Paris, France, 2010. Tourist trap and less French than the rest of France, despite being the capital, fair Paris is home to people of myriad walks of life, various backgrounds and diverse aspirations. Literally anyone could be there, and it is there that the Gnostikos––or simply, emotional vampires,––have decided to congregate.
Celebration, pilgrimage, court, or all three rolled into one, one thing is for sure: the Gnostikos will have something happen and they are not at all averse to sharing their brand of joy, most definitely with the unknowing humans.
X
After centuries and centuries, the Gnostikos have finally found all the parts of who they believe to be the first of them, the Sphinota. Painstakingly, a select few of them have located and collected the many pieces scattered all over the world by one who had wanted to permanently incapacitate their progenitor.
With the charred and ragged pieces, they reassembled the body of the Sphinota, and the parts fused together on their own, forming a hideously burnt body, but a whole body nonetheless. All that was left to do was to revive him, and what other way to revive something that lived off emotional energy than to fill it with that same energy?
In hopes of doing just that, the keepers of the body are planning to hold an updated version of a masquerade ball that would coincide with Halloween, drawing in Parisians and tourists alike. The police have gotten wind of the Sacré Coeur being used so crudely, but beyond that, no one is the wiser––in the year 2010, few people still had faith in the supernatural.
However, not all of the Gnostikos will follow the Sphinota if he does indeed reawaken; they are divided and a brittle tension is growing. Some want power, some want knowledge, but when it comes right down to it, few of the Gnostikos really want a leader out of their progenitor.
As if that were not enough, aside from their internal struggles, there are the Hounds that nip at their feet, the humans who stalked them for one reason or the other, who called themselves the Hundr. These humans spend their time chasing after the Gnostikos, whether to avenge their loved ones who have fallen prey to the Gnostikos, or to find a way to break the 'enchantment' that holds the Gnostikos' victims in a coma, or simply out of moral outrage after a close brush with them. The Hundr are looking to crash their party, because this is the one chance they have of confronting so many of the Gnositkos at one go.