 Welcome back, Foodbag, to the greatest month of the year, the only month where I put on a white wig and a guy liner and become the saviour of the broken, the beaten and the damned. Today we're journeying back to the era of 2008 to 2011, an age of twilight, edgy, sanguinario seas and vampires permeating everything from voodoo to video games. We will talk about vampires as they pertain to the world of D&D and beyond, and you will learn how to spot a vampire for tonight is a horrible night to have a curse. But with that out of the way, let's begin. He throws his bread against the post and still insists he makes the toast. So vampires are among the most famous mythological monsters in folklore, with their popular traits being paleness, blood drinking and a sexy disposition. Pretty much every universe has its own take on vampires from infamous movies to infamous games. And when writers don't know what to do with a character, why not turn them into a vampire and give them double their cool factor? Isn't that right, Jubilee? The reason I'm bringing this up instead of just diving into the D&D stuff is to show you that the perception of what a vampire is supposed to be has changed somewhat over the 40 plus years that D&D has been alive, and so the rules that vampires follow change with each addition as more and more people grow up with their own version of an angsty teenage vampire phase. You've all been there. Yes, you have. Don't lie. The vampire of today is a nightmarish creature, meant to remedy the sympathetic bent of yesteryear by casting longer shadows than ever before, played almost exclusively straight as an antagonist sent to prey on adventuring parties. Their overwhelming strength is matched by their cleverness, as no vampire survives for long without getting smart, and no smart vampire will let you survive to find their weakness. And that is because, as you'll find both on the Feehold and in the Sheets, their weaknesses are many. Much like the Fae and their cold iron or werewolves and their silver, vampires have probably the longest laundry list of rules that they have to follow, or else they will spontaneously combust. Obviously, you know about sunlight, giving them the same kryptonite as your 37-year-old basement brother, but did you know that vampires can't cross running water or else their makeup will wash off, or that vampires can't enter a home without being invited in just like Mormons, or that if you stab a vampire in the heart with a wooden stake, they'll fall over and be paralyzed until the stake is removed, which shouldn't really be counted as a weakness since most people who get a stake through their heart die, but it's part of the myth, so whatever. With so many things plaguing the vampire, it makes you wonder why we even consider them a real threat. Oh, right. What vampires lack in survivability to common natural occurrences, they more than make up for in front-loaded power. Your average vampire has super strength, super speed. They can charm any 14- to 19-year-old romance novelist. They can turn into a bat and fly. Some of them can just fly anyway because of reasons. And when they kill their victims, they have the option of raising them back up as a spawn, a particular breed of vampire that lacks most of the OG's powers, but definitely carries over all of its weaknesses. The unlife of a spawn is usually pretty short, as they're compelled to obey all of their sire's commands, which means that they're often sent on suicide missions that the main vampire has no interest in dying for. The only way for a vampire spawn to promote themselves into a proper tenant of the Sesame Street is for them to drink the blood of their own master. And some people just aren't into that. Also, if the spawn's master is killed, the link between the two is broken, and the spawn is free to do whatever it wants. But that doesn't immediately make them a normal vampire, so they'll be pretty gimped if they can't find their master's corpse and do the suck. But if they manage it, then they'll be gifted with all the powers that come with being an edgelord. And being the reanimated corpse of what used to be a person, it stands to reason that they would have all the powers that their previous life had, which means that former adventurers, transformed into demons of the night, will still be walking spell towers, even when all their O-positives drain from their bodies. As a DM, you should recognize this as the perfect surprise for your players. Every group has that one person who looks up all the monster stat blocks, but technically there is a role in the monster manual about player characters afflicted with vampire-ism, so there's nothing stopping you from just applying that template to whatever you want and call and get a master vampire. In fact, the most popular D&D vampire of them all, Strahd Von Zarovich, is practically that already, since the Lord of Blez is regarded as a master spellcaster capable of matching even the Ark Wizard Mordincanon. And with his ultimate vampire stat block layered over an accomplished wizard stat block, Strahd continues to be one of the most memorable fights in D&D. In fact, the best vampires are the ones who stick around for a while. Like I've said before, vampires don't live long without sending some of that blood to their brain, so you've got three usual avenues when it comes to what breed of bloodsucker you're bringing into your games. The most straightforward vampire that you'll fight is the brute. They stand at the end of the dungeon, tackle a bit, spring some sort of trap on you, and then just start passing out hand sandwiches free of charge. These vampires are the most likely to send out their spawn to challenge you to a rat battle to the death, and their basic MO is to frighten the inhabitants with overwhelming power so that they don't even bother to try and fight back. So if you want a traditional hack and slash with lots of fang punching, there's not much else to say about running these. The next most used vampire is the sneaky type, the one that crouches down a little and suddenly you can't see them anymore. When a vampire like this comes to town, their goal is to remain as unseen as possible while they slowly take over a town, and then move on to the next town after they've vamped the inhabitants. With this vampire, you want it to be difficult to ascertain exactly what you're dealing with for as long as possible. Since the less information that can get out to the public, the less information can be used to kill them, and the more mystery surrounding the vampire, the more spooky it is. Think of it like a murder mystery with a supernatural twist, and if you want a good example of this story being done well, I'd recommend the anime Shiki. It's a story about a group of vampires that move into a castle in a small Japanese town and it just oozes with atmosphere, although warning, it does get a little bloody as it goes on. Finally, the most common modern incarnation of the vampire is the charmer, a literal and figurative manifestation of predators everywhere. Social vampires are the best at acting like super nice guys, TM, but their ultimate purpose is to slide into your DMs and say, hey baby, I'm a fellow human, just like you, wanna come over to my place and roll around in my human coffin? This is the one that they'll write books about, the vampire that appears to be socially capable, perhaps even likable, mourning the life they once had to lure you in and let your guard down, and then suddenly, psych, they bite you and not in the kinky way. Okay, maybe, and anyway, the point with these vampires is to be socially intelligent. They were human once, so they know how humans behave and they will play on their emotions for as long as necessary to see their enemies croak. One thing you still have to know about vampires, though, is that this is always a ruse. The curse of vampirism makes that character evil, and the trope of good vampires has been overdone so hard that it is currently cooler to make vampires angsty, but mean, played straight so that the vampire counterculture will counter the counterculture that used to be. In this vein, Strahd von Zarovich manages to invoke all three types of vampire. He is the socialite that lures you into his realm and beckons you into his dinner table. The shadow that dances along the walls as you creep through Castle Ravenloft and the claw that traces along your back before caressing your spine and ripping it out. He is the ancient, he is the land, and he wants to suck. But that'll about do it. I hope you enjoyed this video. Be sure to like, comment, and subscribe. Ring the bell for more shabby videos and maybe support me on Patreon so that I can purchase new copies of my favorite middle school book, The Chronicles of Vladimir Todd. But yeah, Davi out.