Elf Vampire

A race so devoted to life and beauty loses much when one of its own falls into undeath. The elf vampire, alone among vampires, cannot mingle with its kin: inner evil has ruined its fair face into a scarred, twisted mockery, which it hides under dark robes. It speaks elvish and whatever else it knew, and by strong report learns all the news of its woods from the animals it talks with.

Strength 18/01 gives +1 to hit and +3 damage; it favors swords and daggers. It keeps its racial, class and magical abilities: +1 with long swords and bows, silent movement out of metal armor, 60-foot infravision and skill at finding hidden doors to reach prey. With no breath, heartbeat or tired muscles to spoil its aim, it adds +4 to missile attacks, using any bow and arrows carved from the bones of thinking beings (20% magical).

Each unarmed hit drains 2 Charisma, sapping the victim's spark and leaving a permanent ugly scar; enough blows make someone unrecognizable to all but close friends. Anyone who looks on its ruined face must save vs. paralysis or freeze until 1d4 rounds after losing sight of it. On a natural 1 the viewer drops dead, but does not rise as a vampire and can be resurrected normally.

Only +1 or better weapons hurt it, and it regenerates 2 hp per round. Sleep, charm, hold and similar spells fail, as do poison, toxins and disease. Fire and cold spells deal half damage, lightning full. At 0 hp it must escape into a nearby plant within 2 rounds or crumble to dust forever.

At will it enters a plant of man size or bigger and emerges from another of the same kind anywhere, as transport via plants with no chance of error, though it cannot cross domain borders. Both plants die, leafless in a week and collapsing within a month. It can become a wild eagle at will or a giant eagle once a week, keeping its vampiric traits, and can pass without trace at will (or turn invisible to animals, though it would rather command them). It calls 3d6 wolves, 5d6 birds of prey or 6d6 small beasts such as badgers, arriving in 1d6 turns and staying until dismissed. Three times a day it can use entangle, snare, warp wood, anti-animal shell and spike growth, and once a day each wall of thorns, sticks to snakes and giant insect.

It walks by day unharmed and must be in its coffin at sunset; each round outside after dark costs 1d4 until it is permanently destroyed. Underground it suffers the same 1d4 per round, cannot regenerate or use magic, and is destroyed at 0 hp. It is turned as a spectre. Holy water does nothing, but deciduous sap under 6 hours old, smeared on with an attack roll, burns for 2d4. Mirrors, holy symbols and garlic fail, yet it cannot cross an unbroken line of petals picked within 24 hours, though a servant may break it.

Its black thumb kills any plant it touches, flowers instantly, shrubs within a day and trees over a week or more while it feels their pain. Boots and gloves block this. Severed from living things, many new elf vampires go mad.

A charcoal stake through the heart, delivered with one blow of a wooden mallet, slays it, easy if it is helpless but almost impossible in battle. Unless the head is then removed and burned for at least 24 hours on a pyre of flowers and flowering shrubs, destroying skull and brain, it rises once the stake comes out.

Hating the life it lost, an elf vampire turns its home into a grove of sick trees, dying plants and dead soil, and will not tolerate anyone farming or planting nearby. With age it gains Hit Dice, stronger weapon immunity, bigger bow bonuses and magic resistance.

Outside the living world and bent on corrupting all it meets, it is feared even by the drow. An elf or half-elf slain by its drain rises as one if the body stays intact for three days; destroying or mutilating it lets the victim rest. Any attempt to raise such a victim, resurrection included, carries a flat 50% risk of creating a vampire.