50 Shades of Vampires, Part IV

Originally published April 17, 2013

Yet another installment of variant vampires. This week we will look at an idea from World of Darkness: Antagonists with a twist: fungus infested vampires.

Just one vision of vampires

The idea for this brand of vampires comes from a story seed idea for the flesh dissolving mold in the final chapter. That concept was that the mold could bond with a vampire resulting some sort of flesh dissolving undead. That is cool but could be more interesting. What I want is a vampire that turns one of assumptions about vampires on its head. Namely that fire is a good weapon to use against the undead.

The idea borrows a bit from the reaction of some pine trees, such as the Jack pine to wild fires. With Jack pines fire activates the pine cones allowing new trees to grow after a forest fire. So combine this with a parasitic fungus living inside an undead creature and you have a creature that when exposed to fire releases spores.

That's good but not good enough. So let's make those spore hallucinogenic Thus setting an infected vampire on fire makes its living attackers trip out. While fighting a frenzied vampire.

Thus the Malphaens were born in my long running Mage: the Awakening chronicle. They are my version of Belial’s brood, Satanic vampires who ritually seed their bodies with this fungus. It in turns instills a constant tension of frenzy in them and opens the way to strange deviant powers. It also serves as a defense of sorts against mortals foolish enough to set them on fire. Even as one of them burns alive the others can take advantage of their foes disorientation and fear to strike back.

Mechanics

Essentially trapped in a continual state of frenzy, they gain a +1 bonus to all physical rolls and +2 bonus to resist mental domination. They suffer -2 penalty to rein in their rage but +2 bonus to overcome any fear.

They release spores in the area around them. Though they can't normally infect living creatures and quickly die in the absence of a viable host, they do cause psychedelic reactions. A Stamina + Resolve roll is necessary to resist the toxins. If exposed the fire, the toxins become stronger imposing a -3 penalty to the roll. The spores cause a -2 penalty to rolls and Defense due to nightmarish visions of fire and demons. An Intelligence + Empathy at -1 penalty is required for the victim to even realize that they are hallucinating.

As a Covenant

The Malphaens as a covenant recruit mostly of Daeva, Gangrel and Nosferatu clans. They favor the Celerity, Nightmare, Protean, Resilience, and Vigor disciplines though do not gain any particular bonuses with them beyond the powers below.
Gifts of the Rot

Infested (Prerequisite: Resilience 2) The spores thoroughly infect the vampire, showing up as black veins and discolored eyes. They suffer a penalty to all social rolls except intimidate equal to the level of infested. Due to the constant pain however they are immune to wound penalties. This costs 10 XP.

Decay (Prerequisite: Protean 2/Resilience 2) Rather than go into torpor, the vampire collapses into the ground as a greasy pile of mold. The mold itself can be destroyed with effort (it has structure equal the vampires health and resists fire as if it had durability 2). This costs 10 XP.

Rotten (Prerequisite: a total of 6 dots in Protean & Resilience): The vampire's body is transformed by the fungus internally. Their heart and consciousness is now spread throughout their bodies as they and the fungus become one. The vampire no longer has special vulnerabilities to being shot in the head or heart. A stake to the heart will still paralyze them but in theory they can survive beheading. This costs 30 XP.

Corrupt: the vampire can destroy objects with an acidic touch. This takes the form of a rapidly spreading fungal rot. There is no cost but they roll Stamina + Blood Potency to damage the object and its durability still needs to be overcome. It can also use this ability to infect other corporeal undead with the fungus. This is a an opposed Stamina + Blood Potency roll vs. the targets Stamina + Resolve + Blood Potency. This is an automatic benefit of the Malphaens.

Speedy Decay (Prerequisite: Celerity 2, Corrupt): the vampires can now affects an area with a single Decay attack. It affects a circular patch with a base radius of 1 yard. Double the radius once per dot of Celerity. This costs 15 XP.

Visions of Nightmares (Prerequisite: Nightmare 2) Using their mastery of fear they gain some control over the visions their victims suffer. This gives a bonus equal to their dots in Nightmare to all Nightmare rolls used against character's effected by their spores.

Conclusion

Turning a weakness into a strength needs careful attention to make it seem like something other than nerfing the character's tactics. It needs a good story and unexpected consequences. I hope you've enjoyed this variant vampire.