How would you explain this for a campaign setting?

[Vraille Darkfang]

I have a few Vampire Areas in my world.

1. The Smokelands, a basin surrounded by Volcanoes & shrouded in a constant cloud of Ash.

Aready mentioned, but the Place survies via Magical Plants & various Fungoid Types.

2. City in the Extinct Volcano. The entire Top of the Volcano is capped with a thick layer of Translucent Obsidian. It leeches all the Color from the Sunlight. It's still there, but everything is in Black & White (like Darkvision).

Everything works normal, but whatever about sunlight harms vampires is also leeched out.

3. Well of Negative Energy. An natural Leak of Negative Energy empowers the Vampires enough to Cancel out the Sunlight Problem.

 

[MoogleEmpMog]

To riff on the 'floating islands' idea mentioned earlier...

... in Larry Niven's The Ringworld Throne, his (primitive and sci-fi, but they couldn't stand sunlight either) vampires had a huge colony under a floating city; the city had been abandoned millennia ago after a technological collapse, and remained moored in one place.

While you could go the 'abandoned city' or 'uninhabited floating island' routes, I almost think it would be more interesting to have a fully functional floating metropolis whose masters simply don't care that their realm's shadow houses vampires. Cloud giants would be perfect for this: arrogant, sky-dwelling isolationists who are powerful enough that their kingdom can swat individual vampires like flies; anyway, why would the vampires antagonize the cloud giants?

Waste from the cloud giant city (which, being comprised of arrogant, sky-dwelling isolationists who have tons of casters capable of creating food and water, is pretty darn wasteful) could even keep the vampires' thralls fed, although not in terribly good health.

It would be particularly interesting if most people in and out of the region don't KNOW the floating continent is inhabited; to them, the vampires are top dogs. This would mystify the cloud giants, who see them as symbiotes at best, parasites at worst.

Lots of arrows.

Only if you have no more than 300 vampires.

 

[Sejs]

I think I would like to explore the underdark ecology above ground, the effects of placing the area in perpetual shadow plane power and what effects that would have and then using the their minions during the day time periods that come and go. Then they protect their cities with darkness magic and tunnels underneath. How would that all work? What magic items and spells allow them to do this?

Personal spell research, yo.

You're the DM, to hell with the rules, just tell the players to pay to attention to the man behind the curtain.

What was the lingo from Eberron about an area that was all in-tune with a particular plane? 'Manifest zone'? Something like that.

Make it so the city itself is constructed in a way, the shape of certain streets, the placement of certain big stone obelisks at key points, etc. - the effect of which creates a massive sigil that makes the whole place one big manifest zone that's resonant with the Plane of Shadow.

Bam. Explination. Hand-wavey, and with rules precedent that even the lawyers should be satisfied.

And more importantly, it's not something the PCs can steal. 'Cause if you let 'em, they will.

 

[Stormborn]

I agree that the simplest answer is a manifest zone, perhaps augmented by the architecture of the capitol city. And of course, it wasnt vampires that built the city. It had to be someone else, someone long gone but who had his or her own ideas for the city and its inhabitants. The inhabitants of the city could be the distant decendants of the slave population originally brought into the city, having any number of legends about the city's origins. They had their own government, after the mysterious architect(s) vanished, but that was replaced centuries ago by the Vampire Overlord and his Gore Tax.

Perhaps the vampires have continued to build the city, but afraid to disrupt the mystic architecture, have been using stone shaping spells to build labrynths beneath the city, both for their own psycological comfort but as a fall back in case anyone should disrupt the city's protection. Say a group of meddeling adventures (and their animal companion too!) who destroy a few key standing stones or buildings.

 

[Cold Comfort]

Ok. So, vampires, with their immense wealth, buy up massive amounts of silk, black on one side and white on the other. They fashion it into a massive sheet, which they anchor with chains above a semi-active volcano. Massive amounts of hot air pour out, suspending the silk canopy. The white reflects the sun, and the black imitates the night sky. When it rains, then the heat of the volcano works like the 'paper bag filled with water over a fire' theory. (Alternately, it's chained to the sky, or magically suspended, or attached to the top of some massive spire at the center of the region, like a big tent.) Of course, there's the danger of someone simly cutting a hole in the silk. But then, you could say it's retriever silk or something (giant demon spiders), so it's really really strong, or patrolled by soldiers on flying mounts.

Also, why does the region NEED to grow food? The have vampires! Vampires are ancient and likely extremely skilled. Such skill can be traded for food. In the case of the volcano, just have them be the best masons in the known world, using interlocking bricks formed from magma. Kingdoms far and wide would gladly trade food to have access to the construction and maintenance of such fortifications, and it also encourages peace in a region. Or, they could master smiths, historians, thieves, assassins, enchanters... The list goes on. There's plenty to do other than farming, and it ties in well with a trading society, because they leave with goods and return with food. The population of the region could also be quite low, with the vampire employing many undead servants to carry out their tasks, further reducing the amount of food needed. And funguses don't need light either. (Though, they do need some material to feed on...) Vampires are also quite magically adept, I'm sure they could just create what food their servants would need as well, which would keep them in line.

If you want to go with REALLY powerful magic, have the world have several moons, and have the Vampires constantly keep one of them eclipsing the sun over their territory. Somewhat of a stretch in terms of believability, but hey, we're talking about VAMPIRES here.

 

[Eltharon]

I suppose just saying "its magic" isn't detailed enough?
If so, you might have to create your own "wide scale permanent night" spell, as I'm fairly sure the PHB doesn't have one. Tunnels, well, slaves are cheaper then magic, eh?
Personally, I like the "cursed with no sun" idea, but thats just me.

 

[BOZ]

they could do what Mr. Burns did in that one episode of the Simpsons?

i see two options: 1, only undead live there, so they don't care about animals and plants or how cold it gets, so who cares about the sun?

2, extensive use of thralls, servants, mercenaries, etc to carry out their business during the day.