Vampires

Civilization and Culture

History

They are a type of undead which spread amongst the land of Igimas at the beginning of the Bronze Age. The infection of their blood can be spread by either having another mortal creature drink the blood, be bitten with infected venom or inherit the blood of a vampire in birth. The first two create normal vampires or vampire spawn, but the third one carries the possibility of creating a Dhampir, a half-breed. Dhampir are considered as the "mutt" equivalent of the vampire bloodlines of the world. They have access to many vampiric abilities and they are not hurt by sunlight, but they still carry a weakness to concentrated Radiant Energy. The reason they are considered inferior however is their extremely long development period. they take an incredibly long time to grow up. This applies to their brain as well, so their mental faculties take much longer to adapt than a normal child.
The bloodline of vampirism has two points of Origin. The first and main one is Strahd von Zarovich, the first vampire. in his youth, Strahd was a prince and a conqueror from a far off land to the West. After settling down in the recently conquered valley of Barovia, beginning to feel the weight of middle age, Strahd forged a pact with the Dark Powers of the Shadowfell in order to achieve immortality. The pact came with a price: Strahd was turned into a vampire, and the entire valley was swept into the Shadowfell and turned into a prison from which he could never escape.His bloodline spread from the Shadowfell, given that the Shadowfell's own connection to Igimas was very strong. As such vampires reached the land of the Greeks.
The second point of origin is the Empousai, the daughters of Hecate, that drank blood and had flaming hair. Vampires and Empousai blood mixed, creating new forms of vampires which had an innate use of fire, increased strength and a greater access to magic, they were named Igneous Vampires. But as a result of the two bloodlines mixing there were multiple different results that were not quite as powerful as the new Igneous Vampires. Vampires which looked more beast than intelligent being, had a weakness to fire and had none of the intellect expected of a vampire. And lastly a very considerably weaker vampire variety that took the form of women specifically, which had access to invisibility as well as a sonic attack, but more interestingly they were able to stand in the sunlight without taking damage, these were named Bruxa. There may be more yet undocumented sub-species of vampire.