Vampires Species in Adventures Along the Sword Coast | World Anvil
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Vampires

Awakened to an endless night, vampires hunger for the life they have lost and sate that hunger by drinking the blood of the living. Vampires abhor sunlight, for its touch burns them. They never cast shadows or reflections, and any vampire wishing to move unnoticed among the living keeps to the darkness and far from reflective surfaces.   Whether or not a vampire retains any memories from its former life, its emotional attachments wither as once-pure feelings become twisted by undeath. Love turns into hungry obsession, while friendship becomes bitter jealousy. In place of emotion, vampires pursue physical symbols of what they crave, so that a vampire seeking love might fixate on a young beauty. A child might become an object of fascination for a vampire obsessed with youth and potential. Others surround themselves with art, books, or sinister items such as torture devices or trophies from creatures they have killed.   Most of a vampire’s victims become vampire spawn — ravenous creatures with a vampire’s hunger for blood, but under the control of the vampire that created them. If a true vampire allows a spawn to draw blood from its own body, the spawn transforms into a true vampire no longer under its master’s control. Few vampires are willing to relinquish their control in this manner. Vampire spawn become free-willed when their creator dies.   Every vampire remains bound to its coffin, crypt, or grave site, where it must rest by day. If a vampire didn’t receive a formal burial, it must lie beneath a foot of earth at the place of its transition to undeath. A vampire can move its place of burial by transporting its coffin or a significant amount of grave dirt to another location. Some vampires set up multiple resting places this way.  

Mind Drinker Vampires

  Some vampires can learn to siphon mental energy and memories along with or in place of the blood of their victims. They also study the magic favored by mind mages, giving them a powerful combination of abilities ideal for espionage and infiltration. Thanks to their particular gifts, mind drinkers are often placed as leaders of small cells of covert operatives. They rarely trust their own agents, though, and often follow their cell members to make sure those members carry out missions as ordered. The most suspicious vampires might even siphon thoughts from their subordinates to detect any hint of betrayal.

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