Blood Debt

On Tessera, two factors compelled the Empire and Republic leaders to halt their use of graven hulks. The first factor was the problem of controlling the hulks. The second factor was the discovery of what came to be called the "blood debt."

The engraved symbols on a hulk would change over time. This was not part of their design, but since it seemed to have no effect on a hulk's functionality, it was initially treated as a meaningless curiosity. However, someone discovered a pattern to the emerging symbols: they were the name-runes of the slaves within the bloodstone heart.

The revelation of the blood debt was treated as a divine sign by the Church of the Reverence of the Eternals. In the decades before the Bloodstone War, an abolitionist movement had spread through the Republic and across the Empire, but its influence had been limited. As the public on both sides learned about the blood debt, they became less and less complacent about the use of slaves to create bloodstones. The Church unified with the abolitionists, decreeing that the blood debt was final evidence against both the practice of slavery and the use of bloodstones. They called on all good Reverents to decry these ways.