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View Full Version : DM Help How to portray vampires as the deadliest predator?



Roxxy
2014-12-24, 04:41 PM
This is Pathfinder, but I've changed the vampire to have fewer vulnerabilities and more power. The intent is for them to be massively dangerous foes, on par with evil dragons, or even surpassing them. They are the iconic baddie of my setting, just like how dragons are iconic to the base game. They are also just about the most terrifying thing, even to the King's elite teams of monster hunters (the player characters). So, how do I give players the impression that this is the case? How do I leave players with the feeling that vampires, which are thankfully not common, are the scariest and deadliest thing around long before the players ever encounter one? How do I make them feel like horrendous death machines though bits of lore alone? How do I make them feel like the icon they are?

GPuzzle
2014-12-24, 06:52 PM
Exploit the uncanny valley. Make them weird-looking, but just human enough. Add that to an unsettling feeling of being everywhere at once, and never engaging in a fair fight, preferring bloody, silent ambushes with little to no trail, and they can easily make your players paranoid.

Kitten Champion
2014-12-24, 07:12 PM
Personally, I'd have the vampires be considered something of a myth. They have all these atrocities attributed to them, but are so effective in massacres that no one's really verified their existence and various alternative common sense theories reign as to why this village or that castle's population suddenly vanished. Vampires are the monsters that monsters don't want to talk about for fear of attracting their gaze.

You could, if you're willing to present them prior to a situation where they might fight them, use the Worf effect. Ya'know, have a monster everyone knows is supposed to be badass and then have a vampire soundly trounce it to prove its fangs are indeed long and hard.

Alternatively, but in that same vein, you could introduce a mid-boss type character. Some creature that seems really powerful in and of itself, but ends up being a vampire lackey at the end of the day -- or who's motivated out of fear because a vampire has entered their territory and they need all the power they can get just to survive the oncoming horror.

Calmar
2014-12-24, 07:13 PM
I guess it depends on how serious your friends are during the game and how much they insist on generic fantasy.

Generally I'd either just plainly tell them that vampires are the most fearsome creatures in the world. Maybe tie them ~ even if by term only ~ to demons etc. to evoke the right mental image of ultimate evil.

Let the NPCs repetedly make it clear that vampires are the most dangerous evil in the world, maybe use handouts, letters, item-lore to make it clear.

Qwertystop
2014-12-24, 08:02 PM
If you make them all distinct from each other (since they're rare, why not make each unique?)

Then you don't have legends saying that vampires are fast and strong and tough. You have legends of the tall, slim Count with a scar across his palm, who can slash your face and your back so fast you wouldn't even see him move behind you, or the Night's Tooth, who changes from a bat to a woman-shape with no apparent effort and fights just as well in either guise, or the massive unnamed one who no mortal has ever seen wounded or heard speak, but who nevertheless has enthralled entire villages.

Specific individuals can be very memorable. If they all have their own specialties, and perhaps their own weaknesses (whether in the "only this h hurts them" sense or the "tactical blind spot" sense), that also opens up an entirely new sort of fear - running into one that nobody knows.



If you want a different sort, maybe they're all completely indistinguishable, and never reveal themselves more than one at a time - between that, their speed, and their stealth, you never know how many you're fighting until the fight stops, and even then you don't know how many might just be waiting in the shadows.

ufo
2014-12-24, 08:30 PM
Look for inspiration in the World of Darkness. In that setting, humans are basically considered prey for vampires, and even though mortals can definitely defeat them, it's costly and almost impossible to achieve a conclusive victory.

TeChameleon
2014-12-24, 08:41 PM
In all honesty, you've picked a pretty tough row to hoe on this one; 'everybody knows' what Vampires can and can't do, to the point that major deviations are typically met with derision- cf. Twilight's 'sparkly leech men'. So in all probability, your players aren't going to be frightened when they try to stake a vampire (or whatever) and it doesn't work; they're going to be annoyed.

Best advice I can offer is: change the name. As an example, vrykolaka (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vrykolakas) sounds cool, and the monster that bears that name is at least tangentially related to vampire lore (considered to be an early Greek variant of the Slavic vampire). With an unfamiliar name (that some of your players may recognize as being sorta-kinda vampiric, depending- I'm pretty sure it's been used in other fiction as being a vamp variant), you have a lot more freedom to make the things terrifying.

As to how to make them terrifying... myth, rumour, and not much confirmed detail. The crumbling, half-forgotten castle surrounded by legend where people disappear forever, or else the occasional bloodless remnant is found, stuff like that. Never let the party fight them- that's a short route to either frustrating your players or de-mystifying the vampire whatevers. If you want to make sure they know how big and bad the vamps are, have a setpiece battle where the party is running backup for one of the higher-ups in the monster hunting squad, keeping them from being overwhelmed by lesser nasties while they duke it out with some huge unpleasant whatever that the PCs have no chance against (maybe some AoE effects that half-kill party members that get caught in them or whatever). Then later on, have a report reach the PCs that Big McLargeHuge Boss-Monster-Hunter got torn into linguini by something in one of those crumbling half-forgotten castles.

Something to that effect, anyhow.

Other than that... just be very, very careful that you don't drift them into Villain Sue territory- they're a messy form of assisted suicide if you just try to jump them, but with careful preparation and tactics, the PCs should be able to at least take out the lesser vamps.

Zale
2014-12-24, 09:03 PM
Many classic horror icons and other disturbing creatures share common characteristics. Pale skin, dark, sunken eyes, elongated faces, sharp teeth, and the like. These images inspire horror and revulsion in many, and with good reason. The characteristics shared by these faces are imprinted in the human mind.

Many things frighten humans instinctively. The fear is natural, and does not need to be reinforced in order to terrify. The fears are species-wide, stemming from dark times in the past when lightning could mean the burning of your tree home, predators could be hiding in the dark, heights could make poor footing lethal, and a spider or snake bite could mean certain death.

The question you have to ask yourself is this:

What happened, deep in the hidden eras before history began, that could effect the entire human race so evenly as to give the entire species a deep, instinctual, and lasting fear of pale beings with dark, sunken eyes, razor sharp teeth, and elongated faces?

The uncanny valley is a good source, but it's hard to evoke it with just words- pictures are so much easier to use to disturb people about the way things look subtly inhuman.

One thing you could consider doing is letting them see the results of vampires more than vampires themselves- try to invoke horror tropes or sensations. Say, when they're in a small town and the townsfolk are complaining about local goblins to something similarly generic. The PCs go off to deal with the issue and get back an hour after sunset.

The town is empty now, and deadly quiet. They find the headless bodies of villagers thrown around at random throughout the town, drained of blood, and in the town square are the heads- arranged in a pyramid shape.

I'm fairly certain that will make them rather nervous. Seeing as these vampire(s) killed an entire town in the space of an hour and may still be around.

Valameer
2014-12-24, 09:24 PM
Have vampires award the most XP when defeated! That will put the biggest bulls-eye on them.

But also, look to Castlevania or just the modern Dracula mythos as a vampire who is a lordly opponent, shadowing over a county as its true master. Vampires are the apex predators of their domains when portrayed like this. They are the shadow government pulling the strings of the local human ruler. They have multiple servants within their domain (humans and monsters both), and in the domains of their enemies. Every civilized territory should have its own vampiric overlord to deal with. And the wars waged between different vampire lords could be taking its toll on the good people of the land.

To mitigate their power, and to make them more interesting enemies, vampires should be rare and important. They don't create spawn often as they feel it threatens their power needlessly. Perhaps vampires are not (and can never be) the thralls of other vampires. That would keep their population pretty low.

Vampires are ancient personalities, full of their own superstitions and eccentricities. One might rely on a magically trapped (but obvious) castle for defense, another poses as the reclusive Queen of the kingdom (and all her ancestors). They are powerful, but still beatable, partly because of their hubris and habits.

I think you should keep most of the traditional vampiric weaknesses. As someone else mentioned, it would be frustrating for a player to finally stake a vamp in the heart only to have them be immune to it. Much like a red dragon who turns out to be immune to frost spells. If they have an immunity, it should be because of magical intervention - like an amulet that protects against daylight, or some such.

Remember, enemies exist to be challenged (and defeated) by heroes. So scale them to your PCs power. Keep them ever threatening, but still always tough. Like dragons - as PCs level up, they fight the smaller ones first, but dragons are always formidable. Vampires will probably need the help of monstrous minions to really make a good "boss fight" scene like a dragon fight.

Kid Jake
2014-12-24, 10:34 PM
My suggestion would be to make good and frequent use of their Dominate ability. Have them send hordes of thralls at the PCs, even if they have no chance of actually affecting the party, just to cement how little regard they have for human life. Have areas under their influence be strange and aloof, people walking around in a stupor or just outright brainwashed into total subservience. Vampires should have far reaching consequences beyond just the occasional nip in the neck, where one exists it should create a veritable Hell on Earth for everyone in its path.

I'd also avoid straight up confrontations, have the vampire hang out of sight and keep an eye on the party once it realizes someone's onto it. If a PC falls behind then certainly have the vampire try to pick him off, but it should be a quick and brutal affair. If the vampire feels threatened, have it target their friends or loved ones or, depending on how heroic they seem, their local contacts or just random NPCs. If one of its thralls announces that The Master will slay another one every night that they remain in its territory then it's suddenly become a very personal threat; something that a 30ft fire lizard generally doesn't get a chance to do.

Above all, make sure that the vampire is concerned with its own life first and foremost. Have it strike hard and fast and then slip away like it was never there; play it intelligent and while I wouldn't recommend throwing in cheesy backdoors for it, make sure that it doesn't put itself into compromising situations that it doesn't have an escape plan or two for. If it does finally get cornered with no way out, make it fight dirty as hell; tearing down pillars to bury all of them alive (it doesn't need to breathe, it'll dig its way out later) combine something like Spring Attack and Spider Climb to smack them in the fact with a negative level and then scurry to safety, etc...

When they finally do drag the thing back down to hell it should be kicking and screaming the whole way. It should be a Pyrrhic Victory that costs them allies, resources and general heartache, and if they mention any of this to a fellow vampire hunter he should just say 'Well duh.'

vasharanpaladin
2014-12-24, 11:50 PM
Tap Warhammer and ignore the D&D/Pathfinder version. Vampires are stronger, faster than mortals. They have claws. They have fangs. Both are apt weapons in a fight. Night vision, vein vision, the latter represented by increased crit range and a bonus to confirm critical hits. Vampires can track living beings by scent, pinpoint their vulnerable spots and be feasting within minutes. Those that survive a vampire's feeding are enthralled, placed under a near-permanent charm effect from the moment of feeding.

Above all else... there is still some human left. A vampire is still intelligent, still self-aware. Just because they can no longer bear the sun's light does not mean they are simple beasts. They are superhuman... immortal, intelligent, eternally beautiful, stronger and faster than all those who share their form, and in a magnanimous mood, they can bequeath these gifts with a simple injection of venom during their feeding. They are simply Better, as far beyond Man as Man is beyond Ape, and the only reason Man remains is as cattle.

FabulousFizban
2014-12-25, 12:35 AM
Have you looked at the stats for vampires? They're pretty brutal in they're own right. But really what it comes down to is what you stack it with. Vampires, powerful ones, are old, very old, they've had time to accumulate levels is what I'm getting at. Is this guy a vampire wizard with a happy trigger finger? A vampire BARBARIAN with witch hunter and spell sunder? (I think I'll use that one actually: Why yes i'm largely immune to your magic and can kick your ass in melee). Personality is going to matter too. He doesn't have to be a powerhouse to scare your players, simply being prepared (as a centuries old eldritch horror is wont to be) and intimidating can be far more effective than spell levels or hit points. Dragons have power, vampires have cunning; and as a PC, I know which worries me more.

Tucker's Kobolds

also, don't make undead sexy. Make them the abominations they are. Only the most perverse person should want to be an undead. Nosferatu, not Dracula.

EDIT: which reminds me, take a look at the pathfinder nosferatu as opposed to the standard vampire. They're pretty cool.
EDIT 2: OOoo, Barbarian Nosferatu. Delicious

mephnick
2014-12-25, 12:50 AM
Not that I'm a huge anime fan, but if you haven't seen Hellsing Ultimate, I'd check it out. The "real" vampires in that series are ridiculously powerful and brutal. Alucard himself shows glimpses of how insanely dangerous a true vampire could be. Amp that up a bit and you can easily make them dragon-like in their cultural impact.

TheCountAlucard
2014-12-25, 03:30 AM
In all honesty, you've picked a pretty tough row to hoe on this one; 'everybody knows' what Vampires can and can't do, to the point that major deviations are typically met with derision- cf. Twilight's 'sparkly leech men'.Amusing enough, since the Meyerpires don't even have fangs - there's nothing sexy about bites from a human mouth that go deep enough to get a significant amount of blood. It's gonna be gruesome, and it's gonna be messy.

Also, I once more must posit my alternate theory: Meyerpires aren't proper vampires at all - rather, they're jacked on alien nanites.


Alucard himself shows glimpses of how insanely dangerous a true vampire could be.Thank you. :smallamused:

the_david
2014-12-25, 06:25 AM
A vampire BARBARIAN with witch hunter and spell sunder? (I think I'll use that one actually: Why yes i'm largely immune to your magic and can kick your ass in melee).

Undead are immune to morale effects. They would only get the -2 AC from rage and they wouldn't be able to use certain skills. Maybe some rage powers too. (In your defense, Pathfinder screwed this up and put an undead barbarian in Kingmaker, I believe.)

Vampire Succubus with 2 levels Antipaladin and 1 level of Oracle with the Lore Mystery and the Side Step Secret Revelation gets you Charisma on AC, (instead of Dexterity) all Saves and your Hit Dice. (Possibly twice on Reflex Saves, but I'm not getting into that discussion.)

Edit: I want you to forget what I said about the Vampire Succubus Antipaladin Oracle. Turns out, she's just overpowered. Don't do it guys, I'm serious. I want to apologize to all the people who will run into this monstrosity. I'm so sorry guys! I didn't know what I was saying until I took a good look at what I created!

BeerMug Paladin
2014-12-25, 08:11 AM
One suggestion, make it well known that a certain big city is home to a vampire who more or less runs the place. Normally, the regular folks of the town still run the day to day affairs. But when the vampire wants something, they assert their influence and over time get what they want through political manipulation.

This vampire is not known to kill random people, but the city is absolutely regressive about punishing criminals, with the worst offenders spending a night in the stocks. There's a strictly enforced curfew, and repeat (or serious) offenders may face this punishment. (Investigation or crazy good knowledge checks reveal that this vampire has been working to make these changes to the city over the last several decades.)

When someone is placed in the stocks overnight, it's with the understanding that when the morning comes, there will be a bloodless corpse to remove. Sometimes the criminal is still alive, sometimes completely unharmed and they are set free afterwards. Such events are evidence of the mercy and fairness of their system, that such a wretch deserving of death was given a second chance.

Disappearances happen occasionally, but none are attributed to this vampire. It wouldn't need to hide corpses because it has the benefit of the townspeople knowing that only criminals are killed by its bite. This believe isn't absolute, but it's common enough to be the prevailing assertion.

One time, a prominent merchant who was well liked was found dead in his home. The evidence of his passing indicated he was bitten and drained. Gossip among the common citizen is that the police investigation revealed that the merchant had been engaged in criminal smuggling operations.

Predators are deadly because they are suited to use their environment to their advantage. And when a predator's environment is civilization, that means political power, corruption of the law, and money. A vampire lord could have all three things in their favor.

Imagine the adventuring party going into this town. Sooner or later, they'll run afoul of the law. You could portray being placed in the stocks as a seriously deadly situation, then eventually place one of the PCs there when they (of course) do something arrest-worthy. (Occasionally describe them passing by the stockade square when the night's previous criminals are being removed and disposed of.)

If you can make them believe this is likely going to lead to PC death, that's good. Maybe have some of their contacts slain this way. But of course, the vampire may decide to spare them. (Maybe the vampire just isn't around that night. Maybe the vampire feeds on them a little, or just shows up to speak to them, as if considering whether to feast.)

Hytheter
2014-12-25, 08:14 AM
I'm kind of agreeing with TeChameleon's line of thought. Don't make them literally vampires, but rather something else that evokes a similar feeling. That way you get that vampire mystique without making your players feel cheated when it sculls holy water out of a silver cup in broad daylight.

Invoking the uncanny valley can be useful too, especially if the inhuman qualities are easily described (or better yet drawn) and recognised.

Some time in the future I might be running an urban fantasy game featuring my own breed of "not vampires" with some slender man inspired elements.
Their appearance is that of a clothed humanoid, but with a hunched back and broad shoulders with disproportionately long, slender limbs. Their face is mostly covered by goggle like glasses and a bandanna or mask around their nose and mouth, and the top of their head is sparsely covered in short hairs.
The idea is that they stalk their victims for a while - days, weeks or even months. No-one but the victim ever sees them though, and no victim has ever been spared. They will stand in plain sight from the victim at night, just standing and staring. But naturally they also have a habit of disappearing from sight as soon as the victim reaches for the camera. So the only evidence of them are notes and sketches from the victims, and the blood-drained bodies they leave behind.

Hopefully that will paint enough of a picture that the PCs know to be worried when one of them finally sees it.

Concerns to be raised would be things like "what is this thing, exactly" and "is there just one? or many?"

Of course, I'll later get to spring an extra twist upon them when it's finally uncovered that beneath their clothes they aren't really that human-like at all but rather mosquito-esque creatures with a fearsome proboscis, bug eyes and lots of legs. Oh, and wings - they can totally fly on top of incredible speed, strength and durability. That oughta freak someone out.

The point I'm getting at there in that longer-than-initially-expected aside is that you can use stories and rumours to paint a scary picture without showing your baddie until the players know to poo their pants when they see it.

Also keep in mind that long lived vampires/"not vampires" could have powerful artifacts and unique spells that were thought to be lost to history long ago.

Eisenheim
2014-12-25, 02:22 PM
going in another direction entirely, part of what can make vampires terrifying opponents is their comfort within mortal society. Have parts of the world where vampires walk openly and rule openly, taking blood as a tax. Such a vampire is defended not by thralls or monsters, but by law-abiding innocents, and by the laws themselves. Any powerful vampire should have minions who can engage the PCs in the daylight, and not just in combat. Never underestimate the power of putting combat monsters off-balance by challenging them with social or legal attacks.

Gavran
2014-12-25, 03:07 PM
Specific individuals can be very memorable. If they all have their own specialties, and perhaps their own weaknesses (whether in the "only this h hurts them" sense or the "tactical blind spot" sense), that also opens up an entirely new sort of fear - running into one that nobody knows.

I really like the gist of your post, and I know it's only a small typo in a small part of it but...

http://i.imgur.com/B9yYJx8.jpg

I'll let myself out...

Ashtagon
2014-12-25, 03:25 PM
I'd take a double approach:

1) Take WFRP's approach to vampires and go wild on thatlore and rules.

2) Never tell the PCs they are facing a vampire. The count? He's not a vampire. He's our liege, reclusive as heck except for the midnight balls. We peasants never see him. Course, we never see other lords either and what business is it of ours? But folk disappear round these parts at night. Can you help?

FabulousFizban
2014-12-25, 03:26 PM
Undead are immune to morale effects. They would only get the -2 AC from rage and they wouldn't be able to use certain skills. Maybe some rage powers too. (In your defense, Pathfinder screwed this up and put an undead barbarian in Kingmaker, I believe.)

Vampire Succubus with 2 levels Antipaladin and 1 level of Oracle with the Lore Mystery and the Side Step Secret Revelation gets you Charisma on AC, (instead of Dexterity) all Saves and your Hit Dice. (Possibly twice on Reflex Saves, but I'm not getting into that discussion.)

Edit: I want you to forget what I said about the Vampire Succubus Antipaladin Oracle. Turns out, she's just overpowered. Don't do it guys, I'm serious. I want to apologize to all the people who will run into this monstrosity. I'm so sorry guys! I didn't know what I was saying until I took a good look at what I created!

****, you're right, they are immune to morale effects. But with +8 to nat armor and damage reduction plus fast healing it might be worth the trade off, especially since they still get the rage powers. Come and get me is still dangerous, and spell sunder is one of the best abilities in pathfinder. Plus, a regular vampire gets a +6 to strength anyway, and a nosferatu still gains a +2. Not shabby

EDIT: have you read Patrick Rothfuss? I'd take a look at his Chandrian, they seem to be the sort of thing you want to create.

spineyrequiem
2014-12-25, 04:16 PM
Depends how long you're willing to go with the campaign, and what your players are willing to put up with.

What I'd go for is to start the players off getting into a fight way out of their league; not with the vampire, mind, something completely different. Regardless, they should be clearly losing. Suddenly, in time-honoured fashion some organisation comes to the rescue and defeats whatever the threat is (not so easily that the players feel cheated; ideally, they should just be glad they survived). This organisation takes them back to their castle and offers them various missions. They do a few of these, make friends with NPCs and so on.

A few sessions later, they do a mission and come back to find the organisation... gone. Doors forced open, bodies piled high, no sign of what the hell did it except for one, pale soldier propped up against a pile of rubble, desperately clutching at a wound on his neck who, just before he dies, says one word.

'Vampire...'

End session. Or, if they decided to go exploring, have them notice that some of the doors weren't forced, but unlocked from the inside... and there's a lot less bodies than there should be.

'Course, eventually they'll have to fight the vampire, at which point something of the mystique will be lost. But as much as possible, you should keep them in the dark on what exactly it can do. Their imaginations should do a lot of the work for you.

Kornaki
2014-12-25, 06:28 PM
Make people in the world think vampires are exactly the same as in standard pathfinder. The elite hunters talk about them in hushed tones, to the confusion of the party. They say that no hunter has ever survived an encounter with a vampire. PCs (both in and out of character) think how ridiculous that is. Then they find a vampire in its coffin, sleeping in the middle of the day. Stake in the heart. High fives all around, followed by the vampire getting up and killing someone.

Don't tell them that the vampires are stronger than normal, make them earn the information.

TenDots
2014-12-26, 01:07 AM
I feel like it's not the monster type which scares people, but the character itself, who is a monster. It's not the vampire that's scary, it's that the vampire is Alucard which is scary. It's not the wizard which is scary, it's that it's Elminster which is scary. Make effective and powerful individuals with unique personalities and tactics and one unifying theme and your PCs will start to pick up on that, if only for self-preservation's sake. Build down all the angles that a vampire can take, find ways to make them effective, and they'll start seeing the pattern.

Vampires Dominate people, so have a person who does that. Maybe mind-control a town, have him bluff the adventurers with a Dominated body double, whatever.

Vampires are excellent at not dying, so have a person who does that. Maybe an ambush type character who always fights from advantageous positions but runs the second a fight turns around, but just keeps on harrying the heroes. I can think of a couple scenarios with that kind of person - even in town, just have him keep on Dominating his way through for constant pressure on the monster hunters. Have him continually take risks, but good risks, and keep bailing himself out with his powers. Gaseous Form and Fast Healing are pretty strong.

Vampires have their whole beast of the night thing going on, so you might enforce that. Have a Druid vampire maybe, who keeps running around wildshaped as a wolf or bat and summoning massive amounts of creatures to swarm the party. Keep on harrying them through the wilderness with wolves, then swap to rats when they get into town. When the town turns them out because they bring plague or whatever justification you need, start harrying them with the wolves again. If they go somewhere wolves can't get to, get them with birds or bats.

Vampires are very social, so have one who is high up in the court, Wormtongue style. Whisper secrets and lies in the Kings ear. Given that your party are premier monster hunters for the king, make him your boss. Have the king justify it with some "Enemy of my enemy is my friend" or "Keep your friends close and your enemies closer" type of thing. Have him protected by layers upon layers of innocent people and laws, and never let the party face him directly.

I'm pretty sure you could do something with an energy drain/Create Spawn vampire. Make him like a cult leader or something, maybe trying to bring about a wightocalypse by summoning some wights or something.

Basically, just make Vampires individuals rather than a race. If all the individuals in the race are scary, then the race itself must also be scary. Logic :smallwink:

AMFV
2014-12-26, 10:49 AM
This is Pathfinder, but I've changed the vampire to have fewer vulnerabilities and more power. The intent is for them to be massively dangerous foes, on par with evil dragons, or even surpassing them. They are the iconic baddie of my setting, just like how dragons are iconic to the base game. They are also just about the most terrifying thing, even to the King's elite teams of monster hunters (the player characters). So, how do I give players the impression that this is the case? How do I leave players with the feeling that vampires, which are thankfully not common, are the scariest and deadliest thing around long before the players ever encounter one? How do I make them feel like horrendous death machines though bits of lore alone? How do I make them feel like the icon they are?

The problem is that Vampires don't act like apex predators. They hide among their prey, disguising themselves. As long as this is the case people are going to see them more as parasites than apex predators. I think that the first key is to remove the disguise aspect. If Vampires are so powerful they don't need to hide. Instead of having them operate in an urban environment put them in the wilderness, give each Vampire a huge range of area that it hunts in, or even better make them tyrants controlling dozens of small hamlets, in the way that dragons sometimes do. That would improve their perceived standing quite a bit already.

goto124
2014-12-26, 11:32 AM
They hide among their prey, disguising themselves. As long as this is the case people are going to see them more as parasites than apex predators.

Isn't a big part of making players fear any creature, to not reveal the creature's form until the very end? To build a whole lot of suspense over its nature, and invoke horror into the very fact that you can't even SEE the creature?

AMFV
2014-12-26, 11:40 AM
Isn't a big part of making players fear any creature, to not reveal the creature's form until the very end? To build a whole lot of suspense over its nature, and invoke horror into the very fact that you can't even SEE the creature?

It wouldn't be in this case. In this case the OP is wanting to know how to depict Vampires as master predators, literally the top of the food chain. You're talking about a sense of horror involving the unknown. Now the two aren't necessarily at odds. For example you could have a mysterious ruler who runs the town that nobody ever sees a la Innsmouth. But otherwise you're not really doing the Predator thing, you're doing "The Thing" which is good horror, but it's a distinctly different kind of horror. The thing that makes "The Thing" scary is that it removes your ability to trust, that it makes you paranoid, that's standard Vampire schtick mind you. Whereas the OP, as I understand it, wants to make Vampires into a more direct predatory threat, a la Predator or Alien, in that case having them be completely concealed isn't the best option, having them able to hide could be, but the disguise aspect is useful for a different sort of horror.

Jenrock
2014-12-26, 12:30 PM
If you want vampires to be at the top of the food chain, put a dead gold dragon in the center of a village, and add tales that during the night (when the battle took place) the gouts of flame revealed the silhouette of some man-thing flitting through the sky.

NorthernPhoenix
2014-12-26, 01:52 PM
If you want to stay within the rules, start with the Vampire Lord template
http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/mm/20021018a

And add any class levels you desire, just like the article suggests, to create a truly terrifying beast. Wizard if you just want power, but i thing either various shape-shifting classes (i.e Master of Many Forms) or evil Tome of Battle classes could produce a thematically appropriate and deadly super-vampire.

Milodiah
2014-12-26, 05:32 PM
Exploit the uncanny valley. Make them weird-looking, but just human enough. Add that to an unsettling feeling of being everywhere at once, and never engaging in a fair fight, preferring bloody, silent ambushes with little to no trail, and they can easily make your players paranoid.


Somehow I just pictured Dracula in black pajamas & rice hat.

Don't let that rather silly image dissuade you, though. A well-developed sense of powerlessness can be an effective tool in tabletop horror. I don't mean powerless as in "depriving them of player agency", that's an entirely different type of horror. I mean giving them opposition that manages to get the upper hand in game-legitimate, if shadowy, ways and presents them with a type of problem that they aren't used to dealing with- namely one that doesn't initiate combat and then get killed.


If you make them all distinct from each other (since they're rare, why not make each unique?)

Then you don't have legends saying that vampires are fast and strong and tough. You have legends of the tall, slim Count with a scar across his palm, who can slash your face and your back so fast you wouldn't even see him move behind you, or the Night's Tooth, who changes from a bat to a woman-shape with no apparent effort and fights just as well in either guise, or the massive unnamed one who no mortal has ever seen wounded or heard speak, but who nevertheless has enthralled entire villages.

Specific individuals can be very memorable. If they all have their own specialties, and perhaps their own weaknesses (whether in the "only this h hurts them" sense or the "tactical blind spot" sense), that also opens up an entirely new sort of fear - running into one that nobody knows.

I really like this suggestion. Just keep in mind the Lord British Postulate, and remember that you're also handing your players what amounts to a most wanted list.

runeghost
2014-12-26, 09:16 PM
Similar to what Kid Jake said above, *play them smart*.

Even a "lesser" vampire should be cunning. Hit the PCs when they're weak, alone, in environments that favor the vampire and mitigate or eliminate its weaknesses.

The real big bads should be played as having an Int of 25+. They're *immortal*. They'll never directly confront the PCs, unless its perhaps to gloat when the PCs are powerless, and even then they'll have escape plans and backup plans. (You thought you killed her? That was just what she wanted you to think!)

High-end vampires should have had centuries to plot, acquire magic, and control their surroundings. They'll be 10 steps ahead of the PCs, play them like the most devious, power-hungry, min-maxing player you've ever met, only without a GM keeping them in check. They can be subtle, too though. Don't feel you have to resort to assassins, poisons, and deadly threats to what the PCs value. Tipping off a dragon, or tipping off the PCs about a dragon (or both!) may work just as well.

The master vampire will know everything about any 'heroes' who operate on their turf. Spells known, powerful magic items, henchmen, all that should be information the vampire has even before the PCs know it exists, much less how much of the campaign world dances on its strings.

Coidzor
2014-12-26, 09:26 PM
This is Pathfinder, but I've changed the vampire to have fewer vulnerabilities and more power. The intent is for them to be massively dangerous foes, on par with evil dragons, or even surpassing them. They are the iconic baddie of my setting, just like how dragons are iconic to the base game. They are also just about the most terrifying thing, even to the King's elite teams of monster hunters (the player characters). So, how do I give players the impression that this is the case? How do I leave players with the feeling that vampires, which are thankfully not common, are the scariest and deadliest thing around long before the players ever encounter one? How do I make them feel like horrendous death machines though bits of lore alone? How do I make them feel like the icon they are?

Well, you could have the setting still being in recovery from the last time [Dracula] arose and unified the vampires to his banner, almost totally conquering the setting until a member of the [Belmont] family stepped forward and Banished/Killed/??? [Dracula], setting the vampires to fighting amongst themselves so that the unified front of everyone else in the setting could push them back. Even today though, there are still pocket kingdoms where the forces arrayed against the vampires were never able to dislodge them, some ruling openly and others preying on those unfortunates who are forced into the lands that no one wants to farm or live in due to being Orc Country or Monster Territory.

Entire obvious and easily traversed trade routes may be crumbling roads simply because there was confirmed vampire activity in a crucial pass, forcing trade to detour almost around the entire continent or something equally convoluted, making it a deadly but potentially quite lucrative venture to clear the vampire(s) out, but so far no one has claimed the reward despite having been posted for more than a human lifetime.

mephnick
2014-12-26, 09:32 PM
I'd actually make them less cunning and more prideful, as well as legitimately powerful.

He wants an apex predator, not a spymaster. You don't need contingencies when you are the baddest MF'er in the land. The true vampire should be a force of nature, not a cowardly mastermind.

Of course, I prefer to play my dragons as more forces of nature than super intelligent spellcasters (it makes no sense to me), so I'm likely biased.

Edit: Sorry to return to Hellsing again, but Alucard rarely has much of a plan going in to a situation because he knows nothing out there can actually beat him if he has to use his full abilities. The powerful vampires in that series are not exceptionally intelligent or anything.

Roxxy
2014-12-27, 05:49 AM
Hmm. I think that deadliest predator may have been the wrong term. I've been thinking over the holiday, and I really do need to narrow in on the themes of my setting. It's Victorian, Old West, and Gilded Age more than it is Medieval. I am an urban planning stident, so I narrow in heavily on the urban aspects of me settings. The combination of Victoriana and urbanism suggests a civilized vampire. Something that mingles unnoticed. But it is also the scariest creature in the world. Perhaps because it is so effective with Dominate, disguise, illusion, and enchantment that the hunter is like to get killed before ever figuring out who the vampire is, despite the vampire having been someone well known and friendly to him all along? This vampire has easily taken over an entire frontier town and slaughtered any opposition, yet nobody can figure out who the vampire now ruling the town is, because he's the power dominating the power behind the mayor. Could be anyone. He is also old, cunning, and powerful. Killing a few backwoods dissidents isn't enough. He needs some sort of mastermind plot. Look into the player characters. They are not adventurers, they are instruments of royal authority. Though they are a monster killing force and not police, if it becomes necessarily they do hold the responsibility of upholding the law. Have the vampire take advantage of that. It's not typically my style to use the law against the players, which may actually make it more effective in highlighting how crafty vampires are. Also, once you corner the thing, it's still rocking a dragon level of killing power.

So, now we have some stuff to flesh out further. Also, I do really like the aforementioned idea of focusing on vampires as unique and creepy people. The problem is how to reconcile it with the idea of vampires being so hard to find. Unless both ideas are true, because vampires are not of one mind on tactics.

Eisenheim
2014-12-27, 11:18 AM
Have you ever read Dracula? If you're setting is victorian, that seems like a place to begin as fa as how to convey the atmosphere of terror that a vampire should produce. China Mieville's The Scar also has a great take on how a vampire can be terrifying while still being completely open; it's not the main plot, just an interesting element of the book, and worth a look if you have time for some research.

GloatingSwine
2014-12-27, 11:44 AM
If you're going for a Victoriana/Gilded Age setting then you have a few extra helpers.

The big one is that you're in the ascendancy of rationality and the dawn of real science, so you can have a setting where there's a relatively regimented approach to the "supernatural", magic is starting to be as well understood as mathematics and physics were in the mid Victorian period, even the intercessory power of the divine is being explained by master theologians of the age, and nobody really believes in vampires.

And you've got to wonder, who was that scholar a century ago who proved so conclusively that Vampires don't exist?

Mabs
2014-12-27, 11:53 AM
Of course, you could swing it the other way!

Instead of making it civilized, make it the ultimate urban predator. Rational, maybe even sentient, but bestial. The Vampire as a species has followed humanity from the time they huddled around the fire; able to creep into their huts and drain an entire family without any being able to cry for help.

And now in the urban jungle it has a much greater feeding ground. The slums, tall buildings - it is capable of dragging a human into the shadows and tearing out his juglar and gulping down a meal in mere seconds before retreating. It knows how to hide a body, and it also knows that how many would cry when a homeless man goes missing?

What's scarier; make them having once been humans. They're a prevision of man much akin to the way zombies reflect the fear of something that looks like a person being a mindless animal.

Yora
2014-12-27, 01:31 PM
I would make vampires less like Dracula and more like Orlok.

Classic vampires tend to be highly sophisticated, cultured, and polite. But they are very powerful predators who often can enslave the minds of normal humans. They don't need to consider their manners. They can do whatever the hell they want. If they want something, they take it. If something gets in their way, they destroy it. They still can be highly intelligent and enjoy luxury, but they don't ever need to show restraint. All that matters to them is what they want, everyone else only has to submit to their will. They don't have to ask for things or try to get on anyones good side.

ReaderAt2046
2014-12-30, 10:05 AM
Here's an idea: make your vampires invincible. Nothing, or at least nothing anybody knows of, can permanently get rid of a vampire. Sunlight or decapitation or whatever will take them a few years to recover from, but they'll be back sooner or later. To go with this, obviously you need to make it much harder to create new vampires.

A second idea that also goes well with the above: make every vampire unique and notorious. The PCs should have a good idea of the names, locations, and powers of every vampire, because these are entities that get talked about in every bar.

Crafty Cultist
2014-12-30, 09:18 PM
Personally I find the dynamic of a savage predator behind a mask of civility interesting. Make the vamps confident, calm, and with an air smugness about them - until they're backed into a corner, then they start tossing people around like rag dolls.

another good way to make them threatening would be to have their presence twist the world around them. Not in a particularly straightforward way, but maybe having a vampire in the area makes everything become more gothic the longer the vampire is present. Having their power influence the land could build them up as a major threat, and make finding the vampire more urgent, as things will get worse the longer they're present. Winds become colder and shadows become darker when a vampire comes to town, soon people start having nightmares and the sun doesn't seem as bright as it used to. Eventually paranoia becomes rampant, animals become more feral, and other supernatural creatures are drawn to the vampires power. Eventually, innocent people might begin turning into monstrous servants.

This would also make the domain of an ancient vampire even more threatening. Everything there is in thrall to their power, and the nature of their realm might counteract some of their weaknesses

Honest Tiefling
2014-12-30, 10:32 PM
The problem is, the Vampire is not the scariest creature, because the Vampire is the monster that lurks within humanity. Those outside of humanity tend to evoke the most terror from my experience.

Could be a fun challenge, however! But since I am unoriginal, I am going to suggest ripping off comic books. See, vampires know they lack humanity. They either embraced death, or had it thrust upon them. And they want to show the party that they are not so different then they. They will engineer situations so that the party must make terrible choices, and take horrific actions. The vampire goes to great lengths just so countless deaths are on the hands of PCs.

Even without this hunger, see, they are not so different from humans. By proving this, the vampire proves that they have lost nothing in the transformation. Humans only fool themselves into thinking they have any shred of nobility, decency, or even of a soul because they are ignorant.

Go ahead, it might say, kill me. I've proven my point, and it will not bring back those people you have killed.

Komatik
2014-12-31, 01:10 PM
The problem is, the Vampire is not the scariest creature, because the Vampire is the monster that lurks within humanity. Those outside of humanity tend to evoke the most terror from my experience.

Could be a fun challenge, however! But since I am unoriginal, I am going to suggest ripping off comic books. See, vampires know they lack humanity. They either embraced death, or had it thrust upon them. And they want to show the party that they are not so different then they. They will engineer situations so that the party must make terrible choices, and take horrific actions. The vampire goes to great lengths just so countless deaths are on the hands of PCs.

Even without this hunger, see, they are not so different from humans. By proving this, the vampire proves that they have lost nothing in the transformation. Humans only fool themselves into thinking they have any shred of nobility, decency, or even of a soul because they are ignorant.

Go ahead, it might say, kill me. I've proven my point, and it will not bring back those people you have killed.

So rip off one of the most grossly overrated and, frankly, boring Batman stories ever?

Honest Tiefling
2014-12-31, 01:12 PM
Eh, I liked the movies. But regardless, I think it more interesting to take a bad story and make it good, then steal a good story. I mean, someone already did it well, its right there!

And one day I shall present my list of DnD stories based on Voyager episodes.

Yora
2014-12-31, 04:35 PM
I am actually having a whole bunch of plots prepared which are taken from disappointing movies and video games. Stories with a cool beginning, but that never actually went anywhere interesting.

SpamandEggs
2014-12-31, 05:14 PM
It might be overkill to make these vampires intimidating by making them the strongest thing around - if your vampires can go toe-to-to with all the high level threats in the setting (dragons, etc) they'll lose their uniqueness and believability real fast, and just become another epic bundle of stats for the players to overcome.

Now, if you tailor them specifically to hunt and kill PC races only, then they stay scary. Sure, they can't reign godlike over all monsters, but your players aren't playing monsters, and you don't have to convince your NPCs to be scared of anything. Personally, I think that something specially made to kill me is scarier and more believable than something that just happens to beat everything.

SpamandEggs
2014-12-31, 05:48 PM
Or, to phrase it differently, vampires don't fear stakes because stakes are op. Vampires fear stakes because they kill vampires.

Roxxy
2015-01-02, 05:08 PM
I just got an idea. I was watching Criminal Minds, and murder victims were almost completely drained of their blood. Which was pointed out as taking work to achieve, because once the heart stops pumping it becomes a lot harder to continue extracting blood. Now, yea, this is TV drama and not at all a realistic TV show, but it's not like Pathfinder has any sort of commitment to realistic biology. Let's roll with it, because it can be cool. If simply biting into somebody's neck isn't good enough once their heart stops beating, actually draining prey of their blood takes a vampire some work. Maybe it doesn't taste as good after death, which would mean that finding a drained corpse with two holes in its neck isn't the byproduct of a normal hunt. It's a message. That took the vampire in question a lot of work to do, and he didn't do that work just because. Perhaps it's a dead hunter being displayed as a threat. Perhaps the body was a different type of monster, and he's intimidating other monsters in the city by showing how serious he is about his dominance. Perhaps the individual in question angered him personally. Whatever it is, it is not a normal kill. Point that out to the PCs when they investigate a drained body, and it shows that this isn't just a good old fashioned bloodsucking. There is something more going on.

Kid Jake
2015-01-02, 05:47 PM
I could see that. Also, now I kinda want to run a vampire hunting game where all of the vampires are based on fictional serial killers.

goto124
2015-01-03, 02:14 AM
Which was pointed out as taking work to achieve, because once the heart stops pumping it becomes a lot harder to continue extracting blood.

The vampires could just rip the hearts right out of their chests. Extra creepiness that adds to the dominance message!

Coidzor
2015-01-03, 05:16 AM
The vampires could just rip the hearts right out of their chests. Extra creepiness that adds to the dominance message!

Just make sure that they don't have an opportunity to make Indiana Jones jokes/references in response until after the session is over.

Zeofar
2015-01-04, 11:31 AM
How do I make them feel like horrendous death machines though bits of lore alone? How do I make them feel like the icon they are?

Have one singlehandedly kill everyone in a major city (and perhaps arrange the corpses in amusing tableaus, just to establish that it was done for no real reason). Dragons are intimidating because they're portrayed as massively destructive, so if you want the same reaction, give them the same treatment. You can make other vampires more subtle while having one that showcases their intended power level.