Drow Vampire

Drow call undeath the Kiss of the Spider Goddess, an honor that brings an elf nearer to the universe's hidden powers. Recipients are mostly female. It looks as it did in life: slight, about 5 feet tall, pale-haired and dusky-skinned, with refined, almost luminous beauty. A faint pearly glow flickers at the edge of vision. It dresses in rich but somber clothing and goes armed with a short sword and dagger of adamantine. It knows underworld languages and drow sign language and can speak with any deep-dwelling animal.

They treat battle as an art of prolonged suffering, each wound an offering to their goddess. Strength of 18/76 adds +2 to hit in melee and +4 damage, on top of the +2 from its adamantine blades, and it may strike with both in one round. It sees body heat to 120 feet and detects sliding walls, stonework traps and its depth underground on a 1-5 on 1d6.

Once per day each, at 8th level, it can cast suggestion, dispel magic, levitate, detect magic, darkness, know alignment and continual darkness. Its magic resistance starts at 25% (sages think undeath dulls it) and rises with age. Anyone meeting its gaze must save vs. spell or stand awestruck for 2d4 rounds, dropping whatever they hold and refusing to approach or attack unless it attacks them.

Each unarmed hit drains 1d6+1 hit points of fluid, absorbed by the vampire up to its maximum, and 1 of those hit points is lost permanently. The agony leaves a welt, called the goddess's caress, that only heal removes. A drow drained to 0 becomes a vampire; anyone else dies in torment.

It needs +1 weapons to be hit and regenerates 3 hp per round only in total darkness. At will it becomes poisonous vapor (hit only by +3 weapons); breathers save vs. poison at -2 or take 2d6, half on a success. At 0 hp it is forced into vapor and dies unless it reaches its stone tomb within 12 turns; eight hours there restore it. As a giant spider it commands 10d10 HD of local spiders, arriving in 2d10 rounds. In normal form it controls up to four driders, who worship it. It is immune to mind-affecting magic such as sleep, charm and hold, to poison, suffocation and drowning, and takes half damage from cold and electricity. Priests turn it as a ghost.

One ray of sunlight destroys it instantly. Moonlight and the moonbeam spell deal 2d4 per round, light and continual light 1d4 per round with no regeneration, and starlight halts regeneration. Holy water and holy symbols have no effect, but water from a waterfall burns for 2d4, and if it reaches 0 hp while inside a waterfall's torrent it is destroyed. It cannot cross an unbroken line of salt even as vapor, so it uses spiders or suggestion to break the line. A rock salt stake through the heart paralyzes it until removed. Permanent destruction requires sunlight, a waterfall, or binding the body in silver cords, oiling it and burning it for at least twelve hours.

They rarely leave the deepest caverns, dwelling in tombs built by drider slaves: unsettling masterworks carved with knotted limbs and self-devouring faces, doubling as temples to the spider goddess. Haughty and jealous of their goddess's favor, they almost never make spawn, and they shun drow society save for rare talks with priestesses and the hunt for torture victims, favoring dwarves and drow of rival houses.

Tomb surfaces are smeared with a searing contact poison that hurts horribly but deals only 1 point per dose; driders poison themselves with it to prove loyalty. With the centuries a drow vampire gains Hit Dice, its drain grows (1d6+2 at age 200), and its weapon immunity, awe penalty and magic resistance all increase.