Spelljammer: Adventures in Space contains Boo's Astral Menagerie, a book full of wonderful monsters to encounter during your adventures in Wildspace. Within these pages lies the answer to an age-old question—what's better, vampires or pirates? And the answer is yes! Setting sail across the Astral Sea, vampirates are undead brigands that will terrorize your spelljamming players with vicious swordplay and life-draining abilities.
- Monster Preview: Vampirates
- It's a Vampirate's Unlife for Me
- The Vampirate Code
- Setting Sail With Vampirates
Monster Preview: Vampirates
Vampirates aren't created in the same way as traditional vampires—as in, they weren't bitten by another vampire or cursed by some form of magic to acquire their undead existence. Instead, vampirates are the husks of astral pirates who faced death and rejected its eternal embrace.
But, this refusal to go quietly into the realm of the dead comes with a price: Vampirates must consume the lifeforce of other creatures to continue their unlife. Unlike their bitey landlubber kin, vampirates don't extract the life from a creature by draining its vital fluids—an act that vampirates look upon with distaste. Instead, vampirates can consume another creature's life energy using their Energy Drain ability. This trait can affect prey up to 30 feet away from the vampirates and restores some semblance of a healthier and robust appearance, though never truly restores life itself.
It's a Vampirate's Unlife for Me
Apart from their differing origins, the vampirate's Energy Drain is what truly sets them apart from their other vampiric kin. As an attack that can be used in melee or range, it's a deadly and useful tool to catch your players off guard.
The trickiest part about the vampirate's Energy Drain is creatures reduced to 0 hit points by the attack die instantly with no death saving throws. The poor soul then immediately rises as a shadow. Although the shadow is "free-willed," they are still under the Dungeon Master's control, making this a cruel end for a player character indeed.
But, say your players have avoided a future as spectral darkness and managed to slay a vampirate. Unfortunately, they're not out of the woods yet, for the snuffed swashbuckler has one last trick up their sleeve. When a vampirate is reduced to 0 hit points, their Explode trait triggers, reducing the vampirate to a cloud of toxic dust. This dust deals necrotic damage to any creature within 5 feet of the ex-vampirate on a failed Constitution saving throw.
The Vampirate Code
Vampirates offer a fun way to incorporate two different classic tropes into your game. With their unique abilities, your players will be left not knowing what to expect.
Vampirates typically ply the Astral Sea on a spelljamming ship accompanied by a number of shadows drawn from the husks of their prey. The ship will be led by a vampirate captain—though how long the captain of a cunning crew of undead brigands can remain in power is uncertain. They might also have an undead companion, such as a will-o'-wisp or a crawling claw, possibly one of their own missing limbs, a peg leg, or a hook taking their place.
For as long as the captain is in charge, their temperament is reflected in their crew—from bloody raiders to parlaying rakes. Some crews will pillage every vessel they come across, leaving naught but flotsam and jetsam in their wake, while others will drain victims sparingly, often leaving survivors. It's important to decide what kind of captain leads a vampirate crew and what flag they sail under. Will your players face merciless undead or lost souls that seek to rise against their tyrant captain?
Of almost equal importance on any ship sailing the Astral Sea is the spelljammer, which is where the vampirate mage comes in. Rarely leaving the spelljamming helm, they pilot the ship through the Astral Sea, taking it in search of life energy to plunder and buckles to be swashed.
Setting Sail With Vampirates
You can stock an entire spelljamming ship with vampirates should you wish. Or, you can use them as the officers of the vessel, filling out the rest of the crew with remnants of their prey—shadows. This can create an eerie ghost ship feeling, especially if you don't reveal the vampirates initially and instead have the players wander the deck as spectral images floating about fulfilling their duties.
Once the vampirates make their presence known, don't be afraid to lean into their charismatic nature. Both vampires and pirates are known to be roguishly charming, and these undead are a double threat.
But once the niceties are over and the parlaying has ended, vampirates can bring a lot to the fight. Their Energy Drain ability can be devastating—even at higher levels because of the auto-death trigger—and you can use your players' assumptions against them. They may expect vampires to have to close the distance to start draining their life. But, as Energy Drain can be used as a melee or ranged spell attack, the vampirate's pearly white fangs serve mainly aesthetic purposes. To lean into this fake-out, you can open with a melee Energy Drain first to lure your players into thinking these are like regular vampires who need to get close to drain their prey. Then, when they least expect it, bust out the 30-foot ranged spell attack and upend their strategy!
Assuming your player's characters don't end up becoming permanent, intangible members of the crew, the vampirate's Explode trait will be a fun little surprise when the tides have begun to turn. The damage type for this trait is necrotic, which means it doesn't risk setting other vampirates off in a chain reaction, thanks to their damage immunities. Although, having a group of low hit point vampirates swarm a weak party member as a last-ditch effort to take them out would certainly be an explosive conclusion to the fight!
Where to Find Vampirates
Vampirates can be found in Boo's Astral Menagerie, one of the three books included in Spelljammer: Adventures in Space. You can preorder Spelljammer: Adventures in Space now to instantly unlock perks. Then, jump right into the books when it releases on August 16.
Davyd is a moderator for D&D Beyond. A Dungeon Master of over fifteen years, he enjoys Marvel movies, writing, and of course running D&D for his friends and family, including partner Steph and his daughter Willow (well, one day). They live with their two cats Asker and Khatleesi in the south of England.
Lol yes! 😆
Granted I haven't played Spelljammer since AD&D, but why is everything being made overly simplistic and juvenile? Space clowns, vampirates and a ship combat system that seems like it has been unnecessarily dumbed down is certainly not what me or my friends were anticipating when we heard the announcement. Has there been any talk about why this is the direction they have decided to go with one of their more highly anticipated releases?
Obviously I understand that this might be super great for some people, it's just left me a little perplexed and I am feeling like I missed out on some novel or something that would explain all of this.
Nice article.
I never played the original Spelljammer, but I've since read all the 2e sourcebooks for it, and this all seems amazingly in keeping with the goofy magic space adventures those books are built for. The entire setting comes off as a silly, stoned fever dream.
The rules are simplified ("dumbed-down" is real judgmental) but that's just because 5e aims to be a much simpler version of the game overall. Advantage and disadvantage take the place of a lot of flat bonuses and penalties, which was a lot of what 2e thrived on.
I only used "dumbed-down" because I didn't want to use simplified twice in two sentences and my internal thesaurus was failing me, but simplified is the better term. I understand that overall theme of 5e, and I enjoy what 5e is, but things like ship maneuverability are woefully missing from the adventures we were given making ship-to-ship combat feel flat.
Sup guys i'm new
Not sure if they're part of Spelljammer's legacy in prior editions, but I'm meh about the name too. Energy Vampire or Soul Vampire I think would have been more fine (and would give the monster more utility outside Spelljammer's campy thematics). Plus, to my ear the word is squandered on an easy gag. To me, "Vampirates" sounds more like a state or power block reigning over a geography or world, like an Emirates. Like I could picture Energy or Soul Vampires wielding their shadow collectives over some sort of necro world or world in Spelljammer and that place is called the Vampirates. In fact, I think I'll stick with that and just call these what they are "energy vampires."
You mean like Colin Robinson?
An instance of the type, but not necessarily a universal of the type. I mean Colin Robinson would likely not rise very high in the ranks of the Vampirates realm I mentioned, and would likely be exiled to the sorta merry privateer role in the overview article, though he'd be a melancholic privateer.
I want to say in the 80s "emotional vampire" did actually have at least some pop psychology legs when describing a sort of narcissistic abuser personality type, but that's like (quite likely literally) Readers' Digest level recollection.
THATS WHAT IM SAYING! hahaha
I'll take your word for it. I don't know anything about the astral sea vampirates, and won't know more until the new book comes out. I have dug into older Spelljammer a bit which indicated that undead made great spelljamming crews because they didn't need air and the like.
But the pirates listed in the Ghost of Saltmarsh book are special to me. Don't really know why but there is something about them that makes me want to build them as the terrors of the seas in any sea excusions.
If they have any sense of culture, they will indeed.
Ahoy, Vampirates are here to loot all day. Drink all up ye rums. No money? Find prey. Yo ho ho ho, a pirate's life in space! Oi Cap'n. It's the Ninja Werewolves ship approaching real close! What do?
I think that's cool
"Our Flag Means (Un)Death"
vampirates always float my boat
They do in 5e; main reason Im buying this!!