Vampyre

Vampyres live on blood like the nosferatu but are living creatures, so they have neither the powers nor the weaknesses of the undead. Most look like gorgeous humans or half-elves a little under six feet tall, though a few are plain or even ugly. Slim builds hide great strength. Their skin is nearly white, their dark eyes smolder, and faintly feline features lend an exotic wildness. Curved claws tip their fingers, and anyone close can see their fangs. They dress in mourning black or, as bait, in revealing clothes. Lacking a language of their own, each speaks 1-4 human or demihuman tongues.

They strike only the helpless or unwary. One vampyre usually works a tavern crowd, chooses someone of the opposite sex, and draws them home with hints of romance; once the door closes, the pack attacks. A captive may linger for days, kept just alive as the pack sips enough to keep them too weak to flee.

Each vampyre rakes with two claws for 1d4 and bites for 1d6. Its spit is toxic: the bitten must save vs. poison or be charmed, taking -1 on the save per 2 points of bite damage (a 3-point bite means -2). A charmed victim will not fight back against the one who bit them but still resists the rest.

A pack holds up to a dozen adults, about evenly split by sex, and around six young. When two packs meet, which is rare, they spend a few days in murderous feasting and mingle bloodlines, and young are born 6 months later. Children are nearly helpless until 5, when they fight as half-strength adults, and are full grown at 10, when a rite of passage, usually a first kill made alone, marks adulthood.

Their lair often seems an ordinary house until the trap springs, and some packs even blend into a town, holding jobs while hiding how they feed.

They fill the niche of tigers or wolves, but hunt people. Once, before humans grew clever and social, that role made sense; now they are a leftover nightmare stalking the weak and innocent.