Plane Shift Zendikar-Vampires and Nulls.

[Brutalitops]

In the Planeshift Document https://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/magic/Plane%20Shift%20Zendikar.pdf they give rules for playing a vampire and I would like to have a few things clarified for me on Nulls.

When the Vampire Drains the creature to zero hit points does the creature become a Null immediately or does it take time, and is the Null under the Players Control or is a wild creature that is hostile to the player, or is it neutral to the player.

I don't know that much about Magic the Gathering lore so if someone could enlighten me that would be appreciated.

And yes I know the Document is not Official Wizards of the Coast and is little more than Wizards of the Coast Homebrew but I'd still like an answer on the RAW and the RAI as well as the in lore answer.

[rmnimoc]

RAW is basically non-existent for them but there's a few things I've found that might make the RAI a bit clearer in the form of an article by the Magic Creative Team back in 2009 and the flavor text of a few cards.

The article is titled "A Planeswalker’s Guide to Zendikar: Guul Draz (https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/savor-flavor/planeswalker%E2%80%99s-guide-zendikar-guul-draz-2009-10-21)" and it gives a basic overview of nulls, though they don't go particularly in depth with it.


Vampires are sired by Bloodchiefs, and the tastes and passions of the Bloodchief tend to be imprinted the vampires he or she creates. When a Bloodchief drains enough blood from sentient creature, that creature becomes a vampire. But only Bloodchiefs can do this. When another vampire drains enough blood from a sentient creature, it becomes a null, not a true vampire.
...
The vampire nulls are faceless undead thralls, a sort of high-speed zombie. They are easily commanded by other vampires, though if they are left without orders they will hunt and kill whatever living things that they can find. When a vampire fully drains the blood of a living creature without destroying the husk (a common problem for the more violent and sadistic vampire), a vampire Null is created from the body. The victim withers into a gaunt form, its skin goes completely pale, and its facial features vanish except for the mouth, leaving its face a smooth ovoid with teeth. Megalomaniacal, evil vampires lead armies of nulls, using them to sow terror.


Fortunately there's another source we can turn to, the flavor text on cards. The two cards with relevant flavor text are "Null Caller" and "Escaped Null". Null Caller implies that the time to create a null can't be too great, since it can get someone who was otherwise out of the fight back in it (though fight in this case is more like a larger battle, so that may put the timeframe anywhere from immediate to a week later). Escaped Null implies that any given null has one specific master, rather than just listening to vampires as a whole.

Zendikar's defenders include both healers and vampires. One way or another, the fallen will return to the fight.

Left masterless by Kozilek, it wandered the wilds, raving in its ceaseless hunger.

TLDR: A null is basically just a vampire spawn made by a weak vampire. They're made the same way as vampires normally are, the time frame seems to be too long to reliably use in a fight but not so long that they won't be back on the field for the next battle, and they seem to be directly controlled by their creator, though if you don't give them orders they'll just attack and eat things at random.