In the original D&D the first Vampire was none other than Strahd von Zarovich, in later editions the origins of vampirism were less clear, ranging from one arising from the life draining kiss of a succubus, to their creation by Orcus in the likeness of Haemnathuun the Blood Lord. In pathfinder the first vampires, known as nosferatu, came to be as a result of monsters pulled from the realm of shadows often referred to as strigoi, a creature whose likeness and statistics have been lost to time as they have been completely wiped out or banished back whence they came.
In your games, what is the origins of Vampirism if you have one. Where does it come from and why?
In my homebrew campaign many thousands of years ago a great wizard on the threshold of lichedom offered the gift of eternal life to his 8 most loyal generals, he used a series of rituals and spells he had learnt and created to give them eternal life but also bind their souls to himself ensuring they would always be his servants and never obey any other. This aspect of the ritual required the 8 to drink his blood.
However Orcus had been watching this wizard and while he was fascinated with the ritual being created he realised that any being, mortal or otherwise, that could corrupt undeath without his influence would grow to become a threat to himself, so he sent a servant to corrupt the ritual and ensure the ritual would succeed in the way he wanted.
The wizard completed the ritual however even as the 8 drunk from the chalice he could sense something was wrong, instead of the souls of each passing to him, instead of the 8 becoming his thralls each gazed at him with a hunger. A need to taste the blood of a living being overcame them. As they advanced on this wizard, as he attempted to gather the strength that had been taken from him by completing this ritual to try and survive Orcus spoke to him and offered him a deal, survival now and the fealty of the 8 in return for him becoming an undying servant of Orcus, in a moment he showed this wizard all that he could give him, the power he could offer.
The Wizard accepted, taking his place as one of Orcus great generals, becoming the great liche Vecna. The 8 become the first ever Vampires. Eventually Vecna and his 8 generals marched out into the world, a great battle was fought and ultimately Vecna and the 8 where defeated, scattered believing their leader dead they found the dark places of the world to hide and recover, discovering there ability to create other vampires they created their own domains. Vecna retreated to the shadowfell recovering and Orcus sat back, his plan complete, he did not want Vecna to rule the mortal plane, because he foresaw that Vecna would soon after be vying for his own seat and this way a new race of undead was out in the world able to spread his word.
In my game, the less common the being the more unclear its story. Humanoids for example, largely have frequent contact through either cosmopolitan states or trade or wars, so there's history, which can be debated but it's not too much work to determine the facts. Unusual and rare creatures, dragons, vampires etc. are so infrequently encountered they're place in the world is only accounted in myths about them largely derived from "that one time" decades or centuries back a community had contact with such an entity.
Of course that's a luxury in my game world. If vampires or a particularly tenacious vampire became the center of a campaign, I'd have settle on some things. It's odd I haven't since undead do seem to be playing an increasing role.
Fiends are more centered currently, while Orcus hasn't been directly encountered, in my game he's basically a very successful edge lord who is adept at manipulating (or being manipulated by) Negative plane necrotic energy in propagating the undead ... but like souls, undeath and it's forms comes from somewhere unclear to most beings, but it's something Orcus is beholden to. At some point whatever that stuff, it is corrupted a mortal into a vampire to abuse the living through direct propagation of vampirism and or subjugation of the living to undeath.
The different vampire clans have different origins. While their characteristics overlap, they are distinct. Due to the fact that there are no hybrids between clans, they get territorial and their population in a area signifies the amount of power they have in the area.
We have those who come from a patient zero where a deadly plague became something else entirely, those who come from a single Vampire whose origins are unknown, those who bear a gods-given curse, those who come from one whose own magic went awry, and new clans being discovered rarely. They all suffer from a thirst, but all have varying benefits.
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Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider. My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong. I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲 “It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I like the story behind this. You took some things that weren't known before and combined them with things we already knew and things we can relate to. Though it would be interesting to see how the story unfolded, if there was no creature such as Orcus in your Cosmology. I'll be at this point soon during the creation of my campaign world as I will be introducing Vampires for the first time.
While I can see your point in connecting history, story, or even knowledge to the rarity of a creature, I'd like to point out here, that it's generally very unsatisfying for players to realize that there is nothing to explore on a topic they are interested in.
I don't have a campaign, but I have an outline for a book.
The vampire at the end is a creature that exists purely by willpower. Vampires are people who while alive had an incredible sense of will and egotism that simply would not let them die by natural causes. They can become fog to travel by force of will. Wolves obey them because they recognize just how insanely dangerous a vampire is.
The fire and daylight weaknesses are because they are the symbols of god, which it has rejected. Weapons are meaningless and usually the only thing that can stop them is encountering another force of will greater than it (which with a greater "soul" /egotism, means they too are likely to turn into vampires, not the blood swapping BS).
Vampires reject god then actively feed on all manner of life, (a la Renfield's explanation),and use that life to keep them alive. They are the definition of insatiable, and rarely are acting on anything but hunger and the need to feed. The stronger the will however, the more they retain an ego, and thus, are paradoxically more together than lowly revenants but at the same time are still driven by a ravenous desire for power and glory.
Ultimately, it's an angel's sword that takes it down. Weilded by an angel. An angel's sword has spines in the grip which are hollow. Angels are created from fire, and their blood is fire. The firey sword is literally on fire because the spine draw them blood of its wielder into the blade itself. The idea is based on some items of self flagellation items of the devout (IRL), which fit the mythology well, and I wanted something that would make these weapons useless to humanity and also create an allusion/metaphor to the idea of swinging a blade against another is an act that's also hurtful to the self.
Feel free to run with the concept, just don't steal it whole cloth.
In the real world, one of the first vampire myths, if not the first, is a Jewish tale about King Solomon. The vampire in the story is actually a demon who comes at night and sucks Solomon's blood out through his finger. He does this in an attempt to kill him before he finishes the construction of the temple.
The first vampires in my world were really pseudo-demonic spirits that were in no way human. Humans used these spirits to gain power, some infused the spirits in their blood in hopes of immortality, others were possessed by the demons, and those who were killed by the spirits became some of the first humanoid vampires. Nowadays vampires come in many shapes and sizes, some are aristocratic nobles of undeath, others would be hard to tell apart from the average zombie. However they all share a vile thirst for blood and a pesky refusal to stay in their graves.
Vampirism is part of the Giants' revenge against refugees from future Earth who stole the world from them. The first vampires were living mortals turned by Cyclopean priests, who hoped to spread the plague of undeath and ultimately destroy those travelers. Unfortunately, the party cured the one member I had managed to infect, so I guess we have to wait until the next campaign to find out what that means...
In Vecna eve of ruin (pages 5-6) It talks about Kas' history with Vecna and mentions how Kas lived in the shadowfell for a long time so he transformed into a vampire. I like to think that, that is the same way the first vampire was made. Strahd supposedly made a pact with an "unknown" being and chose to cheat death, the "unknown" being could've been Shar (the creator of the shadowfell) and that may be why people who live in the shadowfell for a long time become vampires.
The ritual that happens to most vampire spawns needs another vampire for it to work, (it has a "who came first the chicken or the egg" problem) so living in the shadowfell for a long time would make sense but it would have to be a long long time, otherwise anyone could become a Vampire. Not to mention, you could also become a sorrowsworn.
This is just my way to fill the blanks and it's probably not the canon thing but since it makes sense I like to use this idea.
In the original D&D the first Vampire was none other than Strahd von Zarovich, in later editions the origins of vampirism were less clear, ranging from one arising from the life draining kiss of a succubus, to their creation by Orcus in the likeness of Haemnathuun the Blood Lord. In pathfinder the first vampires, known as nosferatu, came to be as a result of monsters pulled from the realm of shadows often referred to as strigoi, a creature whose likeness and statistics have been lost to time as they have been completely wiped out or banished back whence they came.
In your games, what is the origins of Vampirism if you have one. Where does it come from and why?
In my homebrew campaign many thousands of years ago a great wizard on the threshold of lichedom offered the gift of eternal life to his 8 most loyal generals, he used a series of rituals and spells he had learnt and created to give them eternal life but also bind their souls to himself ensuring they would always be his servants and never obey any other. This aspect of the ritual required the 8 to drink his blood.
However Orcus had been watching this wizard and while he was fascinated with the ritual being created he realised that any being, mortal or otherwise, that could corrupt undeath without his influence would grow to become a threat to himself, so he sent a servant to corrupt the ritual and ensure the ritual would succeed in the way he wanted.
The wizard completed the ritual however even as the 8 drunk from the chalice he could sense something was wrong, instead of the souls of each passing to him, instead of the 8 becoming his thralls each gazed at him with a hunger. A need to taste the blood of a living being overcame them. As they advanced on this wizard, as he attempted to gather the strength that had been taken from him by completing this ritual to try and survive Orcus spoke to him and offered him a deal, survival now and the fealty of the 8 in return for him becoming an undying servant of Orcus, in a moment he showed this wizard all that he could give him, the power he could offer.
The Wizard accepted, taking his place as one of Orcus great generals, becoming the great liche Vecna. The 8 become the first ever Vampires. Eventually Vecna and his 8 generals marched out into the world, a great battle was fought and ultimately Vecna and the 8 where defeated, scattered believing their leader dead they found the dark places of the world to hide and recover, discovering there ability to create other vampires they created their own domains. Vecna retreated to the shadowfell recovering and Orcus sat back, his plan complete, he did not want Vecna to rule the mortal plane, because he foresaw that Vecna would soon after be vying for his own seat and this way a new race of undead was out in the world able to spread his word.
All or none of the above?
In my game, the less common the being the more unclear its story. Humanoids for example, largely have frequent contact through either cosmopolitan states or trade or wars, so there's history, which can be debated but it's not too much work to determine the facts. Unusual and rare creatures, dragons, vampires etc. are so infrequently encountered they're place in the world is only accounted in myths about them largely derived from "that one time" decades or centuries back a community had contact with such an entity.
Of course that's a luxury in my game world. If vampires or a particularly tenacious vampire became the center of a campaign, I'd have settle on some things. It's odd I haven't since undead do seem to be playing an increasing role.
Fiends are more centered currently, while Orcus hasn't been directly encountered, in my game he's basically a very successful edge lord who is adept at manipulating (or being manipulated by) Negative plane necrotic energy in propagating the undead ... but like souls, undeath and it's forms comes from somewhere unclear to most beings, but it's something Orcus is beholden to. At some point whatever that stuff, it is corrupted a mortal into a vampire to abuse the living through direct propagation of vampirism and or subjugation of the living to undeath.
Jander Sunstar is the thinking person's Drizzt, fight me.
The different vampire clans have different origins. While their characteristics overlap, they are distinct. Due to the fact that there are no hybrids between clans, they get territorial and their population in a area signifies the amount of power they have in the area.
We have those who come from a patient zero where a deadly plague became something else entirely, those who come from a single Vampire whose origins are unknown, those who bear a gods-given curse, those who come from one whose own magic went awry, and new clans being discovered rarely. They all suffer from a thirst, but all have varying benefits.
Human. Male. Possibly. Don't be a divider.
My characters' backgrounds are written like instruction manuals rather than stories. My opinion and preferences don't mean you're wrong.
I am 99.7603% convinced that the digital dice are messing with me. I roll high when nobody's looking and low when anyone else can see.🎲
“It's a bit early to be thinking about an epitaph. No?” will be my epitaph.
I like the story behind this. You took some things that weren't known before and combined them with things we already knew and things we can relate to. Though it would be interesting to see how the story unfolded, if there was no creature such as Orcus in your Cosmology. I'll be at this point soon during the creation of my campaign world as I will be introducing Vampires for the first time.
While I can see your point in connecting history, story, or even knowledge to the rarity of a creature, I'd like to point out here, that it's generally very unsatisfying for players to realize that there is nothing to explore on a topic they are interested in.
I don't have a campaign, but I have an outline for a book.
The vampire at the end is a creature that exists purely by willpower. Vampires are people who while alive had an incredible sense of will and egotism that simply would not let them die by natural causes. They can become fog to travel by force of will. Wolves obey them because they recognize just how insanely dangerous a vampire is.
The fire and daylight weaknesses are because they are the symbols of god, which it has rejected. Weapons are meaningless and usually the only thing that can stop them is encountering another force of will greater than it (which with a greater "soul" /egotism, means they too are likely to turn into vampires, not the blood swapping BS).
Vampires reject god then actively feed on all manner of life, (a la Renfield's explanation),and use that life to keep them alive. They are the definition of insatiable, and rarely are acting on anything but hunger and the need to feed. The stronger the will however, the more they retain an ego, and thus, are paradoxically more together than lowly revenants but at the same time are still driven by a ravenous desire for power and glory.
Ultimately, it's an angel's sword that takes it down. Weilded by an angel. An angel's sword has spines in the grip which are hollow. Angels are created from fire, and their blood is fire. The firey sword is literally on fire because the spine draw them blood of its wielder into the blade itself. The idea is based on some items of self flagellation items of the devout (IRL), which fit the mythology well, and I wanted something that would make these weapons useless to humanity and also create an allusion/metaphor to the idea of swinging a blade against another is an act that's also hurtful to the self.
Feel free to run with the concept, just don't steal it whole cloth.
In the real world, one of the first vampire myths, if not the first, is a Jewish tale about King Solomon. The vampire in the story is actually a demon who comes at night and sucks Solomon's blood out through his finger. He does this in an attempt to kill him before he finishes the construction of the temple.
The first vampires in my world were really pseudo-demonic spirits that were in no way human. Humans used these spirits to gain power, some infused the spirits in their blood in hopes of immortality, others were possessed by the demons, and those who were killed by the spirits became some of the first humanoid vampires. Nowadays vampires come in many shapes and sizes, some are aristocratic nobles of undeath, others would be hard to tell apart from the average zombie. However they all share a vile thirst for blood and a pesky refusal to stay in their graves.
Vampirism is part of the Giants' revenge against refugees from future Earth who stole the world from them. The first vampires were living mortals turned by Cyclopean priests, who hoped to spread the plague of undeath and ultimately destroy those travelers. Unfortunately, the party cured the one member I had managed to infect, so I guess we have to wait until the next campaign to find out what that means...
In Vecna eve of ruin (pages 5-6) It talks about Kas' history with Vecna and mentions how Kas lived in the shadowfell for a long time so he transformed into a vampire. I like to think that, that is the same way the first vampire was made. Strahd supposedly made a pact with an "unknown" being and chose to cheat death, the "unknown" being could've been Shar (the creator of the shadowfell) and that may be why people who live in the shadowfell for a long time become vampires.
The ritual that happens to most vampire spawns needs another vampire for it to work, (it has a "who came first the chicken or the egg" problem) so living in the shadowfell for a long time would make sense but it would have to be a long long time, otherwise anyone could become a Vampire. Not to mention, you could also become a sorrowsworn.
This is just my way to fill the blanks and it's probably not the canon thing but since it makes sense I like to use this idea.