Houses of the Blooded is a broth cooked up, perhaps, of Zelazny's Amber, Brust's Adrilankha, and perhaps a soupcon of Moorcock. Taking place at some distant time in Earth's past, the players are ven, superhuman precursors of humanity. They are obsessed with honor, revenge, and romance; the stories told in the course of the game are intended to reflect this, with the sort of panache you might expect from, say, Dumas.
Blooded is thus a narrativist RPG; but unlike many others, its focus is more on the playing of distinct roles than on preconceived narrative arcs. Each character belongs to one of six noble ven houses, with its own stylistic characteristics; each also has a public name and a secret name, and all names have meaning in the language of the ven, providing immediate hooks into roleplaying.
