Background Information on The Blood Quintet Series by Asher Sharol. Perfect for fans of Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo, Miss Peregrine's Home For Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs, and Caraval by Stephanie Garber.

BLOOD QUINTET SERIES OVERVIEW

Blood Quintet follows Orphan Sammiroh Sevres, a resident of the spectral community of Hargreave Hollow, whose family is being killed off under mysterious circumstances. The latest death being his sister, Sally, who has long been suspected of being a witch. Sam finds he is being hunted by a strange sorceress affiliated with his sister, and discovers she is after a grimoire Sally left behind. Sam's friends from Candentis Academy (an equally mysterious institution with a suspicious Oak tree and equally strange professors) are pulled into the madness. Together, the five friends (The Blood Quintet) slowly discover their fates are linked and that the reason Sam is being hunted —why his family members are being killed— is far more significant than he had originally thought. After The Blood Quintet happen upon five Obiscules —glass orbs which channel magical energy from the bearer—they begin unraveling magical powers, each complementing the other. The professors of Candentis Academy take notice of the strangeness surrounding the Blood Quintet, and instead of being shocked at this development, recognize them as special children spoken about in an ancient prophecy who are destined to stop the  Veil Rapture —the Apocalypse of Hargreave Hollow —which the witch hunting Sam seems to be trying to facilitate through the grimoire. Getting his hands on the grimoire, called "The Seal of Obsidian", Sam reads about the magical nature of the Oak on the Candentis Academy campus...

NINE WORLDS OF THE OAK

1. IMAJINAEREUM

2. NOX REGIA

3. MEPHISTOVAGLA

4. BLAGOBORGOBATH

5. HELLENOGYRUM

6. SCHIZOPNEUM

(INFERNUUM)

7. OSSIPHANGOPHI

8. THANATOCROPOLIS

9. DA’EMOQLITH

THE NEXUS OAK

The Nexus Oak is a curious tree that acts as a portal or "door" to the nine lower worlds. Although it was created by natural processes, the Nexus Oak was later bewitched by an Incantatrix to foster transit from our world to others. Located on Candentis Academy, the tree behaves normally by day, as night falls, however, it strips its leaves when the bewitchment activates, transforming into a bare Ash. Despite the power of the witch's incantation, the tree would have rotted away after its first use due to the infernal bands of energy streaming in from the destination realm. Hence, the engineer and mage, Theophilus Jansky, was tasked with fortifying it against the aforementioned energy, so the tree could operate indefinitely. He installed a lightning rod within its trunk and injected it with a rare viscous material that enabled the limbs to pull energy (lightning) from the dark skies at night without being incinerated. For a magician to travel by the Nexus Oak, he first has to activate his spirit key. The Oak connects with nine realms (excluding The Triworld Annulus...Hargreave Hollow). 

IMAJINAEREUM

Imajinaereum is the highest world to which the Oak connects. It is located one layer below our own world and possesses similar physical laws. However, being closer to the chaos than the Triworld Annulus, Imajinaereum has a few glaring differences. Like the remainder of the worlds below Imajinaereum, the sun is forbidden to shine, a direct result of being in the domain of the Lord Of Chaos, Satharchon, and the fact that The Creator god Oebiel refuses to let his rays of light shine upon the inhabitants who ceaselessly blaspheme against him by practicing the dark art of Satharchon. This doesn’t stop the natives from committing the sin of black magic, however, casting spells to pitch heat from the unlikeliest of sources. Another difference the magician might notice is the medieval feel of the place, dominated by Gothic architecture, Victorian speech and fashion, and an overall grimmer (Fatalistic) ethos.

NOX REGIA

The layer of Nox Regia is one layer further removed from The Triskai than Imajinaereum. The dark in this locale would have been more profound than in Imajinaereum had the vicious war between white and dark magicians not enchanted the skies into a never-ending display of color and electric activity. As a result, the atmosphere of Nox Regia is more fanciful and rife with strange flora and fauna. The Nox Regian Silverwing is a species of poisonous butterflies found exclusively within the realm, sporting two pairs of antennae and a pair of lustrous silver wings. The Argent River is a viscous slow-moving river composed of a colloidal Mercury-Silver mix, which divides the terrain into two halves. Nox Regia is home to a phalanx of frightening beasts roaming the land. Despite this, magicians theorize there are yet many more which remain undiscovered. Because of its picturesque scenery, Nox Regia is the preferred destination for children seeking magical education.

MEPHISTOVAGLA

Directly below Nox Regia is Mephistovagla, a sort of half-world, the closest to the Triworld Annulus demons can exist in full form. However, only one demon is known to frequent the realm: Choronzon, the personification of madness and chaos. Mephistovagla is a volcanic wasteland illuminated by three iridescent moons. The entire landscape is covered with black sand and deep mires whose pull is seven times stronger than that of black holes. Only wizards with exceptional magical powers can escape them. Also, a horrible wind sweeps through the land at intervals, thus creating a flesh-tearing sandstorm of sand and brimstone. The most recent addition to the terrain of Mephistovagla is a mountainous forest bewitched with Arbals (Living trees with huge bloodshot eyes and roots that double for bloodsucking tentacles).

BLAGOBORGOBATH

As the layers of the Nexus Oak are stripped away, we begin to enter the lower realms that are more treacherous for living humans to visit. Blagoborgobath is divided into two sections: Upper and Lower Blagoborgobath. The furthest a human may travel from Earthrealm is to Upper Blagoborgobath, and even so, they face almost sure disintegration by the infernal laws that govern the place. Upper Blagoborgobath is characterized by a seething black mist which is said to be the rotten breath of the Most Low. A magician may have three logical reasons to enter this realm: necromancy, enlightenment through conquering the weaknesses of the sojourning magician, or suicide (which has its purposes in black magic). Upper and Lower Blagoborgobath are separated by the Amaranthine River: a river of blood across which souls of the deceased are ushered by the magics of unknown beings. A frightening red vapor masks the goings-on beyond Upper Blagoborgobath: a gas which if inhaled by humans will afflict them with the excruciating and frequently incurable Hemphalitic Fever. The Ancients contend that beyond the Amaranthine river, a legion of demons roam unchecked, whose forms are indescribable in their disfigurements.

HELLENOGYRUM

As we descend the roots of the Nexus Oak, we encounter a strange world known as Hellenogyrum. Although this fifth world is technically below Blagoborgobath on the tree, it is not quite on the linear continuum downward. Rather, it lies in the southwest of the prior world and is not tethered to it in any physical way. Hellenogyrum, also known as the Swirling World, is home to a magical school of the same name but with a grim twist: the students are already dead and have crossed the red river of Amaranthine. However, their souls were spared from dissolution in even lower realms by some redeeming detail of the life they lived in The Triworld Annulus, or on rarer occasions… a detail about their death.

The students learn a brand of magic called soul magic which has its basis in thought and vibration. The Pomps (benevolent shapeshifters who uphold the Law of Mercy) who determine whether a person is worthy of attending Hellenogyrum, must fit the disembodied soul with a gross body for it to function. The catch, however, is that the body quickly whittles away and hence the magician must quickly find a way to reascend through the worlds to avoid annihilation. In its physicality, Hellenogyrum most closely resembles Imajinaereum, with the notable difference being that it is infested with more demonic entities, such as Pomps and Vormals (malevolent shapeshifters) roaming the land. Also of note are the Skelegs: carnivorous, double-headed, skeletal horses upon which the Vormals ride, seeking wayward souls to devour.

SCHIZOPNEUM

Descending further down the Nexus Oak, we encounter another lopsided world straying from the continuum to the southeast of Blagoborgobath. In some sense, the twin world of Hellenogyrum, Schizopneum has a similar purpose in allowing souls a final chance at reentering glory in the higher realms. However, unlike in Hellenogyrum, the souls here are afforded no bodies for themselves and so have to fend for themselves in a pitiable swarm of disembodied souls. In the world of Schizopneum (whose name means severed souls), the souls compete to ascend by annihilating as many of their counterparts as possible, since only a certain number of them may be let through in any one soul-cycle. It is not uncommon for a soul to subsume a weaker one, making it stronger and more hardened to enduring the ravages of Blagoborgobath and Mephistovagla.

OSSIPHANGOPHI

Continuing along the vertical path of The Nexus Oak is the realm of Ossiphangophi (Terrain of bare bones). Herein lies the beginning of the three spheres of Infernuum (Hell), the description of which has to be purely metaphorical due to the lack of words to justly depict the abstraction. The name Ossiphangophi refers to bones in the sense of structure: the frame over which an organized, meaningful establishment may have its foundation. Imagine a building, Ossiphangophi would be the earth upon which that building is erected plus the array of steel that keeps the structure upright. Of course, instead of steel, we are referencing magics or forces, and instead of houses, we refer to either bodies or any system of organized thought. Once a soul descends into Ossiphangophi, there is no hope of returning to a previous world. Trapped, the hapless spirit faces an inexorable path to damnation. The best a soul can hope for is to become stuck in the fiery loop of the Infernuum (rotating through Ossiphangophi, Thanatocropolis, and the upper regions of Da’eamoqlith). Such a soul could elude perdition by employing one of the darkest arts possible: etheric vampirism or by an unforgivable devilry known as Phagopneumopoeisis in which the practitioner subsumes a soul (distinguished from the process that may happen in Schizopneum), thus inheriting the karma of the ingested spirit---an act which meddles with the host soul’s judgment.

THANATOCROPOLIS

Extending even deeper, the roots of the Nexus Oak take us to the abyssal Thanatocropolis where the most infamous demons have their habitation. Their unholy purposes are vast and include mocking any established system of morality either through blasphemy, preventing human souls from redemption, and worshiping (and executing the will of) at the feet of the Most Low. These demons are well-versed in all brands of thaumaturgy and may be either evoked or invoked by a magician for the sake of their authority in witchcraft. However, these demons are by no means willing nor grandiloquent and may deceive the magician into a false sense of security before luring him into a grave error, after which the demon takes the soul directly to Thanatocropolis without the luxury of descending steadily through the Oakrealms. This is the true meaning of the phrase: a fate worse than death. That unfortunate magician has zero chances of redemption, and his fate is the yawning blackness of Lower Da’eamoqlith.

DA’EAMOQLITH

The furthest removed from Earthrealm is the Chthonic world of Da’eamoqlith. It is the final chamber of the Infernuum and the destination of souls without absolution. The accursed souls are pitched into a seething valley that repeatedly rips them into unidentifiable bits of soul fabric, their writhing recalling the sound of swarms of locusts. Trapped in the abyss, they cry out helpless from the dismemberment, descending into madness, or sinking into eternal oblivion. Not much more is known of this world, except that it is the habitation of a host of Antigods, the chief of whom has the title of the Most Low. These Antigods are notoriously abhorrent in their outlook toward humankind and spare no wickedness in plotting their demise.

BONDS OF CHROME MAGIC

BINDS OF SILVER MAGIC