Darling Raiders
The smile never drops. The pitch-black eyes never blink. The Darling Raiders are what happens when Pure Blood breeding experiments intersect with Dolly Raider stock and produce something that looks almost right but is deeply, fundamentally wrong.
They appear nearly identical to Pure Bloods at a distance: flawless skin, banded teeth, features so perfect they verge on unsettling. Up close, the differences become apparent. The eyes are solid black, featureless. They cannot speak, communicating through gestures and an unnerving social intuition that lets them navigate complex situations without uttering a word. The Pure Bloods who keep them dress the Darlings in fine clothes, paint their faces, and spray them with perfumes, treating them as a cross between pets and living weapons.
The violence comes from a compulsion buried deep in whatever the breeding experiment produced. Darling Raiders murder anyone they perceive as ugly, and their definition of ugly encompasses every non-Pure Blood strain they encounter. Minor psionic abilities supplement their physical speed, making them faster and more lethal than their doll-like appearance suggests. They serve the Pure Blood households of the Kingdom obediently, but the obedience is a leash, not a cure. The sadism underneath the perfect skin is the Darlings' own, and the fixed toothy smile they wear while they work is the most honest thing about them.
They appear nearly identical to Pure Bloods at a distance: flawless skin, banded teeth, features so perfect they verge on unsettling. Up close, the differences become apparent. The eyes are solid black, featureless. They cannot speak, communicating through gestures and an unnerving social intuition that lets them navigate complex situations without uttering a word. The Pure Bloods who keep them dress the Darlings in fine clothes, paint their faces, and spray them with perfumes, treating them as a cross between pets and living weapons.
The violence comes from a compulsion buried deep in whatever the breeding experiment produced. Darling Raiders murder anyone they perceive as ugly, and their definition of ugly encompasses every non-Pure Blood strain they encounter. Minor psionic abilities supplement their physical speed, making them faster and more lethal than their doll-like appearance suggests. They serve the Pure Blood households of the Kingdom obediently, but the obedience is a leash, not a cure. The sadism underneath the perfect skin is the Darlings' own, and the fixed toothy smile they wear while they work is the most honest thing about them.
