How to Make Your Vampires Truly Terrifying in D&D 5e
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ค. 2024
- Part II of our look at why vampires are no longer scary and how you can fix that in your campaign! This video will give you 6 steps to make sure you vampires inspire dread in your players and avoid the old tropes! Move over Strahd! There's a new vampire in town! YOURS!
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In our Curse of Strahd campaign, one way our DM made Strahd terrifying was having him wait till the party found a way out of Barovia and then kidnapping the dragonborn child some of us were taking care of in Van Richten's tower. Basically our dragonborn fighter got trapped in a mirror and my cleric (Zelda) and my friend's rogue (Anthony) decided to take care of the child until we found a way to free our dragonborn fighter. We eventually found a portal leading to Neverwinter and once we were out of Barovia Strahd took the child as well as a few other party members and a pet or two to castle Ravenloft. A few party members eventually went back to Barovia to get the rest of our allies only to find out that the child has been corrupted by Strahd into thinking his parents abandoned him and the pets were being experimented on. If it wasn't for the intervention of the wereravens we would have lost half the party and possibly our allies. Note: All of this took place after Strahd killed my characters loved ones including her father and "supposably" her fiancé.
I like releting them to the fey and shadowfell, they take damage from sun, wood, fire and running water because they are tied to the summer court.
Also they can enter anywhere that isn't actually a home (tavern, inn room, guild hall, ect).
An 8 strength kobold nice! Love that idea!
In regards to Weaknesses for Vampires. You could associate them with the deities of your world. Running water is attributed to maybe a Storm or Water deity and sunlight and a wooden stake or garlic are from a deity of Light and Nature respectably. Note however, these weaknesses only apply when a Vampire encounters members of those particular faith (though sunlight weakness should always be active).
It may encourage you're players to seek out priests of those faith for aid or have their own character become religious later down the road to better protect themselves. This type of thinking is also a good way for your players to learn what other deities may hinder or support vampires. Deities of blood, war and death are a given but maybe the Moon goddess also favors them with greater powers on full moons/blood moons since they actively shun the light?
Invitation is probably my favorite weakness. Can't get inside of some house, burn it down and eat anyone could escapes the fire. An invitation through written word; like an invitation to a wedding is perfect for most vampires, especially if the inviter is unaware they are vampire. Signs outside businesses, schools, taverns or inns are also a way to overcome it if they simply saying "all are welcome/invited". Also you don't need an invitation if you own the land from which the building reside upon, which could be why most vampire's try and rule over cities or small villages.
Powers: Adding new or tweaking current powers can also prove fruitful as everyone expects hypnosis (charm person), mist and or bat form. Rather than turning into regular mist, why not poison mist like Stinking Cloud spell. Seep into a room and kill all those who oppose you, leaving no drained husks behind and vampire hunter's none the wiser. For charming someone maybe eye contact isn't necessary, perhaps simply touching someone's bare flesh is enough to dominate them making melee combat with that vampire all the more terrifying (granted only true vampire's should have this not spawn). Or a different twist, maybe the Vampire doesn't have the ability to influence the minds of others or to summon wolves, bats or rats. Maybe they've only gotten the eternal youth and beauty alongside the strength and speed of a vampire. Are they seen as true vampires by their fellow kin and if not why are they like this?
Motivation: Vampire's seek to control the world around them and dominate and lash anything that is outside of that control. Rather than start with a Vampire already ruling over a portion of land consider this. An ancient vampire has just awoken from its torpor and has found its kingdom gone, its thralls dead and its riches stolen. How has the area changed since they have been asleep? Is it a wasteland where nothing can grow? A lush forest or perhaps a city and their coffin is a center piece at a local museum once belonging to a long forgotten King/Duke/Count (you get the idea).
Have that Vampire slowly work their way through the world gathering information, new allies to help combat old or new enemies. Maybe have the party be employed early on by this Vampire who simply wants the latest editions of books detailing historical events and current laws of the area. Obviously the PC's won't know they are a Vampire (god help you if you have a Paladin who actually uses Divine Sense jk) and they do odd jobs for 'honest' coin or items the Vampire had on his person. Move into having the PC's build relations on behalf of this person meeting merchants, sell-swords, magicians and the like and eventually have all these NPCs either disappear - they now work for the Vampire - or turn up dead with the last person to die being a wealthy merchant prince who left their entire estate not to their family, but their new drinking buddy and the merchant's family have asked the PC's to investigate or perhaps they want answers and are actively hunting them and the Vampire is protecting them?
Ralek Kelar great suggestions! Thanks so much!!
Great video! Despite "D&D 5e" being in the title, I love how all your advice is system agnostic. I play Dungeon World and Genesys and I can use everything you suggested if I pitted my PCs against a vampire.
Subbed!
Thank you!! I do my best to make everything about the story so that the system doesn’t matter as much.
So glad I found your channel! Thanks for sharing 😊
Me too!! Thanks for watching! 🙏🏼
Personally to me, a good example of a vampire is Mathias Cronqvist aka Dracula from the Castlevania game series, not the show because those a two completely different people.
In the game series he was originally human, a human alchemist who was also a strategist for the Churches army, who also fought alongside his best friend, Leon Belmont. With the two of them working together, Mathias’ and Leon’s’ company of Knights were undefeated and considered unbeatable. So already at that point, with his finite human understanding, he’s already a master alchemist and spell user and has militaristic knowledge and planning. He also had an above average level of understanding of the human psyche, which made it so much easier for him to manipulate Leon Belmont, the man who made the whip of Alchemy (which later became Vampire Killer) Rinaldo Gandolfi and even a master vampire while said vampire was in his own domain (that Vampire being Walter Bernhardt), hell he even manipulated Death himself into working for him. This all happening in 1094, while he was still human, this also all happened after a year of planning after Mathias lost his first wife to a disease. The whole reason he became a vampire and manipulated his best friend and an extremely powerful, albeit cocky, Vampire was because he lost his wife and didn’t want to have his humanity anymore as he says “if humanity is a gift from God, then I deny it.”
Skip 382 years, during that time all he did was accumulate knowledge of science and magic, he met Lisa and married her, has his only son Adrian Tepes, and also teaches two young boys the art of Devil Magic (Devil Forging) those two boys being Isaac and Hector. This man casually teaches 3 kids powerful magic (this magic is so powerful that it rivals that of Death himself). During these teachings, Hector picks up on in quicker and becomes even stronger than Isaac (which means that Hector is stronger than Death). Years later, Carmilla has been going around and spreading rumors about witches (she did this to get rid of the Belnades family, who actually were witches). Although, this action caught Lisa in the crossfire and got her killed (crucified) by angry townsfolk, Lisa’s begging and pleading was aimed towards Alucard who was in the crowd. Dracula soon caught wind of this and had Isaac and Hector build up an army, Alucard for a bit agreed with his father but soon remembered what his mother told him and rebelled, almost immediately getting thrown around causing him to flee as he knew he was in no way strong enough to fight his father. This brings us to Sypha, who after the execution of her family and friends, was taken in by the Eastern Orthodox Church and raised by them, soon becoming their strongest hunter, she was sent out to fight Dracula.
Trevor was called in by the Pope because the churches were having difficulty fighting off the Night Creatures. Trevor happily agreed as he knew it was his job and he was proud to help those around him, Trevor, being the religious man that he is, prayed in a cemetery at a large cross before finally beginning his quest after he reached Wallachia.
As they waited, the Churches kept fighting against Dracula’s soldiers, soon a rebel group that had Grant Danasty in it rose to also fight against Dracula, soon being defeated and Grant being turned into a monster.
During this time, Hector disagreed with Dracula’s plan on world genocide. When he was sent out with his army of monsters, Hector killed them and immediately ran off. Leaving Dracula a bit puzzled as to who was strong enough to kill an entire night creature army and his strongest General as Trevor Belmont hadn’t entered Wallachia yet at the time. Soon figuring it out that it was Hector, he sent Isaac out to bring him back alive so that he may turn Hector in an armless and legless creature and so he could leave him into the sewers so that the only thing Hector could eat is pure sewage, this was just a soft punishment because again, Hector was his favorite General.
After being killed for the first time by Trevor, the descendant of his old best friend, he carried his hatred for humanity and the Belmonts for roughly 523 years, time and again trying to commit mass genocide until 1999 when he was so powerful that it took the entire world to fight back against him, but he was so strong that every time a soldier died, they would be resurrected and added to his army.
Mathias is terrifying and a great version of a vampire lord imho.
I just recently got into Castlevania and I agree completely! Plus, this should be a Wikipedia article! Such a good summary! Thank you!!
@@HalflingHobbies They’re great games. The show was hit or miss as it went against a lot of the already established lore. The wiki articles are awesome, my summary was just surface level
One of the classic large scale plots of vampires in fiction is to find a way to overcome their weaknesses and those of their servants, most usually by developing immunity to sunlight or blocking out the sun in an area. That gives you both a sinister plot for the vampire to pursue and a way around their weaknesses. Maybe they have already shrouded a region in unnatural darkness and are working on immunity to radiant damage from sources of holy power? Should they succeed in overcoming all their weaknesses, the vampire and its spawn and other creatures of the night would be unstoppable and would conquer the entire world and might even threaten the broader multiverse, so it is up to the party to save the day.
Just stumbled into this while high (thanks algorithm), but I thought I’d leave a comment! Well done video. About to browse anything else you might have, as I’ve got some writers block and your ideas helped tremendously! Hope your well!
Thank you!! So glad it was helpful! I have lots of stuff 😁 hope you stick around!
@@HalflingHobbies Holy heck, solid reply time. 😂 I’m already on to another of your videos, you’ve got a subscriber. Glad to see you found some success and followers!
@@theobserver4681 I love chatting with subs! Thanks for the support! It has been a super fun ride!
Great video!
Tip : if you're going to mention that this is part 2 of a series, it might be a good idea to post the link to the first video on the video description.
It was not easy to find the first video!
- The Innkeeper
Excellent point 😅 didn’t think of that! My bad!
DM: Vampires drain a level of experience every time they touch you. The Vampire you are facing has 3 attacks. Player: ...Gulp "My character makes his way to the exit". DM: Not so fast. He speaks to you and says in a soft yet commanding voice "I have been expecting you. Please join me for dinner". Make a save versus his charm attack!
really fascinating ideas! i've been playing with the idea of creating a vampire-centered d&d adventure, never did any of these before, really curious and interested to see where it can go!
Thanks so much! I would love to hear how it goes!
Play Curse of Strahd. It will really give you a good ideas on how to handle a vampire as a final boss.
Thanks! Great ideas, pulling out all the stops for my fangy queen
Thanks so much for the support!
Turning the family into Vampire Spawn. My players are going to hate me. 😈
Rtrodz16 😭
Some very good ideas!
Game On! Thank you 😊 I really do like vampires, I promise! Lol
@@HalflingHobbies they are very fun villains if done right 😎
Also I would try to get rid of some of the weaknesses . Sunlight will still prevent regen but the vamp doesn't need your permission to enter your house
That one removed from Christian tradition is super weird lol
@@HalflingHobbies lol yes it is . Adding dnd were most worlds don't have a Christian like faith to explain why its reasonable to just get rid of this dumb weakness
@@lordInquisitor agreed!
Didn't dracula was able to transform into a wolf as well and can climb up Wall like a lizard and control both the weather and animals.
She's such a cute lady
Thank you! 😊
Stake five!!! 😂🤣😂
I knew SOMEONE would appreciate my puns! 😆 thank you!
That apology after the "stake 5" joke. I doubt the sincerity of this "apology"
Haha! Definitely failed my deception check there! I love a good pun!
I somewhat prefer weaker vampires, they don't win through being stronger then the players, instead they can be fought at a lower level before the players have all the abilities to just figure out who they are.
An 8 strength kobold always a fun option 😊
5e vampires seem less like Dracula (played by Christopher Lee, of course) and more like Edward Cullen.
absolutely true!
LMAO killed strahd early with Hold person and holy water
Right??? DUMB!
wow. If it was that easy, you should play a different curse of strahd.
Lol, Hold Person on a Vampire!? Hold Person works on Humanoids only not on Undead! (Which is a special Monstertype).. You got Lucky your DM does not know the rules ;)