Vampirism

>You stood on the shoulders of hunters and got so caught up in what you could do you didn't think to stop and ask what you should do!

Also
>the moon, uh, finds a way

And that's all I've got.

Warded barriers inlaid with silver, hung with mistletoe, fields of wolfsbane around the enclosures. He's spared no expense.

How do you guys feel about involving vampires as a natural-born species rather than having vampirism as a transmittable condition?

In my homebrew setting the king of the most powerful empire decided some time in the ancient past it'd be great to take bodies of well known heroes of the enemy nation, desecrate those and then turn them into his own puppet bodyguards who need to drink blood of living creatures in order to survive. Most of them are now destroyed tho. I think currently (some 2000 years after they were created) only 2 are still alive. So vampirism is not really a thing. They can make you their thrall, but you can't really be like them.

Also, they are not called vampires, but Gurra (Gur is blood, ra is drinker; blood drinkers).

>He's spared no expense.
But who will think to install the incredibly easy to fail security system then?!

Depends on exactly what such a vampire species is like, though. How supernatural are they? What does their society look like? And can they eat/drink stuff other than blood?

Vampire species usually take a little more fleshing out than supernatural or parasite-vampires, in my experience. So they're a little trickier to pull off.

On that note; I once did a race of 'vampire' mutants for a post-apocalyptic setting. Radiation had damaged their ancestors' genomes to the point that their digestive tracts were now so underdeveloped that they couldn't even eat hold down solid food anymore. They switched to a diet of blood out of sheer necessity. They didn't have fangs or anything (though they did file their teeth).

>You were too busy trying to awoo, you never thought to consider whether or not you should!

More a racial trait than anything else, otherwise I still with the usual suspects.

One bit that I read once and liked a lot, was the idea of taking vampire myths from other cultures besides the western "Burn in sunlight, sleep in coffin, run from holy symbols" kind of vampire. But the trick is, I was wondering what a VIKING vampire would be like? As in, some guy pissed off Odin and the All-Father went "FUCK YOU AND YOUR HAT!" and turned him into an undead abomination.

What would he look like? Would he still drink blood or would he have a different compulsion, and different weaknesses?

Pic related for the interpretation that inspired this question, who is basically a vampire-brawler/monk, and while it might be NEAT to say Odin-Scorned can no longer wear armor or use weapons of any kind, the game breaking possibilities make that a bad plan.
>First idea; wielding weapons means they disintegrate in the vampire's hand.
>Vampire makes grapple check to steal enemies weapon
>destroyed.
Yeah no, I'm not giving a PC/NPC the power of a rust monster.

They just can't hold the weapon. Burns their hand, physically can't grasp it, whatever. They're cursed, not agreeing to follow orders.

"Spared no expense... Seriously can you imagine how much silver goes into this place?"

I have an idea for a vampire species that's natural born. They use magical energy in the place of food energy but just can't produce their own blood cells, so when they drink blood it's filtered and worked directly into their own circulatory system, like a transfusion. They have some general markers that distinguish them from humans - abnormally tall with a diminished torso (since they wouldn't need as much room for digestive organs), gangly limbs, and grey skin that's sensitive to sunlight. Other than that they're pretty much the same as a human biologically, as far as reproduction, respiration, etc. go. They can also levitate using the magical energy that keeps them alive, but they have to stay within a specific range of an energy source or they'll instantly "starve" to death, so there's a height limit.

They'd run their society underground, near magical ore deposits, with stained glass windows installed in the ground above them to let semi-natural light through with minimal risk of burning. Sometimes vampire architects will just plain forget or forgo building stairs because floating is so natural to them, which annoys non-vampire tourists and trading associates.

>Turns out the contractors have been pocketing the money and shipping poorer grade silver, because they think his 'werewolf park' idea is basically a delusional guy wasting money so why waste good silver?
>This provides the chink for the systemic safety system failure

Stealing this

>VIKING vampire
That's a draugr. The most immediate differences are probably transforming into seals and increasing their size at will.

>transforming into seals
Fucking seals, I knew they couldn't be trusted.

My setting is the world thousands of years after a nuclear cataclysm sets the world back generations of progress until it's almost equivalent to the Renaissance again Modern people of the world have no true concept of what happened before, believing angry gods smote down the world with a plague.

Vampires are thought of as cursed beings, infected with the evil that lingers most powerfully in some places due to the plague. In actuality, they suffer from a form of radiation poisoning that makes them super sensitive to the sunlight. They filter the old blood out when they take in fresh blood sort of like a dialysis patient might. Vampire magic is more the result of mutations in their form due to their condition. Some might have bat like features, others lupine like. Some even look like mosquitoes. The most dangerous of them take the shape of a swarm of leeches, or have a leech like mouth.

Science fantasy in a dyson sphere. "Vampirism" is what happens when a particular silicate lifeform parasitizes a carbon based one (say, a human) for defense from UV rays that would disintegrate it breaking it's molecular bonds. Since the silicate's metabolism is haemolitic to the host, they have to reintegrate ever growing quantities of blood through "transfusions" (Made easier from the fact the silicate can extend needle like feeding cristals from the host's skin, giving it "natural weapons").
This infestation has various "beneficial" side effects on the host that becomes a lot smarter, faster and stronger at the cost of sensibility to light.
The silicate also impregnates the host's brain with knowledge of numerous "magical" technologies that account for it's stranger abilities.

However, the longer the infestation goes on, the longer the parasite influences the host brain rewriting memories and rebuilding it's personality with "efficiency as a predator" in mind. This eventually makes it easy for uninfected humans to understand what happened. Unfortunatelly biomancers of a thousand schools searched in vain for a cure, so termination is the only option once the vampire is discovered.

Seal clubbing confirmed for protecting people from draugr.

DEUS VULT

Also apparently well prepared seal is delicious. Everyone wins but vampires!

Nobody knows because it's not scary anymore if it's explained

Do vampires have anuses? Cause that's why I wouldn't let this kid invade a vampire's anus in this RPG, right, I was GMing, and his character was an Anus Shade, with the power to possess and control the anuses of people and animals.. and I figured that vampires don't have anuses.

The quality of vampire media is inversely proportional to the amount of addendums the author adds onto vampirism in order to force a dark and sinister tone.

I can't fucking stand playing Masquerade or Requiem simply because every rule in the game has tumor-like, lengthy addendums hanging on to them just so you don't even think of playing a Vampire that is anything less than a baby-eating psychopath.

It's a curse is afflicted when one drinks the blood of a traitor (this includes all devils) or violates the tomb of their royalty. Vampires who drink the blood of a devil are the only ones who can "spread" the curse as their own blood becomes diabolical. Only an evil-aligned person can be afflicted with vampirism but changing alignment will not cure it.

Someone who becomes a vampire cannot truly die as long as a speck of dust remains. Because of this, their soul cannot pass on, and even if it does they cannot go to Heaven or Hell. Nobody knows what happens if one passes on as none have been spoken to after the fact and they refuse all forms of resurrection or beyond-the-grave communication.

...

Well there's my next campaign

A vampire is a warped, hungry ghost wearing a corpse (its own or another's) in order to interact with the world and get at mortals' tasty blood. A vampire can create another vampire by murdering a person, snatching their ghost before they can escape or fade away, and torturing them magically until they become like the vampire. Obviously a vampire only does this when they expect they can exert control over the new vampire.

Contractual. Elder vampires are rolling clouds of mist that would descend on cities, quelling all periodically.

Vassals are the more traditional sort of vampire. They enter pacts with Elders, taking lives to feed it and having their lives extended in return. Pact gives you weaknesses, longevity, resilience, and maybe a few mind tricks. Other supernatural powers come more from ancient assholes dabbling in multiple sorts of dark arts.

You don't have to meet your Elder to become a Vassal. You can also decapitate an existing Vassal and drink whatever ichor seeps out of it.

Elders don't feed directly since acquiring Vassals. But if enough of their pawns die, they can be forced out of hiding.

Also, these rules are more like guidelines. Individuals vary quite a bit on any details outside this, and have a little wiggle room within these rules.

How long have your vampires been around?

From this one: Vassals usually go back one or two civilizational collapses. It's rare for even one of them to survive three.

Elders are Color Out of Space type monsters. It would be hard to even know how to find them in the historical record. And you're unlikely to have any sort of conversation with them.

Are ampirism and lycanthropy compatible in your setting? Can someone be doubly cursed?

Vampirism is a result of corrupted spirits of animals tortured to the point they become evil spirits. It's typically a forbidden practice used to create easy to make minion spirits for Necromancers to use however one grew particularly powerful after essentially being stuck in a jar with other such spirits and essentially ate them until it ascended and broke free. Being a being of pure blood lust and anathema to life and nature it would possess humans and turn them beastial and mindless and would possess whomever killed the body it was inhabiting until it was eventually conqured and broken by a church inquisitor who would become the "Queen" of vampires.

The act of turn was letting some of the beast spirit infect a person's soul and if they could overpower it they would assume it's power and keep their will and reason althogh they would be forever warped and eventually act on their evil nature. Those that did not became animalistic thralls subservient to the one who turned them.

This is also where the legend of werewolves come from because most thralls would turn into various wolf/ape like monsters but even those who did overcome it would also turn beastial themselves. The Queen herself essentially looks like a bloated warthog with needle like fangs but otherwise supernaturally fast and powerful.

There is no cure for this and the only way to eliminate them is to destroy their bodies and burn them.

The Feast Court is the oldest group composed of the Queen and the first 5 people she turned successfully. They can't appear in society because of their appearance and occasionally meet to hold a dinner where they make random people they acquire through various criminal enterprises to fight thralls and other monsters of their creation and eat the losers (and often times the winners as well) while discussing their own internal politics.

Follow up question: is there a way to cure vampirism in your setting?

About 12 millennia. It started out as a form of rabies that slowly got more and more complex and refined. About 7 millennia ago an epic level cleric decided to use a single wish from her deity to cure vampirism. Unfortunately it was badly worded and resulted in the weaknesses to sunlight, silver, garlic, inability to cross running water, or enter homes uninvited

A curse created by the God. Becasue fuck that necromancer guy, seriously.

Vampires are a kind of faerie. They escaped The Fae Wild but thier exodus cost them and they need mortal blood to sustain themselves.

Vampires can only "reproduce" by turning a willing mortal and binding them.
Turned mortals are at first no different then other humans, other then their overpowering urge to serve thier master. As time passes they cease to age and slowly become more Fae like. The process is faster for Fae Touched and Fae Blooded individuals.

The way I do things in my setting is that there's an evil goddess known as "The Matron", who's sort of a corrupt fertility goddess... she inspires the creation of new life, but everything she creates are hideous monsters, and anathemic to all other living creatures. She created hags, minotaurs, hydras, etc.
Her existence is a well-kept secret, known only to particularly well-versed scholars, and the firstborn of her own children (i.e. a particularly wizened, old hag might well know her).

The way I figure it is that there's two ways to become a vampire:
1) She often impersonates goddess of various pantheons, and periodically throughout history, someone will unwittingly call upon her to receive a blessing that cures a disease.
Normally, she nurses her own children like any other mother would, but in these cases, she would slice open her wrist and have them sup from it. The blood would sustain them, but slowly gain a dependency on the blood until that's all they can sustain themselves on. Combining that with having a little piece of a dark goddess inside of you, you become a vampire.

2) The tried-and-true Anne Rice method... give a dose of concentrated blood to a weakened-but-living human, and the blood will transmute them slowly over the course of a few nights, giving way to a new vampire.

The way I see things, this is a method for keeping vampires close enough to the setting to use and propagate, but versatile enough of an explanation to explain their powers and state of existence.
Not the first story of it's kind, but it's my story, so I like it.

Considering Vampirism and Lycanthropy are curses and blessing based on context it really depends on the setting

in Elder SCrolls for example you can't be both because Vampirism is a blessing from a daedric god (molag bal I think) and Lycanthropy is a blessing from the hunter god (idk his name)

having two gods conflict over a single soul is kinda fucked. so usually it depends on whoever wants either to overide the other.

I think in a christian setting like Masquerade your soul is bent into a tree once it's cursed. it cannot be cursed into another shape once the roots have sunk and the bark has grown too strong.

>Masquerade
They're compatible there, just barely, and only in one combination since lycanthropy isn't transmissible. The wolf has to roll a lot of 1s to not reject the vampire blood and be turned instead of dying peacefully.

But that's just it - your soul/body can only take being bent in a single direction before snapping.

and like you said, either they pass away peacefully or forcefully taint god's creation even further in unimaginable suffering.

If I'm modifying it myself, I like VtM + somehow everybody has to pass blood up the line like the whole Cainite race is a big feudal pyramid. Cain is somewhere still out there and he isn't going to feed on mere meat humans is he?

Sometimes it's a spooky teleportation kind of feeding that just automatically moves the blood tribute around. Sometimes you have to physically visit each other which is a story all by itself.

Vampirism first appeared after the first attempted resurrection. Surprise surprise, you can't bring back the dead and a demon masqueraded around in the corpse instead. All "trueborn" vampires are the result of resurrection attempts, and thus very rare.

The "sired ones" work differently. A trueborn creates sired ones by stuffing a bit of themselves into almost dead victims. This binds to the victim's weakened soul to and body, and since they're made up of a part of him now, they are also subject to his will.

Trueborn drink blood, as blood contains spirit and spirit fools bodies into thinking they're still alive, thus staving off rot, stimulating regeneration and letting them do cool magic shit with enough of it. They can lessen their need to feed by creating sired ones, who will feed the demon slivers inside them, thus funneling it to their sires, creating a big vampiric pyramid scheme. The sired ones feed purely to keep those demon slivers from consuming their souls and turning them into mindless ghouls.

Sired ones can make more sired ones, but with increasing dilution every generation until all they can spit out are ghouls.

Sunlight will banish a trueborn from it's host, as the sun god really fucking hates demons and more or less enchanted sunlight to work like anti-magic for demons. Sired ones just grow weak in sunlight, as the demon magic bits of them are suppressed, leaving only a weakened soul. If stuck in the sun too long some can't hang on to life and fuck off to wherever souls go. Discarded bodies however can still ghoulify if not destroyed by nightfall.

Should one kill a trueborn, all their sired ones will at random either die, ghoulify on the spot, or be lucky enough to continue on as if nothing happened. If the trueborn is improperly slain (the demon inside not bound and destroyed), one very lucky candidate may be selected to be the new host, having what's left of his soul instantly consumed and becoming a new version of his master.

Well, they aren't going to stop being dead, that's for sure. They could be made to be a more well-adjusted and less bloodthirsty spirit than they currently are, perhaps.

youtube.com/watch?v=-7x_zM5UfJ4

cont.

Since mortals first thought they could defy death, so since mortals were a thing.

No? Lycanthropy is what happens when someone plays host to an animal spirit/fey and ends up losing control to it. So basically it's what happens when you're a shitty druid. Thing is, those spirits like being alive and would not accept a dead shell already occupied by some other supernatural fucker. Maybe a sired one could get away with it, but their link to being alive is strained enough as is. Too many cooks in the kitchen might just get them booted out.

Perhaps you could repair the damage done to a sired one, though if you simply remove the demon bits they'll just die.

good and competent aren't synonymous.

I like to imagine vampires as a type of Animal, with it's own order. Certain beasts with different characteristics have a need for blood and share common traits, for example, being mostly nocturnal. There are humanoids that also fall under this classification and are more similar to the classic vampires. You can't gain vampirism in the traditional sense, but you can become a sort of ghoul (a la WoD) by drinking vampire blood, because regular blood gets transformed in digestion through chemical processes into being a more useful liquid.

As spooky cursed blood suckers, because I run VtR. Sign me up for one boring point?

It happened the same way most bad things in the universe happen. Knowledge thirsty wizards with decades to spare and their constant need to study everything even at the expense of unleashing a blood-borne magical virus. It wouldn't be the first time an archmage created a bioweapon and probably not the last. The good news is it only has about a 25% chance of turning you into a vampire upon transmission, the rest of the time your immune system kills you trying to fight it off.

How does it compare to playing Vampire: the Masquerade, in terms of setting and lore?

Like a lot of the magical things-that-shouldn't-exit in my setting, vampires exist because some sorcerer wanted something for nothing. The cheaty bastards.
"I don't really fancy the idea of getting old and going to the afterlife. I know! I'll twist the spirits of a bunch of animals into a spell to keep me young and hide me from Shapash. Surely, this cannot go wrong!"

And then it went wrong. Now anyone who dies young away from the sun's light might come back as a vampire, compelled to steal bits of soul to feed the old spell. Chances of coming back go way up if a vampire "fed" on you shortly before you died.

My setting is an inverse Gnostic setting, where you want to keep reincarnating because the Godhead is a tyrannical intelligence, the Demiurge is a good guy and the Archons are the secret protectors of the universe.

There's some small variability to becoming a vampire. One method might be submerging a corpse in the Deep, a term for any place which does not get light, like caves, dungeons, even basements. Darkness is the domain of the Godhead, and submerging a corpse in the Deep could honestly do a lot of stuff besides making a vampire.

Sometimes a person dies with evil in their hearts, or greed or lust, and sometimes it's so strong that person doesn't stop lusting. Sometimes a person doesn't even have to die to become a vampire. People like misers or slavers or warlords sometimes just get so deeply mired in their obsessive greed or lust that they begin to hoard other things, or start to lust after other things, which eventually ends in flesh and blood. It's a not very clear transformation, who or what might turn and how and when and why isn't clear at all. Sometimes people just turn, and then they're something else.

Vikings had them, they mostly remained around their burial mounds and ate people that came nearby a lot. Plus they can grow giant and fuck up groups of people.

This is mostly how I see it, a spirit wearing a dead body that roams around consuming the living to keep on going. The motivation can be different, sometimes they just want to be alive more, they are rich and did not want to give up all their possessions after death, are revenge driven, etc. But all boil down to being hungry ghosts that dick around in the land of the living in an animated corpse.

Never really got why they are described as immortal and undying, they are already dead.

being able to move about and do things is effectively alive if not technically

my setting is dark heresy, so vampire are either xenos/dark eldar/genestealer running around in the hive cities
or cultist with weird food taste, that slowly mutate into monster due to chaos gift

A vampire's anus is present, but non-working. Like a network card without the appropriate driver.

So... it's clean? Good for pornisms?

Was regeneration in Dracula? I see it as an ability vampires seem to just have in most modern media, being able to pretty much instantly heal from wounds, but I don't remember that being shown or mentioned in Dracula (to be honest, I can't even remember him even being injured apart from right at the end when the Texan completely wrecks him with bowie knives).

There is several different forms of vampirism in my setting.

A: The rotting vampire, also the most common. They can arise through multiple different means, depending on which god is currently fucking with mortals. And although they are the weakest when it comes to metaphysical powers (hypnosis, no ability to shapeshift/turn into mist, etc) they are also the hardest to kill.

>a violent/wrongful death. Example: An innocent woman is kidnapped, raped, murdered, and her corpse thrown in a hidden shallow grave. Because no proper death rituals were performed there is a 50/50 chance she will come back as either a ghost, or a vampire, she is unkillable until she gains justice. Not even sunlight harms her, only weakens her. Best you can do is hammer her into the ground via a stake through her heart and keep her locked up until whoever wronged her dies of old age. In which she crumbles away into bitter ash.

>disease/plague. Example: A plague sweeps through a village, so many people are dropping like flies that all the corpses are thrown into a pit until the few survivors can cremate them. These corpses, laying too long without proper death rituals, have a 1 in 3 chances of rising as a vampire. These vampires are unkillable. Sunlight does not harm them, only weakens. The only way to make them stop is for those who threw them in the pits dig a proper grave for them, complete with a headstone and a coffin, and proper rituals. Every day they must dig up the coffin, and check if the vampire has been "called home". If they have not, their empty coffin must be carefully reburied, and the proper rituals reperformed. Once the vampire has been captured by their new grave, they must be impaled through the chest, and fully cremated.

(continued)

>necromancy. Example: a powerful enough necromancer captures a rotting vampire, and uses their foul arts of the undead to transfer the curse to a victim of their choosing, by collecting the blood in a ceremonial goblet and forcing the victim to drink it. This new vampire is a mindless slave to the necromancer and is unkillable, sunlight only weakens them. The only way to stop it is by killing the necromancer. Without the power of their foul master, the curse "evaporates" as it was never the victim's true curse to begin with. As a result, the slave vampire collapses and withers away into a desiccated mummy, at which their unlife comes to an end and their soul is freed.

B: The beautiful ones. These vampires are less common than the rotting ones. They arise through strange pagan rituals. Mainly as a means of punishment, to deny reincarnation. Because the individual committed a crime so heinous that not even living a thousand lifetimes as a bug that feeds off of literal shit is a good enough punishment.

>Depending on the exact culture, they can either be shape shifters (think Skinwalkers)

>can turn into mist and thus control the weather,

>be powerful psychics who can read thoughts/emotions, hypnotize, and create illusions.

>However, all of these abilities are a monkeys paw type curse. And no Beautiful one can have more than one set. They cannot shape shift, and control the weather. Or control the weather and hypnotize. They also grow more powerful as they age.

>Sunlight does not outright kill them, but at dawn they are forced into a deep dreamless trance. And if they are caught outside of shelter, the sun will blister their flawless skin and leave them in agonizing pain for the entire night.

>They are killable, but only with a specialized tool created by the wiseman/woman of the tribe that cursed them. Or a related tribe that worships the same pagan deities. This is usually a weapon crafted from wood, bone, or a blade knapped from flint.

(continued)

C: Master Vampires: These vampires are created by either the rituals of powerful wizards seeking to escape death, in times of great need. Or outright by certain gods as either a punishment, or a reward.

> depending on the exact nature of certain events these vampires can either be Beautiful Masters, or they can be a rotting Master. It is important to note that depending on the circumstances, a Beautiful Master can be outright evil of heart. And a Rotting Master can be a good soul.

>but whether they are rotting or pristine, all Master Vampires can control the weather, hypnotize, and shapeshift. But this power comes at a great cost, sunlight outright kills them. And they can be killed by ordinary means as well, such as decapitation, having their heart impaled/cut out, or being burned. Although it should be noted that as they age, it becomes more difficult to kill them.

> It should also be noted that once they reach a certain age they can also create fellow vampires. Feeding off of a single individual three nights in a row will kill them, and cause them to rise as either a Rotting, or Beautiful vampire, depending on the Bloodline of the Master. Feeding three nights in a row, while the other individual drinks the Master Vampires blood afterwards, will create a fellow Master Vampire, that is also of the same Bloodline. But these "fledgeling" Master Vampires are forged weak, and it takes centuries to gain the power to unlock all of the abilities within their curse.

I like you! You should also look into the Aswang, and I've always wanted to do a vampire based around the legend of the Chupacabra

>dat image

Who are these beautiful sons of bitches, and where can I find porn of them?

Yes, but not in the way I believe you are thinking. In Dracula he is actually an old wizened man. But he manages to rejuvenate himself and return to a younger age, biologically wise.

So maybe not regeneration, so much as rejuvenation. But if you can knock off 20 years from your internal clock, then why not knock out some nasty wounds?

I think Legacy of Kain is the last great piece of vampire fiction, so I went with their approach: keep it vague. It's not really clear where they came from but it is accepted that people are turned into vampires by elder vampires.

>Is it magical? Can you only contract it by willingly drinking the blood of a vampire, becoming their thrall?
I'm going for something like this. Becoming a vampire is like entering a contract with some kind of monster, like a vampire lord.

I also really dig the idea that Kain became a vampire by having his damaged human heart replaced with a vampire/demonic heart.
If one of my players gets "turned", I'd probably have this happen.

A lazy devil lord created a magical disease called vampirism. All vampires are connected to him in a way that siphons the vital energy they drain from mortals. This creates the vampire's eternal need.

This chain works through vampiric generations. If a certain vampire kills the one which created him, he becomes the end of his own chain, acumulating vital force and developing unique traits according to his personality and habits.

From now on, any new vampires he creates have this traits as well, and a new vampire lineage is created.

So my world has literally all the varieties of vampires in all mythologies somewhere, even the ones which suck blood to drain vital force, and a devil lord getting fat with it, like a demonic bloated tick.

From my old RPG, needs to rewritten still on curses, I'm still stuck on the monetary system

Curses

Vampirism-
Despite giving you enhanced abilities vampirism requires the life force of other humans and humanoids to advance, therefore a vampire who wishes to become stronger is usually an evil character. Gaining power however increases your sensitivity to sunlight. Vampire's don't require life force to survive as they can eat food normally to maintain their strength. A vampire has an altered magical aura, the darker it is the higher ranked a vampire is. You gain a radiant vulnerability equal to 1xX the X being the rank. Your life span also increases in multiples equal to your rank.

Vampirism is gained through infection from another vampire(a partial feeding leaving you still alive) or through a ritual.

Rank 1-
You do not take the penalty to visual awareness at night while there is dim light. You gain regeneration 1 when outside of combat, you must meditate to gain this regeneration. For each hour you spend in the day light you take 1 damage.

Rank 7-
You gain +10 to all awareness even while in total darkness. You gain regeneration 10 at all times. For each second you spend in daylight you take 10 damage. You gain +10 to all dodge checks and with melee weapon attack/damage as well as speed.

Immortality-
You cease to age.

To advance a rank you must completely consume the life force of 10^x the exponent is equal to your current rank.
Rank 2-10
Rank 7-1000000

Vampirism in my setting is an extreamly rare genetic disorder that's usually only brought about through years of inbreeding among tiny populations, which presents obvious problems as said vampires usually have a multitude of other birth defects related to being inbred and are thus are usually mentally deficient and definitely physically deficient. This is offset by vampirisms immortality and ability to absorb their victims lifeforce, increasing their intelligence and partially fixing their genetic defects. They'll always be somewhat ugly and malformed, but truely ancient vampires are exceptionally intellegent and powerful.

You can also splice the gene for vampirism into your own genome, though this usually comes with the side effect of inducing spontaneous mutations that not many can control. Those that do, however, can control said mutations as well as enjoy the other benefits of proper vampirism.

Some people actually think that they are real...

vampirismforum.com/

In my one campaign, Vampirism is a bit of a loophole to power via cosmic law. Mortal vampirism is the drinking of blood to gain power that can be used in many ways. Those that are beginning need to draw blood on different ways, but as they grow in power their bodies can be changed in subtle ways to feed.

Vampires are commonly the demons that emerge from mortal vampires that drink too much blood and are overcome with the thirst for power, or those that die while empowered by blood. Vampires are often at the head of vampiric cults. It's these kinds who have the weaknesses of Vampires as well, like sunlight and symbols of faith.

Vampirism in Fantasy Setting is spread through necromantic parasites that grow and hollow out your body, steal your consciousness/soul and animate your corpse. Essentially you become a giant evil leech inside a magic corpse with a huge identity crisis.

Vampires in Science Fantasy setting are sentient entities with essence, who have been infected with Sanguinus Porphyrius Morbus, a blood- and essence-born disease that deranges you, strengthens your body and gives you severe UV light alergies. It also makes you capable of utilizing retrophysics, aka magic.

In D&D, is it possible to play as a vampire in a party with non vampires and have it not be stupid and cringeworthy? I understand that in general vampires are evil (not good guy/bad guy allignment evil, but like they ARE evil, it's part of their being) but how could one play a vampire in an otherwise "good" party? Even if the common enemy was a big enough threat to team up, why would anyone be willing to work with a vampire and why would a vampire be willing to cooperate with a group of mortals?

I've got a player who always wants to play a vampire but he doesn't want to be all edgy and cringeworthy about it and also wants it to fit with the setting and not just be a "yeah my character is also a vampire like Edward Cullen" and we've always had a hard time working that into any campaign.

The origin of the word vampire comes from the Turkic word for Uphyr so I used that.

They evolved from Homo heidelbergensis to live and hunt on the Steppes and in Central Asia. They became apex hunters, largely giving up the ability to walk upright, becoming exclusively carnivores, and becoming nocturnal.

When Homo Sapiens moved into Central Asia they were prey to their nocturnal cousins. Sunlight and fire offered some respite, but Homo Venatorus was nearly as intelligent as Homo Sapiens there only major problem being that they are highly territorial and live mostly on their own.

As time went on and human civilization became more complex, the era of the Vampire began to come to an end. Despite being stronger and faster than their prey, they found themselves on the losing out to humanity. By the time of Cyrus the Great, Homo Venatorus had been all but exterminated in the Middle East. This was what it took for Vampires to start realizing that they had to change. Vampires began to come together and form clams were they worked together to survive. They began to ape their prey, walking upright, dress like people, try and integrate into human society, and even produce half breeds with Homo Sapiens. Even with this evolution in the way their society worked, they were still losing in their war with humanity. By the time the High Middle Ages (when the P&P is set) Vampires are few and far between and wild vampires only live on the steppes.

It just comes down to "play an Evil character in a party of Good characters."

An easy way to make it possible is to have the campaign include some sort of ultimate Bad Guy or Calamity that threatens the whole world/plane.

Also, a D&D vampire takes damage "when it starts its turn in sunlight". Exactly what that means is going to be a DM ruling.
In the 5e campaign I'm running, I've had vampire thralls just wear thick clothing and cloaks to avoid taking damage while outside on an overcast day.

on the bottom left there is a runic inscription that might help you in your quest for knowledge

>Exactly what that means is going to be a DM ruling.
That means at the start of it's action, if it is in sunlight, it takes damage.
It means that if it is hit by sunlight, it from that point has a single round to get out of sunlight.
You are making it far more convoluted than it is because you aren't explaining what a "turn" or "action" is.

The PC could always be an unwilling vampire.

I like this thread

You dot?

Basically Dwarf Fortress vampires, since my world is based of a DF world. They come from divine curses or the blood of another vampire. They bleed, but don't eat, drink, sleep, or breathe. They have no weaknesses. They only need blood to stay comfortable, not to live. As they drink more blood, they get more powers, like ability to turn into creatures of the night, mind control, enhanced speed/strength, etc.

The world is only 500 years old, everyone having woken up in small settlements with knowledge of language and technology but no knowledge of what happened before. The oldest vampire is a little over 400 years old. She's a human queen who has ruled for 350 years, well-loved by her people for only draining the "weakest" citizens.

Nope.

So the "cure" is killing them

Also fucking 12 millenia ago?

Jesus how many collapses of civilization has their been in your world

A virus, but not a physical one.

In my setting, souls are power. The gods absorb souls to become stronger, the strength of someone's soul determines their power, no one knows where they come from or how they find their ways into bodies(well, one person does. The entity Death, who predates even the current gods does, but only the dead know he's even a physical being, implies he knows where souls come from, but he's not telling anyone as well as being immune to any sort of scrying magic that even the gods aren't).

Vampires, and most "natural" undead are when something happens to the soul that corrupts it. Vampires specifically come about when a soul is corrupted without the body dying. The corruption stays in them like a disease, and their bite bites into the person both to steal their blood to keep their body alive, but also infects their soul with the same corruption they have.

Corrupt souls like this don't pass into the afterlives where the gods wait to absorb them, and even if they did would be like poison to them, so "natural" undead in general are universally despised by even the evil gods, because each "natural" undead is one soul that could have passed to them to be drained for power, and so despite their rivalries, the need to eliminate undead on sight is something universally agreed on by all 4 gods.

again

Vampires and other "natural" undead in general occurred for various reasons since the beginning of time, before the gods were even a thing(the gods themselves have only been around for the last 1000 years and were former mortals who somehow wound in the afterlife. No one knows how, and keeping it hidden is basically the only other thing all 4 universally agree on).

99% of naturally occurring vampires are feral and typically get put down quickly, as they change and go insane, charging into the nearest settlement and attacking anything they can get their teeth on. The other 1% retain the mental faculties fine and are much more dangerous and command the feral vampires as if they were hunting dogs, and hunting parties were typically gathered whenever a non-feral vampire's existence was discovered.

Vampires are typically short-lived regardless of their intelligence simply because the gods have a "kill on sight" policy with them. The only exception is one vampire who lives on the Dead Isles, the only place the god's reach doesn't extend to, and any angels(mortal souls the gods deem useful enough that simply absorbing them is a waste, and are granted a new body and a minuscule portion of the god's own power, essentially Silver Surfer) who venture too close to the Dead Isles get torn apart by unseen forces. Said Vampire isn't entirely sure why it happens either, but it keeps him out of their hands for another century, so he doesn't bother trying to figure it out(and the last person who scry'd for an answer to that question ended up simply started screaming and shriveled up into a husk, dying instantly in a manner identical to someone having their soul forcibly ripped out of them.)

>How does vampirism work?
Its a demonic disease in my setting, like the common cold for demons, turns humans and other races into vampires. Has all the classical weaknesses and hunger for blood.

>Is it purely religious?
There are cults around them, but they aren't tied to any god in particular. That being said some gods are associated with them as they have cursed creatures with vampirsm before, but its like striking someone with a pox for them.

>Is it magical? / Is it a virus?
Its a magical disease, meaning it can be resisted in someone with a strong enough will or magical resistance. When resisted with will power alone there is a chance to leave the person with an immunity to contracting the disease in a non-magical way. E.g. you are immune to the bite of a vampire, but a god or magical item can still curse you with it.

>Or is it something else altogether?
Vampires in the setting drink blood to drain life from other creatures for themselves. Some vampires though have learned though forbidden Monk teachings Hungry Ghost Monk that they can sustain themselves by consuming other creatures Ki rather than blood. If enough Ki is consumed (usually killing the victim in the process) the vampire is able to gain a immunity from sunlight and there other classical weakness are less effective.