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I always forget, who were unaffected by the Blood Mist? I'm wondering specifically about elvenspring and raven sisters, although a breakdown of the different kin and factions would be handy. Were elves free to move around just like wolfkin counting the forest as their home? I suppose there are roughly three configurations: 1. You're safe in familiar settlements, 2. You're safe in your entire biotope, 3. You're safe wherever you lay your rusty iron hat. I'm not sure who fits in where though. How about orcs, galdanes, or different types or forest kin? Or a merry woodland robber band?

I like to think that the ambiguity in the book and general silence on specifics like this is just more room for a cup of coffee and lengthy prompts into ChatGPT.

To the best of my understanding:

1. Elves were immune to the blood mist. They could travel wherever. (Well, confined within Ravenlands). This would add a tiny bit to the genepools of the villages.
2. Rustbrothers (and Heme sisters?) were immune to the blood mist, and travelled through it. Speculation (credits to Umbra) - this could have been part of their initiation rite: walk through the mist to prove that you're trve to Rust. This could greatly add to the gene pool of villages, especially those towards south west on the map.
3. In my setting, I make is so Raven Sisters in animal form could would survive the blood mist. The lore indicates that they protected villages, and I don't see any other way to keep their culture/religion intact. Maybe they would take orphaned children to neighbouring villages, to help the gene pool.
4. All demons seems to be immune.
4. Young children of all kin are immune.

Then there's those that won't survive the mist, except when the bloodlings rule that their potential candidates for culling feels at home:

4. Wolfkin, and maybe Orcs and Goblins, regard their own forest as their home, and would be immune there. In the case of Goblins, they'd only survive if they were also close to a Hafling settlement, so it rules out any forests far from Belifar.
5. Most other kin are safe only in their own villages; humans, elvenspring, halflings, ogres. Dwarves seem to live in villages/cities mostly, but maybe they felt at home underground in their mountains too.
People could travel during daytime, and occasionaly two villages could have been lucky to be close enough to exchange goods (and genes) regularly. It makes sense lore wise that dwarves and humans had that type of exchange, at least somewhere (trolls, ogres).
Erik, creator of the lore, mentioned on Discord that if he had redone the setting, he would include some kind of travelling village. Ie, those who feel at home on the roads in some sorts of caravans maybe (my speculation). You could speculate that the Galdene aslenes felt at home on their saddles and lived a nomadic life during the mist, but I haven't found any indications of this. (And The Quards seem to have put a stop to their nomadic life already before the mist (mining for gold and ruling forts as lords instead))

But - it's your setting, make it what you need. : )

Elves were immune to the blood mist.

Where did you get this from? AFAIK the elves were unaffected only in their homelands, just like the Wolfkin, who'd tend to stay on their home turf, too. But they were/are not immune.
AFAIK the Blood Mist and its demonic inhabitants are repelled by the sense of belonging which gives inner strength. Villages that offered a "home" and a sense of community were protected this way. Single wanderers might have been protected by their respective inner strength and faith, and the same mechanism of "belongimg" was used by the Rust Church to filter out those of weak faith through practical nocturnal survival tests...

Sorry about the late reply, after many a night of fruitless search, I was finally pointed to right paragraph by to Umbra and AJ.

GMG, 950-1160. Second to last sentence of the last paragraph.

In Swedish: (it's the same in English)

"men det framkom att alver liksom djur och barn var immuna."

It's only been a couple of months, so I don't think this is thread necromancy.

The "Legends & Adventurers" booklet mentions a surprising amount of travelling from village to village.

Sometimes people are able to consistently avoid the Blood Mist: e.g. Alderlander, childhood, "You and your family travelled from village to village, hiding from the Blood Mist"; Aslene childhood and Orc childhood "hiding from the Blood Mist by night"; Ailander childhood, Goblin childhood, Elf childhood "learned to find shelter from the Blood Mist"; Hunter formative events "learned to avoid the Blood Mist"; Peddler formative events "avoiding the Blood Mist"; Rider formative events "making sure to avoid the terrible Blood Mist".

Sometimes it seems like the luck of the draw, and there are losses but not everybody is killed: e.g. Druid formative events "braving the horrible Blood Mist. You barely survived"; Fighter formative events "you remember how the Blood Mist took your friends one by one"; Peddler formative events "braved the Blood Mist ... losing many to the Blood Mist"; Rider formative events "braved ... the feared Blood Mist", "braving the deadly Blood Mist"; Minstrel formative events "escaped the Blood Mist".

The most charitable and consistent explanation is that those who could consistently avoid the Blood Mist did so by staying awake during the night, looking for the bloodling fog and making sure that they didn't enter it. Presumably they slept when it was light, so villages were still cut off during winter.

And when bloodlings turned up and killed many or most people, the survivors happened to not wander into the fog and didn't trigger bloodlings.

Either way, the disappearance of the blood mist means that travelling to neighbouring villages is now inherently possible, rather than maybe possible for those with cunning or a death wish.

Sorry about the late reply, after many a night of fruitless search, I was finally pointed to right paragraph by to Umbra and AJ.

GMG, 950-1160. Second to last sentence of the last paragraph.

In Swedish: (it's the same in English)

"men det framkom att alver liksom djur och barn var immuna."

In the English edition, GMG p. 34 "Still, only Rust Brothers could venture into the Mist without losing their lives, but they also came to realize that elves and simple animals and children were immune. It became clear that the Mist did not smother the elven lands or reach below ground."

• Note it says both that elves were immune, but also that the mist did not go into the elven lands! Why not?
• Also interesting is that the Mist not going below ground would mean dwarves were fine tunneling wherever as long as they stayed underground during nighttime.
• I do not understand the logic when it comes to kids. They are more often afraid than their parents, and if the parents are afraid, then the kids will generally be as well. So did the bloodllings choose not to butcher children? That's quite gentlemanly from demons.

A couple of other relevant references for already made arguments:

GMG p. 34 "So the Mist became the initiation rite for the Rust Brothers for the next two centuries."
GMG p. 67 "What is known is that the wolfkin were able to travel unharmed through the Blood Mist, which they called “the breath of the Huntress,” but only in the woods."


GMG p. 34 also notes "Oddly enough, the residents of any given area were never attacked at home, while a stranger could be killed if in even the smallest trace of mist. No one dared venture further from home than half a day’s travel, so they could be back and close their windows and doors well before darkness fell."

• Based on this, people sheltered inside their homes, it was not felt to be sufficient just to be inside the boundaries of the village.
• It also would seem to indicate that, e.g., traveling half a day and building a shed to stay in for the night would not work, as it would not be "home": Nomadic peoples notwithstanding, of course.

Some personal opinions to add to the conversation:

• It would seem that life would have been very difficult for goblins, who are nocturnal and have nightly rituals worshipping the moon god, if they could not be outside during nights for 300 years.
• Same goes for trolls, of course, but I would assume all monsters were immune.
• Elvenspring could be immune like elves, as due to cultural heritage their psychology would be similar. But I have not noticed any mention of it.

The "Legends & Adventurers" booklet mentions a surprising amount of travelling from village to village.

The Legends & Adventurers booklet is not canon. It's not lore compatible. I hope there's a new one if there's ever an FBL 2.

I can see why children were safe. Depending on which neuropsychology research applied ofc. Children don't form the neural connections that the process of putting concepts together through the means of connected words allow until a few years into their life, so - even though they know the feeling of fear and can be scared when a parent is scared - they won't know that they are conceptually homesick, and thus immune. It's possible that this helped the gene pools in villages - kids exchange in between two nearby villages, or Raven Sisters distributing children while in animal form. (Sorry expressing something that must've been awfully traumatic so bluntly!)

Re: villages. As all lived separated, there could've been 50+ completely different hypothesis of how the mist killed you. Some were likely too optimistic, and those villages who didn't follow the 'right' ways perished. It's a neat way to come up with all sorts weirdness; one might think that sacrificing their firstborn was the right way, but they also stayed within the village boundaries at night so they kept thinking it was right.
One might have felt at home in their city-like caravan being dragged by an undead giant through Moldena, and thus survived the mist while inside it. But perished when they passed by a village-turned-cannibals that ate them all.

Indeed. Elven spring were not immune. (Until someone finds something else ofc! : )

But, I was completely sure that Goblins, in the same way as Wolfkin, were safe in the forest they regarded as home (incl the communal birthing cave). Where could there be references of this? Hmm.

The "Legends & Adventurers" booklet mentions a surprising amount of travelling from village to village.

The Legends & Adventurers booklet is not canon. It's not lore compatible. I hope there's a new one if there's ever an FBL 2.

Source ??