Vampire

A vampire can walk a crowded street unnoticed. Its face is sharp and predatory but not inhuman, and often its nature shows only when it strikes. The watchful may notice it has no reflection, throws no shadow and moves in total silence.

Its Strength of 18/76 grants +2 on attack rolls and +4 on damage, and its blows deal 5-10. Each unarmed hit drains two life energy levels, which it cannot do with a weapon. Meeting its gaze acts as charm person, saved against vs. spell at -2, a favorite trick for slipping past sentries.

Only +1 or better weapons harm it, and it regenerates 3 hp per round. At 0 hp it is forced into gaseous form and flees to its coffin, becoming solid after eight hours of rest; if it fails to get there within 12 turns, it is destroyed. It ignores sleep, charm, hold, poison and paralysis, and takes half damage from cold and electricity.

At will it takes gaseous form, becomes a large bat, or spider climbs sheer walls. It summons 10-100 rats or bats underground (bats only blind and confuse) or 3-18 wolves outdoors, arriving within 2-12 rounds.

Garlic keeps it away. Held up boldly, a mirror or a lawful good holy symbol makes it recoil without harming it, so it sends charmed minions to remove the object; the symbol works whatever its old faith. Holy water or a strike with such a symbol burns for 2-7. Sunlight leaves it helpless and destroys it after one round. Running water costs it a third of its hit points per round, ending it on the third. A stake through the heart fells it until pulled out; true destruction means cutting off the head and filling the mouth with holy wafers or an equivalent.

It cannot enter a home unless a resident invites it, though public places and businesses are open to it. After one invitation it may return at will, often won by charming a servant.

Vampires haunt ruined castles and chapels, big cemeteries, battlefields, and spots of morbid meaning such as a murder site or suicide's grave. They are solitary, except for a vampire lord with a few spawn it uses to extend its reach safely. Immortal, they scheme slowly over decades or centuries, and can simply hide until enemies grow old. They despise the living and treat spawn as expendable tools.

A vampire feeds on life force but rarely kills, since a human or humanoid slain by its drain rises as a vampire one day after burial. Unburied victims do not rise, so the bodies are traditionally burned; a vampire wanting someone dead destroys the corpse. New vampires obey their maker until it is destroyed, then become free-willed. They keep knowledge and class abilities from life, but all turn chaotic evil. Dogs and similar animals howl at their presence.

Power grows with years undead, by age category, bringing new abilities and fewer weaknesses. The category titles are scholarly; calling a vampire lord by one instead of his rightful title is fatal. A 10 HD vampire is turned as a ghost, 11+ HD as a lich. Listed ability scores are minimums, higher living scores are kept, and Constitution is never below 18. It flies at 18 (C) in bat form. Charm by voice carries no save penalty. Even sun-resistant vampires loathe daylight. Age resistances stack, and immunity to holy symbols is not immunity to turning.

Eastern vampires share most strengths and weaknesses but can turn invisible at will, gaining the usual benefits including a -4 to attacks against them. They cannot charm or take gaseous form at will.