Minimalist vampires

[Eldan]

There's a thread around in the 3.5 forum on bad LA, whcih got me thinkign about my favourite case again, the Vampire.

So, the vampire, in 3.5, is barely playable. It has a ton of features, though, not all of which are necessary. So, my question is: if you think about mythology, instead of RPGs, what does a creature need to be called vampire? There are tons of vampire myths out there, which are all very different.

It would need to drink blood, I'd think. That's a given. But what else? Do you think vampires have to be revenants, who came back from the dead? Is it absolutely necessary that they spread their curse to others? Would you accept a vampire that isnt' super strong or tough? A vampire who is a iving creature, not dead? Would you say they need to be able to turn into animals? Would you accept a vampire who stayed dead when killed with conventional weapons, or is returning essential?

Note that I'm not asking what some vampires in the world should have. I'm talking the barest minimum, with the option of having more powerful vampires higher up the food chain (through templates, feats, classes, etc.)

[Milodiah]

I think the three main mythological features of the vampire are subsisting on blood, being a creature of the night, and needing to be killed in specific ways (staked/beheaded, holy water, crucifixes, etc.) And even the last one is just a little bit unnecessary.

All this turning into a bat, transfixing with a gaze, etc. is just extra.

[NotScaryBats]

I've seen it where you do a "one strength, one weakness" kinda thing -- get the ability to turn into a bat? also get the ability to turn to dust in the sunlight.

So, you could start with "creature turned into a vampire, now craves blood" like a thrall, ghoul, or minion (different sources call 'em different things), and then as they gain power they become more and more trope-y until eventually they grown a widow's peak and speak in an accent.

[Eldan]

Yeah, that was my basic idea. I was thinking of a very basic template, "Gains a bite attack that drains some blood, is dazzled in sunlight", and not much more. Then, after that, a series of vampire powers that could be gained in separate ways (I was thinking of allowing either trading them for weaknesses, gaining them as feats or taking vampire-specific classes.)

[Strigon]

The most basic vampire?
It has to gain life by sucking *something* out of another creature, and it must be supernatural.
Not every vampire in mythology sucked blood; some "sucked" youth, memories, dreams, and a whole host of other things. Personally, I consider them all vampires.
I also give bonus points to any who have some form of aversion to sunlight (note: twinkling is not an aversion), and recoil (at least) from a cross/holy water.

Edit: Oh, and they can't be as easy to kill as humans.
They don't necessarily have to be stronger, or even have to be killed in a specific way, but they should at least be tougher. If it's killed by anything less grievous than, say, decapitation, it's not a vampire.

[Eldan]

I'd be all up for dream or memory-draining vampires, etc. but that would be really, really hard to model in an RPG. I wouldn't even know where to start, really.

[Strigon]

I'd be all up for dream or memory-draining vampires, etc. but that would be really, really hard to model in an RPG. I wouldn't even know where to start, really.

Oh, yes, it would be a colossal pain, but you did say:

...if you think about mythology, instead of RPGs, what does a creature need to be called vampire?

And if you wanted to use them in an RPG, you would have 3 options:
1) Only use it on NPC's: This is the easiest, but it makes the vampire far less of a threat, once they manage to locate it (which might be difficult if nobody remembers anything.)
2) Use it on PC's, and hope they're good at separating IC and OOC knowledge.
3) Have it happen to the PC's, and tell them exactly what they would know. I.E., for memory stealing, they wake up with unexplained bruises, 3 days after they went to sleep. In this case, obviously there's the potential for someone to call railroading, so it would have to be done fairly and with finesse.

[Segev]

One of the most minimalistic vampires I've seen are those from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They were stronger and more durable, had to drink blood, and were burned by sunlight and holy water. A stake through the heart dusted them, and anything that killed them turned them to dust (like overexposure to sunlight).

I always found them personally unsatisfying, but that does seem a good list of minimal traits.

[Strigon]

One of the most minimalistic vampires I've seen are those from the TV series Buffy the Vampire Slayer. They were stronger and more durable, had to drink blood, and were burned by sunlight and holy water. A stake through the heart dusted them, and anything that killed them turned them to dust (like overexposure to sunlight).

I always found them personally unsatisfying, but that does seem a good list of minimal traits.

How about the ones from Supernatural? Drank blood, weren't killed by sunlight or holy water, no stakes, no crosses, just decapitation?
They're a good basic template, but I agree with simple ones being unsatisfying.
Vampires are supposed to be terrifying predators, and if they're just strong guys with fangs, they're just... meh.
Still vampires, but really boring ones.

[Milodiah]

I will say that night is almost just as big a part of vampirism as the sucks blood thing, reappearing from the earliest folk tales to now (mostly). They were, after all, one of several types of boogeymen crafted by storytellers to personify the inherent fear of the darkness that humanity shares.

[Solaris]

Yeah, that was my basic idea. I was thinking of a very basic template, "Gains a bite attack that drains some blood, is dazzled in sunlight", and not much more. Then, after that, a series of vampire powers that could be gained in separate ways (I was thinking of allowing either trading them for weaknesses, gaining them as feats or taking vampire-specific classes.)

I would go with more of an attenuation than just dazzling. Something along the lines of fatigue/exhaustion for undead. All else is pretty much as you've described, though. In lieu of piles of stat boosts right off the bat, I'd also like to tie in ability score increases/decreases and similar enhancements to the amount of blood they've consumed above and beyond the amount required to sustain themselves. Possibly work different boosts for different creatures, too - a dragon's blood has different effect than a human's blood, for example.

I would also, in a 3.5E game, make them more 'living dead' than undead. They're still walking corpses, but there's a world of difference between something that has an unholy mockery of life like the vampire and something like a mummy or zombie.

[Red Fel]

I'd be all up for dream or memory-draining vampires, etc. but that would be really, really hard to model in an RPG. I wouldn't even know where to start, really.

Actually, The Dresden Files has a fairly unique option, as far as the White Court is concerned. They don't drain dreams or memories, but they feed on emotions, which actually makes them both incredibly cool and pretty terrifying.

I don't know how they're depicted in the RPG (worth looking into), but here's what they are in the books. Pretty. Every White Court vamp is attractive. This generally manifests as an unconscious desire to jump their bones in pretty much everyone around them. Not undead, but undying. White Court vamps are born human, and manifest around puberty, unless they can experience True Love first, which kills off their White Court side and leaves them human. True Love allergy. They're not bothered by sunlight, or crosses, or any of that. But the touch of True Love - a person who has consummated True Love, the touch of a person with whom they are in love, a gift made with love - burns like acid. The Hunger. White Court vamps have an almost second personality, The Hunger, that drives them to feed. If particularly injured, it becomes partially manifest - their proportions grow longer and more alien, their eyes turn white, and "super sexy" becomes "super creepy." Also, it always wants to feed. Feeding. They can feed via touch. A light snack on emotion can actually make the victim slightly euphoric; a heavy feast leaves the victim catatonic.
So how would you model that? Easy. First, they gain a massive boost to Charisma or the relevant appearance stat, and one of those aura effects that gives attackers a penalty to hit them until they can do so successfully. Second, they gain fast healing or the equivalent ability. Third, feeding. They gain a touch attack that deals Wisdom (or equivalent mental stat) damage. If they deal only 1 or 2 damage, the victim receives a morale bonus for a short period of time (euphoria), and reduced saves against the vampire's abilities in the future. If they deal above a certain threshold, the victim goes catatonic. And if the vampire goes without feeding for a certain amount of time, they need to make saves to keep from raging out and wolfing down the nearest victim. If you wanted, you could also give them a bonus against enemies suffering from fear effects (i.e. feeding on their fear). Fourth, true love allergy. That's a fluff thing.

Three abilities - pretty, healing, feeding - and one weakness, and you're done.

[LudicSavant]

There are so many different versions of "vampires" in mythology that you could hardly give just one answer.

It's probably worth noting that you needn't necessarily be particularly conservative with your features when homebrewing an LA 0 vampire. You could make the Vampire template do quite a bit at LA 0 without making it unbalance the game. Keep in mind:

- By default, a character getting the Vampire template must be high enough level to not turn into a Vampire Spawn. This is pretty much already high enough for LA buyoff to start doing its thing for a +1 LA if you were using the LA mechanic and the LA buyoff mechanic. Quite simply, you can get away with throwing in more bonuses without it being a big deal if the base character has a minimum level.

- Vampires offer a large design space for powerful weaknesses to offset powerful strengths. Defensive weaknesses tend to be more significant than comparable defensive strengths, because a good strategist can exploit a weakness and avoid a resistance (In other words, vulnerability to an element is generally a bigger deal for you than resistance to that element). Even before you consider things like weaknesses to sunlight or garlic or blood deprivation or whatever weaknesses you decide to give vampires in your world, the moment you become undead you have to worry about things like all of the powerful anti-undead tools flying around (seriously, a sun/glory cleric with a shirt of wraith stalking is probably scary for you), as well as the powerful survival tools that no longer work on you since they'll only target living folks (or might even harm undead folks).

- The Undead type's features are kinda all over the place. For instance, vampires clearly aren't mindless, and clearly have vital organs in many versions of the mythology (such as the heart to be staked). Many of the better vampire LA fixes I've seen also fix the Undead type to be less overgeneralized (via means like breaking off some of the type's features into subtypes).

- There's a pre-established distinction in the fluff that stronger characters become stronger types of vampires (such as Vampire Spawn vs true Vampires). You could potentially have stronger vampires powers be unlocked through mastery, such as template features that scale with levels or even something like racial paragon class options.

[Xuc Xac]

Vampires are supposed to be terrifying predators, and if they're just strong guys with fangs, they're just... meh.
Still vampires, but really boring ones.

Fangs that they use to blood rape you to death. The simple vampires of folk tales are terrifying predators because the folk who tell those tales are first level commoners.

You would be horribly traumatised if some guy who was much stronger than you suddenly grabbed you and pinned you to the ground and just kissed your neck and maybe licked you a bit while holding you helpless. If his flesh is cold and his breath smells like rotten meat, that's even worse. If he bit you, even with normal human teeth, and started drinking your blood, you wouldn't scoff at it and say "meh, that's only 1d3 hit points".

[Elderand]

Actually, The Dresden Files has a fairly unique option, as far as the White Court is concerned. They don't drain dreams or memories, but they feed on emotions, which actually makes them both incredibly cool and pretty terrifying.

I don't know how they're depicted in the RPG (worth looking into), but here's what they are in the books. Pretty. Every White Court vamp is attractive. This generally manifests as an unconscious desire to jump their bones in pretty much everyone around them. Not undead, but undying. White Court vamps are born human, and manifest around puberty, unless they can experience True Love first, which kills off their White Court side and leaves them human. True Love allergy. They're not bothered by sunlight, or crosses, or any of that. But the touch of True Love - a person who has consummated True Love, the touch of a person with whom they are in love, a gift made with love - burns like acid. The Hunger. White Court vamps have an almost second personality, The Hunger, that drives them to feed. If particularly injured, it becomes partially manifest - their proportions grow longer and more alien, their eyes turn white, and "super sexy" becomes "super creepy." Also, it always wants to feed. Feeding. They can feed via touch. A light snack on emotion can actually make the victim slightly euphoric; a heavy feast leaves the victim catatonic.
So how would you model that? Easy. First, they gain a massive boost to Charisma or the relevant appearance stat, and one of those aura effects that gives attackers a penalty to hit them until they can do so successfully. Second, they gain fast healing or the equivalent ability. Third, feeding. They gain a touch attack that deals Wisdom (or equivalent mental stat) damage. If they deal only 1 or 2 damage, the victim receives a morale bonus for a short period of time (euphoria), and reduced saves against the vampire's abilities in the future. If they deal above a certain threshold, the victim goes catatonic. And if the vampire goes without feeding for a certain amount of time, they need to make saves to keep from raging out and wolfing down the nearest victim. If you wanted, you could also give them a bonus against enemies suffering from fear effects (i.e. feeding on their fear). Fourth, true love allergy. That's a fluff thing.

Three abilities - pretty, healing, feeding - and one weakness, and you're done.

Technicly that's not entirely accurate, that's house raith, white court vampire feed on emotion but which emotion depends on their house aka family. There is one exemple given of one feeding on fear instead.

The prettyness is also mostly supernatural, it's their mojo that make the raith irresistible. The one feeding on fear didn't have that and presumably other families would cause the emotion on which they feed.

[Red Fel]

Technicly that's not entirely accurate, that's house raith, white court vampire feed on emotion but which emotion depends on their house aka family. There is one exemple given of one feeding on fear instead.

The prettyness is also mostly supernatural, it's their mojo that make the raith irresistible. The one feeding on fear didn't have that and presumably other families would cause the emotion on which they feed.

That's a fair point. I think that non-Raith White Court Vamps were featured in... what... maybe one book? Raith has pretty much been the sole example for the vast majority of the series.

It's also worth noting that White Court vamps are the least powerful of vampires. That's not to say they're powerless - they're still tougher than humans, inasmuch as they're highly athletic, stronger, and faster than human peak - but they really don't stack up in a fight against werewolves or ghouls, lack the arcane potency of wizards or Black Court vampires, and so forth. Which actually makes them fairly balanced from a mechanical perspective - a White Court PC is already likely to be stronger than your average Commoner, so you don't need a lot of mechanical boosting there. It's mostly about emotional manipulation and feeding, which can easily be redesigned to suit whatever emotion you're going for.

Lust? Aura makes them harder to hit, feeding causes euphoria, bonus to diplomacy rolls. Fear? Aura makes enemies shaken, feeding causes terror, bonus to intimidate rolls. Madness? Aura causes dizziness/ reduced will saves, feeding causes hallucinations, bonus to rolls involving manipulation or confusion. Sadness? Aura gives enemies morale penalty, feeding causes drowsiness and reduced desire to do things, bonus to rolls to discourage action. And so forth. The mechanics are simple - an aura, a feeding mechanic, a skill bonus, fast healing, and the weakness.

[Solaris]

- By default, a character getting the Vampire template must be high enough level to not turn into a Vampire Spawn. This is pretty much already high enough for LA buyoff to start doing its thing if you were using the LA mechanic and the LA buyoff mechanic. Quite simply, you can get away with throwing in more bonuses without it being a big deal if the base character has a minimum level.

LA buyoff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm) requires you to be into the epic levels to even begin buying off the 3.5E vampire's LA +8. You don't need to be nearly so high-level to become a vampire.

[LudicSavant]

LA buyoff (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm) requires you to be into the epic levels to even begin buying off the 3.5E vampire's LA +8. You don't need to be nearly so high-level to become a vampire.

Yes, but that's not at all what I was saying.

I was saying that when you're homebrewing your entirely new vampire which has LA 0 (not LA +8), it's within reason to put a larger power budget at your disposal than if you were making an LA zero template that you pick up at level 1 rather than level 5+. Or, in other words, the level at which you gain a feature matters when balancing homebrew content.

[Berenger]

At a bare minimum, my vampires have to be undead, dependent on blood and highly vulnerable to sunlight. Everything else is negotiable.

If I had to build a vampire PC this evening, I'd use the LA +2 template in this thread, it's the most sensible thing I've come across so far: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?275262-New-Playable-Vampire-Template-3-5-Peach

[LudicSavant]

If I had to build a vampire PC this evening, I'd use the LA +2 template in this thread, it's the most sensible thing I've come across so far: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?275262-New-Playable-Vampire-Template-3-5-Peach

Ideally I wouldn't just want to be able to make a palatable PC before the game starts, but also be able to have a game where a vampire or a lycanthrope or whatever bites a player mid-story and doesn't cause everyone at the table terrible headaches as a result. Even a +2 LA seems like it would raise the hackles of any player a DM afflicted with vampirism without warning. It would also cause issues with the possibility of a template later being removed (such as by curing lycanthropy).

If we really wanted to make acquired templates work smoothly in-game, I think we would have to remove LA entirely.

[Eldan]

If I went there, I'd probably make White Courtier a class for vampires, or a tree of vampire powers. Not a feature of the basic template. The hypnotically charming vampire with mind control, supernatural attractiveness and a purely mental way of feeding without all those messy bodily fluids.

Then a few other vampire types, too. The ancient necromancer, the bestial monster, the blood knight, the stealthy spirit of darkness.

[Strigon]

Fangs that they use to blood rape you to death. The simple vampires of folk tales are terrifying predators because the folk who tell those tales are first level commoners.

That's not terrifying so much as gruesome and threatening.
Yes, I'd be scared if one of them started attacking me. I'd also be scared if someone started attacking me with an assault rifle, but I don't think guns should go under the category of horror stories and nightmare fuel.

Vampires of that ilk serve well in action movies and TV shows, but if you watch or read any horror stories with vampires, they have other abilities and features that serve well to make them far more creepy. There's a reason for that; super strong people aren't scary.
Super strong, silent, stealthy creatures of the night that can turn to mist, seep underneath your locked door, kill you and escape in seconds? That's scary.
Throw in physical features and supernatural abilities to taste and serve to willing audience.

[Gamgee]

More into abstract ones myself. Seen a vampire depicted I couldn't even see.

[Berenger]

Ideally I wouldn't just want to be able to make a palatable PC before the game starts, but also be able to have a game where a vampire or a lycanthrope or whatever bites a player mid-story and doesn't cause everyone at the table terrible headaches as a result. Even a +2 LA seems like it would raise the hackles of any player a DM afflicted with vampirism without warning. It would also cause issues with the possibility of a template later being removed (such as by curing lycanthropy).

If we really wanted to make acquired templates work smoothly in-game, I think we would have to remove LA entirely.


In this case, I'd do the following:

1. Create a LA +0 template that grants the undead type*, 1d4 fangs, blood hunger and sunlight vulnerability.

2. This template is a prerequisite for loads and loads of vampirism-related feats, classes and / or more powerful templates. The player of the afflicted character may ignore them or pick them up as per the usual rules for character advancement.


Edit: * If this is too strong for LA +0 despite the two drawbacks, one or more of the following traits may be ditched:

- Immunity to all mind-affecting effects (charms, compulsions, phantasms, patterns, and morale effects)
- Immunity to critical hits
- 12-sided Hit Die

I'll leave the math / balancing of this for someone else. :P

[Solaris]

Yes, but that's not at all what I was saying.

I was saying that when you're homebrewing your entirely new vampire which has LA 0 (not LA +8), it's within reason to put a larger power budget at your disposal than if you were making an LA zero template that you pick up at level 1 rather than level 5+. Or, in other words, the level at which you gain a feature matters when balancing homebrew content.

Yes, it makes much more sense with the clarification.

I agree, an LA +0 template that can only be gained at 5th level or higher can be around the equivalent of an LA +1 or +2. I also agree with your later point that, because people can become vampires halfway through the game, it ought to be LA +0 to minimize adverse impact. I think a good example would be the half-celestial/half-fiend/half-fey templates, particularly the way they grant SLAs. For the vampires, we could have an assortment of vampiric powers and spell-like abilities that they can choose from as they go up in level.

Might also do a vampiric paragon class with some vampire-specific feats and maybe prestige classes for the advanced/elder vampires. That way, you can accommodate a wide range of different vampire specializations and types.

[Eldan]

I'd probably kick out D&D's idea that you must be this tall to become a vampire and allow it from level 1. Leave it up to the individual DM if they only want to have vampires with five or more levels, but also leave open the chance to have some kind of level 2 adept blood drinking cultist with the same template.

[Honest Tiefling]

I think as long as it feeds on the living and is an undead, it is close enough. Personally, I think the lack of undead/unholiness takes something away from it.

I think you can get around the silly weaknesses, I do find it hard to take an undead abomination seriously when throwing garlic or sticky rice at it affects it. The cooler ones like sunlight can stay.

If you intend for players to get affected by...Whatever this is, I think there should be a mechanism that allows the vampire to pass for living, such as drinking blood. I personally don't like vampires that can sidestep that moral conundrum easily. Then you are just an immortal goth who can't eat Italian food!

I don't think vampires need strength or durability, but they need something to be scary. If vampires made for good spellcasters, for instance, it fits with the theme of forbidden magic easily. It gives your PCs a reason to seriously be tempted by undeath despite the downsides.

[Eldan]

If one takes a more general approach to transformative evil creatures like vampires and werewolves, which are often blurred in mythology anyway, they tend to represent sins, impure thoughts and physical diseases, which are closely linked in mythology anyway. Their weaknesses, then, tend to be general symbols of purity. Silver, running water, salt, sunlight, garlic all sort of go back to the same idea. Cleanliness. Interestingly, many of those symbols are antibacterial, too. Or used for conservation of food (salt).

(There was a fun session in one of my games where we used that theory. It ended with a bronze age Germanic berserker clubbing a werewolf to death with a bag of soap.)

[Thisguy_]

From what I see in fiction most commonly, vampires have a few things in, er, well, common:

Age = Power on the general scale for most magical things, and this certainly applies to vampires. Opportunity to unlock vampiric powers is thus sound.

Dependency is their key to immortality: Some drink blood, some steal souls, etc. Blood is most common in the West, to my knowledge, while in the East the commonality is that they steal your spirit, soul, stamina, youth, etc.

Conversion is a possibility, but is usually or perhaps even always intentional if it happens. A method of conversion would be a nice touch. I like it to be fully optional: A vampire may convert another being of their species to a true (read: non-mindless) vampire by allowing a virgin to drink their blood. A non-virgin drinker becomes a mindless thrall, but you cannot force a being to drink (physically, at least).

Easy conversion has been ruled out, so we shall skip over it.

"No entering a home you weren't invited to enter" is a rule seen and heard of enough.

Otherworldly grace (+CHA/DEX?) is generally a thing, but Nosferatu proves that it's TOTALLY not a requirement.

Inhuman toughness (Perhaps via DR). As was said, vampires generally hunt the weak - their blood is just as bloody blood as hero blood, but it's easier to get a hold of.

Unholyness. This might or might not manifest as undeadness, but usually divine-type magical effects are good against vampires. Crosses are a frequent example (notably, sometimes, only priests can wield them right due to faith... again, undeadness seems to match).

Sunlight sensitivity. Most die instantly in the sun, though it's not unheard of for some merely to be weakened by it (think 5E's Drow race but worse) or even have their invulnerability stripped by it (No more DR, or perhaps even damage vulnerability).

Notably, Dracula was able to be killed only because his assailant outlasted him unto the morning.

Dislike of Garlic, even if it only makes blood taste bad, is seen a lot.

I've heard of inability to cross running water (and personally I quite like it).

More effective weapons when silvered. (Silver stakes, bullets).

Vulnerability to stabbing in the heart (less frequent recently).

Vulnerability to decapitation (who isn't?)

Holy water burns!

Mesmerize victims.

Float or fly.

Improved strength.

Shapeshifting (commonly to wolf, bat, gargoyle, mist forms).

Easy stealth in dark conditions.

Claws (not too common but seen enough).

Empathetic vampirism. Here's an interesting one that's also been brought up: sometimes they feed off of spirit for merely being in others' presences. Or they could mind-steal blood, if you think that would be funny.

Burn/hurt in churches.

Death by old age is never something a vampire experiences. That's implied, of course, by vampirism itself: it's a form of immortality, classically. So here's a twist: make an interesting subversion of the immortal vampire by just making it some kind of scary, mortal parasite.



You could basically throw any small combination of these at someone and call it a vampire, but at the barest level while retaining the flavor, I think horrible sunlight sensitivity (or even burning/death), progression of power based on age (rather, level), and blood dependency instead of food dependency are your three most major tenets. Anything else feel free to add for flavor, keeping it as simple or complicated as you want to. I might come back later if I think of anything else.

[MrStabby]

Oddly enough I have been preparing some homebrew vampires for one of my games.

They drink from their victims which they use enchantment spells to subdue after luring them into traps with illusions.

In darkness they can be invisible, in shadows they look like they were in life but in bright sunlight they turn to glass.

The backstory for them is that they are a type of undead that are formed when someone watches themselves be killed in a reflection, and when they want to spread their curse they lure victims in fornt of mirrors. At high levels they can use mirrors as portals to hunt specific victims.

Not very traditional, I don't know if other people would consider these undead feeders to be vampires.

[Eldan]

There's some nice ideas there, at the very least. Reminds me of a fey I once wrote, the doppelgänger. They lived in the mirror realm (which is one of the shards of the destroyed Realm of Faerie in my setting) and prey on the vain who spend too much time gazing into mirrors. Basically, they select a person who spends a lot of time in front of a mirror and begin to slowly possess their mirror image. One can notice this by carefully watching the mirror image, as it will often twitch muscles or move slightly on its own. Once the doppelgänger has full control over a mirror image, which takes months, they switch the mirror image and the real person, entering the material world.
While in the material world, they will go around indulging various lusts. They are greedy, since they have to subsist on immaterial reflections in their home plane, while having to watch through mirrors as others indulge. They will gorge themselves on food, engage in sex and then gradually move on to darker things, drugs, torture, cannibalism, until they have ruined their bodies or are hunted down. At which point they switch back at the last moment.

[LibraryOgre]

Also on the list of minimalist vampires? "My Best Friend is a Vampire." (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Best_Friend_Is_a_Vampire) Upon becoming a vampire, he finds he has a taste for blood and an aversion to garlic (can't eat it, is a bit painful to touch); he finds out he'll live about ten times as long as a normal person. He's a little bit light blind. There are some powers he can learn (mesmerism, some turn into wolves), but he doesn't know those yet.

And it gives you the power to make up highways. Don't ask me why, but apparently the filmmakers couldn't find one real gorram highway in this gorram city made of highways for a gorram voiceover to mention.

[Grinner]

I'd be all up for dream or memory-draining vampires, etc. but that would be really, really hard to model in an RPG. I wouldn't even know where to start, really.

Psychological maladies?

For dream-vampires, you might be able to spin a whole cosmology underlined with a focus on dreams and sleep.

Or were you looking for something a little closer to the implied D&D 3.5 setting?

[Lord Raziere]

.....would Vetala Nephilim from Anima Beyond Fantasy count?

-can easily get an addiction to blood, but don't need it
-still weakened by sunlight but not destroyed by it
-are more vulnerable to disease than most
-can drink a lot of blood to go into a temporary boosted state which knocks them out of commission for hours afterwards.
-lives for a full century

I mean, they are probably Dhamphirs instead? honestly, that kind of sounds where you might be going with this, Dhamphirs could be larvae versions of Vampires who have a chance to go in a different direction and not become a predatory undead night-creature dependent on blood, but neither do they get all their powers...

[Milo v3]

Anything that was once human and now must feed on living life force is good enough to count as a vampire to me, whether it's feeding upon; blood, memories, breath, dreams, flesh. Turns into; flies, bats, wolf-man hybrids, or hyena. Can walk in sunlight, separate their torso from their waist when night falls, burn in light, or whatever. Vampires are pretty opinion in my opinion.


I'd be all up for dream or memory-draining vampires, etc. but that would be really, really hard to model in an RPG. I wouldn't even know where to start, really.
Dream feeders can work by removing the benefits of resting, and memory feeders can apply negative levels or lower intelligence or skills ranks an individual possesses.

[Thisguy_]

Dream feeders can work by removing the benefits of resting, and memory feeders can apply negative levels or lower intelligence or skills ranks an individual possesses.

Or... *gasp*! EXP drain.

[Milo v3]

Or... *gasp*! EXP drain.

Now that's just cruel. :smalleek:

[Traab]

If you want ideas for different types of vampire creatures to play as, this (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire_folklore_by_region) should help. It breaks down every nationalities versions of blood drinking creatures of the night. Some are grotesque, some kinda awesome. Lots of varied powers and abilities.

[LudicSavant]

Yes, it makes much more sense with the clarification.

I agree, an LA +0 template that can only be gained at 5th level or higher can be around the equivalent of an LA +1 or +2. I also agree with your later point that, because people can become vampires halfway through the game, it ought to be LA +0 to minimize adverse impact. I think a good example would be the half-celestial/half-fiend/half-fey templates, particularly the way they grant SLAs. For the vampires, we could have an assortment of vampiric powers and spell-like abilities that they can choose from as they go up in level.

Might also do a vampiric paragon class with some vampire-specific feats and maybe prestige classes for the advanced/elder vampires. That way, you can accommodate a wide range of different vampire specializations and types.

Maybe take a look at the vampire in Tome of Necromancy? It's LA 0, and includes feats and prestige classes for your vampire lords who have mastered the powers of blood and all that. I've used it in some of my past games (with a few adjustments to my taste) and it worked out pretty well.

http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=34248

[Berenger]

Minimalist Vampire

Creature Type: Changes to Undead. Do not recalculate base attack bonus, saves, or skill points.

Fangs & Blood Hunger: Vampires gain a natural bite attack (1d4 for medium creatures, piercing). They have to drain a pint of blood from a willing or helpless living creature every 24 hours. The bitten creature takes 1d4 points of Constitution damage. If the victim dies due to Constitution damage, it rises as a Vampire during the next night. The vampire gains one negative level for every 24 hours it goes without consuming blood. Those negative levels are cured 1d6 rounds after consuming a pint of fresh blood. Should a vampire accrue a sum of negative levels equal to the total of its character levels and racial hit dice, it enters a death-like torpor until it is fed with a pint of fresh blood.

Stake Vulnerability: Though Vampires are normally immune to critical hits, a critcal hit from a wooden stake (or other wooden piercing weapon) instantly paralyzes a Vampire until the stake is removed from its heart.

Sunlight Vulnerability: The merest sliver of sunlight deals 2d6 points of damage to a vampire. A vampire exposed to direct sunlight for 1 full round must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 20) or be consumed by fire and destroyed utterly.

Level Adjustment: +0



Would this work? It is balanced?

[LudicSavant]

Another possible resource for expanding the power budget of homebrewed vampires (and possibly other acquired templates like lycanthropes) without LA occurs to me (in addition to the ones I gave in my post on the first page).

Remember how the Necropolitan had no LA, but made you lose a level when you acquired the template? That seems like it would make sense for becoming a vampire as well. Getting hit with a level loss (similar to that you get from having Raise Dead cast on you) seems like a much more workable thing to have happen to a character mid-game than suddenly acquiring LA, and losing levels due to being hit by cursed undead is a thing in D&D already.

It could also be fluffed as getting used to your new body or what-have-you.

[Leon]

And here's me pondering vampires that are into Minimalism...

[Eldan]

Would this work? It is balanced?

Seems a good start, though I'd probably scale a few things a bit down. 1d4 con damage might be too much from level one, I'm not sure there.

As for stakes.. most of the time, the staking comes in the coffin, does it not? I'm considering some kind of wording where, if killed, they go into torpor instead of falling to dust and must then be killed by a coup-de-grace with either a blade (beheading) or wooden weapon (staking).

[Berenger]

Seems a good start, though I'd probably scale a few things a bit down. 1d4 con damage might be too much from level one, I'm not sure there.

As for stakes.. most of the time, the staking comes in the coffin, does it not? I'm considering some kind of wording where, if killed, they go into torpor instead of falling to dust and must then be killed by a coup-de-grace with either a blade (beheading) or wooden weapon (staking).

Thanks for the input.

I'd consider the rather high 1d4 Con damage to be a drawback for the vampire, not a boon. It only applies to helpless victims (which can be killed at their captors leisure anyway) or willing subjects (most likely allies or party members) and restricts the number of times they can feed off a single person. It doesn't apply in combat, unless the vampire actually manages to grapple and pin the victim for several rounds.

Stakes that paralyze rather than destroy a vampire are thing in World of Darkness and I like them this way, because there is no other way to knock a vampire out (unconciousness and drugs don't work due to undeath). Depending on the campaign and the purpose of the vampire, destruction could work just as well. If your side loses and the enemy wants you dead, there is no big difference between "instant destruction" and "being paralyzed and open to a coup de grace", after all. But instant-death due to a single crit (regardless of level) might be a bit harsh on player characters.

Also, there is no need to sleep or stay in coffins. Of course, a coffin is still a usefull full cover against sunlight if you can't stay underground for the day.

Also, when they have no Hit Points left, they don't go into torpor but are destroyed. It is assumed that the last hit shredded the heart oder severed the neck. But perhaps some kind of torpor could kick in after accumulation of a certain number of negative levels...

[Strigon]

\
As for stakes.. most of the time, the staking comes in the coffin, does it not? I'm considering some kind of wording where, if killed, they go into torpor instead of falling to dust and must then be killed by a coup-de-grace with either a blade (beheading) or wooden weapon (staking).

Perhaps you could have greater vampires be immune to stakes in combat, and only vulnerable to them once in their coffin?
As for the coffin itself, perhaps vampires, being undead, cannot normally heal; instead, when in their coffin (their coffin being a coffin they've performed some sort of ritual over), they are regenerated - this would give them incentive to go back to their coffin, even though that's where they are most vulnerable.

If you wanted to take it one step further, maybe when a vampire is killed through normal means, it regenerates at its coffin like a lich. The only way to kill one permanently is to kill it is with fire damage/exposure to sunlight. Which in turn means that, for most people, the easiest way to kill one is to drive it back to its coffin, stick a stake through its heart, and either burn it at the stake or haul it into the sunlight.

[GungHo]

Needing to drain some conspicuous, vital essence for survival (barring something like water) is the main bar for entry. All the rest is additional fluff depending on which version of the worlds' vampires you're dealing with. They don't have to be undead, fast, invulnerable, or anything else, unless you want them to be.

The big challenge with "balancing"/"minimalizing" vampires is really figuring out what you're balancing against. If everyone's a vampire (e.g. V:tM), who cares? D&D's LA/CR mechanics are a bit weird and very imprecise, so you might have to fiddle with things to provide appropriate challenges (and, honestly that can end up being the case with a set of "normal" characters), but once you have it, you have it. Same goes with everyone being a werewolf, a ghost, or a dragon.

Mixed "supers" can be a challenge based on what the assumptions are and whose baseline you're using. Storyteller addressed this by making vampires and werewolves hate each other in the fluff, which would call into question why those people would even be hanging out with each other. So, if the challenge you're facing is a vampire hanging out with your normal PCs... why is that guy there? Is it a Durkon thing where he's clearly just along for the exposition or until a cure is found, or is there something else going on where this guy is going to be on the team? Long run, yeah... you're gonna have to peel back some features.

To keep the "classic" feel, I'd give them
Slight DR/(special wood or silver, you pick... but a high DR against something exotic makes things way too powerful)
Bonus to STR, DEX (contingent on last time fed, which could be balanced by a penalty if starving)
Sunlight dazzle
Undead

With this, you'd need to track when/how they fed and decide on what they fed on (blood, dreams, salt). You can adventure in the day without expecting the rest of the party to carry you around in a bucket. No turning into clouds/goo, no wolf form, no crazy eyes. Just a dude who probably needs an AA meeting or three to know you don't eat your friends. You can also add in things like Fast Heal (or Bleed) when fed (unfed) or even direct Heal when feeding. You could also use V:tM's concept of a blood pool to drive things as well. If you want to fast heal/heal or get any substantial str/dex boost, you need to spend blood. If you over spend your pool, you're going to kill yourself/go crazy.

Yes, it's a lot more work, but that's what you get for trying to play a stupid vampire in a sword & sorcery game. If you wanted an easy life, pick a Dwarf Fighter and shut up.

[Eldan]

For a variant on the wooden stake thing...
Vampires are unnatural mockeries of life and thus vulnerable to certain types of living energy. They can be slain by a stake of still-green wood."

[Thisguy_]

They can be slain by a stake of still-green wood.

I MUCH prefer the idea that the stake adds living energy to something which is balanced only for unliving energy, thus disrupting it. Just "Get some wood in 'em" doesn't make sense. Then again, neither does Garlic.

Crossing of running water is explained by no evil spirit being able, though I don't know where that comes from. Mirrors showing no reflection I believe was meant to signify a lack of something supernatural that human beings have to begin with, possibly a soul.

[Lord Raziere]

Crossing of running water is explained by no evil spirit being able, though I don't know where that comes from.

Well, water is associated with purification right? cause you wash with it. so they can't run across running water because they'd get washed out like a stain.

[Eldan]

I MUCH prefer the idea that the stake adds living energy to something which is balanced only for unliving energy, thus disrupting it. Just "Get some wood in 'em" doesn't make sense. Then again, neither does Garlic.

Crossing of running water is explained by no evil spirit being able, though I don't know where that comes from. Mirrors showing no reflection I believe was meant to signify a lack of something supernatural that human beings have to begin with, possibly a soul.

Garlic is slightly antibacterial, so it could fight disease. The "just add wood" probably derives from the Eastern European tradition of nailing suspected revenant corpses to their coffins so they can't get up.

[Milo v3]

I thought the main reason was simply that it is a boundary. Creatures in folklore often don't like boundaries.

[Strigon]

Any sort of water could form a boundary, as could any number of other natural landscapes.
The fact that running water filters itself as it runs - and is thus purer - implies to me that it is about purity versus evil.

As for stakes? Trees are often seen sort of as representing what nature is.
No, not representing... They're sort of seen as the offspring of natural forces. Vampires being unholy and unnatural, having something that is essentially nature made into a physical object being driven right through their heart kills them.
Nowadays, trees are something you either protect for biodiversity, or cut down for carpentry - barring a relatively small portion of the population who assign spiritual value to them - back then, the idea that trees and nature were a spiritual force was a lot more common, in one belief system or another. It only makes sense that they'd assign it a value in destroying the unnatural.

As for garlic, who can say? I don't think its antibacterial properties were well-documented when vampire myths were first cropping up. Quite possibly it was just some poor soul who was accused of being a vampire, and happened to not like garlic!

[Eldan]

Well, it was also customary to hang garlic over sickbeds, in some areas.

Edit: and, after some research, it was also given for heatstroke, dropsy, smallpox and general fever.

Modern trials seem to show some effect on cancer, cholesterol and the common cold.

[Strigon]

Interesting...
Still, I have to wonder where the idea that it was so useful came from originally.

[Thisguy_]

Interesting...
Still, I have to wonder where the idea that it was so useful came from originally.

Same place as drinking milk from cows. Someone got desperate and tried something new :smallwink:

[Milo v3]

Interesting...
Still, I have to wonder where the idea that it was so useful came from originally.

People noticed that the guys who ate garlic every day weren't getting sick as much so obviously the herb is blessed by the gods.

[Xuc Xac]

In the original folklore, vampires were pinned in their graves by iron spikes or wooden stakes. Not because wood has any special effect on them, but because what else are you going to make a stake out of? It doesn't matter if it goes through their cardiac muscle or what it's made of, the important thing is that it sticks them to the ground so they can't get up and run around causing chaos.

Gangsters in mob stories were often shot with lead bullets because that's what bullets are made of, not because mafiosos have a weakness to lead.

[LudicSavant]

Lemme see what I can do with the original vampire from the MM. Instead of trying to be minimalist in the sense of having the least possible features required for something to be recognized as a Vampire, I'll be minimalist in the sense of going for a template that doesn't use the LA system while changing the original as little as I can to make such a thing work.

Here are my initial thoughts:

1) The Undead type has a lot of features that don't really represent Vampires. They have an anatomy with at least one vital organ (heart), they have minds (intelligence score), they sleep (in coffins), they have a metabolism of sorts (they drink blood). As such I feel rather justified in gutting the Undead type in much the same style that the Construct type was gutted for Warforged.

So, they have a Constitution score, are not immune to mind-affected effects, use Concentration normally. Oh, and anyone who becomes a vampire stops aging and has no maximum age (for some reason this one doesn't appear to be part of the overloaded Undead typing). Also, anyone with at least 1 rank in Knowledge (Religion) (or has heard from someone who does) can deal critical hits to them.

2) Vampires have Resistance to Cold 10, but not Resistance to Electricity 10. The reasons for a Vampire being resistant to Cold are obvious, lightning bolt rather less so.

3) A vampire has damage reduction 5/silver (down from 10/magic and silver). A vampire’s natural weapons are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of overcoming damage reduction.

4) A Vampire has any 2 of the following: +2 Strength, +2 Dex, +2 Cha. Or just +4 Strength. Whatever you seem to think is more important for representing a Vampire.

5) Fast Healing (Ex)

A vampire heals 1 (down from 5) points of damage each round so long as it has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, it automatically assumes gaseous form and attempts to escape. It must reach its coffin home within 2 hours or be utterly destroyed. (It can travel up to nine miles in 2 hours.) Any additional damage dealt to a vampire forced into gaseous form has no effect. Once at rest in its coffin, a vampire is helpless. It regains 1 hit point after 1 hour, then is no longer helpless and resumes healing at the rate of 5 hit points per round.

This makes it less of a combat ability and more of a "save money on hp restoration" ability.

6) Gaseous Form (Su)
As a standard action, a vampire can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability. Unchanged.

7) Spider Climb (Su)
A vampire can climb sheer surfaces as though with a spider climb spell. (Was originally Ex, now is Su. Nitpicks.)

8) Turn Resistance (Ex)
A vampire has +2 turn resistance. (Down from +4)

9) All the skill bonuses seem like they can just be scrapped to me. The supernatural abilities already improve your stealth and observation skills. Maybe keep a +4 bonus to Bluff in keeping with the Vampire's hypnotic abilities.

10) Okay... Dominate. This is one of the tricky bits. Obviously this is going to be strong as hell to have at level 5 and I need to do something about it, but this is an important part of the template. Where would Durkula be without it? I think the best option here is to make it a scaling ability, as is the case with the SLAs of many templates (for example, the Half-Fey template eventually gets 8th level spells for +2 LA). At early levels you get Hypnotism (level 1 spell) or something, at later, Vampire-lord-like levels you'd get the full scale Dominate ability. Around 15th level, say (a half-fey gets Dominate 1/day at 12th level). Will have to fiddle around to figure out the exact progression I should use.

11) Create Spawn is another tricky bit. Being able to make new Vampires under your control is a problem for much the same reason that early access to Dominate is. I'm not exactly sure how I should deal with this one.

12) Children of the Night: This one seems pretty straightforward. Make it scale. At lower levels you might not even call anything, at later levels you can summon a whole bunch of bats, rats, and wolves and it will hardly even matter for balance at that point because they're mostly just expendable scouts or for show (to tear apart commoners or whatevs).

13) Energy Drain: I don't feel like anyone's going to mind if vampire punches don't give you negative levels. Either remove this entirely or make it happen as a result of their blood draining (which is significantly harder to pull off and less combat-viable). Leave the draining for the fangs, not the fists.

14) Alternate Form: This can stay just as it is, I think (unless I'm overlooking something, this is mostly a scouting / mobility technique similar to Gaseous Form).

15) Blood Drain: This ability kinda sucks in actual combat and is mostly for feeding on helpless folks. Keep it just like it is, plus add some meaningful penalties for not feeding on the succulent essence of sapient creatures often enough. And it has to be sapient creatures, because if the Vampire can just drink cowblood it's no fun.

16) Bonus feats... yeah, we don't need this stuff. Alertness? Dodge? Lightning Reflexes? These things are just stat inflation bloating the kit. Lose it.

17) Natural Armor? We've already got Damage Resistance and Fast Healing. The problem with hurting Vampires generally isn't that they're so scaly it's like they're wearing plate armor or something. Lose it.

18) Slam attack is fine. Just like a Warforged.

19) You get to go back to your coffin in many situations where you might otherwise "die." This is pretty good and can save you money and XP on raise dead spells. Perhaps one way to offset this would be to have some sort of penalty incurred every time you have to return to your coffin this way, since the process weakens you and you must recover. Maybe negative levels? Something else? Honestly this may not even be necessary, the disadvantages a vampire gets are already pretty huge and the penalty for being reduced to zero hp is already worse than the penalty of a character being knocked out and kept from dying of HP damage via something like Delay Death. Why do I say that? Because while a knocked out PC can just be healed back up, the knocked out vampire has to go all the way back to their coffin and wait for at least an hour after that, removing them from the dungeon crawl (or whatever adventure situation).

20) You lose a level upon becoming a Vampire, just as if you had had Raise Dead cast on you. The transformation has drained your blood and strength and you have to get used to your new body. If this level loss would make you level 5, you become a Vampire Spawn. So, only level 6+ characters can become Vampires, and they lose a level when they become a Vampire. This is kinda like having an LA but much smoother to deal with naturally in-game (The Raise Dead thing is something the game is already designed to have players deal with). This is similar to the level loss from becoming a Necropolitan (another no-LA template). Note that at mid-high levels this has more impact than having a +1 LA if the LA Buyoff rules are in effect.

21) All the weaknesses can stay, and they're a doozy.

- First, the Undead type itself has some significant weaknesses in the form of various spells, items, and other tools that are really, really good against Undead and are quite difficult to defend against (such as, say, a Sun/Glory Cleric with a Shirt of Wraith Stalking coming after you). These tools are sometimes good enough that it can be rather unfair; after all they probably weren't designed with the possibility of undead PCs in mind. Also, it can be harder to revive your character if you get destroyed as an Undead.

- Second, any damned Commoner can keep you at bay by strongly presenting a mirror or holy symbol as a standard action. This really sucks for you if you want to get into melee range. It kinda bothers me since it screws over melee characters so much more than ranged ones, though.

- Third, sunlight just totally wrecks you and there's no really good way to protect against it (there are some spells that defend vampires from sunlight but the ones I've found are terribly inefficient, nothing close to what Malack had in Order of the Stick).

- Fourth, you need to be invited into buildings! No breaking and entering! Talk about putting a damper on the adventurer lifestyle. This offsets the vampire's increased scouting/exploration skills.

- The Vampire who created you gets to control you.

- Unless you already had a Swim speed, water suddenly becomes unusually inconvenient.

- The stake thing is mostly flavor, really, since there aren't called shots or anything in D&D anyways. It's something that can be done to you if you're helpless and have basically already lost. I guess maybe it could make you easier to effectively "coup de grace" in the event of being immobilized.


_________________

So, weighing the power, the things you care about for power levels are...
- Resistance to Cold 10
- Slam attack (similar to a Warforged's one. No level drain)
- Partial Undead immunities
- +4 Bluff
- Gaseous Form/Spider Climb/Alternate Form improving scouting, mobility, and exploration potential
- Hypnosis and creatures of the night summoning abilities which are gradually unlocked as you increase in level
- Spawn. Not sure how to handle this bit yet. Being in full control of your spawn at level 6 is inappropriately strong.
- DR 5/Silver.
- People need to follow you to your coffin to actually finish you off under typical circumstances, which saves money on resurrection spells in cases where the enemy can't track you down.
- Stat adjustments comparable to a Lesser Aasimar.
- Subject to powerful anti-undead tools which can destroy you outright and make resurrection difficult.
- Sunlight kills you.
- Vampire repellants (holy symbols and such)
- Water blocks or kills you.
- You need to be invited into buildings, offsetting your supernatural infiltration skills.
- You lose a level when you become a Vampire.

Discounting the Dominate/Spawn issue which would of course have to be resolved, that already looks like it would not be so powerful that optimizers would be lining up to become vampires for free power, given the significance of the Vampire's weaknesses to offset its strengths. You lose a level, you get killed by sunlight, you can be held at bay by a commoner's standard action, you get blocked by water, you need to be invited into buildings, and you need to start worrying about effects like Disruption or Hide From Undead. That's not small potatoes. Those are very serious dangers and limitations for an adventurer.

Any thoughts?

[Strigon]

In the original folklore, vampires were pinned in their graves by iron spikes or wooden stakes. Not because wood has any special effect on them, but because what else are you going to make a stake out of? It doesn't matter if it goes through their cardiac muscle or what it's made of, the important thing is that it sticks them to the ground so they can't get up and run around causing chaos.

I've never heard that before.
Besides, why would that then become the de facto way of dealing with them? If they're just pinned, they could quite easily pull it out. Much better to tie them up and immobilize them; I don't know where you got that information, but I doubt its accuracy.
Could be right, of course, but I just can't see it.

[Eldan]

There have been actual corpses found like that. I think the idea is to get stakes through every limb, so they can't move or get up.

[Berenger]

I've never heard that before.
Besides, why would that then become the de facto way of dealing with them? If they're just pinned, they could quite easily pull it out. Much better to tie them up and immobilize them; I don't know where you got that information, but I doubt its accuracy.
Could be right, of course, but I just can't see it.

It is accurate. Other methods of demobilization were used, too, sometimes one or more methods were combined: removing the head, severing tendons in arms and legs, physical constraints, confusing them by burying them upside down so they dig in the wrong direction etc.

[Strigon]

Like I said, it's possible, I just don't think it's true.

[Eldan]

It's true alright.


http://news.theparanormal.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/vampire.jpg

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/06/06/article-0-1377A9B7000005DC-902_468x344.jpg

http://thumbs.media.smithsonianmag.com//filer/83/bc/83bc5a1f-6b42-4869-aa42-850634eb445a/staked.jpg__800x600_q85_crop.jpg

[Berenger]

To elaborate on Eldan's pictures:


[...] An iron rod had been hammered through his chest "to keep the corpse from rising from the dead and disturbing the living" [...]


Quote: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/vampire-grave-bulgaria-holds-skeleton-stake-through-its-heart-180953004/


13th century. It may be noteworthy that the stake is iron, not wooden, and a leg was chopped off.

[Strigon]

Perhaps I should clarify a couple of things; first off, I was ninja'd; I never meant to imply that I didn't think anyone ever staked a person in a grave; I just think don't think the intention was simply to immobilize them. I think it was meant to put a permanent end to the vampire; even the article says "Fire could kill these creatures while they walked at night, and iron stakes through the heart of a corpse could prevent it from returning from the grave as a vampire."
That's somewhat ambiguous; I read it as "if a stake is driven through the heart, it won't become a vampire", not "if a stake is pinning him down, he can't get out."

[goto124]

Also works on normal humans.

As do stakes through the heart...

[Xuc Xac]

Getting out of the grave and becoming a vampire are the same thing. They weren't that strict about classification back then. Think of "vampire" as a job rather than a species. It's what you do, not what you are. If you're staying in your grave and not feeding on the living, you're not a vampire, even if you're conscious and really want to get up and kill all humans. Vampires weren't even necessarily dead yet.

[goto124]

confusing them by burying them upside down so they dig in the wrong direction

I think this is what was originally meant by 'turn undead' :smalltongue:

[Milo v3]

Getting out of the grave and becoming a vampire are the same thing. They weren't that strict about classification back then. Think of "vampire" as a job rather than a species. It's what you do, not what you are. If you're staying in your grave and not feeding on the living, you're not a vampire, even if you're conscious and really want to get up and kill all humans. Vampires weren't even necessarily dead yet.

Yeah, a lot of "vampires" in old myth were people who died and came back as half-wolves, or witches who feed on the living. Vampire is a very open category.


confusing them by burying them upside down so they dig in the wrong direction etc.
That is actually good against vampires in some folklores, not because of confusion, but sometimes lore had it that when a vampire gazes down they see hell and become inhumanly terrified.