Vampires are undead predators who prowl the night in search of blood. Their condition is both a gift and a curse, granting them the powers of the night while making them thirst for blood and burn at the touch of sacred objects. They must be cautious to conceal their nature from others, finding ways to sate their bloodlust while avoiding the attention of those who would hunt them.
Becoming a Vampire
New vampires are created when a victim is exsanguinated and fed the blood of a sire just prior to death. For unknown reasons, only the oldest vampires are able to sire others of their kind. Some speculate that the curse itself takes decades to fully mature, its potency increasing after exposure to thousands of deaths from regular feeding. Vampires who live a century or more do tend to lose their humanity, lending credence to the theory, but it's unclear if this is a symptom of the curse or a consequence of living so long as a monster.
Fledgling vampires awaken ravenously hungry, forcing them to feed multiple times during their first night. Benevolent sires arrange fresh victims to satisfy this hunger. Malicious or vengeful sires, however, have been known to leave their spawn to feed on innocent victims, even loved ones and family members. For this reason, special care is usually taken to purify the bodies of suspected vampire victims prior to burial.
After the process is complete, the sire maintains a powerful bond with the new vampire. At a bare minimum, this bond gives the sire an unfailingly accurate sense of their spawn's location and general state of health. In many cases, the sire can also use the bond to influence their spawn's behavior or communicate with them mentally. Some sires use this to create a coterie of loyal servants, while others use it to keep tabs on distant spawn, who may be little more than objects of passing amusement.
Costuming for Vampire Characters
Vampires must wear prosthetic fangs, as well as the costuming for whatever race they were prior to becoming a vampire.
Vampiric Aspects
It is said the dark gift of vampirism presents itself differently for each vampire. Four distinct aspects are known to exist, each with its own hunting preferences and weaknesses.
- Archael - The Archael are vampires whose powers bind them to the shadows. They prefer to hunt by stealth, taking lone victims by surprise in dark alleyways and leaving just as quietly as they came. Just as they hide from others, however, the Archael hide from themselves as well, and cannot bear to see their own reflections.
- Iocrin - The Iocrin are vampires who favor powers of the mind. Most are well-mannered, graceful, and charming, preferring to feed secretly upon aristocrats and other people of social import. Iocrin are known to be highly sensitive to social impropriety and cannot willingly enter a home uninvited.
- Oradach - The Oradach are brutish vampires who exhibit preternatural strength and endurance. They tend to be more direct than their brethren, kidnapping or beating victims into submission before feeding. For all their power, however, Oradach are known to recoil from the scent of garlic, and cannot bear to enter an area nor feed upon a victim draped in the foul herb.
- Undrich - The Undrich are ghostly vampires who exist in a liminal state between the mortal realm and the Nether. They tend to haunt graveyards and crypts, often those they themselves were buried in, feeding upon passers by. Because they are more loosely tied to the mortal realm than other vampires, Undrich cannot bear to pass the spiritual boundaries created by running water.