Vampires

[Illrein]

In the past, I've run "Don't Look Back" and "Little Fears" games that have intrigued my role-playing group. In D&D games, I've also provided many dark settings and morbid characters. A few months now, players from the group have been egging me on to run a D&D vampire game. I know the dark/gothic horror fantasy is cliched, but I'm still willing to do it.
I've thought up a world known as Morrigea, the land of no sun. A powerful figure only known to the people as Vaiden has shielded the entire world in darkness by using magic. The shield, referred to as the Darkness, draws anything that goes near it into itself. Those doomed souls are never heard from again, and their fate lies unknown.
Because of this, Vaiden is associated with words like "evil", "hatred", "destruction", and so on. The land is absent of grass and flowers; only rocks and swamps cover this dying world. Cities have constructed artifical lights using complicatedly-operated lanterns. They've also made it possible to grow trees and crops under this light. Vampires are a major problem, so organizations of hunters venture across Morrigea. Rebel groups have formed against Vaiden, desperately searching for a way to break the Darkness. Rumors float that there is a way to escape Morrigea under the earth.
No one exactly knows how long the Darkness has been there, and no one knows how long Vaiden has anonymously ruled Morrigea. Many predict it has been 200 or 400 years. No one really knows if Vaiden is really a person. Some speculate he is really a group of evil mages, or he is really a beast from beyond the dead.
The PCs would be a thriving group of vampires, wandering under the Darkness and running from the hunters.
What kind of adventures would be involved in a campaign like this?

 

[Death_Jester]

Just off the top of my head really but. . .

This is completly off the top of my head really but how about hunting vampires? Just kidding.

I was wondering if the players are going to be the vampires or are they going to be hunting vampires?

If they are going to be vampires the first thing that comes to mind is that something has to be done about the other vampires that threaten an already dwindleing food source. The more humans that become vampires the less blood there is for them. So. Getting rid of some of the compitition would be a good place to start. Clear the field and have their own private persurve to feed from.


If they are going to be hunters they will want to eventually get rid of the sheild in order for people to prosper again.


An idea that stuck me while looking at this posting is that you could make Vaiden the name of a powerful merchant mage that wanted to control the most inportant commodity of all, food. Whoever controls the food could control all the world. He thought and scemed for a long time in order to produce this darkness and make it perminate. Little did he know he was being manipulated by a powerful group of vampires that were useing his increable understanding of magic to dirve him to this end. When the shiled was complete he was nolonger of use to them.

Hope this helps out a little.

 

[Crothian]

Most of the races should have a form of low light or darkvision after so long in the darkness. I'd also see magical lights being very populiar. How have the gods dealt with this? I imagine they'd try to do soemthing.

How into horror do you want? Have a Vampire Kingdom. They have humans and the other lower races as cattle. The human lands hear rumors but no one really beleives that it is possible.

Lots of things and places get lost in the darkness. You could have all sorts of stories and rumors of all sorts of things out there.

 

[LostSoul]

Taking a note from barsoomcore, I'd make the darkness a Good Thing.

The PCs can try and get rid of it, eventually discovering its true nature - and the very real horrors that lurk on the other side of the all-too-thin veil.

 

[BlackJaw]

Intresting idea... got me thinking

I'd say the cities and towns of this world would be heavily defended by religious warriors. Imagine walled cities containing your complicated lighting setups and maybe a giant lighthouse spire in the senter of each (a solid spreading light source used to light the feilds around the walled city.

The towns are heavily defended, complete with a second smaller wall area around the feilds. Paladins and Clerics head up forces of warriors that defend these cities. They are very careful (paranoid) about outsiders. If a vampire were to make it inside the walls... well it gets uggly, and often the top Hunters are called in to track it down and kill it.

Out in the darkness, the evil things lurk. Mostly undead. With almost no real food chain out in the darkness, the undead will actualy feed on each other. At the very least, the undead have no reason to like each other, and in many cases are openly hostile with each other. Vampire groups (difrent masters/clans) fight with each other for territor and herds. By heards I mean vampires run small towns where humanoids are kept as catle. This is important. These prison camps are run and defended by vampires. They not only need to keep humanoids in, but other undead and vampires out. The vampire clans raid each other, stealing mortals... etc.

Ghoul packs roam through the darkness and would pose a risk to Vampires. The ghouls desire flesh to eat, corpse or living... and a vampire is good eating compared to rats and vermin they would otherwise hunt and heat. Ghouls don't provide blood to drink, so vampires generaly don't interact with the ghouls unless they are caught off-guard or have sort special need. The ghouls, on the other hand, attempt to break into humanoid pens or attack vampires themselves.

Then there are worse things out there that might stalk a vampire: They have no names, no real names at least. Some rumors say they are undead-undead. Other have worse ideas. Some vampires unable to feed from mortals and the living, turn to feed from the only ohter source of blood... other vampires (often better fed ones) and some take to enjoying this... after centeries of feeding only on vampires, they become something worse then vampires... they become filled with more negative energy, less undead and more simply death. they becomes shadow horrors that stalk vampires and could no longer feed on the living (thought they would still be deadly even in touch to mortals because of their negative energy ties.)

Then there are the reminants of the old world. Temples and towns and buildings and cities that once were living and are now empty. An entire town of shadows and ghosts would be useless to vampires and mortals, but should they have a reason to go there such creatures could pose a problem, especialy the ghosts of fighters or paladins or clerics. Huanted temples and churches would be the adventuring places for a vampire parites.

Also some living mortals have temples out in the waste lands... these are the Monks. the young initiates make quests out into the darkness to reach one of the ancient temples where the masters still sit. Monks so powerful not even the vampire lords and ghoul packs dare come near or challenge them... but their stundents, on pilgramages between the walled cities and the ancient pre-dark temples, are easy prey.

Then there are the Necromances. Mortals yes, but they have so much power over undead that only the strongest undead would aproch one for fear of being made a slave.

Or the beasts that devour dead flesh. Carrion crawlers in the swamps, and worse thigns. overgrown and bloated parasites and scavengers. Creatures that were once small and fed on the dead bodies have become giant beasts that hunt the walking dead. Dangerous to undead, many immune to negative energy, some vampires gather into groups and hunt such beasts for their blood, for they are still living.

---------------
For vampire players, there are cities of vampires (and some other stranger undead) where they can buy rats or other small vermine for feeding on. The vampires grow small crops to raise such small animals on simply for feeding, but the prefered feeding is humanoids. They can also buy things and shop... although its stranger then a normal adventurers bazar.

They can quest out int eh darkness, and latter even try to penetrate throught outer walls and gates of a human city (into the feilds and such)

Latter still they might even try and enter the city propper. Be hunted by Paladin vampire slayers while dealing with the few contacts and "made vampires" that lurk in within.

Or they may be sent to the old temples and ruins to deal with other undead. Or maybe to deal with necromancers or death cleric cults. Maybe they are stalked by one of those that feed on vampires.

Of course they have a vampire lord, the master that turned them to the undeath, and he sends them out for a number of reasons... need for more humans for the farms, or a problem with a lich blacksmith in the neighboring vampire-burg that is producing silver weapons (silver would be outlawed in most vamprie towns in order to keep inter-vampire fights to a minium)

Then there are the NPC adventuring parties. the equivilent of an adventuring party that sets out into the darkness... often hoping to try and break the darkness... bring back the light. such idlistic groups often are taken by the ghouls or the vampires... but some survive out in the darkness, and become forces to fear. They have their own agendas, and those agendas are often not pro-vampire. They wouldn't have any reason to hunt a spicific small group of vampries... normaly. But if they found something the mortals wanted in an ancient town... they might hunt them. If they got in their way. etc.

Lots of ideas.