartridges.
Crimson Standard	A compact battle banner carried on a spear, rifle, glaive, or shield brace.
Vanguard Plate-Coat	Heavy armor worn beneath a long military coat marked with blood-sealed rank sigils.
Chalice Brand	A scarification mark used to identify members of the order and denote campaign honors.
Purge Kit	Consecrated oil, silver dust, wooden stakes, bone ash, manacles, sealing wax, and anti-possession scripts.

Adventure Hooks

d8	Hook
1	The Crimson Bastion sends the character to investigate a village that celebrates its dead walking home each winter.
2	A vampire catacomb beneath the Bastion has gone silent, and the silence is considered worse than screaming.
3	A fiendish general offers a ceasefire in exchange for the name of a Vanguard commander’s soul.
4	A necromantic army is not marching toward a city, but away from something buried beneath it.
5	A lost Crimson Standard appears in a market stall, still wet with fresh blood from a battle fought a century ago.
6	A Warden invokes the Nightfall Protocol against a corrupted town, but survivors beg the party to prove the town can still be saved.
7	A radiant revolver from the Crimson Forge misfires only when aimed at one particular vampire, suggesting an older pact.
8	The founder’s sealed war journal is found beneath the Red Bastion, naming a current Vanguard leader as a future traitor.

Subclass Summary

The Order of the Crimson Vanguard is a martial commander Blood Hunter subclass built for players who want to lead from the front. It excels against fiends and undead, supports allies through formation-based abilities, punishes supernatural enemies with radiant and fire damage, and becomes increasingly powerful in mass combat, siege defense, and anti-horde encounters.

Its core rhythm is direct and satisfying: ignite the rite, hold the line, protect the warband, break the damned, raise the standard, and turn the battlefield into a graveyard with better discipline.

"Blood is our bond. Steel is our will. Death is our mercy."

Vanguard Training

When you join the Order of the Crimson Vanguard, you are trained as both a hunter and a battlefield officer.

You gain proficiency in heavy armor and one of the following skills of your choice: Athletics, Intimidation, Persuasion, Religion, or Survival.

If you already have proficiency in the chosen skill, you gain expertise in it instead.

You also gain proficiency with one of the following:

Proficiency Option
Firearms
Smith’s Tools
Alchemist’s Supplies
Military Vehicles, if used in the campaign
One gaming set used for battlefield strategy, such as Dragonchess

Vanguard Doctrine

You have advantage on Intelligence checks made to recall information about fiends, undead, vampiric bloodlines, necromantic armies, infernal warbands, battlefield formations, siege tactics, and supernatural military threats.

In addition, when you roll initiative and are not surprised, you may choose a number of creatures you can see within 30 feet of you equal to your Intelligence modifier, minimum of one. Each chosen creature gains temporary hit points equal to your Hemocraft die + your proficiency bonus.

You can use this initiative benefit a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Rite of the Scarlet Pyre

You learn to cloak your weapon in burning vitae, the signature hemocraft of the Crimson Vanguard.

When you activate your Crimson Rite, you may choose for the rite’s damage type to become radiant or fire instead of its normal damage type. While this rite is active, your weapon burns with disciplined crimson light, and each strike leaves the brief outline of a chalice, shield, or burning brand in the air.

Once per turn when you hit a creature with a weapon attack empowered by this rite, you can invoke the Scarlet Pyre against the target.

The target takes additional radiant or fire damage, your choice, equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die.

If the target is a fiend or undead, the additional damage increases by an amount equal to your Intelligence modifier, minimum of 1.

You can invoke Scarlet Pyre a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

No Rest for the Damned

If a fiend or undead creature is reduced to 0 hit points by damage from your Crimson Rite or Scarlet Pyre, it cannot regain hit points until the start of your next turn.

If the creature has a trait that would allow it to survive at 1 hit point, such as Undead Fortitude or a similar feature, it has disadvantage on any roll or saving throw made to do so.

Blood-Bound Formation

The Crimson Vanguard survives because its hunters do not break formation.

When you activate a Crimson Rite, choose one willing creature within 10 feet of you. Until your rite ends, that creature is considered part of your Blood-Bound Formation.

While a creature is part of your Blood-Bound Formation, it gains the following benefits while within 10 feet of you:

Formation Benefit	Effect
Steady Advance	The creature has advantage on saving throws against being frightened.
Shared Discipline	When the creature takes damage from a fiend or undead, it reduces the damage by an amount equal to your proficiency bonus.
Punishing Step	If the creature hits a fiend or undead with a weapon attack, it may add 1d4 radiant damage to the damage roll. This can happen once per turn.

At 11th level, the range of this feature increases to 15 feet, and at 18th level, it increases to 30 feet.

You may have only one creature in your Blood-Bound Formation at a time. Starting at 15th level, you may have two creatures in your Blood-Bound Formation at the same time.

Warden of the Battleline

By 7th level, you have learned to turn pain into command. Your blood does not merely empower your weapon. It steadies the shield wall.

When a creature you can see within 30 feet is hit by an attack, you can use your reaction to issue a blood-command. The target gains a bonus to its AC against the triggering attack equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die. If this causes the attack to miss, the protected creature may immediately move up to 10 feet without provoking opportunity attacks.

If the attacking creature is a fiend or undead, it also takes radiant damage equal to your Intelligence modifier, minimum of 1.

You can use this feature a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Iron Oath Discipline

You also gain resistance to necrotic damage.

In addition, you have advantage on saving throws against being frightened by fiends or undead.

Purging Onslaught

At 11th level, your hemocraft becomes a weapon of campaign warfare, turning a single strike into a command for the whole line to advance.

When you hit a creature with a weapon attack empowered by your Crimson Rite, you can unleash a Purging Onslaught. The target takes additional radiant or fire damage equal to two rolls of your Hemocraft die, your choice.

Then choose one of the following effects:

Onslaught Effect	Result
Drive Them Down	The target must succeed on a Strength saving throw against your Hemocraft DC or be knocked prone. Fiends and undead make this saving throw with disadvantage.
Break the Host	Each hostile creature of your choice within 10 feet of the target takes radiant damage equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die.
No Retreat	The target’s speed is reduced by 15 feet until the end of your next turn. If the target is a fiend or undead, it also cannot take reactions during that time.
Rally the Line	One creature in your Blood-Bound Formation may immediately make one weapon attack as a reaction. If that attack hits a fiend or undead, it deals extra radiant damage equal to your Intelligence modifier.

You can use Purging Onslaught a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, regaining all expended uses when you finish a long rest.

Crimson Standard

At 15th level, you can raise a blood-wrought standard that transforms the battlefield into consecrated ground.

As an action, you take necrotic damage equal to two rolls of your Hemocraft die. This damage cannot be reduced in any way. You then manifest a Crimson Standard in a space you can see within 10 feet of you. The standard may appear as a blood-lit banner, a rune-carved spear, a blazing chalice hovering above the ground, or a spectral shield marked by your order’s sigil.

The standard lasts for 1 minute, until you are incapacitated, or until you dismiss it, no action required.

The standard creates a 20-foot-radius aura. You and friendly creatures of your choice in the aura gain the following benefits:

Standard Benefit	Effect
Hold the Line	Advantage on saving throws against being frightened, charmed, or possessed.
Consecrated Advance	Once per turn, when a friendly creature in the aura hits a fiend or undead with a weapon attack, it deals extra radiant damage equal to one roll of your Hemocraft die.
Blood-Wrought Resolve	When a friendly creature in the aura is reduced to 0 hit points but not killed outright, it can drop to 1 hit point instead. Once a creature benefits from this effect, it cannot do so again until it finishes a long rest.
Purge the Profane	Fiends and undead treat the aura as difficult terrain.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest unless you expend two uses of your Blood Maledict feature to use it again.

Avatar of the Bloodforged Bastion

At 18th level, you become the living heart of a hunter-warband, a walking fortress of burning blood and unbreakable command.

As a bonus action, you enter the Avatar of the Bloodforged Bastion state for 1 minute.

For the duration, you gain the following benefits:

Avatar Benefit	Effect
Bastion Flesh	You gain resistance to necrotic, fire, radiant, and poison damage.
Unbroken Commander	You cannot be frightened, charmed, possessed, or magically compelled to attack an ally.
Scarlet Execution	Once per turn when you hit a fiend or undead with a weapon attack empowered by your Crimson Rite, the target takes additional radiant damage equal to three rolls of your Hemocraft die.
Warband’s Fury	Creatures in your Blood-Bound Formation gain a bonus to weapon damage rolls equal to your Intelligence modifier, minimum of 1.
The Damned Shall Kneel	Hostile fiends and undead that start their turn within 30 feet of you must make a Wisdom saving throw against your Hemocraft DC. On a failure, the creature is frightened of you until the start of its next turn. A creature that succeeds is immune to this effect for 24 hours.

In addition, while your Crimson Standard is active during this transformation, its aura increases to 30 feet, and friendly creatures in the aura gain resistance to necrotic damage.

Once you use this feature, you cannot use it again until you finish a long rest.