Vampires
Sundren features a unique element in the form of playable vampire PC's and small deviations from standard D&D lore on vampirism.
Template
Vampire templates can be applied to any humanoid race. Changes applied to the race are as listed below.
Race: A character becomes Undead (Vampire) race.
Level Adjustment: Vampires are ECL +8.
Special Qualities: A vampire retains all the special qualities of the base creature and undead special qualities.
Abilities: Increase from the base creature as follows: Str +6, Dex +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +4.
Skills: Vampires have a +8 racial bonus on Bluff, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, and Spot checks.
Feats: Vampires gain Alertness, Combat Reflexes, Dodge, Improved Initiative, and Lightning Reflexes.
Armor Class: +6 Natural Armor
Blood Drain (Ex): Vampire PC's possess a special feat attack called 'Vampire Bite' that allows them to make a grapple check to do 1d4 Con damage to a target, and a will save not to 'stun' them for a round or two. Vampires heal a small amount of hp every successful bite. It can be noted that Vampire bite does not reduce a player's CON lower than 9.
Dominate (Su): Vampire's possess a modified Dominating Gaze as follows: the range is very long, the effect lasts for much longer than neverwinter's standard Dominate Person spell, and there is no 'looking away' feature for players.
Damage Reduction (Su): A vampire has damage reduction 10/silver and magic.
Fast Healing (Ex): A vampire heals 5 points of damage each round so long as it has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, the vampire will be 'destroyed' for all intents and purposes though this is roleplayed as becoming mist.
Resistances (Ex): A vampire has resistance to cold 10 and electricity 10.
Spider Climb (Ex): A vampire can climb sheer surfaces as though with a spider climb spell. All climb checks are automatically successful.
Turn Resistance (Ex): A vampire has +4 turn resistance.
Weaknesses
Vampires have a number of supernatural weaknesses.
Repelling a Vampire
Vampires cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic and will not enter an area laced with it. Similarly, they recoil from a mirror or a strongly presented holy symbol. These things don’t harm the vampire—they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from a creature holding the mirror or holy symbol and cannot touch or make melee attacks against the creature holding the item for the rest of the encounter. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action.
This is mainly an RP weakness that Vampire PC's must follow. Subject to possible change in the future.
Running Water
Vampires are also unable to cross running water, although they can be carried over it while resting in their coffins or aboard a ship.
This isn't really recognized on Sundren due to the limitations of where players can walk on the server. And the fact that they cannot turn into a bat and fly over such obstacles.
Private Dwellings
Vampires are utterly unable to enter a home or other building unless invited in by someone with the authority to do so. They may freely enter public places, since these are by definition open to all.
Vampire's PC's are obligated to follow the RP of this weakness. This does not prevent a vampire from Dominating another player and asking them to invite them inside.
(Knowledge religion score of 15 or better.)
Slaying a Vampire
Reducing a vampire’s hit points to 0 or lower incapacitates it but doesn’t always destroy it (see the note on fast healing). However, certain attacks can slay vampires.
Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight scorches a vampire at 5% of it's life in Divine damage per round, negating regeneration. This cannot be resisted. A vampire who reaches 0 hit points is destroyed. Similarly, immersing a vampire in running water robs has the same effect.
Driving a wooden stake through a vampire’s heart places the creature in torpor. However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the body is destroyed as usual means. A popular tactic is to cut off the creature’s head and fill its mouth with holy wafers or holy water.
Doing fire damage to a vampire in torpor will also destroy the vampire.
Vampire nature
Sundren vampires differ from normal D&D vampires in a number of ways roleplay-wise. Each nuance will be discussed below in detail. Players familiar with the roleplay system of World of Darkness will notice similarities here. Much of the following information was taken from sources such as: Vampire: The Masquerade, Vampire: The Requiem, and the computer game Vampire: Bloodlines.
Becomming a Vampire
A major deviance from D&D is that of being bitten by a vampire causing one to become a vampire. This is simply not the case in Sundren's lore. Only certain vampire strains carry infection as such and is generally seen as unclean by most vampires. This change was introduced for various reasons, such as NPC vampires in dungeons not altering a PC to the vampire template as well as having all PC's that become vampires heavily moderated.
Also this effect makes no logical sense considering a vampire must feed often to survive and those they create will also have to feed often. A vampire epidemic would most certainly occur and given the natural power a vampire holds, it would overpower the majority of Faerun's populace within a few years.
Therefore, as in much vampire literature, Sundren has seen fit to follow the lore of sire and childe.
To create a vampire a body must be dead and void of all blood. Blood is then directly transferred into the being instantly bringing them into their life as a vampire. This blood must be directly given. It cannot be transferred through objects such as cups, bottles or other receptacle. The body can be dead for any number of days before this occurs, even skeletal in nature. However, the body must at least be relatively intact. A pile of ashes that was once a body cannot be formed into a vampire.
It is common practice for a vampire to drink a person dry of their blood, which takes their life, and then the new vampire allowed to suckle upon their sire's blood.
The practice of creating a new vampire is called the embrace.
Generations
Many vampires of Sundren, from the lowly ravenous ferals to the elite noble elders can trace their blood lineage to Colibrus, a vampire that has achieved divinity and demi-god status.
For vampires, Colibrus is more than just a God. With the exception of vampire priests, most vampires not only view Colibrus as a divine power, but also as a Noble Family Patriarch. Colibrus is the head of his noble family, with his First Four Children being those he created, and each of their Childer (the term for 'children' they create with their vampirism) descended from them.
These Children create Children beneath them, and so on down, in a kind of complex web of family lineages. Each 'generation' before being slightly weaker than the last. The farther down the lineage a vampire is, the weaker it becomes until those at the very bottom are little more animalistic ferals possesing only a fraction of the noble's true power. These twisted children are termed thrall or spawn.
Vampires are automatically aware of one another's generation. This need not be said and is a supernatural awareness to them.
A Sire is the name given to a Childe's creator.
Blood & Feeding
Vampires need blood to exist, often referring to it as vitae due to it's life giving properties. It is their lifeforce, their metabolism, their drug, their high, it's basically everything. As a vampire is full of blood, so are they closer to the state of "Living". Vampires can even reproduce vampire/half-vampire offspring if they sustain a high enough level of blood.
As a vampire loses blood they will become more feral and more "dead". Their bodies will become pale, their eyes sunken, and their demeanor more ravenous or ferocious. Their mood will become quite irritable and will likely find it difficult to think anything beyond feeding just as a starving man would. When they are extremely low they could even go into a frenzy (See Below) depending upon their will power and self control. Once a vampire enters into this frenzy they their only thought becomes drinking blood, often killing victims without regard for who they are. The concept friend or enemy makes no difference to the frenzied vampire.
If a vampire loses all their blood this does not kill them. It instead puts them in torpor (See below) in which their body will slowly dry like a mummified remains until blood is reintroduced. Some particularly strong vampires may still be aware of the world in this state and intentionally enter torpor to sleep away eras peacefully. These same vampires may even have means of stealing blood from individuals who happen upon their resting remains. This is up to DM discretion.
When a vampire's fangs make contact with a victim, the feeling is a euphoria. This should not be confused with sexual pleasure (So don't feel you need to RP it that way) but it's generally a positive sensation. This is a predatory invention causing a victim to be less inclined to resist, scream or fight back when bitten. For RP purposes, a person being fed upon by a vampire should make a will save vs DC14 + the Vampire's Charisma modifier, or succumb to the euphoria. This is merely a guideline and role players are encouraged to decide a friendly and acceptable means of portraying such things.
This feeding is also equally enticing for the vampire who will be hard pressed to resist draining their victim dry and killing them. Young vampires will generally slay a victim during feeding regardless of their intention due to their inexperience with the joy of the vitae.
A vampire can go several days or even up to two weeks without feeding but will become more and more feral as they are denied blood until they either lose control or enter torpor. Thus a vampire will often feed once a day or every two days to maintain complete control.
Animal blood may be fed upon but will have an odious flavor to a vampire and be far less nourishing. Often requiring many animals to be fed upon to achieve the same nourishment of a person. A vampire will be hard pressed to stomach such a meal and may vomit up the blood they fed upon. It's a very revolting practice and will be frowned upon by most vampires. A vampire who feeds on animals will often find themselves ridiculed on top of the side effects of being malnourished when they practice such. However, all vampires will agree, if you need to survive, the practice may save your life.
Vampires may also drink from stored blood though fresh is always preferred as potency is lost the longer the blood is kept until it is far too old to be fed upon.
Various bloodlines of atypical beings often had different levels of nourishment for a vampire and they will find feeding from certain being far more potent than others. Though some of these beings have side effects. For example, feeding upon a Fey may cause hallucinations. Feeding upon a werewolf or wild creature may cause a vampire to be more prone to frenzy.
Blood Points
For the sake of mathematics and roleplay consider a vampire as having between 10 points of blood for low caste or thrall and 30 points or more for elder or higher caste. Each day a vampire exists it requires 1 blood point to survive outside of absolute torpor state. Thus a vampire may go a little over a week without drinking blood up to a month before they will lose consciousness. As they grow closer to losing consciousness the risk of frenzy will become greater and greater when presented with a possible meal.
Different beings may offer various points worth of blood to a vampire based upon size and potency. For example:
| Source |
| Amount |
A healthy medium humanoid has 10 points of blood, unhealthy may have less. A rat has a half point. A cat has one point. A werewolf may have 25. A celestial may have 50!
Good aligned beings, those of magical nature, and healty individuals are often sought out for being particularly nourishing or flavorful to a vampire's palette. Certain blood types may cause psychological changes in a vampire, for example, fey blood may cause delusions, werewolf blood may cause the vampire to frenzy, etc.
Sundren vampires are encouraged to feed at least once every week or two. There is no actual system in place to enforce this, and since play times differ from player to player, this rule is fairly lax and open to interpretation. Its certainly plausible that a vampire could feed from one of the npc mobs that exist on the server. Also, we do not force vampires to feed because it could lead to a special kind of griefing on the part of the vampire player. In the past, it has led to vampires picking on new low-level players, and can be terribly discouraging to such new people if they are getting victimized constantly. This requires a special kind of responsibility on the part of the vampire player(which is why they are typically chosen with care, and not subject to simply being earned through play time or Roleplayer of the Month). In essence, a feeding should be an RP event unto itself, and should never be done, simply to be done.
Vampires require blood to survive, and remain sane and civil. The longer a vampire goes without feeding, the more irritable and cold he or she becomes, slowly losing their human-facade to the growing hunger within known as the Beast.
The Beast
In every vampire exists a splintered part of their pysche which vampires come to call the Beast. It is, essentially, whats makes a vampire, a vampire. Each vampire was mortal once, and for good or ill, none ever have the Beast. The Beast only knows a few things: hunt, kill, feed, sleep, repeat. It is a monstrous and animalistic aspect of themselves that demands to be satisfied, no matter the cost. The Beast is everything the Mortal is not. The struggle with the Beast, to keep it caged and satisfied. is the core around a vampire's existence. The more a vampire gives into the Beast, the less human it becomes, slowly wearing away its morality until it is completely inhuman, unable to empathize with the Mortals around it. Most vampires fight this slow change in some form or another, giving into their urges when they must, and trying to stay sane enough to interact with Mortals.
The only sad truth is that, eventually, at one point or another, a vampire will lose the battle with the Beast, and when the Beast takes control, the vampire goes into a frenzy, losing control of itself, slaughtering and feeding with abandon until it is sated. When the Beast is sated, and the vampire regains its mind, it must then deal with the consequences of its actions, which can be devasting for vampires that try to hard to stay good in some fashion or another. A vampire that frenzies and kills his loved ones is a common tragedy for the undead. Because of these inevitable failings, most vampires lose their morality over time, rationalizing each incident until they no longer care, and become truly inhuman. Such can happen over the course of long centuries, or very quickly, depending on how much the vampire tries to fight off the Beast, and how many incidents they cause by losing control, or giving in.
The roleplay of the Beast is primarily up to each individual vampire. Some vampires will give in more easily than others. The important part is that it is roleplayed properly and not abused as an excuse to PvP or commit mass murders. Like any player, a vampire can be punished by the staff for wantonly murdering without cause or purpose (or DM).