Homebrew Zendikari Vampire Species Details

To members of the other races, vampires are a fearsome mystery and the stuff of nightmares, hunting their prey like beasts or reclining on thrones made of skulls in their moss-draped cities. Their existence is predicated on draining the life from others to fuel their own existence, and on putting their own lives ahead of all other concerns. Philosophically, they do not constrain themselves with artificial rules of morality, but believe that the strong can and should take what they need from the weak.

Between the Living and the Dead
The vampires of Zendikar are not undead. Rather, their unique nature comes from an eldritch disease that turns their flesh cold, makes their gray or purple skin feel dead to the touch, and enables them to drain concentrated magical energy from the blood of other living creatures. They are tall and slender, with long, elegant necks and broad shoulders. Bony horns protrude from their shoulders and elbows, often augmented by the layered plates of their armor and clothing. Their canine teeth are slightly elongated, but not enough to protrude between their closed lips.

Vampires dress in leather and the chitin carapaces of the gigantic insects that dwell in the swamps and jungles of their native Guul Draz, augmented with fine silk and gauzy fabric. They decorate their skin in elaborate, symmetrical patterns of red paint made from blood and mineral pigments. Their clothing is an odd mixture of complex layers and elaborate patterns combined with plenty of exposed skin, since their cold bodies are unaffected by the temperature around them.

Zendikari Vampire Traits

Vampiric Resistance, Blood Thirst

Darkvision

You can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light, and in darkness as if it were dim light. You can’t discern color in darkness, only shades of gray.

Vampiric Resistance

You have resistance to necrotic damage.

Blood Thirst

You can drain blood and life energy from a willing creature, or one that is grappled by you, incapacitated, or restrained. Make a melee attack against the target. If you hit, you deal 1 piercing damage and 1d6 necrotic damage. The target’s hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken, and you regain hit points equal to that amount. The reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. The target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0. A humanoid killed in this way becomes a null - a zombie loyal to the vampire that drained it.

At 5st level, you can create 1 Null (Monster Manual Zombie statblock). If you create another, the first one crumbles to dust as your control over it fades.

At 10th level, you can create 2 Nulls . If you create more, the oldest Null crumbles to dust.

At 15th level, you can create 3 Nulls. If you create more, the oldest Null crumbles to dust.

At 19th level, you can create 4 Nulls. If you create more, the oldest Null crumbles to dust.

At 20th level, you can create 5 Nulls (Vampire Spawn Statblock)

Languages

You can speak, read, and write Common and Vampire.

Ability Score Increase

Your Intelligence score increases by 1, and your Charisma score increases by 2.

Age

Every living vampire is either a bloodchief, or was spawned by a bloodchief from a living human. Most vampires are thus very old, but few have any memory of their earliest years

Alignment

Regardless of their moral bent, the strict hierarchies of their bloodchiefs inclines them toward a lawful alignment.