Crimson Circle

The Crimson Circle is a political faction of Noxus and a secretive order built around the ancient hemomancer Vladimir. Its members are practitioners of blood magic who have taken Vladimir as their patron, and the cult is dedicated as much to his personality as to hemomancy itself. Youthful and exclusive, the Circle gathers those drawn to both the man and the forbidden art he embodies. Hemomancy did not begin with the Crimson Circle. Under Vladimir's long tutelage, the practice found a place within the military of Noxus and among the scions of the old aristocracy. The Circle stands among these diverse practitioners as the faction most devoted to Vladimir personally, treating him less as a teacher than as an object of worship. The cultists know only a fraction of what their patron truly is. Vladimir is far older than he appears, and centuries ago he entered into a pact with the sorceress LeBlanc. Together with powerful nobles and exalted masters of magic, they built the Black Rose, a hidden cabal that has guided the throne of Noxus for more than a thousand years and orchestrated many of the empire's most ambitious campaigns. To the outside world, and to his followers, Vladimir wears the guise of a benevolent socialite, his extreme age and the atrocities his sorcery can wreak kept as well-guarded secrets. The Circle remains active in a changed Noxus. With the death of the previous Grand General and the rise of Jericho Swain, Vladimir has been forced to rouse himself once more, returning to public life as a vocal opponent of the ruling Trifarix council. As their patron re-enters imperial politics, the members of the Crimson Circle continue to orbit a figure whose true nature even Swain has only begun to grasp.