long post warning...
Following is a repost from the old KenzerCo boards.
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I like Bram Stoker's Dracula - a solitary vampire living in a rotted castle in the middle of nowhere. I really like how he lies about having servants. It added a lot of depth to the character. Dracula is revolting, evil, and at the same time utterly pathetic. He is powerful and charismatic on the outside, yet snivelling and wretched on the inside - an interesting blend of tragedy and villany. The fact that he was so alone, as a result of his condition, is what made him so pathetic. He looks into the society that could never accept him with jealousy and lashes out with anger and violence, destroying that which he can not have. I think he's very similar to Grendel in many ways. I hadn't thought about it before but Dracula is in several ways a kind of a retelling of the old Beowulf story. Giving him a community of other vampires (even just one or two) kind of breaks this motif.
On another note, I had before created a alternate vampire based more on folklore rather than fiction. I think I'll copy that old post here just in case it might be of interest. It's not high fantasy at all, but might perhaps be interesting.
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Vampire (Folkloric)
"Since I could not hold such people from the resolution they had made, either with good words or with threats, I went to the village of Kisilova, taking along the Gradisk pope, and viewed the body of Peter Plogojowitz, just exhumed, finding, in accordance with thorough truthfulness, that first of all I did not detect the slightest odor that is otherwise characteristic of the dead, and the body, except for the nose, which was somewhat fallen away, was completely fresh. The hair and beard -- even the nails, of which the old ones had fallen away -- had grown on him; the old skin, which was somewhat whitish, had peeled away, and a new fresh one had emerged under it. The face, hands, and feet, and the whole body were so constituted, that they could not have been more complete in his lifetime. Not without astonishment, I saw some fresh blood in his mouth, which, according to the common observation, he had sucked from the people killed by him."
- Statement from the Imperial Provisor, Gradisk District, as presented in Ranft's De masticationei, translation by Paul Barber
The vampire of folklore is quite a different creature from the vampire of fiction. Even such commonly accepted literary conventions as the vampire having pointed fangs and biting people on the neck have no basis in folklore. A version here is presented that is drawn more from the historical notions of the vampire as it has appeared in European folklore from various different regions. It bears mentioning that one should be very conscious of avoiding some of the standard stereotypes of vampires that exists elsewhere but not in this description, such as aversions to mirrors, running water, and garlic, all of which are not present. The vampire of folklore also has very little social interaction with the living, if any, so a vampire attaining a position of power and drawing followers is not possible. Vampires in folklore are solitary creatures.
When a person dies, certain conditions may cause the dead person to rise again as a vampire. The following conditions are contributing factors to a person subsequently rising as a vampire, but the true cause of such happening is not always understood.
1. The person had an improper, incomplete, or unconsecrated burial or rites of death. The details of this will vary by region. For example, in some areas a person or animal jumping, flying, or reaching over a corpse will cause a corpse to be more likely to become a vampire. In most regions, the lack of a burial at all can be a contributing factor.
2. The person was the first to die of a plague that is now affecting more people
3. The person was killed with important unfinished business.
4. The person was bitten by a vampire and died from the blood drain.
5. The person had committed suicides, was an alcoholic, died by drowning, and/or was unmarried
6. The person was a murder victim - someone killed before their time.
7. The person was born under bad omens. This can take the form of numerological or astrological predestination, an certain type of birthmark, etc.
8. The person was malevolent, evil, and/or an outcast in life
9. The person was a sorcerer or wizard
10. The person was cursed when he/she died
A vampire rises from the grave at night, terrorizing and preying upon the local populace. Vampires love to spread terror and harm people and property in any way possible. Vampires will often engage in such activities as overturning carts, starting fires, throwing stones through windows, banging on rooftops in the middle of the night, killing livestock and domesticated animals, and similar acts of mischief. The vampire may bestow curses on targets it particularly hates. Vampires particularly enjoy bestowing curses that bring ruination upon its target, causing fields to go fallow, milk cows to go dry, and the like.
Perhaps the most fearsome act of the vampire, however, is the nightly visitations it will make to people. A vampire will steal into a house under cover of night and find a target that is alone and sleeping. It will bite the victim, usually on the chest near the heart, and draw blood to feed it?s insatiable desires.
A vampire is also a bringer of plague, and may destroy an entire village just by seeding its highly contagious plague, which is able to spread quickly and devastate entire populations.
During the day a vampire is completely helpless, lying prone in its grave where it must wait until night time to continue its depredations. This is a favored time among enemies of the vampire to hunt down and destroy it. Indeed, during the night the vampire is seldom even seen, due to its ability to become invisible. A vampire will use this invisibility to full advantage. Vampires can prey on victims much more effectively the less they are seen and as such try to avoid direct confrontation at all costs, retreating in secret to its grave when threatened so that it may return the next night. It is very rare that a vampire would find reason to engage in melee combat.
The problem with this often lies in discovering exactly where the vampire is buried. This can often involve a fair amount of detective work. The following are sure signs that a given corpse is a vampire.
1. The corpse lies with open mouth and, possibly, open eyes.
2. The hair and fingernails of the corpse have continued to grow since death.
3. The corpse is greatly swollen.
4. The corpse does not seem to have decayed since burial.
5. The corpse has ruddy cheeks or a reddish face. In some cases the corpse can be so dark red as to almost appear blue or black.
6. The corpse is flexible - there is no rigor mortis.
7. The skin of the corpse has sloughed off, revealing a new, healthy skin beneath.
8. The corpse lies in a different position from that which it was buried in.
9. The earth around the grave looks disturbed.
10. Sometimes the grave can have a blue glow around it.
11. The corpse is twice as heavy as normal.
12. Upon staking the body gushes blood and lets out a moan - also shakes convulsively
A vampire is indeed quite a grisly sight to behold, especially when such a terrible apparition is seen walking on two legs.
Destroying a vampire typically involves either a wooden stake through the heart or head, cremation of the corpse, or both. When a stake is driven into a vampire during the day while it rests helpless in its grave, a vampire will moan horribly, shake in convulsions, and gush forth in a large spout of blood, the blood itself being a highly dangerous substance due to it's ability to spread the plague.
CREATING A VAMPIRE
"Vampire" is a template that can be added to any humanoid or monstrous humanoid creature (referred to hereafter as the "base creature"). The creature?s type changes to "undead." It uses all of the base creature's statistics except as noted here.
Hit Dice: Increase to d12.
Special Attacks: A vampire retains all of the special attacks of the base creature and also gains those listed below. Saves have a DC of 10 + ½ vampire's HD + vampire's Charisma modifier unless otherwise noted.
Disease (Ex): Plague -- bite (needed for the Blood Drain ability) or contact with vampire's blood, Fortitude save (DC 15), incubation period 24 hours; damage 1d4 temporary Constitution and 1 permanent Constitution (see Disease, page 74 in the Dungeon Master's Guide). The plague is highly contagious. Any creature that comes into contact with or spends more than 30 minutes with an infected creature must make a Fortitude save or become infected as well. After a successful save a creature can not be infected by the same source until 24 hours have past. After 24 hours, if any additional contact is made to the same source of infection, he/she must save again. Note that when a vampire is found in his grave and pierced, he will gush a spout of blood, with a 50% likelihood of blood coming into contact with the attacker and any others standing within 5' of the vampire. If precautions are taken this can be reduced to as low as 25%.
Bestow Curse (Su): Once per day a vampire may curse someone as per the bestow curse spell.
Blood Drain (Ex): Once per night, a vampire may latch on to a victim and draw blood to feed its fiendish appetite. Unsuccessful and incomplete feedings do not count against the once per night limitation. A vampire most often bites in the chest area near the heart to draw blood but other locations have been known as well. A feeding takes a full ten rounds during which the vampire is considered flatfooted. The victim must either be fully prone and defenseless for the entire 10 rounds or the vampire must successfully grapple the target and pin them for 10 consecutive rounds. If a helpless target for some reason becomes mobile during the feeding, the vampire may make an attempt to grapple and pin the victim to continue the feeding (after which they must continue to maintain the pin). At the end of the full ten rounds, the victim suffers 1d4 points of temporary constitution loss with no saving throw. For each point of damage, the vampire will gain 5 temporary hit points which last from that time until the next sun down.
If the blood drain ability is used against a sleeping target, the attack will not wake the victim. If the vampire completes the full ten round blood drain on a sleeping target, the target will continue sleeping normally. At this time the target must make a will save. If unsuccessful the target will have no recollection of the attack upon waking. If successful, upon waking the target will be uneasy and remember a feeling of being suffocated, but will otherwise remember nothing of events that occurred under attack. If a blood drain attack performed on a sleeping target ends prematurely or the target is woken for any reason during the blood drain attack, however, the target of the attack will immediately awaken and will fully remember everything that happened during the unfinished attack as if they had been awake the whole time.
Create Vampire (Ex): If a victim is killed by a vampire's blood drain (but not the plague), he/she will become a vampire unless a consecrate spell is cast on the dead body prior to burial. The new vampire will rise on the first night after it is buried or otherwise laid to rest. Note that the newly created vampire has no relationship with the vampire that created it. The new vampire will now act completely independently and in its own best interests and nature.
Special Qualities: A vampire also retains all of the special qualities of the base creature and those listed below, and also gains the undead type (see the Monster Manual, page 6).
Invisibility (Su): A vampire may become invisible at will as a standard action as per the spell invisibility. A vampire can not, however, be invisible when in its grave or at any time during the daylight hours.
Animal Form (Su): A vampire may take the form of an animal. Most often a vampire will take the form of the dominant animal predator prevalent in the area, i.e. where wolves are common a vampire will take the form of a wolf. This ability is similar to a polymorph self spell cast by a 12th level sorcerer, except that the vampire can only assume the forms listed here. It can remain in that form until it assumes another or until the next sunrise.
Regeneration (Ex): Fire does normal damage to a vampire. Piercing with a wooden weapon (such as a wooden stake, but not a spear with a metal tip) also does normal damage to a vampire. A vampire, when subdued, will fall to the ground and give no indication to contradict the premise that it has been destroyed. It will, however, rise again fully regenerated at the next sun down. Vampires do not regenerate lost potions of their bodies or reattach severed limbs, so a vampire cut into many small pieces is disabled permanently. Beheading a vampire likewise effectively disables a vampire permanently, as it no longer has a body to move with.
Abilities: As undead creatures, vampires have no constitution score.
Climate/Terrain: Any land and underground
Organization: Solitary
Challenge Rating: As base creature +2
Treasure: Standard (at the burial site)
Alignment: Always chaotic evil
Advancement: None
VAMPIRE WEAKNESSES
For all of their power, vampires have a number of weaknesses.
Grave Bound: Vampires return to the place of their burial at the end of each night. During the day a vampire is completely helpless, unable to act even while being attacked. If unable to reach their place of burial by the time day breaks, a vampire will immediately lie prone and become helpless, wherever it is. A vampire can not move his grave and as a result can not travel very far from its place of internment.
Returning Home: A vampire will try to return to the place that it lived when alive. When returning, a vampire must pass through the same portal that he last left through before becoming a vampire. A vampire must also pass through said portal in the same fashion, i.e. if a dead body was carried out of its home foot first through the back door and that dead body subsequently became a vampire after burial, the vampire would attempt to return home prone, foot first, and through the back door.
Obsessive-Compulsive Behavior: A vampire exhibits obsessive-compulsive behavior to untie all knots. A vampire will also exhibit this behavior toward counting numbers of objects. If a vampire is not under immediate threat, it will stop to untie knots or count a group of items before continuing with its planned course of action. Throwing a net at a vampire (nets are made with knots), for example, could be used to stall a pursuing vampire and buy time to flee. A net could similarly be placed over the threshold of a dwelling to slow the entry of a vampire. A net can not, however, be used to distract a vampire during combat, as the vampire is then under immediate threat and will ignore it - at least until the combat is over.
Water: Submerging a vampire completely under water for a full day and a night will destroy a vampire. If a vampire is completely under water at sun down, it will not rise that night unless it is removed from the water.
Coup de Grace: While a vampire's undead status renders it immune to a coup de grace, a coup de grace executed with a wooden piercing weapon (such as a wooden stake, but not a spear with a metal tip) will have full effect on a vampire.
Subdual Damage: While a vampire's undead status renders it immune to subdual damage, a vampire is not immune to the subdual damage caused by normal damage as a result of its regeneration ability.
Consecrate: A consecrate spell will do 1d6 points of damage per two caster level of the caster (maximum 5d6) to a vampire.
SAMPLE VAMPIRE
This example uses a 5th level human fighter as the base creature.
Vampire
Medium-Size Undead
Hit Dice: 5d12
Initiative: +1 (+1 Dex)
Speed: 30 ft.
AC: 17 (+1 Dex, +4 masterwork chain shirt, +2 large shield)
Attacks: Masterwork bastard sword +10; or masterwork shortbow +7 ranged
Damage: Bastard sword 1d10+5; or shortbow 1d6
Face/Reach: 5ft. by 5 ft./5 ft.
Special Attacks: Disease, Bestow Curse, Vampire Hypnosis, Blood Drain, Create Vampire
Special Qualities: Undead, invisibility, animal form, regeneration special (see text), vampire weaknesses
Saves: Fort +4, Ref +2, Will +3
Abilities: Str 16, Dex 13, Con --, Int 10, Wis 14, Cha 8
Skills: Climb +6, Listen +5, Ride +5
Feats: Blind-Fight, Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword), Dodge, Weapon Focus (bastard sword), Weapon Specialization (bastard sword)
Combat
Undead: Immune to mind-influencing effects, poison, sleep, paralysis, stunning, and disease. Not subject to critical hits, subdual damage, ability damage, energy drain, or death from massive damage.
The save against this vampire?s special attacks, unless otherwise noted in the text, is 11.
Magic Items Carried: Potion of haste
Challenge Rating: 7
The source for this rendition of the vampire was:
Barber, Paul. Vampires, Burial, and Death. New Haven and London. Yale University Press. 1988.
