The Elder Races and Vampyres
Any of the Elder Races may become a Vampyre. Once the blood of any Elder Race species is drunk by a Vampyre it transforms into the blood of Vivamort, which all Vampyres share. Any bled member of the Elder Race voluntarily drinking the blood of Vivamort is transformed into a Vampyre.
Traditional Song
(From an Esrolian skipping game)
[Author's note: In case anyone's curious, this is actually derived from
a real, traditional, skipping song. I changed it to include the Vampyre
references. The version I saw had a censored second line of every verse
- - the Victorians that collected traditional songs and dances were real
prudes and edited large chunks of songs in case someone got an erection.
I'm using the version my dad taught my sisters! If you want a real
authentic version, change it to something scatological, gynaecological
or genital instead.]
There was an old woman that lived in the woods,
Hop step, hop step, juuuuuuummmp up,
There was an old woman that lived in the woods,
Down by the river side.
She stole a baby six months old,
Hop step, hop step, juuuuuuummmp up,
She stole a baby six months old,
Down by the river side.
She had a penknife six feet long,
Hop step, hop step, juuuuuuummmp up,
She had a penknife six feet long,
Down by the river side.
She stuffed it in the baby's head,
Hop step, hop step, juuuuuuummmp up,
The more she stuffed, the more it bled,
Down by the river side.
She slurped it up and drank it down,
Hop step, hop step, juuuuuuummmp up,
She sang to the babe as if it were her own,
Down by the river side.
The Vampyre In The World - 10 Rules for Vampyres in RQ
[Game Mechanics bit - bin or mangle at your leisure]
When a new Vampyre is created, he or she retains the same attributes (apart from POW) and skills he or she had in life. The following things change about the Vampyre as well:
[Ian Gorlick sent me his Vivamort write up which uses a similar system for increasing maximum magic points but with an increasing interval. If you want to know what his method is, drop him a line at ask him. Incidentally, his version of Vivamort is a lot closer to the CoT version but worth a squint.]
3. Vampyres don't spend fatigue points for any physical activity. Likewise, a Vampyre doesn't regain fatigue points by resting, he or she regains it by drinking the blood of members of the Elder Races. For every 8 hours of activity, the Vampyre looses fatigue points determined by:
( Damned POW + points of Embodied Powers - points of Disabilities ) / 5
Embodied Powers and Disabilities are described later.
4. Vampyres gain a bite attack with a beginning attack of 25%, a damage of 1d4 with no damage bonus. If the Vampyre succeeds in the bite (most wait until SR 10 and try and bite the neck) and does damage, the Vampyre will hang on and suck the blood of the victim. Each bookeeping phase thereafter the victim looses 1 hit point per turn and the Vampyre gains 1 fatigue point.
5. While the Vampyre is feeding, he or she may try and overcome his or her victims magic points once per round. If the Vampyre succeeds, the victim will not be able to resist the attack of the Vampyre in any way. If the Vampyre fails, the victim may try and break free (usually by hitting the Vampyre hard or managing a STR vs. STR roll). Once the victim is overcome by the Vampyres magic points, he or she behaves as if in an extreme case of sexual arousal and wont try and break the Vampyre's grip.
6. A Vampyre with positive fatigue points can stop feeding at any time. A Vampyre with negative fatigue points can't stop feeding for any reason. While feeding, A Vampyre can't do anything else, so they tend to be rather vulnerable.
7. A Vampyre suffers damage in the same way anyone else does. However, a Vampyre cannot recover from damage by natural healing. If a Vampyres body is damaged, it stays damaged until healed by magical means or the Vampyre uses Blood Burning (an Embodied Power, see later). A Vampyre that starts to bleed doesn't loose hit points, but fatigue points.
8. Damage caused by magic and rune metal weapons (and fire and sunlight, see Yelm's Revenge) can only be healed by magical means. Blood Burning won't work on this type of damage.
9. A Vampyre can have Embodied Powers. Each power costs a number of points of Damned POW, the same way Divine Magicians sacrifice POW to gain Divine Magic. Embodied Powers come from the embodiment of Vivamort as the Vampyre. All Vampyres automatically have the Embodied Powers of Blood Burning and Presence of the Damned. They can gain new Embodied Powers only when first created and during the sacred time.
Embodied Powers
Embodied Powers are the Vampyre's equivalent of Divine / Rune Magic. They're not so much gained by the Vampyre worshipping Vivamort (although most do) but by the Vampyre embodying the Proto-Vampyre. Most Embodied Powers can be embodied more than once. The effects of embodying a Power more than once are included in its description.
Blood Burning (3 Damned POW)
All Vampyres have this power when they are created. A Vampyre can use this Power as a reflex. The only thing that can stop the Vampyre using this Embodied Power is an impaling weapon stuck in its chest.
Use of this Power takes a number of SR equal to the amount of blood (fatigue points) the Vampyre wishes to expend. At the end of that time, the Vampyre may do one of the following things:
Each additional time this Power is embodied allows the Vampyre the double the rate of expenditure of blood per SR. e.g. If a Vampyre had embodied this power 5 times he or she could expend up to 16 fatigue points per SR.
Presence of the Damned (3 Damned POW)
All Vampyres have this power when they are reborn. The Vampyre may only use this ability once per 8 hour period. The Vampyre can use this power in several ways:
Each additional time this Power is embodied allows the Vampyre to use it an extra time in any one 8 hour period.
Strength of the Damned (1 Damned POW)
Each time this Power is Embodied the Vampyre adds one to his or STR. The Vampyre may use this Power to increase their STR to twice the limit they had before they were reborn.
e.g. A Vampyre originally had STR 15, CON 18 and SIZ 13. When mortal, he could have increased his STR to 18 (the greater of original STR, CON and SIZ). Now a Vampyre, he could increase his STR up to 36 using this Embodied Power (twice the greater of STR, CON and SIZ).
Vitality of the Damned (1 Damned POW)
This is essentially the same as Strength Of The Damned, but works on CON instead.
Celerity of the Damned (1 Damned POW)
This is essentially the same as Strength Of The Damned, but works on DEX instead.
e.g. A Vampyre originally had a DEX of 10. When mortal he could have increased his DEX to 15 (original multiplied by 1.5). Now a Vampyre he can increase his DEX to 30 (twice the mortal limit of 15).
Beauty of the Damned (1 Damned POW)
This is essentially the same as Strength Of The Damned, but works on APP instead.
Eyes of the Dark (1 Damned POW)
A Vampyre using with this Embodied Power can see in the dark. Each time this Power is Embodied, the Vampyre looses 25% of any penalties for Skill use in the dark.
Claws of the Wolf (1 Damned POW)
A Vampyre embodying this Power can turn his or hands into claws at will. Base chance with these claws starts at 25% and they do 1d6 damage. The damage done by these claws counts as magical damage if the Vampyre ever gets in a scrap with another Vampyre or something like a Wraith.
Each additional time this power is embodied the Vampyre adds one to the damage down by the claws.
Optional rule: Use this here table to work out the damage done by the claws. Apologies to those who don't like tables, but I can't be bothered trying to work out how to express the rule in my mother tongue.
Number of Times
Power Embodied Damage
=============== =======
1 1d6
2 1d6 + 1
3 1d6 + 2
4 2d6
5 2d6 + 1
6 2d6 + 2
7 2d6 + 3
8 3d6
Rite of Burial (1 Damned POW)
This power doesn't do anything for the Vampyre in isolation. Each point of Damned POW exchanged for this Power allows the user to make 6 ENC or 1 SIZ of clothes and equipment capable of being converted into another form with the Vampyre when he uses Size of a Bat, Size of a Wolf or Vaporise. Every sacred time, the Vampyre may change the objects covered by the Rite of Burial. So if he's getting a bit fed up with that cheesy crimson lined cape he can trade it in for something more stylish and it wont be left behind when he next changes shape.
Size of a Bat (2 Damned POW)
A Vampyre embodying this Power can become a bat for 15 minutes in any 8 hour period. He or she can turn back at will any time before that. When in bat form, the Vampyre can use any other Embodied Powers and suffers the effects of any disadvantages. When the Vampyre turns into a bat, any possessions he or she is wearing are unchanged (unless covered by a Rite of Burial), possibly fouling the bat up. It takes 3SR to switch forms, either way.
When in bat form, the Bat appears normal in every other way.
Each time the Vampyre embodies this Power, he or she gains an additional 15 minutes in bat form.
Size of a Wolf (3 Damned POW)
This Power is the same as Size of a Bat, but changes switches the Vampyre between Wolf and Human form.
Vaporise (5 Damned POW)
This Power is the same as Size of a Bat, but changes switches the Vampyre between Mist and Human form. This power is also used as a reflex action by the Vampyre if he or she is knocked unconscious.
A Vampyre in mist form will not bleed, can use Blood Burning or magic to heal itself or gain magic points. The mist cannot interact with the rest of the world, and can travel at a rate of 1m / SR. It can go anywhere a gas can. At the GM's option, the mist may or may not be vulnerable to sylphs.
Disabilities
A Vampyre has no control over their disabilities. He or she just wakes up one morning in the sacred time and finds that something's not right. There is a theory that says that as Vampyres are part of their God, they unconsciously approach Vivamort in every way. As the dreams of the sacred time are particularly vivid, they change a lot more during those times.
Each Disability is rated as a negative cost in Damned POW to acquire. Each Disability may arise again and again.
Yelm's Revenge (-3 Damned POW)
All Vampyres have this disability. The Vampyre treats heat and fire as a magic weapon, meaning that the Vampyre cannot use Blood Burning to recover from the damage and has to use some other method of healing.
The Vampyre also sweats blood when under the Eye of Yelm. For every full turn the Vampyre is out in the open with Yelm over the horizon, he or she looses one fatigue point for each manifestation of this disability.
If this Disability manifests itself more than once, multiply the damage taken from fire and the amount of blood sweated by the number of manifestations.
Blood Lust (-3 Damned POW)
All Vampyres have this disability. This is the lack of control they face when confronted with food. Every full turn, a Vampyre must roll greater than -1% x fatigue points or go berserk (as the Divine Magic spell) and try and suck his way back up to positive fatigue points. This means that a Vampyre with positive fatigue points never goes berserk.
However, for each additional manifestation of this Disability, add +5% to the chance of the Vampyre going berserk. This has the additional effect of making the Vampyre go berserk even when in positive fatigue points. If a Vampyre keeps manifesting this disadvantage, then he or she will eventually be berserk all the time and become an animal, just living to feed.
Photophobia (-2 Damned POW)
This is a fear of light. The stronger the light source, the stronger the fear. If this Disability is taken once, then only bright sunlight harm the Vampyre psychologically and he or behaves as if demoralised under it. The more times this Disability manifests itself, the light level the demoralisation occurs at lower light levels:
Photophobia
Manifestations Demoralised Under...
============== ====================
1 Sunlight
2 Twilight, light filtering though trees in dark woods
3 Ordinary starlight, torchlight
4 Any ambient light at all
Curse of Humakt (-3 Damned POW)
The Vampyre becomes vulnerable to initiates of the Death rune. Every time an initiate of a cult tied to the Death rune uses magic on the Vampyre, his or her effective magic points for overcoming the Vampyre's increase by 5 per manifestation of the Disability.
Cheers me dears,
Aescleal (pretentious Anglo Saxon for Ashley)
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #96
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