50 Shades of Vampires, Part II

Originally published March 20, 2013

Time for more tinkering with vampires. As before, we'll look at how one can challenge your player's expectations about vampires in the World of Darkness. This time we'll look at vampires with unexpected allies.

Just one vision of vampires

When creating a single antagonist to challenge your players you typically want to features: an element of surprise and resiliency. The standard World of Darkness vampire has some serious weakness that can disrupt the horror effect you are after. The typical attack at noon with a flame thrower might work for a humorous intro like in John Carpenter's Vampires but usually isn't what you are looking for in a horror game.

The easiest way to deal with this is by adding some allies who can cover for those weaknesses. Even if this is the only vampire in town, it doesn't mean he or she lacks friends. The normal ally is a blood addled ghoul like Renfield but you can shake things up by using unconventional allies. Examples I've used in the past include Mages, Spirits, and Ghosts.

Mages might support a vampire because it controls the local politicians (allowing it to control zoning laws and realign mystic energies in exchange for favors) or because it knows where mystic secrets were hidden two centuries ago. In the return the Mages might set up magic traps, offer the occasional divination, or even give the vampire a protective magic item. In one of my games, the local vampire Prince allied with a group of Mages called the Seers of the Throne to maintain the status quo. They gave her a protective item against sunlight. That substantially change how the final encounter went.

As for spirits, a vampire might give it offerings or other assistance to let it grow in power. The spirit might then protect the vampire when it is weakest in order to keep the essence flowing. It might posses one of the vampires servants, making him even more powerful, or serve more directly. The previously mentioned Prince had a deal with a spirit of Fire and Rebirth, a phoenix, where she provided servants to worship it in return for occasional favors, such as incinerating her enemies.

One could easily imagine similar relations with local Hunters (the enemy of my enemy is my friend), Werewolves (perhaps watching over sacred sites while they are away), Geists (they might know much of ancient ghosts from when they were alive), or Changelings (who else but a vampire could match the Fae in deal making).

Specifically for Changeling: the Lost I had an elder vampire which called himself Oberon. He had made a pact with a True Fae to create a unique Bloodline that held powers over dreams. But because he had broken aspects of the pledge, he was cursed to appear hideously old. He lied to those he embraced that the curse the True Fae imposed was actually the curse of vampirism, hoping that they would find a way free of the curse allowing him to regain his handsome features. He used those same lies with the changeling characters in that game, who thought they were saving him. Obviously they were quite surprised when the truth came out.

I'll discuss this next vampire example in more detail next time but the Antediluvian, an ancient vampire I used in Mage: the Awakening game, possessed powerful allies in the form of Ghost-Mages. These ghosts allowed the ancient monster to be protected against magic and to use it against her enemies. Through her blood she made herself their anchor, a power that was turned against her in the game. Another powerful ally of the Antediluvian was an Idigam, a primordial spirit that could become anything. It gave her the power to create living vampires and later place ghost-mages into the bodies of ghouls and vampires. These Ghost Claimed Vampires had access to magical Arcana and were a quite challenge to deal with.

Possible Allies

So I hope this sparks your imagination in creating new and surprising challenges for your players. Sometimes it is not the weird power the monster has but who its friends are.