The provincial capitals have major blood depots, and smaller stashes are kept in major district centers. Yes, these will be key targets in Game 2 and Game 3.
Only the Thaumatarch has the knowledge and capacity to sustain the simultaneous Changes that give ultra-speed plus holding your body together as you run around at those speeds and quickening your perceptual clock enough to make use of that speed. Other extremely powerful Theurges can accelerate their reflexes and perception to the point where they can e.g. knock arrows from the air, but they couldn’t run around while they’re doing it.
When Theurgically hardened weapons/talons meet similarly enhanced armor, the outcome depends on the effectiveness of each crafter’s work. Different Abhumans would take different animal armor as prototypical.
I think @idonotlikeusernames and other fans have over-egged this particular pudding a bit. The Laconniers are crazy about one bloodline – the royal one. That one, they believe, needs to be passed down by actual blood descent from the chosen monarchs of old. For noble houses, on the other hand, they’re perfectly happy to follow the Hegemonic cultural mainstream which accepts adoption etc. (Though that mainstream does not legitimate polyamory – the myth of the “other half” is a strongly monogamous one.)
Also, I don’t think I’ve ever said that Abelard or his family thought that he was the heir of the lost Laconnier prince. Don’t assume that he’s the one who will end up as monarch. If he doesn’t claim that role, there would be no problem for a childless relationship. Halassur rather than the Laconniers is the culture where reproduction is necessary even for people not normally inclined that way, and Erjan will be a source of information on some of the ways that works (or doesn’t).
The Leaguers do indeed include more and less oligarchic perspectives, though even the less-oligarchic ones would not readily accept helots as equals. You’ll have to wait and see which way Teren leans.
Marrying the Diadoch/e will definitely alienate a huge number of your followers, however you try to justify it; you would be trading much of whatever you’ve built up on your own for influence on Phaedrx’s faction. And don’t assume that Sarcifer and Phaedrx are part of the same faction. I won’t be sharing numbers, or details of what will be thinkable/possible for Sarcifer and Phaedrx to agree to.
Abhuman relationships may be monogamous or open, and last as long as the members want them to.
However you like!
We’ll see. 
Yes, the Keriatou are Laconniers.
The Archimandrite would consider the Inner Voice to be wildly heretical. He believes in the need for a centralized social order. Within his worldview, compassion is a genuinely Xthonic virtue that needs to be accommodated despite the potential threats it poses to social order; individualistic “prophecy” is not.
I agree that pragmatic unity between people from different belief systems (or uniting them against a common enemy) is more likely to be effective.
“Braintrust” was actually used in its normal metaphorical sense, and so is “crackup” – which is not to deny that there might be seismic problems resulting from mountains being dropped on things.
It is strongly discouraged, and requires proof of some fault sufficient to justify dissolution of the marriage. A divorce brings stigma, though some of the most powerful houses are able to shrug it off.
@DariaRF thanks so much for the amazing map! To add information you’d not had access to: the Southriding is rather smaller than shown here – Corlune is actually the port (and regional capital) of the Westriding, which includes a narrow strip on the west bank of the river and rather more of the plains to the east. The Coast region extends further west than shown, and borders on the Westriding rather than the Southriding.
The total amount of land under cultivation in Shayard is another of those numbers still in potential flux – sorry!