I guess Kaius could have developed some other feats (or magic?) to circumvent this, but I'd like to explore other vampires in positions of power. I like the idea of using the 13 clans (minus one?) from Vampire: Dark Ages and modifying the vampire spawn class in Libris Mortis to reflect the different bloodlines.
But how many vampires can Khorvaire support? Could some of them "come out" in Karnnath and be accepted?
Atur seems like a natural spot for vampires to exist and I'm thinking rival bloodlines between the "children of Kaius" and the "children of Vol."
As for how many vampires Khorvaire can support... there's nothing in the rules really about how much a vampire needs to eat. For story purposes, I'd say though that a single full vampire (not a spawn) needs at least a town (and ancillary communities) to prey on, and a coven of vampires needs a city. A point of light any smaller, like a single village, and a heroic tier vampire with minions is probably capable of snuffing it out.
Though, if you're running this in 3.5, none of what I just said is relevant, and I'll have to get back to you later.
If you're using 4th edition rules, a vampire lord can operate in daylight, with the caveat that its regeneration won't work, and it needs to spend 4 daylight hours in its coffin or be notably weakened. Vampire spawn are destroyed by sunlight, but I'm guessing spawn won't be the movers and shakers in this bloody society. You could develop a ritual that would allow vampires to walk around less impeded, or just use DM fiat to change their vulnerability altogether.
As for how many vampires Khorvaire can support... there's nothing in the rules really about how much a vampire needs to eat. For story purposes, I'd say though that a single full vampire (not a spawn) needs at least a town (and ancillary communities) to prey on, and a coven of vampires needs a city. A point of light any smaller, like a single village, and a heroic tier vampire with minions is probably capable of snuffing it out.
Though, if you're running this in 3.5, none of what I just said is relevant, and I'll have to get back to you later.
Actually I am planning to run this in 3.5, but I'm open to adapting some of the 4e stuff. I haven't really looked at 4e much. So the vampire lord is in the 4e monster manual?
So you're thinking a coven (like a dozen?) would need a city to support them. I guess that answers my question of trying to fit all the 12/13 clans in Karnnath. I was definitely thinking they need to be scaled down population-wise from White Wolf standards, but I didn't realize this much. Thanks for the insight. Also, if some of the bloodlines were created from Kaius they are relatively new and wouldn't be widespread anyway.
I'm also starting to get some ideas for a Mabar manifest zone in Atur, but I guess that should be a separate thread.
In 4th edition, the Monster Manual offers stats for the vampire lord (who's a stealthy badass) and a couple types of vampire spawn (the vampire lord's expendable mooks). There's also a "vampire lord" template in the 4th ed DMG, for turning any standard monster into a bloodsucking villain.
When I say coven, yeah, I mean a group of about four to twelve full-fledged vampires. Remember that even if you're going by 3.5 ed population figures, the biggest city on the continent, Sharn, only has a bit over 300,000 people. In a non-industrial, post-Last War society vampires can probably get away with a little more predation than they could in a world with cops and cameras... but the population centers just aren't big enough to support scads of them. On top of that you've got Silver Flame devotees actively looking for threats like vampires, you've got Daask and other monstrous organizations competing for space in the shadows, you've got the Aurum, Lords of Dust...
Although, if you really want vampires to be the focus of the campaign, it's simple enough to switch out some of Eberron's canonical threats and replace them with vampire clans. Emerald Claw? Well, that's a gimme. How about the Aurum? Instead of being just a cabal of cryptic plutarchs trying to get rich, they can be a Ventrue-like cabal of vampires trying to get rich. Lords of Dust? Antediluvian level vampires. Daask and the other agents of Droaam? Monstrous Nosferatu-like vampires. Reclaim some of that conceptual space from other villains, and you can probably up the head count.
Bear in mind that I'm just voicing personal opinion on supportable coven sizes. Maybe vampires have different appetites according to power level. Kaius needs to sip from a whole harem to keep his hunger in check, but further down the line, six Emerald Claw vampire mooks can get by on one person a week between the lot of them (not happily, but adequately).
One more note: Aerenal. There's enough in the books to suggest that the Aereni are far less squeamish about vampires than the rest of the world. They'd probably be a reasonable haven for well behaved ones, and may even have a few bloodlines of their own. (Tremere-esque, perhaps?)
For the Emerald Claw, I was thinking of translating the WoD Followers of Set to Followers of Vol who control the Emerald Claw from behind the scenes, empowering them with vampiric blood (like WoD ghouls) in the Blood of Vol ritual of drinking shared blood.
Here's my ideas of converting the clans (with Tzimisce as the missing 13th clan). Let me know what you think. Thanks.
The main conflict would be The Children of Vol vs. the Children of Kaius. The Children of Vol are much older (chronologically, not necessarily older generation), dating from the time when the elves in Aerenal were hunting down her bloodline.
Some of these elves survived and fled to Khorvaire, blending into society both in Karnnath and the dragonmark house of Phiarlan (and now Thuranni). In fact I'm thinking this could be the reason for the split of House Thuranni, supporting the lich Vol.
Children of Vol
- Followers of Set (Vol/Volites) - fit into Vol's half dragon heritage.
- Leaders of the Order of the Emerald Claw.
- Their vampiric blood is mixed in for the Blood of Vol rituals of blood drinking, empowering the soldiers (White Wolf "ghouls"). This is why they are considered elite troops.
House Thuranni
- Lasombra - The Shadow
- Assamites - The Mockery
Toreador - House Phiarlan?
Children of Kaius (bloodlines)
Kaius sought to control all aspects of Karnnath through these bloodlines.
Now he seeks to regain this control, but they all believe he is destroyed.
- Ventrue - Nobility/Control
- Gangrel - Forests/Fighters (shifters) - The Devourer
- Malkavian - Madborn/Experiment - The Fury
- Nosferatu - Commoners/Spies
- Cappadocian - Undead/Armies - The Keeper
- Brujah - Guardians (House Deneith)
- Salubri - gone - were Healers (House Jorasco)
Tremere
- diablerized Salubri
- House Cannith?
Tzimisce (missing/lost clan)
- Daelkyr infected
- Cult of the Dragon Below
- Dhakaani (older bloodline) took control? Mror Dwarves?
- Created Malkavians and/or Madborn with Madstone (Khyber dragonshard)?
- Zulo form <-> Xulo, ancient quori warforged?
Ravnos
- Talenta halflings - The Traveler
- an older bloodline?
I've run an adventure set in Eberron using The Shadow of Yesterday rules, so I have faith in the setting's ability to showcase a different game's themes. At the very least, Mordain the Fleshweaver as the prince of all Tzimisce sounds pretty sweet to me...
Not to discourage your 3.5 ambitions, but have you considered using the WoD rules in the Eberron setting? I suggest this because you clearly know your Vampire stuff, and there comes a point where it's easier to use a set of rules crafted specifically for vampire themes (WoD) than swords-and-sorcery rules that happen to include vampires (D&D, any edition). There's the added bonus that if you've got a group of players already familiar with the Vampire rules, they may find it easier (and be eager) to play by those rules in a new world.
I've run an adventure set in Eberron using The Shadow of Yesterday rules, so I have faith in the setting's ability to showcase a different game's themes. At the very least, Mordain the Fleshweaver as the prince of all Tzimisce sounds pretty sweet to me...
That thought had occurred to me, but actually the people I game with now know D&D and probably have never played Vampire. Also WoD never felt crunchy enough for me. I like the flexibility of it, but you're left with a lot of details to fill in. I've never heard of The Shadow of Yesterday, I'll have to check it out.
I like the idea of Mordain the Fleshweaver as a Tzimisce. Wonder if I could move him to Karnnath...I just ran across this old dragonshard on him. I didn't realize he was a Phiarlan elf. That could make the break with Thuranni more interesting. Hm. Do you know if there's been anything else written about him?
If it couldn't satisfy its diet of blood, it would eventually deteriorate physically, eventually becoming immobile, but only have 3d6 months.
Those were the general rules for NPCs and monsters. There were variant rules for PCs which were more specific.
For Inescapable Cravings, the undead needed to sate itself every day unless it make a DC 25 Will save; failure without satiation meant 1d6 Wisdom damage, while Diet Dependent undead needed to eat once every three days or make a DC 15 Will save, with failure dealing 2d4 Wisdom damage.
If you use either rule-set, 3.5 vampires don't need many people to sustain themselves. A single use of Energy Drain each day is enough to satisfy the craving, while Blood Drain once every three days prevents physical degeneration. Of course, both of these attacks will kill commoners: the smart vampire first drinks blood from a regular joe (dealing 1d4 Con drain, which is permanent), then uses Energy Drain, which kills him instantly. Assuming the vampire is satisfying both urges often enough, this means he's probably killing every 24 hours and drinking at least three times the blood he needs to (since he's killing with energy drain every day, he might as well drink their blood more than the 1/3 day requirement).
Nothing in the rules requires, however, that vampires feed from humanoids. A vampire could drink pig blood and energy drain rats to survive. A smart vampire would in fact survive this way, as 300+ dead a year might raise some eyebrows, and even in highly populated cities like Sharn, someone will notice the disappearances or energy-drained bodies. A lot of vampire flavor text in D&D, though, says that humanoid blood is many times tastier to vampires. While a vampire can survive on rats, it's like eating unflavored ramen every day. In time, a vampire's going to want to drink a human dry.
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On concealment, there are some 3.5 options. I think Darkness and Deeper Darkness actually provided enough concealment to spare a vampire the trouble of sunlight, but you can't really keep your vampirism a secret long if you're always wearing a circlet that surrounds you in a 60 foot radius of deep shadows. 2E had a spell for vampires which allowed them to simultaneously give up powers for weaknesses, so a vampire might lose Domination and Garlic vulnerability, for instance.
Vampires in 3.5 are so powerful, though, that they may not need to resort to such methods. Since they can also use Dominate Person at will at CL 12, they can have an unlimited number of humanoids dominated for 12 days straight. If I were such a vampire, I'd dominate changelings and have them take my appearance in public during the day. It really only takes a couple of such appearances a week to convince people I'm a normal human/elf/whatever.
Vampires could also use illusion magic to trick people, such as a Programmed Image that triggers when people look into your home during the day, and shows you walking through sunlit halls.
Really, though, it won't take too much work. I assume that vampires will usually take on the roles of nobles or powerful merchants; these people don't usually run around in public on their own, but rather have servants doing that. It wouldn't be suspicious to never see certain nobles.
There are also environments in Khorvaire that might suit vampires particularly well. Sharn's towers probably block a great deal of light, enough that some parts of the city never see direct sun. The Tower of the Twelve in Karrnath is a giant pyramid that floats over the city, and it may provide lots of shade directly beneath.
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I don't think a vampire can live openly anywhere in the 5 Nations or most of their former territories. In Sharn, the code of Galifar is discussed a bit, and in it, undead aren't considered people and do not have rights. If someone destroys a vampire, there aren't legal consequences. Q'Barra would keep the Code of Galifar and have the same laws.
It might be a little different in Karrnath, which operates under the Code of Kaius, but I think that even if vampire were offered some degree of de jure protection, they would likely hide anyway. Kaius III probably doesn't look kindly on vampires not directly loyal to him.
The more wild lands would have varied "policies." Droaam and the Demon Wastes are the only places I can imagine vampires living openly, because they exist as monstrous meritocracies or simply in a state of anarchy. A vampire wouldn't be wise to be public, though, since that broadcasts all of his weaknesses to his enemies.
The Eldeen Reaches probably see vampires like the 5 Nations. In the Shadow Marches, the tightly-knit small communities could probably uncover a vampire quickly. Valenar almost certainly rejects all of the undead, while vampires would simply be monsters to the halfings and goblinoids.
In Lhazaar, you might find the most tolerating environment for vampires - if not for the fact that a vampire makes a terrible ship captain, since he can't command during the day. The Mror Holds might seem the perfect home for a vampire - no sun and little garlic - but the likely shortage of suitable prey except for silver-hammered dwarves suggests trouble.
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With all of the trouble of living publicly, I think almost every vampire will choose to live secretly. Because of Dominate Person, though, it won't be too hard to hide.
What do you think of this? What if a vampire has the option to feed a little once a day causing temporary ability damage instead of drain? This option wouldn't give the vampire temporary hit points, just stave off the hunger. Of course if they go three days without blood, the only way to restore their Wis damage is by causing permanent ability drain.
I'm thinking of basing my campaign in Atur which should make it even easier for a vampire to survive with all the night life and shorter days. Atur has a population of 12,600, and it looks like Vampire: Dark Ages agrees with Alas saying a dozen vampires can survive in a city of 10,000 with half a dozen more in the surrounding towns and villages.
I'd like to add sewers (and possibly a "shadow subway") under the city so I can put some Nosferatu down there feeding off rats and Gangrel shifters feeding off of animals in Karrnwood. I think this is doable and scaling down to 12-18 vampires of various levels helps focus the campaign. Although if I have a party of all vampire PCs like I was originally planning it would have a huge impact.
Any suggestions on making a vampire PC party work (starting level 1 Vampire Spawn or possibly multiclassed with a level remaining from their original class)? I'll post the modified Vampire Spawn classes when I get a chance. I want to make sure I get them balanced and playable (especially if I remove energy drain).
As for Aeranal, I thought they dispised true undead like vampires? Their own version after all is based on positive energy (or radiant in 4E).
Don't ignore the Blood of Vol religion since its pressence and power is going to have an impact on the visibility vampire lords can have in an area. After all, its worshippers consider undead to be saints of sort, and their religious practices also make it easy for a vampire to acquire blood without rising suspicion.
As for Aeranal, I thought they dispised true undead like vampires? Their own version after all is based on positive energy (or radiant in 4E).
Yeah I'm wondering how much of an influence the Blood of Vol has on this. If public vampires could be a reality anywhere, Atur would be the place. Maybe this was true when it was the official religion of the country, but intelligent undead have had to go underground since then. I mean is the high priest Malevanor forced to hide as a mummy?
This would probably have meant greater destruction in Atur caused by Thrane in the war. And this brings up another question: Was Kauis's vampire nature public as Kauis I? Did this force him underground in the first place?
What do you think of this? What if a vampire has the option to feed a little once a day causing temporary ability damage instead of drain? This option wouldn't give the vampire temporary hit points, just stave off the hunger. Of course if they go three days without blood, the only way to restore their Wis damage is by causing permanent ability drain.
I never liked ability drain either. I prefer simple damage. Since we're venturing into house rules anyway, I'd just say that a vampire starts to "starve" if it doesn't deal at least a few Con of ability damage per day.
I never liked ability drain either. I prefer simple damage. Since we're venturing into house rules anyway, I'd just say that a vampire starts to "starve" if it doesn't deal at least a few Con of ability damage per day.
That makes sense. I think we're on the same page. Ability drain is a bit annoying, but level drain really seems to make the game not fun. Its just the idea of going backward after spending all that time gaining experience.
So reading the write up on Kaius in the ECS again (always something I forgot in there), it sounds like he went underground right after becoming a vampire, or at least after a bit of grieving for his wife (which would explain his staying indoors and sleeping during the day).
There really seems to be a complex relationship between followers of the Blood of Vol and the undead. On the one hand they are supposed to be seen as saints and on the other many feel uncomfortable around the undead troops. I assume the more human looking undead (like vampires) would be easier to accept, but I don't think there is an easy answer.
The real question is are there enough supporters of undead rights to allow them to live in public? Was this true when the Blood of Vol was the national religion? Maybe only true in places like Atur? With a mummy as a high priest, it really seems to suggest some public acceptance. I just wonder if he's been driven underground now. (Or when did he become a mummy?)
It seems like the rest of Karrnath views Atur as "whatever they do over there is fine, as long as it doesn't affect me." For most commoners, this is fine, but Atur is a major trade city and has taken on more trade since the Mournland appeared, diverting ships away from the Karlakton route. I'm sure Kaius has taken this opportunity to sway public opinion to pressure Atur to "clean up" its appearance.
There really seems to be a complex relationship between followers of the Blood of Vol and the undead. On the one hand they are supposed to be seen as saints and on the other many feel uncomfortable around the undead troops. I assume the more human looking undead (like vampires) would be easier to accept, but I don't think there is an easy answer.
The Blood of Vol sees literal divinity in blood. Undead are martyrs and champions rather than saints. By becoming undead, they are forever denied the Divinity Within, but they battle against death on behalf of mortals. Intelligent undead are tragic heroes to Seekers.
Mindless undead are something different. Presumably, their souls pass on to Dolurrh like those of any of dead person, and Seekers view that fate with horror. A skeleton or zombie, while not evil in the eyes of Seekers, is a constant reminder that people are doomed to death. When a Seeker sees an undead battalion on the march, he probably feels gratitude for those who have allowed their bodies to continue to serve the living, but sadness at the loss (and imprisonment in Dolurrh) of the souls of those heroes.
So I guess the ideal would be a living immortal. So longer lived races could be viewed as being more connected to the blood. Maybe even a caste system could develop, with elves at the top.
Is there much info on the Blood of Vol in the Faiths of Eberron?
Also the Order of the Emerald Claw is established in 896 YK and is a national figure for 80 years (until outlawed in 976 YK). I assuming the Blood of Vol was the national religion for this long. It seems possible that intelligent undead would have had some kind rights during that time, though probably limited to major cities, most accepted in Atur. What do you think?