105: Vampire Pyramid Schemes

In this spiritual successor to Legal Vampire Loopholes, Llewyn takes us deeper into the lore of vampires!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

You the adventurer? Yes, you. Do you desire knowledge of immense worlds and arcane power? A codex of untold stories and lore? Or perhaps simply easy listening for your daily commute? Then feast your eyes, or more accurately, yes, upon Dungeon Pedia. Shit's about to get nerdy in here.

SPEAKER_01 0:49

Taylor Peasley. And I'm Travis Peasley. Uh-huh. So, okay. You know, I normally, I'm sure normally everybody, um everybody knows. You know, normally uh we, you know, we we kind of, you know, we'll sit and chill for a sec. And then whoever's whoever's uh you know presenting, because we all have the same sense of humor, uh we'll we'll try to find like a cheeky segue, uh-huh, you know, from what we're talking about. Um I love that the I love that the audio only uh listeners have no idea what's going on.

SPEAKER_04 1:28

Oh yeah, yeah. Well, I mean they might hear a little bit about what's going on, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32

They might, yeah. Um, but you know, so because we all have the same sense of humor, we come up with like a cheeky, like a cheeky, usually absolutely just like bang on uh pun or whatever as a segue.

SPEAKER_05 1:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

Yep, yep, yep. And we we don't really need to do that today. No, we're talking about vampires.

SPEAKER_03 1:55

I could not have ever guessed.

SPEAKER_04 1:57

No, okay, you know what? No, I am actually going to expose you for this. You did for a solid minute after I figured it out, where you were like, wait, what?

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Yeah, uh that's yeah, because I wasn't actually paying attention to the yeah, and you were like, you're like eating or whatever.

SPEAKER_01 2:15

Yeah, that's true, but as soon as uh you pointed it out, I was like, oh yeah, uh yeah, we're we're talking about vampires for the audio for the for the for the audio only people. Uh maybe you can hear it. I am wearing a pair of I am wearing a pair of uh of costume fangs as opposed to as opposed to real things. As opposed to real things. Um yeah, it is it was it was relevant to this to the episode though.

SPEAKER_03 2:42

I don't actually just well, I do dress like this, but uh you know but not usually the bite mark right without the teeth.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

No, the bite mark is real. Uh no, without the without the teeth. Um they also might not stay in the whole episode. Uh I'm not sure. We'll see. Um, but yeah, we're talking about vampires.

SPEAKER_03 3:05

Vampires. Vampires. I do love vampires. Same. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

They're yeah, okay. So uh okay. Okay. You know, I feel I feel like you know, I the I feel like I have uh a lot of caveats here. Um because this this actually this entire research process. Oh wow, the oh wow sheshesh. That's a good way to make vampires not like not threatening is to remember that they probably all have a lisp.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

Oh, they absolutely all do. I I yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Like Strahd, Lisp. Um, don't worry, we're we're we're we're not gonna talk about him too much today.

SPEAKER_04 3:46

Uh, because I've done he already had his whole episode. He already had his whole episode.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

Yeah, I think he might get a revival in the future just for the updates. Yeah, yeah. That we and we are gonna we are gonna talk about some of that. We are gonna talk about him a little bit.

SPEAKER_04 4:00

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

Um, he is gonna be here. Uh he he is inescapable um in in a discussion about D D vampires, right? Like unfortunately, he is he is inescapable. Right. Um true. But uh so uh so much about this this research process surprised me. And so because initially I didn't want to spend too long or really any time talking about real world vampires or the lore of vampires in the real world. Um partially for time because I knew that it was gonna there was gonna be a lot of stuff um to talk about in D D, but also because like it's vampires, right? Like everyone knows what a vampire is, right? Everyone in the grandmother knows yeah, everyone has heard of has heard of a vampire. At least they should have.

SPEAKER_03 4:55

Yeah, uh if not, then I'm sorry you had to figure it out through this.

SPEAKER_04 5:02

Uh you might consider looking into some other media first.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Uh but also like God bless you. But we are gonna talk about them a little bit because I I I just took a quick peek. I wanted to make sure, like, you know, if there was like a quick thing I could jot down that might be uh a helpful or expository, um, but then I found out something that I I had to share. So vampires, right? Yeah, everyone knows what they are, and every pre like all across the world, so many different kinds, like so many different cultures have a a vampire story, essentially. Even if it's not directly like it's not called a vampire, or it's not quite the same as like our modern images of vampires, like pretty much every culture has had at some point a story about some entity, you know, that some dark entity that's associated with death, right? Like an undead, yeah, an undead creature that like lives off of the life force of others, exactly, kind of blending, you know, potentially blending in with human society, yada, yada, yada. And there's there's a lot of reasons that historians have kind of proposed that these myths become popular. Um, because obviously people are always trying to kind of make sense of the nature of life and death and yada yada yada. And also, yada, yeah, you know, whatever. Uh only the only the thing that so many people's number one fear and the thing that you know so many people try to avoid. Right. Um and there's also like associations with you know sightings of people who in ye olden days before we had medical technology may have been accidentally buried before they were actually dead. Right, like which happens quite a bit. Which by the way, dear God.

SPEAKER_04 7:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 7:00

Uh yep, that is where the term uh the graveyard shift comes from.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, like uh, you know, so uh, you know, things like that. So there's a lot of reasons that vampires, like that vampire legends have become popular, right? Over time, the the image that has become most popular in culture and media uh of a vampire is a a very like specific, very, very like austere, fancy, charismatic, kind of, you know, uh often attractive person. Um is is is one who uses wit, charm, accrude social power. Oftentimes they're like wealthy, they're political figures, whatever. Yeah. Um, to to facilitate their uh you know, vampire thing, their vampire needs, their needs, their their dark needs. Um and this image, while it is it it is it does not originate from this text, uh there because you know, there were many before that, before this, and there's arguably the most famous Dracula came after this text, and you know, there was like Carmilla before that, yada yada yada. Yeah. Um, I gotta, you know, I gotta shout out the greats. But um one text that is kind of uh credited with uh by a lot of historians for uh codifying this this image of this fancy upper class vampire is the short story entitled The Vampire, which was published in 1819.

SPEAKER_04 8:37

Oh, this is the vampire with the Y one, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Yeah, with the Y, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 8:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:41

And this story was published by uh or was adapted by John William Polidori as the written form of a story that was uh told by Lord Byron. Uh as part of a storytelling contest between the two aforementioned men. What? As well as Percy and Mary Shimon. Oh my god. And you say a writing contest, yes, uh, you would guess correctly if you would uh if you would wonder, uh, this contest did also produce uh Frankenstein or the modern Prometheus.

SPEAKER_04 9:16

Oh yes, okay, we yes, because I was like, wait, this sounds familiar. Yeah, because I knew that I knew that Frankenstein came from um like basically because of the uh that volcano uh eruption in 18 something or whatever. Yeah, then they like that made like a terrible, terrible, like years-long winter, basically.

SPEAKER_01 9:42

All got together and were like, oh, what if we tell those stories? Let's tell scary stories because uh and then whoever tells the best one like wins or whatever. Yeah, and then we get we get Frankenstein and we get sexy vampires, yeah. Two opposite ends of the spectrum there, but and yet I mean yet they will converge by the end of this. Oh, uh so okay, so that's the that's the real world part. There's so many cool variations of of vampire legends um that I thought I was gonna get to talk about this episode, but uh oops, uh oopsy, um, but there are a lot of really interesting ones. Honestly, maybe there'll be a part two one day, or I could just feed off of that proverbial blood bag for mini sodes for like the rest of my career, anyway.

SPEAKER_04 10:39

Probably because there's so many between that and elf subspecies.

SPEAKER_01 10:43

Oh, dude, don't get me started. Uh so okay, now we're we're we're firmly moving into DD. So vampires have appeared as early as they were there at the very beginning, uh, in the white box set, um, which was published in 1974, um, with further supplementing from Greyhawk, which was published in 1975. Right. And vampires are described as undead with a number of strong abilities. And I'm gonna go over all of them right now. I I think they really they made vampires in in this early. They they said if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

SPEAKER_04 11:24

Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Um, so there were there were changes, but a lot of them were fairly were fairly subtle, and I feel like it's good to establish a baseline of what most vampires for the rest of forever are gonna be working with.

SPEAKER_03 11:38

Um yep, yep, yep.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

So in the first uh Dungeons and Dragons box set, vampires drain two quote life energy levels from any enemy they hit. And I tried, I it took me a while to figure out what this meant, and I'm pretty sure um it means character levels, which is crazy life level, character level, okay. Yeah, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_04 12:06

It's wild, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Because it's not it, it's not HP, it's not constitution, even though vampires do also drain those things sometimes. Um but I think it's in like advanced Dungeons of Dragons. Um, like one of one of those monster manuals, it it it describes draining these life energy levels and also the requisite, like draining requisite or that character losing, then requisite hit dice, so on and so forth, which is why I think it does mean character level, yeah, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_03 12:38

Um that is kind of insane. It is wild.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Now, of course, of course, these are these are meant, these are like top tier high-level enemies. Like you're not just this isn't just like a you know Joe Schmoe, you know, you take your level one party out there and it's like bam, minus level one, you're dead.

SPEAKER_03 12:57

Boom. Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Of course, if if uh you know if if all of these are drained, you do die. But you know, these aren't these aren't just like garden variety enemies, right? So they drain life energy from enemies that they hit with their attacks. Uh they can summon and control hordes of rats, bats, and wolves. Uh they can polymorph into a huge bat or gaseous form at will. They regenerate HP at the start of every turn. They have immunity to non-magical weapons, and they do not die upon reaching zero HP. Uh instead, they are forced into gaseous form. They can charm any humanoid creature simply by looking into their eyes, uh, acting as an advanced charm person spell.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

Okay, so what am I to assume then that anyone that's immune to charm is still immune to char their charms? Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:52

Yes, it's it's essentially like the the parameters are still the same, it's just kind of stronger.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Okay, you know, than than than like a a regular spellcaster, for example, trying to do it. I think they get like a minus two, which is which again, negative numbers good, y'all know. Y'all they they were wild and out back then. Y'all know.

SPEAKER_04 14:11

We've talked about oh yeah, yeah, original numbers are um they get ridiculous. There's a reason why they they every couple of years go through and reshuffle everything.

SPEAKER_01 14:25

Yeah, we can't talk about Thacko, otherwise, this will turn into three hours. Three hours, and then I'll be like, you know what, we just talked about Thacko for three hours. Now I'm gonna talk about mythology for three hours. Um in addition, any humanoid that is slain by a vampire's energy draining ability will rise as a vampire in service to their killer. This is also a pretty consistent feature of vampires, right? And the the the specifics of this process or the resulting relationship, besides the whole in-service thing, are not expanded upon. They will be. We'll talk about it. So these these uh and and and I'm sure that like I don't maybe this is just me. Uh as someone who's playing in a cursive strad campaign right now, uh, you know, I feel like these abilities are it it feels almost as ubiquitous to me as like the real world vampire knowledge. Like it's a little bit like of course everyone knows that they can transform into a gaseous form. Of course everybody knows that. But I do think it's important to kind of establish what we're working with here.

SPEAKER_04 15:36

Yeah, like just because you have a generalized vibe of what what vampires are capable of, yeah, when you translate that into DD, you do still kind of want like I guess like an established like ability chart.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Yeah, like this is you know, and like I said, it's fairly consistent. Like there's some there's some especially early on, like I don't think there's a lot of major changes made to this until like maybe 3.5, you could say, but like I don't think there's major, major changes to this until you guessed it fourth edition. Um Shuck. So you know, I feel like it's it's you know, we gotta we gotta establish a baseline here. Um, so in addition to these incredibly powerful abilities, like I think just being able to drain character levels is busted on its own, right? Yeah, never mind, never mind the everything else.

SPEAKER_04 16:28

Never yeah, just ignore everything else.

SPEAKER_01 16:31

That is wild. Just draining character levels is crazy. But these strengths are balanced by specific but very, very powerful weaknesses. If vampires are exposed to direct sunlight, immersed in running water, or staked through the heart with a wooden stake, they die immediately. Okay, they don't they don't they don't take radiant damage, they don't take immediately immediately. Do not Pasco, do not collect um, do not collect 200 milliliters of uh A B positive. You're done. Um do not go to coffin. Do not go to coffin. Uh they are also repelled by the sight of a cross, which is later expanded to include myriad holy symbols, usually of lawful good alignment.

SPEAKER_03 17:15

Which I mean, that does make sense.

SPEAKER_04 17:17

You can't just have like a cross just randomly in a world without Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 17:24

Evidently you evidently you can. We'll we'll talk about that in a second. Okay. Uh so in addition to the sight of a cross or a holy symbol, they are also repulsed by the smell of garlic and mirrors. Now, it's not explicitly mentioned here that they do not create reflections in mirrors, simply that they are repulsed by the sight of them. Maybe uh maybe because they don't, but you know, whatever.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

That okay, yeah. That one is a bit weird.

SPEAKER_04 17:51

Silver just pisses them off tremendously.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Yeah. Um, and they also must return to rest in a coffin that is lined with soil from their homeland every day. That's you know, yeah, uh, you know, you know, that's that's that's what they do, right? Um, also worth noting, it doesn't say that they drink blood, just that they feed on their life energy, yeah. Just that they drain energy.

SPEAKER_03 18:17

They would be more like energy vampires than yeah, which I didn't realize.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

I didn't realize until researching for that episode that that was not a that was not a pop psychology term that was invented on TikTok. I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

What energy vampire?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

I didn't know that that was the thing.

SPEAKER_03 18:33

Oh, yeah, no, that's definitely been a thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Yeah, I didn't know that. Um, yeah, apparently they originally used to be called psychic vampires, but we're not even gonna talk about them today because we got so much to talk about. Oh boy, yeah. No, I saw that and I was like, wow, that's really interesting. I want to talk about that. And then they're just that they're just kept being more that kept happening ad nauseum, yeah. Um, but yeah, so there's no explicit mention of and I know that this it it might sound like asinine that I'm driving this point home, but it there's no mention of vampires biting people to suck their blood for energy or nutrition or whatever, you know? Yeah, there's no explicit mention of that, right? Right. And curiously, not for not for a little while. That is odd.

SPEAKER_04 19:24

I don't know if it was supposed to be implied, but I mean, it could be either one with early editions because they seem to assume a lot of the reader, yeah. But also sometimes it's like, oh no, we just didn't think about it.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

Yeah, like that, that what I what I just you know kind of summarized from there was like a a a a paragraph, you know, and a lot of it was like vampires hit as specters. So then you gotta go look at what look at look at what a specter is. Look at this, look at the specter stats, and then yada yada.

SPEAKER_04 20:00

Yeah, no, I I I mean my topic a couple of weeks ago uh was just you know, started in second edition, and even then I still had a lot of this is just like XYZ. Okay, what is XYZ?

SPEAKER_01 20:14

Okay, let me go look at that. Yeah. So this next part, um, this I this is the entire blurb from Greyhawk. I just want to read it out as is because the the the way it's written is is so funny to me.

SPEAKER_04 20:25

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 20:25

Um, so this is just verbatim from from the Greyhawk supplement. All right. Um, quote, all vampires are affected by the cross, despite any former religious background, as it is sovereign against them. It must be noted, however, that the vampire will not flee from such a symbol, but merely try to position itself so that so that the cross or whatever no longer interposes the power between the vampire and its intended prey. There are other similar symbols of power versus vampiric creatures, and they can be introduced if the referee so desires. Vampires from the region of the Middle East are invisible, but they are not able to charm. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

First of all, I uh because Or whatever. Or whatever. Second of all, I love this early mention of the DM as being the referee. The referee.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

And also the Middle East.

SPEAKER_03 21:17

The Middle East. The Middle East are invisible.

SPEAKER_01 21:21

Yeah. Which that is also a thing. We're not going to talk about it too much. But there's a couple of there's a couple of variations that are literally basically just known as like Eastern vampires, where essentially that's that's the vibe, is that they either are invisible or can become invisible, but they can't use charm, or in some cases also cannot um uh enter a gaseous form.

SPEAKER_04 21:47

Right. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

But they can turn invisible, which is also which is still pretty good.

SPEAKER_04 21:51

I just like the um the the Middle East as if Greyhawk is a real place in on Earth.

SPEAKER_03 22:00

Like capital M has it that we're we're people would know where the Middle East is in Capital M, Capital E, Middle East, I guess you can I mean obviously you can throw in a Middle East into Greyhawk, but right like is that what you're calling it?

SPEAKER_04 22:16

Like that's kind of lame.

SPEAKER_01 22:19

Like it's kind of just and it's just it's like tacked on there as a as a like you know, like it doesn't open a whole can of worms and there's just like, yeah, vampires from the Middle East, you know?

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Again, they just assume a lot from the reader here.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

Yeah, which it in some cases is somewhat freeing because then it kind of, you know, it it allows uh for a lot of uh creative decisions to be made. But it's just not done at the end, like it's like, excuse me, Gary, what do you mean the Middle East is in Greyhawk? Gary, what are we talking about here?

SPEAKER_04 22:54

Gary Gygax picked up uh the entirety of the uh Swanna region into and put it in Greyhawk. Greyhawk, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:04

Copy and paste Greyhawk. Yeah, and also I know him on a first name basis, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 23:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

Um, so Vampires Return in advanced in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons monster manual, which was published in 1977. Um, and they're officially given the alignment of chaotic evil and stated to simultaneously exist in the material and negative material planes. In some later supplements or whatever, these are referred to as the positive and negative energy planes, which you know makes sense because they're you know, they're right, right.

SPEAKER_05 23:35

Sorry, I just had more flashbacks.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Yeah, I know, right? Go on. The fact that they exist simultaneously between those is kind of crazy, but yeah, it's you know, it's fine.

SPEAKER_01 23:47

Don't worry about it. And and that's kind of uh like they they kind of stop, I feel like they kind of stopped leaning into that as much later. Uh like and it and it's sort of like the the implications aren't really explored much outside of just outside of I think I think it's kind of just for vibes, honestly. I'm not gonna lie. Like the implications of that aren't really explored. Like it's not like and this gives them the ability to whatever. I think it's mostly just for vibes. Probably, yeah. So their abilities are pretty much the same as we discussed earlier. We established our baseline garden variety vampire, um that casually drains character levels, whatever. Uh, so and but they expand on some of the the details here. Um, it's stated that the grave soil of their coffin is the source of their power, which is why they need to return there to rest during daylight hours, uh, including uh being immolated by the sun. Um that's also why they need to stay in their coffin during the day.

SPEAKER_04 24:50

But yeah, uh good reason.

SPEAKER_01 24:54

You know, that's the reason. Um there's a very strong emphasis on even more so than the coffin, like the soil, you know?

SPEAKER_04 25:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

That's a that's a very prominent theme that's you know important to vampires is being contact with the soil from either the site of their homeland or usually more specifically the place where they became a vampire, which their grave soil.

SPEAKER_04 25:20

Yeah, I kind of really like that because it does kind of like firmly like re-establish in your mind this is a creature from the grave.

SPEAKER_01 25:27

Yeah, yeah. Like I think it's it's very like it's very I don't know. Grounding? Yeah.

unknown 25:35

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 25:36

That took me way too long to hey, Taylor.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

That jokes that jokes. Just kidding. They don't really do the suck yet, so that doesn't really work.

SPEAKER_02 25:47

Oh um well energy suck.

SPEAKER_01 25:51

Yeah, they do they do hit him with the energy suck. Um, so uh the the weaknesses of vampires this early on are in my opinion more punishing than they are today, as is often the case, but it's usually the case for players where older stuff was harder than it is now. But you know, yeah, you know, so it's kind of nice, it's kind of nice seeing enemies get the uh get that that part of the get the short end of the stick for once. So the the the mechanics by which vampires deal with things like sunlight are kind of expanded upon. So if exposed to direct sunlight, vampires are immediately rendered powerless and die after one turn. So hypothetically, day breaks or something, and then you know, someone puts a beach umbrella over them and then or or like they're close enough that they can scramble inside within one round. Yeah, maybe, but like still not still not good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 26:50

So I'm not gonna lie, all I can think of in my head now is like people finding where the vampire's coffin is and then just setting up like a chain of mirrors to reflect the sunlight directly into their chamber. Oh no, that's like um that's you don't even have to do that.

SPEAKER_04 27:06

You can just cast daylight.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

That's like um well, yeah, but my my version is more fun.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Okay, that's true. That's also that's like um that's like the hyper advanced version of like the the ant and the magnifying glass kind of thing. Yeah, um uh and it as of uh A D D uh Monster Manual, they die in three turns of being submerged in moving water, not immediately.

SPEAKER_04 27:29

So there's well that's good. They get they get a chance.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Uh and it's uh it's such that they take a third of their health uh of damage in moving water every turn. Okay. If staked through the heart, the vampire will die, but will only remain inert as long as the stake remains in their in their heart.

SPEAKER_04 27:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:52

So if you want to finish them off, you have to cut off their head and stuff their mouth with holy wafers.

SPEAKER_04 27:59

So they got we're we're going the full Catholic route.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

They got communion crackers, man.

SPEAKER_04 28:05

I didn't realize that communion crackers were canon in DD.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Yeah, and also things that are canon, communion wafers, the Middle East, and Jesus.

SPEAKER_04 28:15

And Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Evidently, at least the cross, the cross at the very least.

SPEAKER_04 28:20

The cross at the very least, but and it is a holy symbol for some reason.

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Which honestly, I would be more perplexed. I'm more perplexed by the notion that the cross is there, but Jesus isn't there. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. After a person is killed by vampire's energy drain, if they are buried specifically, they will rise as a vampire under the control of the creator after one day. Uh, and this individual retains all of the abilities that they had in life, except for any that are exclusive to non-chaotic evil alignments. So if you were a paladin sucks to suck. Sucks to suck.

SPEAKER_03 28:55

You are you lose like everything, basically.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Yeah, you you lose probably most of your abilities, um, from being a paladin at least.

SPEAKER_03 29:03

Um but I like that it specifies that they have to be buried for that.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Yeah, so like if you're if you're if your friend gets killed by a vampire, you have to burn the body, you know? Yeah, don't bury it. Don't bury it. If their master is killed, this individual will become a free-willed vampire. Now they will still be a vampire, but they will no longer be under the control of this other person.

SPEAKER_04 29:27

Right. Because I know that like, especially in a lot of old um like vampire stories, there was that big thing of like you're whoever made you into a vampire controls you.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 29:39

So it is interesting to hearken back to that.

SPEAKER_01 29:42

Yeah, which we're gonna, there's there, there's a lot of nuances and not exactly changes, but interesting expansions upon that concept that we're gonna talk about a lot uh in this episode. So if I asked you to think of a DD vampire, I have a pretty good guess who we're thinking of. Yes. Um, my my problematic fave.

SPEAKER_04 30:07

Um Zorobich.

SPEAKER_01 30:09

Yeah, my my my muse, my problematic fave. But Strahd was not the first D D vampire in publication order. Oh now, I will, I will, I will give it to him. The creators of Ravenloft and Strahd, Tracy and Laura Hickman, geniuses, uh, were working on what would eventually be published in 1983 as the first Ravenloft module. They were working on that as early as like the late 70s. So like the concept of Strahd existed before some of these other things were published. But technically, he didn't exist as official publications until 1983. Right. Um, so I to peel back the curtain a little bit, I had to go and revise this section like three times because I thought I had the earliest vampire and then I found an older one, and then I found an older one. So I hope you guys like callbacks. I do because they're technically what I what I believe, unless there's like more, which sure, whatever. Uh unless there's more, the oldest reference that I could find to a character who is at any point referred to as a vampire was in the Adventures of Dragons uh DMs guide in 1979, and that was a reference to I hope you like callbacks, Cast the Bloody Handed, who was the lieutenant of Vecna. And he was you mean his boyfriend? His uh his his right hand man, or maybe his his left hand, his left hand man.

SPEAKER_04 31:56

I mean, he was also his lieutenant, but he was also his boyfriend. I've seen I've seen the updated art.

SPEAKER_01 32:01

They loved each other. They did they did write that in 1979, actually, which was very progressive of them. Very progressive. No, um, but uh, but also there's a technicality here because in this in the DM's guide, he is only talked about in the description of the artifact, the sword of Cass, and he's also not referred to as a vampire. I think later they were like, hey, remember that guy? What if we made him a vampire?

SPEAKER_04 32:26

Yeah. Um okay, which is fair. And and then I I I can definitely like technicalities. If I recall all of the setup for Cass, it it does immediately look like that guy should have been a vampire. That that that's the vibe. Is that from that from jump that guy should be a vampire? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:47

So so then next we have what the the the first discrete individual vampire character, and by individual or whatever, I mean like not just here's a generic category of enemies. I mean like this is an individual who is a vampire, named vampire, specifically named vampire. Um, so the next one that I could find that is a candidate for the earliest, uh, is and is explicitly introduced as a vampire, was named Vlad Tolenkov. And I hope you like more callbacks because he was a consort of Lolf.

SPEAKER_04 33:24

And he lives you are like you have just created the Dungeon Pedia cinematic universe with our first three episodes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:33

Straight up. Yeah, so he's a consort of Lolf. He lives in an area of the Demon Web Pits known as the Night World. He was introduced in the supplement Queen of the Demon Web Pits, which was published in 1980, but he doesn't have much character. He's kind of just set up to be an encounter in that module. And and and pretty much his only thing really is that he's a vampire, he's a spellcaster, he's one of Lolt's like top-tier Patreon supporters, Sims, you know. Um so we're gonna talk about what I originally thought was the earliest vampire character. He's one of the earliest, and I think the most like it presents a compelling story about vampirism and also kind of is a character, like isn't just uh isn't just an encounter, I would say.

SPEAKER_04 34:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

So this character appeared in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons adventure module, Tomb of the Lizard King, which was published in 1982. So this is like right before, right before Strahd. And this module sees a group of adventurers investigating a swath of savage robberies and bandit raids that have completely halted the economic activity of the region under the control of the Count of Eeyore.

SPEAKER_04 34:48

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Um so the leader of these bandits.

SPEAKER_04 34:51

I would have pronounced that as Eeyore, so thank you.

SPEAKER_03 34:53

I also would have pronounced that as Eeyore.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

You know, the worst part is is I looked at it and I just saw the first part of the name of the continent in Final Fantasy XIV, which is Aorzia. Uh so I'm having to just chop that in half and not say that, not say the full thing, even though my my muscle memory tells me it's just Aeorzea.

SPEAKER_04 35:12

Um, it is E-O-R, by the way. E-O-R, yes.

SPEAKER_01 35:15

Yeah, E-O-R. So the leader of these bandits is the titular Great Lizard King, the vampire lizard man sakatha.

SPEAKER_04 35:24

I didn't realize that we got vampire lizards so early. Yes, vampire lizard man.

SPEAKER_01 35:29

Can you imagine my disappointment when I thought this guy was the first vampire? Um and then he wasn't. I was so sad.

SPEAKER_04 35:36

And then the first like uh discreet um yeah uh bespoke vampire was just some guy that Lolf was screwing.

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Yeah, just some random just some guy. I mean, I'm sure he's cool. I don't know. Probably not. He probably he probably has a he probably has like a novella or something. Maybe. Um and this is how I got killed by Lolf. Yeah, this is how I this is how I got killed by Lolf, and then we fell in love. Vampire Lizard Man, cool. So not only is that tight as hell, yes, um, the tale of his turning into a vampire is very interesting uh because it introduces a new path to vampirism, besides being killed by an existing vampire and then becoming their slave. Um, because that's not a path to promotion for a lot of people that I think they would want.

SPEAKER_04 36:29

No.

SPEAKER_03 36:29

Um uh no, I mean I certainly wouldn't be looking for that path of promotion, but you do you, I guess.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

Uh so in his life, Sakatha amassed great armies of lizard men raiders and brought the region under of brought the region of Ayor under his control. Uh, this allowed him to amass great wealth, and he used this wealth to not only acquire many magical artifacts, but to employ many evil spellcasters who helped him create a massive underground tomb complex where he would eventually plan to be interred. Um, and he filled this tomb with magical treasures for his use in the afterlife. Of course, as one does. You gotta you gotta be ready for that. People talk about being ready for retirement, you gotta be ready for your afterlife, man.

SPEAKER_03 37:17

Yeah, if you're gonna build an entire underground tomb, you have to fill it with magic items.

SPEAKER_04 37:23

Yeah, I mean, did Asseric teach us nothing?

SPEAKER_01 37:26

True, because like if someone breaks if someone breaks into it and it's empty, embarrassing. Um so the the the most important among these magical artifacts was a ring of wishes, which he used to obtain spellcasting powers for himself. Also, mind you, again, he was a human, or not a human, but he was alive at this point. Right. He was a mortal, a mortal man. A mortal man. He was immortal. He was just a normal, he was we're just normal men. We're just wizard men. Uh, and at this point, also he is a ninth level spellcaster. So despite his intelligence, he was also rash and self-aggrandizing.

SPEAKER_04 38:02

Right.

SPEAKER_01 38:03

Uh, as one is when they are the leader of a massive cohort of bandits with a bunch of evil wizards in your employ and a bunch of magical artifacts. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:13

You get a little make one, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:16

You get a little, you know, a little fool of yourself. When a rebellion rose up against him, he rode into battle himself instead of simply using his ring of wishes to handle the situation, as may have been wise. And he was gravely wounded in this battle. So as he lay dying on the battlefield, he made his final wish, quote, that he might live to drink the very blood of those who have defeated him and the blood of their offspring through the ages. Unquote.

SPEAKER_04 38:43

Okay. That's kind of sick.

SPEAKER_01 38:45

So, like, for one, that is kind of sick. So, like, he didn't directly wish to become a vampire, but like he spelled it out. When you phrase it like that, yeah, that's which means when he when he rose from the dead as a vampire, he wasn't upset about it.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

But well, no, I'd hope not.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

If he had been, it was it would be like, dude, dude, you you literally drinking their blood.

SPEAKER_04 39:09

Yeah. I I don't know what you expected from the situation, other than vampirism.

SPEAKER_01 39:15

Like, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:16

Do you want vampires? Because that's how you get vampires.

SPEAKER_01 39:18

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 39:19

Like that is how you get vampires.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

Like, have you ever watched a have you ever watched a movie with like a like a like a genie, you know, like wishes backfire? Yes. And that's and that's innocent, open-ended phrasing.

SPEAKER_03 39:33

Yeah, it's not I want to drink their blood. Like that is very specific, actually. Right.

SPEAKER_01 39:39

Yeah. You know, I maybe he maybe he did secretly really want to be a vampire.

SPEAKER_04 39:43

Maybe he maybe he just pretended afterwards that it was totally an accident and that he didn't intend to, but it's like, dude, like, come on. It was in the blueprint, right?

SPEAKER_03 39:53

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

So another another early vampire character that I think is is important to touch on here is a character that is from the module Swords of Deceit, which was published in 1986, which is based on the Lankmar setting, which originates from a book series. Um I'm not I'm not gonna get into it. It's a whole thing. It's very it looks very interesting. I'm not gonna lie. I'm I might I might investigate it for like a future episode or something because it it looks very interesting.

SPEAKER_04 40:23

Yeah, the problem with having a one to three week research period.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Yeah, and the the a lot of the details about the setting aren't relevant to the the vampire part. So the character in question is a woman named Miriah who initially appears to the party in a tavern pleading with them to help her get home during an event known as the Night of Fear, where the the Yeah, it doesn't sound good, but the essentially on this day, the local gods of the city walk the streets and everyone boards up their homes. It's a whole thing.

SPEAKER_04 40:58

So it's kind of like the the purge, but just for gods.

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Yeah, it's he yeah, actually, it's kind of like purge. That's all I can think of. It's a little bit like the purge, kinda. Um, but it regardless, it's not you don't want to be out, you don't want to be out and about. Right. There's a lot that happens between now and then. You get attacked by like a specter called the Eater of Souls. It's fine. But she's a uh Miriam is a very interesting character because to me, she's one of the first examples in DD of a vampire that fits that aforementioned, like high class, charismatic persona. It kind of like she's kind of like the the like Strahd is kind of like the masculine version of that archetype, and she's kind of like the feminine version of that archetype. Right. Um, like she initially deceives the party by not only lying to them outright about her motivations and her identity, she also puts on this very innocent, naive persona that is not at all reflective of her real character. You know, like she brought like rolls up into the tavern, like, oh, won't someone please help me get home? Oh my god. Um, when she doesn't really, she doesn't really, well, she wouldn't really need it in a normal please kind of adventure.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

You're so strong.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

You're so strong.

SPEAKER_04 42:14

And I am such a small woman.

SPEAKER_01 42:16

No, literally. If uh so you take her back to her big fancy house because she has a big fancy house, including a library that contains texts such as The Vampire of Lankmar, Legend or Fancy, and Creatures of the Night, which is like if you ever go to somebody's house and that is exclusively what's in their library, run.

SPEAKER_04 42:37

Like it's okay if that's like some of the stuff, but if like she just has all that stuff laid out, this is awarding. She's giving you ample opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Like that, yeah, this is a vampire. Like run. Um and if you find yourself alone in a room with her in her big fancy mansion, she attempts to seduce your character.

SPEAKER_03 43:00

Oh, yeah, yeah. No, straight up. What else is a vampire gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 43:05

Yeah, you have to yeah, hey, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do. Straight up the archetype. Yeah, exactly. Like to a T. This also it feels worth noting. I would be remiss if I didn't mention that the the Lankmar vampire is an interesting variant and that they only have their full vampiric powers on the night of a full moon, okay, which is kind of cool.

SPEAKER_04 43:27

Yeah. But that's kind of that's kind of sort of a foil to to werewolves.

SPEAKER_01 43:33

Yeah, yeah. So here's here's here's here's the big one. I bet a lot of people have wondered, like we we've talked a little bit about the the the paths to vampirism, how or how one becomes a vampire, potentially the origins of vampires. So here's the big one the Ravenloft Realm of Terror box set, published in 1990, uh, details it it It sort of it sort of condenses and fully details a how-to guide to vampirism if a how-to guide to vampirism.

SPEAKER_03 44:07

Yeah, that's what we all need.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

So is it? I don't think it is. No, no. I don't need it. I don't need it. Maybe that's just what I need. Because like, look at me, I don't need it. I would I would contend that even though this is made for Ravenloft, I would contend that the principles of it apply to other, you know, people becoming vampires. Right. Um, but it's simply not as common for these sort of things to happen in places that aren't Ravenloft because it's Ravenloft. Right. There's so many dark forces afoot.

SPEAKER_03 44:38

Yeah, Ravenloft is just fucked up, man.

SPEAKER_04 44:40

Yeah, there's a lot going on there. At some point, uh a full Ravenloft deep dive is necessary, but today is not that day.

SPEAKER_01 44:48

Oh today is not that week.

SPEAKER_04 44:51

Yeah, let's be honest. It is a week's worth of episodes.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

Crazy. Um, so the three primary paths to vampirism. The first is referred to as the deadly desire, in which an individual explicitly seeks to become immortal through becoming undead. That's pretty cut and dry, you know.

SPEAKER_03 45:11

Okay. I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:13

Uh I would I would argue that um Sakatha was treading the line there with talking about drinking blood, but you know, technically not.

SPEAKER_03 45:20

Technically he didn't tread the line.

SPEAKER_01 45:22

I mean, technically, he didn't explicitly say I want to become a vampire or I want to become undead.

SPEAKER_03 45:30

Well, well, yeah, but at that point, did the term vampire even actually exist? That's a good point. So that's a good point.

SPEAKER_01 45:38

So the second way that one becomes a vampire is by way of a curse. So the victim in this case does not explicitly wish to become undead, but is still transformed by their desire for youth, power, long life, right, etc. etc. So this is where you get the the the monkey's paw kind of like I want to make it so I don't die, and then it's like okay, and then you become undead.

SPEAKER_03 46:06

So basically, that's how you would get a vampire version of Jack Sparrow. Yeah, because he's also so like fixated on staying alive, yes, yes, and also Strahd himself falls into this category, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:25

That makes sense, yeah. And of course, it's it's it's it's termed that this is more common in Ravenloft because of all of the you know the dark forces, if you will. You know, the dark forces, the negative energy, yada yada yada. Shenaniganry, yeah. So the third, which we've talked about a little bit already, is by way of dying via the energy drain of another vampire. Um, these victims become slaves to the master vampire and almost always conspire to overthrow their master at any point they are not being actively commanded.

SPEAKER_04 47:03

Makes a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Yeah, because I would be pretty pissed about that too.

SPEAKER_04 47:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:08

Like anytime I'm not being commanded, yeah, I'm probably gonna be sitting there plotting how the hell do I kill this fucker?

SPEAKER_01 47:13

Yeah, exactly. Um, so vampire slaves uh can turn other people into vampires, but these vampires also become slaves of the original master vampire. So if you have it's an MLM, yeah, no, yeah. Uh I was yeah, it it so it's like if you have this guy and then he has two people, and then those people get three people, it makes a shape.

SPEAKER_04 47:41

And and and and that's how you get a thrall army.

SPEAKER_01 47:44

It makes his shape. Um I'm making a triangle with my hands. Um, so we've we've moved on from legal vampire loopholes to vampire pyramid schemes.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 47:56

So congrats, you named the episode. Yeah, no, I know. That was pretty easy. Uh nailed it. Yeah, it was discussed previously. If the master vampire dies, all of the other vampires under their control become free-willed vampires. Um, so because of the inherent nature, uh because the inherent danger of this position, uh, because of aforementioned scheming, you know, from your subservient vampires, many vampires take care that any of their victims do not turn into vampires. So after they're done feeding, they'll burn the body, cut off the head, whatever. Right. Um, because you know, unless they have explicit need for a new vampire slave, it can introduce a lot of issues when you have, you know, someone who probably is going to be very pissed off at you for the state of their existence and want to kill you. Yeah, that's that's generally not, you know, ideal. Um, I lied. There's four ways to become a vampire.

SPEAKER_03 48:59

Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 49:01

Um, so the fourth option here, so how does it work? Well, when a vampire and their favorite victim love each other very Whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait, wait.

SPEAKER_03 49:12

Wait. What? Censor, what? No, that cannot be a thing.

SPEAKER_01 49:16

No, okay. No, don't don't worry, don't worry. It's worse than that. Where is oh oh so the vampire repeatedly uh takes servings of blood from the victim over the course of multiple feedings. Yeah, no, I said it's worse. Um so the the the vampire uh repeatedly drinks the blood of the victim over multiple feedings until the victim is almost dead, then replenishes the victim with their own blood. I don't know if it's just like they they just pour it in their mouth or if it's like a blood, I doubt it's a blood transfusion.

SPEAKER_03 49:54

So um I can almost guarantee you that what it is is because it says to the point that they're almost dead, so they're actually still alive. They probably literally just like cut their wrist and just kind of hold it up to the mouth.

SPEAKER_04 50:07

So once that starts taking effect, it kind of just takes over the entire and then probably a little bit of uh at some point once the change starts happening, they'll probably start doing it more vampire yes, yeah drinking themselves.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

And this is a feat that very few vampires can perform. The resulting vampire is linked with their creator in a unique way, they are technically a slave to their creator in the same way as um they're not they're not called okay, they're not called vampire spawn yet. I'm gonna call them spawn just for clarity. But you know, it's a similar kind of relationship to the spawn.

SPEAKER_04 50:46

This is early on. The words are not great.

SPEAKER_01 50:49

Yeah, I mean, you know, product of the time, this problem. I think it I think it serves its purpose, though. Oh, yeah, for sure. Because it's very it is a very grim, yeah, very grim situation to be in. Um, but this this this new vampire also has the ability to sense their master's thoughts and also does have the ability to harm them. So it's a little bit like you know, it it's kind of confusing, but my understanding is that the nature is a little bit more reciprocal, right? Okay, especially given that in later materials a spawn drinking the blood of their master frees them from from their control. So okay, right. Um also this is really good. Quote, gender is not a limiting factor. Master vampires may be male or female, and so may their mates, end quote. So Raven Lop said gay vampire rights.

SPEAKER_04 51:44

Happy Pride Month, everyone. It is still pride, although it won't be when the audio has life.

SPEAKER_01 51:50

Happy pride, yeah. Happy pride. I support gay vampire wrongs.

SPEAKER_03 51:54

Same. So I mean, I think uh that fourth word that you described, I think that is actually something that oh wait, that's a spoiler. Never mind. That's a spoiler specifically for Lewin.

SPEAKER_01 52:07

Huh? Oh okay. I'm okay. I'm never I'm sad. I'm sad. Okay, I'm not doing the episode anymore. Now Travis is explaining something to me. Uh no, I'm kidding. Uh so Travis is taking over. Interestingly, I I believe this is the first time that explicit reference to the drinking of blood is mentioned. I'm prior to this, it is said that vampires feed on the you know, the life essence of living creatures, yada yada yada. They have an energy draining attack, but it's never, it's not like it's like you know, they bite someone and drink their blood before this, which is crazy to me because that to me is so enshrined in like vampire that like you kind of just assume, right? But I'm fairly certain this is the first explicit mention like of drinking blood for that transfer of of energy. It's also fun because in this in this module it provides a system where vampires become more powerful as they age, like dragons, which is good because they weren't already right, yeah. Um so vampires uh in in as of you know in in this uh setting, vampires that are older than 500 have become immune to the repulsing effects of garlic, mirrors, holy symbols, and the damage of running water. So it's basically just it's basically just sunlight.

SPEAKER_03 53:36

Oh, okay. Which is good. Sunlight and stake.

SPEAKER_01 53:40

And stake, yeah. Uh which is good. Despite the fact that we've talked about myriad paths to vampirism, you may notice, and this surprised me at this point in my research, that there's no mention of like a specific origin point of the creation of vampires. There's not a there's not a a patient zero, you know, anything like that. There's a there's actually a god of vampires.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

Oh they don't worship just themselves.

SPEAKER_04 54:10

Well, it's I imagine it's less worship and more just like they contributed to why there are vampires.

SPEAKER_01 54:19

Um well, it's a it as as with many other things, it's a little complicated, it's a little confusing, and we're gonna talk about it after we take a break.

SPEAKER_04 54:29

Ah, damn it.

SPEAKER_01 54:30

Uh all right, yep, fine. Break time. Thank you for checking out our episode on vampires. Uh, we still have our affiliate partnership with FanrollDice. You can use code dungeonpedia for 10% off your entire order at fanrolleddice.com. We also have our Patreon if you would like to financially support us directly. It is at Dungeonpedia.

SPEAKER_03 54:55

We do also have our Dungeonpedia Discord. The link is on our Twitch page. Uh, it should also be on our Threads account, which you should go follow us there and Instagram as well. Both of those are at Dungeonpedia. If you have any suggestions, comments, or anything of the sort, you can also email us at dungeonpedia.podcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_04 55:17

You can subscribe or follow us wherever such options are available, which is most of them, to get notifications on new episodes. Right now, the current timeline for new episodes from the original stream to publishing is about one week. I don't see that changing anytime soon just for my own mental health at this point, but that is currently the timeline is about one week from when we stream it. It goes live on everything else. And when it goes live on those platforms, if you could remember to rate us, review us, and just help us spread the word, we are trying to, you know, just build the community even bigger and stronger than before. And we really appreciate you guys so, so much.

SPEAKER_03 55:58

We do. And we also appreciate Alexander Nakarato for creating the amazing song that we use for our theme song, Blacksmith.

SPEAKER_04 56:07

And with all that out of the way, I think I want to know more about this vampire god.

SPEAKER_03 56:13

Vampire god.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Okay. So okay. Yeah. Uh huh. So uh there's a lot of I feel like I need to manage everyone's expectations that I think this is going to create more questions. Okay. Then answer them.

SPEAKER_04 56:27

That's totally fine. That that is a common experience on this podcast.

SPEAKER_01 56:32

Yeah, I want everyone to be in the same mindset uh that I the same insanity spiral that I put myself in researching for this episode. So Can Chelsis is the name of the god of vampires. Or excuse me, he's uh referred to as the Lord of Vampires.

SPEAKER_04 56:48

Of course, because he's a vampire.

SPEAKER_01 56:49

I mean, you know. Cancelsis was introduced in Monster Mythology, which was published in 2002, uh, as an intermediate god in the uh gods of the dark folk category. I I think intermediate kind of just describes his power level CR.

SPEAKER_04 57:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:08

Um you know, Cancelsis was created from an ancient intermingling of human and selderine blood, which is a shameful secret that the Selderine wished to hide from the world. They're not a big fan of this guy, apparently. Uh so uh this this origin inspired his his belief that blood is the most important source of life and power and magic, um, you know, which is why he does he does vampire stuff. Yeah. Um, so his avatars often take half-elven form to wander the world uh in search of decadent debauchery or terrible violence, which makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 57:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:49

Yeah, I mean given the human human and and and celdarine blood, you know. Yeah. Um so appropriately, given the nature of his of his origin, he himself has a split nature. So he has a violent side that is known as the beast, capital T, capital B, which takes over when he is uh inspired to great rage. This form appears the same as Jekyll and Hyde. Yeah, no, it is very, very uh well, I say it's Jack, it it's not exactly Jekyll and Hyde because his other form is also a huge asshole. Um I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_04 58:28

Did we read the same book?

SPEAKER_01 58:30

You know, I've never I've never actually read uh Jekyll and Hyde, so me neither. But the the the beast appears as a muscular hairy man with taloned claws. Honestly looks very looks kind of werewolf in a way. His other form is called the rake.

SPEAKER_04 58:46

Oh, so he's a man's demonetization. A man's a man whore.

SPEAKER_03 58:54

A man demonetization.

SPEAKER_01 58:56

Oh, see, okay, okay, okay, okay. That's funny that you said that. It it actually took me a second because my mind didn't make it past like early 2020s or 2010s creepy bust.

SPEAKER_04 59:08

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 59:09

That was what I thought of when I when I saw the rake, was like oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 59:13

No, I I was immediately thinking of like Victorian era, like um which you know, actually yours makes a lot more sense.

SPEAKER_01 59:21

Yeah. I wouldn't have even remarked on that because I just thought I watched a lot of Bridgerton in the past like six months. Yeah, nice. And I just thought I just thought about I just thought about internet creepypasta. Um, but but your description is um relevant.

SPEAKER_04 59:37

Oh, okay. So it it probably actually does come from like Regency Victorian era. Slave.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

That wouldn't have completely flown over my head. Um that's really funny.

SPEAKER_04 59:49

Um Thank you, Shonda Rhimes.

SPEAKER_01 59:52

The the the rake appears as a handsome and finely dressed human or half elven man. The rake has a I'm I'm recontextualizing all of the the passages I've written after this. Um the rake has a great interest not only in corruption and debauchery, but also finery and luxury. So going seeking out fine purchases of fancy clothes, high-class parties. Specifically, there's mention that he has a particular enjoyment of picking up good, good-natured paladins and things like that to uh corrupt them. You know, um there's a lot of um, you know, there's a lot of there's a lot of parties. You know, yeah. There's a lot of parties.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:42

Chonda, there's at least four seasons on this.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:45

Yeah. Uh he he he makes his home at I believe it's the 287th layer of the abyss, um where he just he just essentially lives in like a murder orgy castle with like fountain like fountains of blood and stuff. Oh hell yeah. Very vampiric. Oh yeah. He's attended to by like by like other vampires and like lowly demons and like variations of vampires that I was gonna talk about, but I I didn't we we we simply don't have time. Um yeah, so he's that kind of he's that kind of character, right? Um, and he's also part of a cohort of interplan of uh of interplanar, it corrected it to interplanetary, which is also kind of a baller concept. Um he's part of a cohort of interplanar vampire lords, which also includes uh Vlad Tolinkov, who, as you remember, is Lolt's uh consort. Right. And he may also rarely visit vampires on the prime material plane to share stories or information or probably other things with them.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:55

But interesting, he just wants to be an entertainer.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

Yeah, he yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:00

Uh can I interest you in this new product that I have?

SPEAKER_01 1:02:04

Yeah, it's like a it's uh it's like hey, you know, when you get blood like on stuff and it's a pain to clean up, and then it's just a shamwell. You know, um though I will say for for as much as it sounds like this guy does love to party, which he does, um his the the characterization of the rake is described as like you know, very, very cold, kind of aloof, cold, sadistic. I'm sure you can yeah impression. But interestingly, he is never described as a father or creator or originator of vampires as a whole. Okay, but he still commands the grudging respect and fear of even the most powerful vampire lords. So even though he's the god of vampires, he we don't know how he got there. Yeah, we don't know how he got there or how other vampires got there. He he kind of is just the he kind of is just the the guy who took the title. Yeah, he kind of is just the guy that he's the he's the biggest and baddest, biggest and baddest one, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:12

Well, if no one else is going to, I might as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:15

Basically, except as he rolls up his he rolls up his sleeves, like he's not so excited to get into the blood orgy, you know. He's like, damn, somebody's gonna do it.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:24

Somebody's gotta do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:26

It's like no, they don't. No, they don't, dude. You literally don't have to. But an alternate origin for vampires, uh, that is pretty interesting, is discussed in Dragon Magazine number 346, which was published in 2006, in the article Core Beliefs Paylor of all gods, um, which describes the myth in which Paylor cur cursed those who turned from his light in pursuit of evil magic, which created the first vampires. Um, allegedly, allegedly, Paylor would be willing to forgive them if they were interested, but if but they're not.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:02

I mean, if you're gonna curse me like that, I'm probably not gonna get that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:08

I'm gonna be honest, I'm kind of on the side of the vampires in that one because like yeah, what do you what do you mean you were what do you mean you were mad at them for doing evil stuff? So you just made them more evil. Yeah. What do you mean? Exactly. Like, what do you mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:23

Kaylor, calm down.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:24

If you wanted to just like smite them or whatever, sure. But like, what do you mean you were mad at them for doing evil magic?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:30

So you just were like, what if I made made them beings of evil magic? Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:37

But okay. Uh some materials do also, or some Ravenloff materials specifically, do cite Strahd as being the first vampire, though they don't really like I know the implication there is that he then turned other people who turned other people. Right. Um yeah. But it also doesn't, you know, doesn't make sense. It doesn't, it doesn't, you know, it doesn't say that it it doesn't go on to specifically describe him then doing that. And I think it also kind of like I think it's kind of a product of the isolated nature of Ravenloff's stories because they take place in their own demi-plane. Right. So it's it's it's it's very it's a very real possibility that canonically Strahd is the first vampire that is in those very isolated places, but you know not necessarily the progenitor. Yeah, he's not necessarily the progenitor of all vampires. That's my take at least.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:34

Yeah, like uh maybe it's sort of like a convergent evolution thing. Uh like Yeah Yeah, Strahd became a vampire, but he's not necessarily connected to all the vampire, yeah, other vampires.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:48

Yeah, especially given that it's pretty consistent that he was turned from a curse. Yeah. Because he's a bad person that did bad things and wanted bad things to happen. Yeah. Which is which could be different from you know a vampire on the prime material plane who got turned by another vampire.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:08

This is a PSA to anyone currently running Curse of Strahd. You cannot fix him. Don't try.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:16

You literally cannot fix him. I can make him worse. There you go. Actually, I don't know if you can make him worse either.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:26

You know what? Fair, honestly.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:28

He might be that bad as he.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

Yeah, pretty much.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:31

Oh well, I can think of one way you could make it worse as well, actually. Lich vampire. Two ways.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:39

I just looked over at the notes. Um are we still in one in first and second edition?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:46

Yeah, don't worry about it. It's fine. Okay. Because like I said, uh a lot of a lot of the the abilities, the basic properties are very similar. Okay. So once we once we get to a certain point, we'll we'll just be flying.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:02

Uh like a vampire? Flying, like a vampire that has been bat form into yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:08

Or gaseous form.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:09

Or gas. Or gaseous form. They are on their way back to their coffin. The the the only interesting thing to note from the monstrous manual, which is the compilation of all the monster manuals from Advanced Dungeons of Dragons, which is published in 1993, is that vampires can now use um spider climb. Yeah. Because nothing, nothing better than a vampire that um is not affected by difficult terrain.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:34

Uh and this is this is pretty consistent for the rest of forever. So as of third edition and 3.5, which this will be taken from the 3.5 monster manual because it's pretty consistent. So vampires in third edition have their charming gaze effect replaced by a dominating gaze, which is functionally pretty similar. It functions essentially as a high-level dominate person spell. Okay. Right. Yeah. Dominate person by a 12th level caster. And hilariously, the monster manual spends a lot of time talking about the vampire's new slam attack, which inflicts negative character levels and also isn't given any flavor text that creates a mental image besides a vampire just body slamming someone so far they lose character levels.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:22

Yeah, just like pounding them like they mentioned it like five times.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:27

Like they're like an individual turned into a vampire gains a slam attack if they didn't already have one. They'll use their slam attack if da da da. And I'm like, I'm just I'm just imagining a vampire just shoulder checking someone really hard.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:41

This is the real uh inspiration, by the way, behind Twilight Vampires. All I can think about right now is the fucking baseball scene. Oh thank you for the timing.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:58

That's what that sounds like. Yeah. Um basically. That is my cat demonstrating the vampire slam. Yeah. So their attacks drain constitution as well as inflict negative character levels. And this this sort of vague energy drain thing is still the primary way of creating new vampires. Um they can also do a blood drain thing. I think either works, but either way. Either way, they got options. Anyone dies from an energy drain effect. Humanoid victims above five hit dice are raised some days later as standard vampires, and those of four hit dice or below are raised as vampires spawn. Now, both of these types of creatures are subservient to their creator, but essentially, this is the point where they kind of start making vampires spawn explicitly quite a bit weaker than standard vampires.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:54

Right. Makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:55

Um so they have you know lower stats, they lack the ability to use any of the special abilities, such as the uh, you know, the dominating gaze, the bat form, wolf form, dire wolf form, so on and so forth, except for the gaseous form. They also can't use the slam attack, which is another funny. Why do they care about the slam attack so much? I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:20

They're too weak to slam.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:22

They're too weak to they're too weak to to slam. They are not allowed to slam.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:26

They are not welcome to the jam.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:28

They are not. No. I don't know why the slam attack thing is so funny to me, but they just they wanted everyone to it felt like it felt like product placement. They wanted everyone to care about it a lot.

SPEAKER_04 1:10:42

That's okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:43

I I can see I see what you mean. So the the the supplement uh Libris Mortis, which was published in 2004, provides a template for creating half vampire characters, which is very, very fun. And we'll see them again. We'll see them again later. So these are characters who could be of any alignment, though they do tend towards neutral or evil alignments, and they get to choose one of three selections from vampires' typical special abilities. They get a or they can take a con reducing blood drain, which heals them, the ability to call swarms of animals, or a charming gaze. So half vampires enjoy improved healing damage, AC, physical attack damage, and only acquire a dependency on blood to prevent fatigue if they choose to take the blood drain ability. So honestly, it's kind of just a net positive. I I would agree. Yeah, it's kind of just really is now. Granted, there are our role play implications, mind, right, right, you know, because if someone knows that you're half vampire, they may not have a very good disposition towards you. But like just take the just take the the the the bat swarm or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:11:56

Then you don't have to worry about it's not even just a bat swarm, it literally is just an animal swarm.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:02

Yeah, exactly. Just take the take the animal swarm ability or whatever, then you don't have to worry about, you know, you get all these benefits, you don't have to worry about um, you know, you don't have to worry about needing to needing to drink blood.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:14

Whatever. So the the the explanation for the origin of half vampires is that in rare instances when a vampire and their victim love each other very much. Yeah, when a vampire and a victim love each other very much. Callbacks to callbacks. Yeah. Um, in rare instances, a vampire that has recently gorged itself on a large quantity of blood can successfully reproduce with a humanoid or monstrous humanoid.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:40

What?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:41

And in in the cases, uh, these are also obviously again very rare, in the infantismally small chance that someone who is pregnant would survive an encounter with a vampire, their unborn baby may become tainted and be born a half vampire.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:57

Um so vampire blood can pass the uh the umbil the umbilical barrier, is what you're telling me?

SPEAKER_01 1:13:09

Sure. Yes. And also, and also if you just if you're if you have fertility issues, just drink a lot of blood. Don't do that. This is not medical advice.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:22

This is not medical. This isn't even medical advice in the Forgotten Realms. Yeah. This isn't medical advice in Braven Loft. In in no D setting is this medical advice. This is don't absolutely not in the just because someone else has done it.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:38

Don't do it.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:40

Um I'm sorry, sir, but your child gets tainted.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:45

I hate it. I hate it. That poor that poor that poor yeolden fantasy like uh obstetrician is just like just sitting there with the test results, like, I don't know. I don't want to go in there and I don't want to go in there and tell her. Um she's gonna have a bon Zara bitch. So you know, these half vampire characters, even those who don't find themselves with a dark craving because their player um is smart and didn't take the blood dependency aspect, they often find themselves stuck in a world between the living and the undead because they don't really fit in either either place. Yeah. Um you know, given people's usual attitude, uh attitudes towards uh vampires and also vampires' attitudes towards everything. Um you know, yeah, it's difficult. Well, yeah, I I I understand for sure. Speaking of things that are difficult, discussing fourth edition. Um, okay, so this is this is an emotional roller coaster for me because for once, fourth edition did a lot of things right. Oh, but then the things they did wrong are so puzzling to me. So, okay. Per the fourth edition monster manual, which was published in 2008, they sort of killed the vague uh energy drain ability thing in favor of vampires only being able to replenish their strength and create spawn via a good old-fashioned physical blood drain, which I like. I like. Okay. I mean I like that it's not just kind of a vague uh like I like it. I don't know. I think that's fine. In fourth edition, the spawn are even weaker. Now they uh also lack the ability to assume gaseous form in any circumstances. Um and also they do not have the dominating gaze effect. So essentially they just kind of have they have, you know, they can they can drain blood, they are stronger than just like a regular humanoid, they can use spider climb, but they cannot do a lot of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:54

They can't do anything else, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:58

Which, you know, is is is by design. It also introduced a ritual that can only be performed by vampire lords, which is called the Dark Gift of the Undying. This ritual, which can only be performed between sunset and sunrise, involves the caster, who again has to be a vampire lord, and the subject drinking a small amount of each other's blood. After this, the subject dies and is interred in unhollowed ground. And the caster prays to Orcus, who is the Lord of the Undead, who heretofore has not really been I don't know where he's been. He didn't make vampires. I don't know where he's been.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:33

Yeah, and he's not making vampires. Gonna randomly pull Orcus out. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:38

I mean, he he like it makes sense. I don't it makes sense to a degree, but he's here now. Uh he's late. He he he said he, I guess maybe he he made vampires in some unknown, unknown supplemental material that no one talks about, and then he went out to get the milk. And then he shows up. He shows up like four editions later and is like, All right, I'm here. I know I haven't been a good dad, but I've got a ritual for it. I'm ready to be the dad who stepped up to the ritual plate. Exactly. And that's it. That's all he does. The castor prays to Orcus and asks him to bestow the dark gift, capital D, capital G, upon the subject. The following day at sunset, the subject then rises as a vampire lord, unless the ritual is interrupted. Um, you know, if they're if they get beheaded, for example, doesn't work if someone casts a raised dead spell on them before they rise from the grave.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:39

Um so performing this ritual leaves the casting vampire lord weakened for up to 10 days. And this, alongside the solitary and contemptuous nature of vampires, means it's hard to imagine many situations where this would be preferable to creating. But I think it's interesting, and I personally see it as a spiritual successor to the whole vampire mate thing from Ravenloft Realm of Terror. Yeah. Like I could see, like, I could see a vampire lord, yeah, you know, maybe like, you know, falling in love with like a mortal, you know, human or whatever, and then you know, deciding to do this. I can see it. I was about to say it's kind of romantic. Um is that the word? I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:27

I don't know about that.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:28

I mean, it's more it's more romantic than you know, turning someone into a vampire and just wholesale enslaving them, I guess.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:35

You're not wrong.

SPEAKER_01 1:18:37

On if you if if everyone thought I was being too positive about fourth edition, yeah. Um, a successful religion check reveals that, quote, I have to say this quote in its full entirety because it gasted my flabber so bad. Uh, contrary to popular folklore, vampires are not hampered by running water or repelled by garlic, and they don't need invitations to enter homes. Wooden stakes hurt them, but no more than any other sharp weapon, unquote. Also, I noticed an interesting inconsistency um in their stat block, which I actually had to come back and find this later because I thought it was something that was retconned in a stupid way in a supplement that I didn't like. But I went back to double check it. Vampire that there's two categories of vampires given. There's vampire spawn and vampire lords. Right. Um, vampires spawn, which vampire lords, uh my understanding is that they're kind of just supposed to be like the normal vampires, right? You know, who have not been created and aren't subservient to another vampire, which are spawn. Vampires spawn are destroyed if they, I believe, end their turn in direct sunlight. Vampire lords are not. They don't, there's no mention of them taking damage at all from sunlight. Um I don't know. I I I don't I don't know. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:03

It just specifically doesn't mention anything. It doesn't mention it.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:05

It does, it doesn't say they are immune to sunlight or it describes any mechanic by which it has been altered. They just don't mention it.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:13

But they took the time to specify that garlic and running water don't work anymore.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:19

Fourth edition uh has suffers from a uh condition called thinking that it's too cool for the basics. That pretty much describes all of fourth edition.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:32

Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:32

But but the thing is is that I like I struggled to imagine whether or not this was an intentional because it like that's fair.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:40

That is a lot of fourth edition issues. Is like like I don't I don't know if if like the the was it just shitty editing or was it intentional?

SPEAKER_01 1:20:50

I poured over this stat block several times to make sure I wasn't missing anything. Right. Like yeah, so anyway, we're just gonna move on. We're just gonna move on.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:01

Yeah, fourth edition stat blocks are also just a mess in and of themselves.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:05

Yeah, we're just gonna move on. So this this this later supplement, which was released in 2011, it's called Heroes of Shadow, and it provides a template for creating vampire characters that I I have a I I have a love-hate relationship with. I feel the type of way about it. Um it softly retcons the relationship that vampires have with sunlight, which originally pissed me off because I thought they were just nerfing vampire's weakness to sunlight, and then I went back and looked and uh no, because apparently they don't have like it just doesn't exist at all. It's fine. So stating it states that any vampire or vampire spawn player characters who end their turn in direct sunlight and are unprotected by something, or or who aren't rather are not protected by something like a cloak take radiant damage, and if reduced to zero HP indirect sunlight, they are immediately destroyed. Fine, okay, whatever. Okay, at least they take damage from sunlight. Yeah, at least at least they brought that up. At least they remembered, at least they remembered the fucking sun exists.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:14

Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's something at least.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:17

Uh it also presents vampire as a class, as opposed to like sort of a a modifier or substitute for a character's race, which is kind of personally how I would rather do it. Same.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:28

Um, but I have common sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:31

And and in this way, abilities, classic vampire abilities such as gaseous form, animal summoning, yada yada, are presented as skills that are gained by leveling, which I think is kind of cool. I like the idea that they're tied to progression.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:47

Because I think it would be kind of fundamentally uninterested to be like, okay, here's my here's my level one vampire fighter, and then it's like, okay, well, he can just summon a pack of dire wolves or whatever, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:59

Well, here's like I think that's kind of a workaround for that. Just add racial, like racial unlocks at certain levels.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:08

Yeah, I I feel like it's a good starting point. I feel like it's a good starting point though. Yeah for it to be fair, for it to have like the abilities tied to level progression instead of just oh, you're a vampire, you have these now. But I also find it kind of limiting because in that it's a class, it's like, okay, well, here are the favorite attributes, you know, here's this, here's that. And I think that that could be limiting that it's like if you want to play a vampire character for role play reasons, you're also kind of shoehorned into a you know, a Dex and Charisma class with these particular abilities, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:44

But I do think that the supplement is actually it actually provides uh really good stuff for role play. Okay, which is I don't think I've ever said that about fourth edition.

SPEAKER_04 1:23:56

No, I I don't think I think we have at most like talked about the fact that like sometimes fourth edition like has a good concept, but they failed to deliver or present it in any sort of good manner.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:10

Yeah, and I think it's it's no it's no secret that fourth edition I feel like standardizes a lot of stuff and puts a lot of stuff into being like like it's more about combat. Like that's a common criticism of fourth edition. But I really like what this uh supplement does for the kind of role play aspect of creating vampire characters because I feel like it lays really good groundwork in making vampire characters of diverse races, backgrounds, and alignments in a way that still feels earned. Like it's not as though they kind of just cast aside the fact that you know vampires have a lot of natural inclinations towards things, like uh sucking the blood out of people. And it also provides like it it recontextualizes the relationship that vampire characters can have with the world. Like there's a specific note about how you know, for vampire characters that you know kind of want something other than just rampant murder hobboing, that like it it the that essentially a life of adventure is kind of perfect because you don't stay in one place for too long for people to figure out that you're a vampire. Yeah, you don't run the risk of maybe finding yourself getting too close to certain people and then accidentally one day when you have a you know you have a craving, you know, you accidentally kill someone or whatever. Right. And you know, it it it it really lays out how you know someone who you know for for for you know a character in that position to become a hero. I think it's really good. Yeah. Um one that I really like talks about a description of options for a halfling vampire, which are pretty rare, but often especially deadly, because uh the you know, halfling size and affable reputation make them pretty underestimated. I mean, okay. To me, it it it evokes the the character Bebette from Skyrim, if any of y'all know she's a little girl who's a vampire. Well, she was a little girl, she's been a little girl for like 200 years, but she kind of takes advantage of the fact that people underestimate her because she's a little girl, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:26:30

And people like willingly invite her into their homes thinking that they're doing like a good deal.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:35

Yeah, and she also and she also, you know, kills uh bad people, yeah, you know, but it's that kind of thing. So for halflings, obviously, there's a big emphasis on community, family, and things like that. And so in some cases, you know, this this incredible value that they place on community and bonds and stuff lead them to embrace vampiric members of their families or communities, and some even hold positions of honor as heroes if they became vampires, maybe in the course of you know, protecting their town or their family or whatever. And these individuals often specialize in protecting their community from the undead, and in turn being embraced by their fellows helps them resist the urge to fall into evil and depravity. And I think that that's amazing. I know, I really like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:28

That is actually really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:30

I I really like that, and one particular quote from here that I want to read real quick, just because it's I think it's for one, an interesting exploration of a vampire who doesn't strictly like a like a kind of a blueprint uh or an encapsulation of a character who doesn't fall into that like prototypical super evil vampire thing, but clearly also isn't a very like, you know, isn't just like a tortured antihero and also. Just a baller quote. Um, quote, I am as a god among mortals, and with such power comes great responsibility. These mortals are mine to do with as I please, and I choose to protect them. Like a shepherd protecting his flock, I will let no wolves harm my herd, no harm befell them by any hand but my own. Which is crazy.

SPEAKER_04 1:28:22

It was so good, but that end is a little wild.

SPEAKER_01 1:28:26

That is crazy. Yeah. And that to me is just so it's so good. Yeah, it's still that other uh like yeah, other yeah, because it's clear this guy obviously wants to protect this, you know, this this uh community, this flock, you know, but it's also very clear that he's kind of got that god complex, maniac, egomaniac, a little a little unhinged, but yeah, to you know, I never thought I'd see the day that I would be praising fourth edition for facilitating really interesting role play. Yeah, I never thought I'd see the day. Call it me surprised, right? Okay, so fifth edition. Finally, here we are, we've arrived. So vampires and vampire spawn appear in the fifth edition monster manual, which was published in 2014. And as a bookend, I know this is long, I'm going to go over all of their abilities and weaknesses again, as they are now. So vampires can polymorph into a bat or a cloud of mist, which they automatically transform into upon reaching zero HP. Okay. Um, they regenerate 20 HP at the start of their turn, unless in sunlight, running water, or if they have been hit by radiant damage or holy water in the previous turn. They can call groups of rats, bats, or wolves to aid them in combat. They can climb difficult surfaces with no ability check. This includes being able to hang from ceilings, which is which is baller. You know, imagine them hanging upside down like a bat. Hell yeah. And they can use charm as a gaze attack. Um, it's charm again instead of dominate person. Okay. Their weaknesses are as follows: they cannot enter homes without permission. They take 20 radiant damage when they start their turn indirect sunlight. They have disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks while in direct sunlight as well. They take 20 acid damage when they start their turn in running water. And if they are impaled by a wooden stake through the heart while in their resting place, they will be immobilized until the stake is removed. Okay. So pretty similar to how they have been, but the the sunlight weakness is a little less punishing. I think it's a little less punishing to take 20 damage and have disadvantage than it is to just die.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:45

Yeah, I agree. Yeah, um, definitely better.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:48

But there is definitely a sense to me of like, I think they really they realized like if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:56

They they broke it a little bit in fourth edition.

SPEAKER_04 1:30:58

But they but they fixed it and they put it back.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:01

They said, oh shit, go back.

SPEAKER_04 1:31:02

Control Z, control Z, Control Z.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:04

Yeah, literally. So vampire spawn share these weaknesses, but only retain the traits of spider climb and regeneration. Though their regenerative power is weaker, they only regenerate 10 HP. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:15

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:16

So vampire spawn are still created when a vampire kills someone by draining their blood, and they may become full vampires only by consuming some of their master's blood. Which, as I'm sure you can imagine, most master vampires do not do they're not into it voluntarily.

SPEAKER_02 1:31:32

No.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:33

Um, so vampires and spawn must rest during the day in their coffin or their crypt, their tomb, whatever. Those who did not receive a proper burial must rest at least a foot beneath the ground at the site where they originally rose as a vampire. Though this location can be changed by transporting the receptacle, whatever it is, or a large amount of the grave soil. And often vampires will create multiple potential resting places where they can flee to in gaseous form. Right. Which is, you know.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:04

I mean, it's good to have fail safes.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:06

Exactly. Now the 2025 edition of the monster manual kind of softly retcon this, but I think that the potential new descriptions are so cool that I'll let it slide. Um of either kind of going with the classic or new potential resting places for a vampire can be among the roots of a dead tree at the bottom of a stagnant pool, a coffin filled with grave dirt, which is the classic, a large pot full of blood or vinegar, um, a space accessible only by shape shifting, or within a statue or a suit of armor, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:46

I love that. Gargoyle's vibes. I also love that, but I'm sorry, vinegar?

SPEAKER_01 1:32:51

Yeah, I don't know. It's fine. Italy. Italy. It's a it's a it's a preserving thing. I don't know. They're they're on a um, they just really they really miss eating picnics. Fermentation. It's all I got. It helps your vampire keep. But also like the suit of armor. I've already suspected if I walk in, if I walk into a to a castle or whatever in a fantasy game or something, and I see suits of armor lined up, I know one of those is coming to life when I'm talking about it.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:23

Okay, uh, quick aside, I used to work in a place that had a suit of armor. And uh Travis did too. And every time I had to walk past it, I was like, You're gonna get me one day. You're gonna get me.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:37

There's a vampire lord in there.

unknown 1:33:39

Fuck you.

SPEAKER_04 1:33:40

Well, they removed it because then because they knew there was a vampire lord in there.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:45

Yeah, they were like, we gotta get that out of here. They gotta get that out of here. Also, in the 2025 monster manual, they introduced some new kinds of vampires. It's fine. There's one that's like a creepy shadow stalker type type deal that can they can teleport from shadow to shadow, whatever. Yeah, um, that's brought on specifically. Shadowfell vampire. Yeah, that's it's brought on specifically by like someone transforming someone with like a necromantic curse. It's fine. And there is also another variety called a an Umbralord, which brings back an ability, it's called uh Sanguine Drain, which is kind of, I think, a spiritual successor to the aforementioned vague energy drain ability.

SPEAKER_04 1:34:27

Which is kind of yeah, I like that.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:29

It's kind of fun. They're they're a kind of a little bit of a of a variation in that they have a little bit less HP and constitution, but they also have that sanguine drain ability, and they also have a neat little thing where if they drop to zero hit points outside of their resting place, they immediately teleport to their resting place instead of assuming gaseous form and then having to make their way there, which is convenient. They just have they have a they have a respawn, they have an easy respawn point. And this also introduces the concept of vampire familiars, which are non-vampire individuals who serve vampires for a number of potential reasons. Either they have been bribed or coerced into doing so. Um, some cases they have been directly capital C charmed by the vampire. And some of them are also freaks who want to become vampires themselves. Right. Uh it's very, and it's it's it's more than just a an employment type of relationship because a vampire lord can communicate with their familiars telepathically, though this doesn't go two ways, and can also peer into their senses, which is unnerving. Yeah. They can just kind of warg into their bodies a little bit. Vampire familiars are also physically changed by exposure to the dark energy of their masters. Um, they become pallid and ghastly in appearance, and their weapon strikes become imbued with necromantic energy that can poison and paralyze targets, which leaves them as easy prey for their vampire master. So that's good.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:05

Yeah. All right, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:06

And also, of course, goes without saying that you know, these master vampires often will use their familiars for repeated feedings, which is also part of the reason they get to look in the way they do.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:19

Yeah, okay, fair. Yeah, being drained by a vampire over and over and over could do that to someone.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:24

Yeah, it'll it'll it'll mess you up. So finally, real quick, we're gonna we're gonna take it to Von Richten's guide to Ravenloft because you know we have to end in Ravenloft.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:34

We do have to end in Ravenloft.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:35

We have to it has to end where it began for me. So this introduces the player option of creating Dampier, I think is how it's pronounced, which are half vampires. If any of y'all are familiar with uh Alucard, Alucard Castlevania, he is a Dampier.

SPEAKER_04 1:36:52

I specifically think about um Vampire the Masquerade. Uh sure.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:56

I don't I don't know a lot about Vampire the Masquerade. I'm not gonna lie. Okay, that's fair.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:00

That's very surprising given your whole everything.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:04

Given the given the vibe, the tableau. But yeah, Alucard, uh Adrian Tepish of Castlevania fame is a Damphier. So in this context, Damphire uh can refer to individuals anywhere on the spectrum from being half vampire. So they have a vampire parent in a similar process to described earlier. They can be the reincarnation of a vampiric ancestor, uh, a person who was changed but not fully transformed into a vampire by an encounter with a vampire. Okay. Or someone who has had their life changed by an evil pact or like a necromantic curse kind of thing. It's Ravenloft, you know. Yeah. There's lots of the aforementioned dark forces, you know, every all that being thrown around.

SPEAKER_04 1:37:51

Lots of ways to make a half vampire.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:37:54

So they were tainted.

unknown 1:37:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:37:57

Yeah, they were tainted. And there's a there's a there's a there's a lot of interesting origins, and also uh this is this is fun. Um uh so Dampier struggle with a a a an unnatural hunger in the same way that uh vampires do, but there are options for this being uh you know, you can go classic blood, flesh or raw meat, cerebral spinal fluid, which is fun. Uh and as a callback to a variant of vampire that I didn't even mention because there's there's so many. Uh psychic energy dreams, or uh our classic the vague life energy. Life energy.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:43

Yeah, but yeah, it's still so vague that it could be just about anything or psychic energy, or yeah, just just vibes, just vibes, feeding off of vibes, feeding off of that's so real, actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:56

Yeah, that is actually um, yeah, but that's vampires, man. That's vampires, vampires. You know, I was so naive in thinking I could fit this into into one episode.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:09

I don't know like that. This is elves all over again.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:14

Yeah, which this is this is elves all over again, but uh I do think a lot of the variants are good candidates for mini sodes because they're they're very like a lot of them are very they're interesting, yeah, but they wouldn't be interesting if I tried to talk about a bunch of them for like an hour, you know.

SPEAKER_04 1:39:33

Yeah, like a like a 10 to 30 minute block of talking about them absolutely doable.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:40

Yeah, but man, I love you know, I I did I did partially do this because I kind of wanted to pay homage to my first episode. Right. That was about Strahd specifically, but you know, I I I found myself, I was very quickly very interested in what I was reading, but what also what I wasn't reading, because I think that it's very easy that you you you kind of get caught up in the the the typical like cultural zeitgeist and you kind of assume a lot of things about a particular topic, and then when you find out they weren't true, it kind of blows your mind a little bit, which was my which was my entire process of of of researching for this, including when literally earlier today I triple checked that thing from the fourth edition stat block and I realized they forgot to they forgot to enable um the sunlight part and I and I fucking lost it.

SPEAKER_04 1:40:34

Fourth edition just doesn't have sunlight, accidentally made immortals, like genuine, like not even effectively immortal, just straight up cannot kill them.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:42

Yeah, they they accidentally they accidentally didn't enable their number one weakness. Yeah, um, so I guess they're technically the most busted in fourth edition, I suppose. I yeah, that is one way to think about it. But yeah, that's vampires, man. That's vampires.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:56

That's vampires.

SPEAKER_01 1:40:57

That's vampires. And I'm I'm I'm impressed that I only mentioned Strahd like 20 times.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:02

Thank you guys so much for listening. Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, on threads, just wherever. Spread the word. We're we're building a community. We're we're what what was the uh the slogan, build back better? I hate it.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:19

Build back better.

SPEAKER_04 1:41:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:21

We're building a community of um vampires. If you have any vampire friends, hell yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:27

Definitely let them know. If you have anything that you would like to suggest as a topic for us to cover, uh feel free to email us at dungeonpedia.podcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:36

And thank you once again for listening, and we will catch you next week here on Dungeonpedia. You know, guys, I'm actually not I'm actually not turning uh 30. I'm turning 29. I'm turning 29. Again, I've I'm gonna just be 29. I I'm gonna be 29 forever. Living's a vampire.