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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Deadguy" data-source="post: 1878085" data-attributes="member: 2480">In my Shattered World campaign, Vampires serve as one of the disturbing races who have forged compacts with the Lords of Undeath, the mysterious masters who reap the souls of the dead. As such, they are possible without the intervention of another vampire, generally as a bargained state for a spellcaster.They have a couple of social constraints:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">The Compact: there are a few communities of Vampires in the world, though none so powerful as the Lords of Night of the Mountains of Midnight, who hold an entire nation in thrall from their dark mountain valley redoubts. The influence of these groups has been to create the Compact, a treaty which limits Vampiric interference in each other's affairs. Most notably, Vampires do not kill other vampires.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol">Enmity with Many Liches: their is a loose alliance of Liches around the world, the Cabal, which works together on centuries-long plans to rediscover the deepest secrets of Necromancy, counter the Lords of Undeath, and generally protect their interests. The Cabal has an important (though sometimes abused) rule: no dealings with Vampires. The Liches despise (and envy?) the dark passions of the vampires, doubting their loyalty and reliability.</li> </ol>Of the Vampires I have included, a couple which come to mind are:<ol> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"> a vampiric spymaster, sent to an enemy city to take over the spying assets of her new master. She confused the PCs no end, because one of the things which she started by doing was purging the ranks of spies of those who were disloyal to her. She also created vampire spawn and sacrificed them to throw others off her scent, and disguise her true plans. In the end I had to remind players that Evil people are not loyal to their own people if it doesn't suit their purposes! This spymaster eventually double-crossed her employer, forging an alliance with an Illithid Elder-Brain, which was where she eventually tripped up, and got herself killed.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ol"> a Vampire innkeeper in a large city. Not the archetypal evil master with secret blood-cravings, but instead an exile from the aforementioned Lords of Night. His inn served as a meeting place for the stranger visitors to the city, including beings like aranea, half-fiends, and even the occasional free-willed undead. He was tolerated by the local city leadership because he was discrete, and guaranteed the peace of his visitors. The PCs really loved him as an idea!</li> </ol></blockquote>

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