Xanthe

Background

Xanthe is the oldest of the Vrakhiri, described in the official character introduction as older than what seems possible. Her story reaches back to Ancient Greece, where she was a priestess. The same text notes that her own name was forgotten through the passing centuries, which places her age past the point where records or living memory reach.

Where the other members of the group arrived at power through ambition, conquest, or resentment, Xanthe predates all of it. Brencis was born in the Roman Empire in the second century; she was already ancient by then.

Appearance and the Toll of Time

Her body bears witness to the ravages of time, and so does her mind. Part of that is a consequence of vampire biology as the studio wrote it: a vampire's teeth keep growing for the rest of its life, becoming larger and more twisted with age. The developers point to Xanthe, who has teeth growing out of her skull, as the visible proof of the rule. Her concept art was done by Kacper Madejak, and she is voiced by Mandi Symonds.

Personality

Xanthe hears voices from beyond the pale and mutters under her breath, and at first glance she might seem insane. The official text says the truth could not be more different: she understands the true nature of the world better than anyone, and deep down she is terrified. What frightens something that has watched civilisations rise and fall is not stated, and is likely one of the things the game intends to explore.

She is an entity of few words, and each of them carries the weight of a very ancient being. The developers have also said the vrakhiri are not purely evil, naming Xanthe specifically as an ambiguous character with her own motivations and rationale rather than a villain who exists to be fought.

The Blood Guards

The most concrete thing established about her role in the valley is that she is the one who stripped the Blood Guards of their humanity. They are the most devoted and feared human servants of the vrakhiri, put through dark rites that bind body and mind to blood-bound oaths, and the official description says she left them nothing to reclaim. They are found in her vicinity, which makes her the practical centre of the regime's most fanatical enforcement arm.

Magic and Abilities

Most vampires in this setting cannot use human magic at all; their powers come from vampiric mutation instead. The developers name Xanthe as the exception, saying she found ways to use her own powers to tap into magic. That puts her closer to Hex Magic than any other member of the group.

The June 2025 gameplay reveal showed Xanthe fighting with blood control: whips of blood that struck Coen from both sides, and Boiling Blood, a timed curse she placed on him. In the shipped game, drinking her blood grants Coen the Blood Surge ability. The shipped Witchcraft roster has no ability called Boiling Blood, although the game's data uses that name internally for the Burning Blood hex, so the reveal-era name may refer to it. The general rule behind absorbing powers is official: every vampire has unique powers, and Coen can obtain them by draining the vampire of blood, which is how Vampiric Powers are collected.

The Cathedral Encounter

Previews of a pre-release build showed Xanthe performing a ritual inside Svartrau Cathedral at night, with Coen able to watch from the scaffolding above the floor. A misstep brings her sharp senses down on him and the scene escalates into a fight, described by the developers as possible to win at that stage but hellishly difficult, and framed as a challenge for hardcore players rather than a required kill. In the demonstration her Boiling Blood placed a timed curse on Coen that killed him when it expired. The developers suggested that keeping her alive and learning more about her may serve a player better in the long run. The encounter survived into the shipped game: on the night route of A Monk and a Saint, Xanthe is inside the cathedral, and walkthroughs report that she can be fought and killed there far earlier than her own quest.

Access to that scene depended on Coen's own kit. The developers noted that without magic and the ability to speak with the dead, a player would never learn the details of Xanthe's rituals at all, which is the Narrative Sandbox design working as intended: the information you can reach is a function of the abilities you invested in.

In the Shipped Build

Coverage of the finished game places Xanthe at a mansion of her own, where Coen fights her during a quest called The Cycle of Love. The fight is not the end of her: beating her opens a choice between killing her and sparing her, and the two branches lead to different versions of the later assault on Greifberg Castle.

Killing her and then drinking from her body grants Blood Surge, one of the abilities that arrive through Vrakhir blood rather than through a skill tree. It also means she does not appear during the castle assault, though the castle route in that version includes Blood Guard enemies and a nightmare sequence she inflicts from beyond the grave. Sparing her removes both of those and puts her in the castle offering advice instead. The Blood Guards being tied to her presence this directly is the clearest confirmation that the term is live in-game vocabulary and not just background lore.

The quest also attaches a dependent to her. Coverage describes a daughter, Chariklea, kept alive by magic and surgery long past the point where she would have died on her own, and Xanthe continuing to kill to sustain her if she is spared. That reading sits comfortably beside the studio's own framing of her as ambiguous rather than simply evil, and other accounts of the fight confirm both the daughter and her room in the manor, though the details of how she is kept alive come from a single guide.

Two side quests carry her name as a source of Vrakhir blood, one in Tantari Woods and The Silts and another in St. Tyna's Grove, which fits the picture of her operation reaching well beyond wherever she happens to be standing.

Her own territory, the harshest part of the map around Tantari Woods, is worked through court activities like any other boyar's: recruiters, excavations of ancient digsites, transports of abducted girls and of artefacts, and camps of Blood Guard mentors. Walkthroughs count the Home Sweet Home nightmare among them, and one suggests leaving her until last, since her operations are pitched at around level 25. Her quest takes Coen to her manor, which one guide names Howling Keep, where a lantern puzzle has to be solved to reach her daughter's room before the fight begins in the courtyard. Whether she is killed or spared, a legendary amulet, the Relic of St. Dasius, can be taken from the manor, and the achievement The Dark Mistress is tied to neutralising her.

She can also be met far earlier. One launch account describes falling from the scaffolding into her presence at night in Svartrau Cathedral during A Monk and a Saint, at around level 11, and winning. That fight was reported to be easier than her later one, it ended her line on the spot, and draining her granted Blood Surge, which the writer describes as able to burst weaker enemies in one use. In Anachora afterwards she mourns her daughter, and Coen can invite her into his mind, where she comments on what he does.

Role and Standing

As one of the vrakhiri, Xanthe holds her own territory within Vale Sangora, with her own agenda and centuries of history behind it. In the shipped game, disrupting her operations raises her anger on the Court screen until her own quest, The Cycle of Love, opens, separate from the valley-wide Notoriety System. Her relationship with Brencis and with Ambrus and Bakir is part of the political landscape the player can work on, and the developers have said the vrakhiri are not all automatically hostile.

Quick Facts

Boss tactics

Xanthe fights largely at range. Use Shadowstep at night to avoid ground effects and approach her; daytime builds need another way to manage distance and the summoned enemies.

On Steam from Update 1.1, Burning Blood and Soul Reaping no longer damage Xanthe while she is untargetable. Break the orbs rather than relying on those effects during the protected state.