Vampires

My drawing, copying Alberto Breccia

About two years ago, I casually mentioned that I hadn't seen most of the classic vampire movies (Nosferatu, Lugosi, Lee, etc.) and that my wife had no interest. My friend, Stranger Mike, a horror media enthusiast, jumped in to declare that if I wanted to watch vampire movies with someone, that he was my guy. 

The next day he sent me an exhaustively tagged syllabus of ~50 vampire movies and over the next year we watched nearly all of them. We still hang out every week and he plays in my D&D game.

This is just the first couple pages of The List

When I write about vampires, this is the substrate my design is built on.

Vampires face the opposite design problem to our wights & spectres. Instead of too little source material to stitch together something coherent, we have an endless blood feast. Try to incorporate everything, burst like an over-gorged mosquito. What to do with it all? 

I call my solution the Mr. Potato Head Method. 

Start with a stable core of the essential vampire elements; that's the potato. Next, gather all the cool powers & weird weaknesses; these are our detachable parts. Sort them into a few rough categories: attacks, vulnerabilities, kill conditions etc. You're ready to get building -- just select an option or few from each category until all the holes in the potato are full. Voila! A bespoke monster in a tailored tux (or shroud, frockcoat or bat-form).

Potato Time!

My focus is on the penultimate big-bad in the whole game (the titular Dragon being number one). Think Dracula, Barlow, Akasha, Strahd. If you want mooks that a teen-aged slayer can dust by the dozen on her way to get a soda at the Bronze, this should still work but might be a bit overkill. 

Filtering through the vast oeuvre of vampire media, the canonical, evocative components are: fangs & blood-drinking (no Colin Robinson here), sunlight sensitivity and coffin-sleep. They should be effectively impossible to kill with normal damage and any with more than a few hit dice should be conniving, with decades or centuries of experience and accumulated resources.

You'll see hypnosis, animal transformation, superhuman strength & speed, regeneration etc. later in our box of parts.

Here's the basic chassis for our stat block: 

Notebook sketch of an old Dracula poster

Vampire

AC: 17 - Fast and/or tough. No armor necessary.

Hit Dice: 7+ (HP 35 and up). Lesser vamps are possible. Vampires do not die at zero hit points though some vampires become inactive and can be dispatched. 

Damage Immunities: 

• Can only be permanently destroyed under particular Kill Conditions.
• Other immunities differ from vampire to vampire.

Vulnerabilities: 

• Sunlight Sensitivity
• Stake to the Heart
• Must return to their Coffin
• Other vulnerabilities differ from vampire to vampire

Attacks: 

• Claw x2:  +7 (or HD for higher HD vampires) to hit, d6 damage
• Bite: +7 (or HD for higher HD vampires) to hit, Special Damage
• Other attacks differ from vampire to vampire

Movement: 

• All vampires can move at human speed.
• Most Vampires have other modes of movement that differ from vampire to vampire.

Saves: 10+ 

Morale: 9. Confident, but check morale with -2 penalty at half HP.

Number Appearing: 1

Kill Conditions: Each vampire has specific conditions under which they can be destroyed. Virtually all of them can be killed by sunlight or a stake to the heart.

Sunlight Sensitivity: Any part of a vampire exposed to the sun is immediately burned away. If the vampire is exposed to full sunlight they are destroyed.

Stake to the Heart: Generally impossible while the vampire is active and unrestrained. 

Bite Special Damage: On a successful bite, target is paralyzed (no save) and takes d6 damage per round. While feeding, the vampire can't move or make other attacks and regains hit points equal to the bite damage.

Coffin:  Vampires must sleep in their coffin during the day. While sleeping they are inactive and vulnerable. A full day's sleep will restore them to full hit points. If they are prevented from sleeping in their coffin, they will lose access to special abilities and may take damage (effects differ from Vampire to Vampire). 

Shadow of the Vampire (2000)

The Plastic Parts

Now that we have a sturdy potato to build on, let us turn to the to the accompanying pieces. This is a substantial catalog and only contains the features most represented in folklore and media. This is by no means exhaustive and you are of course encouraged to cannibalize the bits you love from any vampire depiction that has it's teeth in you. 

This is organized by category, and it's recommended that you pick a piece or two from each. As a rough guide, take a feature for each of your vampire's hit dice with about a third of those being vulnerabilities. If you expect they'll be haunting your players for awhile, err on the side of more and if you expect them to get staked quickly, you can pick fewer. 

There's a lot here, so if you're not ready to start building, feel free to skim past the parts box. I have some suggestions for getting the vampire into action in sections below.

What happens at zero hit points?

• The vampire turns to mist and flows back to their coffin.
• The vampire becomes inactive (appears dead) and can be dispatched but will come back to life when unobserved unless a Kill Condition is met.
• The vampire vanishes and appears in his coffin.
• Dissolves into blood, smoke, bats etc. and flees back to coffin 
• Coffin: If their coffin is blessed, burned or otherwise made uninhabitable, a vampire at zero hit points that would flee and reform, is instead destroyed. 

Nosferatu (1922)

Kill Conditions: 

• Sunlight Sensitivity: Any part of a vampire exposed to the sun is immediately burned away. If the vampire is exposed to full sunlight they are destroyed. Default and I strongly recommend against removing unless you want an intentionally off-beat vampire.
• Stake to the Heart: Generally impossible while the vampire is active and unrestrained. Default
• Alternate Stake to the Heart: Attack with a stake with disadvantage on to-hit roll. The vampire is destroyed on a success. Recommended for mooks only.
• Killed by Fire / Corpse Burned: A la folklore, Anne Rice, Fright Night etc.
• Decapitation; Likely only possible while inactive. Alternatively, allow a called shot: attack roll is at disadvantage. On a hit, if a single blow deals damage equal or greater than half the vampire's remaining HP, it is decapitated.
• Ritual / Exorcism: Performed on corpse (either inactive or in coffin)
• You could specify a spell like Bless, Chant, Prayer or Exorcism or a specific anti-vampire ritual.
• Destroyed by a Raise Dead scroll.
  
• In my game, Raise Dead is only found on scrolls scribed by martyrs. Each person of sufficient holiness can only write one and it isn't effective until after their death.
• Silver or Blessed weapon: Maybe a particular vampire killing weapon (rather than generic magic weapon).
• Immersion in Running Water: Per folklore and some versions of D&D.
• Consume the vampire's ashes, heart or blood. Maybe causes vampirism.
• Killed if they hear the first morning crow of a rooster

Blade (1998)

Durability and Damage Immunity

• Can only be permanently destroyed under particular Kill Conditions. Default
• Immune to poison, disease, asphyxiation etc. Standard for undead
• Regeneration: Vampire regains hit points equal to their HD each round
• This may continue to function even when the Vampire is reduced to zero hit points. 
• You can turn up or down the regeneration rate to adjust difficulty
• Can only be banished by Turn Undead or Dispel Evil, not destroyed
• Immune to mundane weapons
• Half damage from non-holy sources
• Only harmed by blessed, holy or silver weapons

Vulnerabilities:

• Repulsion - These things might drive them away. I recommend a morale check, retreat on failure.
• Holy symbols of good deities
• Garlic (or hawthorn, wild rose, whitethorn, etc)
• Holy light
• Church bells
• Blessed incense
• Weakening: Exposure to repulsive elements might instead disable powers
• Ability unusable while exposed
• Regeneration paused or slowed
• Flight or shapeshifting prevented
• Strength and speed bonuses eliminated
• Barriers - Cannot willingly cross
• Thresholds of homes, unless invited
• Holy places (churches, sanctified ground etc)
• Thresholds protected with herbs or garlic
• Running or moving water
• Lines of salt
• Magic circles

Sesame Street

• Compulsions / Obsessions
• Must count spilled items (grains, beads etc.)
• Cannot stop feeding once started
• Once they start hunting someone can't let them get away
• Must kill or turn all members of their own family
• Infatuated with a love lost to time and convinced they'll reincarnate.
• Identification 
• Fangs always visible
• Does not appear in mirror
• Cannot eat normal food
• No breath, heartbeat etc. 
• Cold to the touch
• Unusual shadow
• Strange eyes

Attacks & Powers

• Bite: +7 (or HD for higher HD vampires) to hit. On a successful bite, target is paralyzed (no save) and takes d6 damage per round. While feeding, the vampire can't move or make other attacks and regains hit points equal to the bite damage.
• Alternate Bite: +7 (or HD for higher HD vampires) to hit. d10 damage and vampire regains HP equal to the bite damage
• Bitten targets may be Charmed

My drawing, emulating Munch

• Deadly claws: 2x claw, +7 (or HD for higher HD vampires) to hit, d6 damage
• Energy drain: A touched target loses a level (or permanently loses hit points). I don't like it but it's a D&D classic.
• Charming Gaze: As Charm Person spell but without speaking. 
• Great to create NPC Renfields but might be un-fun on a PC

Lugosi. Dracula (1931)

• Shapeshift: Bats, wolves, mist. Monster-mode.
• Superhuman Strength: Claw attacks throw victims and deal additional damage
• Summon Beasts: Bats, rats, bugs, wolves or demons.
• Command Lesser Undead: All corporeal, lesser undead can be telepathically controlled
• Raise Lesser Undead: Raise up to HD skeletons or zombies from any corpses present
• General Spellcasting: Vampire mages have lots of time to learn incantations
• Fear Aura: When first revealed as vampire, characters must save vs. fear or flee recklessly for d6 rounds.

Movement:

• Flight: At will, as per spell
• Levitation: At will, as per spell
• Spider Climb: Can crawl over walls and ceiling at full movement rate
• Animal Form: Move according to animal's stats.
• Mist Form: Slow. Can move through cracks, keyholes etc.
• Vanish and Reform in Coffin: If you want to make sure he escapes your murder hobo PCs
• Superhuman Speed: Moves at double human speed (or faster) and gets an initiative bonus
• Could apply as per Haste spell, with the accompanying extra attacks.
• Movement is completely silent.

Interview with the Vampire (1994)

Turning: 

• Blood Swap: Vampire and human drink each other's blood.
• Bite Only: Survivors of a vampire bite turn at midnight and must drink human blood before dawn or die.
• Ritual: Probably found in some long forgotten necromantic tome. Undoubtedly requires vast quantities of blood.
• Deal with a Devil: He's probably not asking for much
• Curse: For those who really piss off the Gods or were buried wrong
• Plague: For an I Am Legend world.

Coffin:

• Must be in ancestral dirt / homeland earth etc.
• Must sleep in their own grave
• Must be underground. 
• Difficult or impossible to wake while in coffin
• Blessed coffin becomes unusable
• Must sleep in coffin for the full day or be Weakened (see Weakening above)
• Dies if an appropriate coffin is unavailable by daybreak
• Multiple coffins: Not recommend for Vampires that return to their coffin at zero hit points.
• Preprepared via ritual, burial in ancestral dirt etc.
• Any coffin will do. This is hard mode. 
• Deep underground, may not need to return to their coffin very often.

A Couple Examples: 

Classic Vampire

Sharon Tate. Fearless Vampire Killers (1967)

This is a basic, Dracula type. 

AC: 17 - Very fast and tough. No armor necessary.

Hit Dice: 7 (HP 35)

Damage Immunities: 

• Can only be permanently destroyed under particular Kill Conditions. If reduced to zero hit points the vampire turns to mist and flows back to their coffin.
• Regeneration: Vampire regains hit points equal to their HD each round. This continues even if the Vampire is reduced to zero hit points.

Vulnerabilities: 

• Kill Conditions: Sunlight, stake to the heart & inability to return to coffin at zero HP.
• Sunlight Sensitivity: Any part of a vampire exposed to the sun is immediately burned away. If the vampire is exposed to full sunlight they are destroyed.
• Stake to the Heart: Generally impossible while the vampire is active and unrestrained. 
• Repelled by Garlic & the Holy Symbol of good deities. Must check morale or retreat.
• Cannot willingly cross the thresholds of homes, unless invited in and unable to enter holy places (churches, sanctified ground etc.)

Attacks: 

• Claw x2:  +7  to hit, d6 damage

OR

• Bite: +7 to hit, Special Damage

Movement: 

• Usually moves at human speed.
• Flight: 120' per round, free movement in any direction. Can hover in place.
• Superhuman Speed: As Haste spell. Usable once until the vampire feeds or sleeps in their coffin.
• Movement speed is doubled. Twice the normal number of attacks.

Saves: 10+ 

Morale: 9. Confident, but check morale with -2 penalty at half HP.

Number Appearing: 1

Bite Special Damage: On a successful bite, target is paralyzed (no save) and takes d6 damage per round until released. While feeding, the vampire can't move or make other attacks and regains hit points equal to the bite damage.

Coffin:  Must sleep in their coffin during the day. While sleeping, it is inactive, vulnerable and very hard to wake. A full day's sleep will restore them to full hit points. If they are prevented from sleeping in their coffin for the whole of daylight each day, unable to regain hitpoints until they do.

Turning Humans: If the vampire and a human exchange blood, the human becomes a lesser vampire, enthralled to the vampire that turned them.

Vampire Mook

From Dusk til Dawn (1996)

These are your Buffy-type, Blade melee, Van Helsing hordes. A brothel-load of vampires that bumbling kidnappers can mow down while Cheech Marin shouts out the pussy menu.

AC: 14 - No armor necessary.

Hit Dice: 4 (HP 18)

Damage Immunities: 

• Can only be permanently destroyed under particular Kill Conditions. If reduced to zero hit points, becomes inactive (appears dead) and can be dispatched but will come back to life when unobserved unless a Kill Condition is met.

Vulnerabilities: 

• Kill Conditions: Sunlight, stake to the heart & decapitation.
• Sunlight Sensitivity: Any part of a vampire exposed to the sun is immediately burned away. If the vampire is exposed to full sunlight they are destroyed.
• Stake to the Heart: Called attack with a stake -- disadvantage on to-hit roll. The vampire is destroyed on a success.
• Decapitation; On a hit, if a single blow with a large blade deals damage equal or greater than half the vampire's remaining HP, it is decapitated.
• Turn Undead as a 4HD creature

Attacks: 

• Claw x2:  +4 to hit, d6 damage
• Bite: +4 to hit, Special Damage

Movement: 

• Usually moves at human speed.

Saves: 14+ 

Morale: 12. Relentlessly attack once their bloodlust is up.

Number Appearing: A brothel-load.

Bite Special Damage: d10 damage and vampire regains HP equal to the bite damage. Survivors of a vampire bite turn into a vampire in d6 turns and must drink human blood before dawn or die.

Coffin:  Must sleep somewhere perfectly dark during the day. A coffin is preferred but not necessary. While sleeping impossible to wake. A full day's sleep will restore them to full hit points.

Using Vampires

Encounters

Vampires work best with a bit of set-up. They're an awkward fit for a wandering hallway encounter. Leave that for ghouls & wraiths. Make sure the vampire(s) wants something. Set up obstacles to their objectives and reasons for them to be on the move.

Vampires are schemers. They have a plot, maybe even a conspiracy. Feeding on a population of humans without inciting them to gather the torches & pitchforks requires a plan. Their long lives have given them patience and capital gains. They have estate agents, real estate ambitions and interests in local business. 

There's inspiration to be drawn from thinking of a vampire as mob boss. They have territory, a gang, fixers and cultivated cattle they'll fight to protect. Their neighborhood might love as well as fear them.

Ideally, the first meeting with a vampire should be a conversation not a combat. Their monstrosity is not likely to be obvious. They'll glide up at a cocktail party with an intriguing proposition or send their card with an invitation to dinner. Even those barging into their castle, unannounced in rainstorm are likely to find them hospitable. They might make paprika chicken. 

Dracula (1931) again

It's only later, after friends disappear and clues accumulate, that it becomes obvious the charming aristocrat in the hilltop castle isn't really a friend. 

When the enmity boils over, the vampire will send retainers and hench-monsters. They might appear occasionally to gloat and toy with their prey, but they're too busy for much direct danger or personal exposure. This centuries-old survivor hasn't endured because they threw themselves headlong at every party of peasants with uppity opinions about being eaten.

When hunted and cornered, they'll be experts in their own abilities and will fight on terrain re-crafted for maximum advantage. They'll bat from tower to tower and slip through cracks in mist-form. Anyone who gets isolated will be charmed or bitten. They'll savagely ambush, retreat to let their wounds close and burst back in to attack their hunters while they rest. 

Going to war against a vampire will be a dangerous and exhausting campaign. Hunters will be hunted. They will face layered defenses and active adaptation. Every friend and resource will be counter-attacked. The vampire has survived every attempted staking so far and the would-be slayers have not.

Discussion & Conclusion

Before starting the movie syllabus with Mike, I wouldn't have considered myself a "vampire-guy." I'm a monster-guy, obviously, and vampires fit within that category but I hadn't given them particular attention or affection. 

Me again. A la Orlock

Now, I've seen more vampire media (to support the movies, I've read a decent number of books & comics too) than almost anyone and so I feel a duty to make the vampires in my D&D game special. 

The Mr. Potato Head Method is an acknowledgement of the breadth of vampire media and a refusal to boil it down. Unlike the wight or the spectre, I don't feel like I can just pick a lane and commit. This is one of the most inspirational monster concepts ever concocted by the mind of man and it deserves more than one stat block. 

I hope you'll have fun making lots of vampires of your own. I plan to.