[Index]
VAMPIRE6 (18)
Cypher Bestiary
Human blood sustains vampire existence.
Health: 24
Damage Inflicted: Moderate wound
Movement: Long
Modifications: Climbing, stealth, and perception as level 8; dodge as level 7 due to quickness
Combat: Vampires batter (or claw) foes.
A vampire also enjoys the following traits.
- Supernatural Resilience: Mundane physical attacks do not damage a vampire. Hurting a vampire requires using one of the options noted under Vampire Hunter Techniques.
- Mesmerizing Gaze: A target that meets the vampire's short-range gaze and fails an Intellect defense roll is stunned, losing their next turn. During subsequent rounds, the affected target does not forcibly resist the vampire (other than attempting another Intellect defense roll to break free), and the vampire can suggest actions to the target (including allowing the vampire to feed upon them—a feeding vampire deals 7 Speed damage that ignores armor each round).
- Gifts of Immortality: A vampire usually also has at least one Vampire Gift.
VAMPIRE GIFTS
Vampires have at least one of the following abilities. Vampire lords have at least two, and transitional vampires have none.
- Change Shape: The vampire changes into a bat, wolf, or swarm of rats (or bats). Alternatively, the vampire can present themselves as a completely normal human. The transformation does not change the vampire's stats (other than potentially giving the vampire a flying movement of a long range each round).
- Regeneration: If the vampire's body is mostly intact and a wooden stake was not used to dispatch them, one minute after their "death" they regain animation and health, but their maximum health is reduced by 2 points.
- Mist Shape: The vampire becomes mist or shadow, in which shape they can't be harmed by anything (but also can't affect the physical world). As mist or shadow, the vampire can fly up to a short distance each round.
- Confer Vampirism: If left alone with a helpless target (or recently dead target) for at least three rounds, the vampire confers their curse, creating a transitional vampire that obeys their creator.
- Revivify: The vampire revives if the wooden stake that dispatched them is removed from remains.
Vampire lord: level 9; climbing, stealth, and perception as level 10; dodge as level 10; health 40; Armor 2; attacks deal major wounds; all the powers and weaknesses of a regular vampire, plus one or two more Vampire Gifts
Vampire, transitional: level 3; all the powers and weaknesses of a regular vampire except they can withstand sunlight but have no vampire powers or resilience by day and no Vampire Gift
THE ESSENCE OF VAMPIRES
A vampire's need to feed on humanity defines them, even as their immortal nature means that former human friends, acquittances, and everyone alive when the vampire was human eventually dies. Every vampire deals with their existence differently. They run the gamut from reluctant immortals to nefarious monsters.
VAMPIRE NAMES
Vampires usually stick with their given names, which means long-lived vampires names sound "old.fashioned" or reflect origins on distant shores. Options include: Abigail Salim, Ahmad Barclay, Charlotte Stone, Perceval Bonnay, Genevieve Candreva, Jeremiah Henry, Katherine Tue Dao, Nathaniel Guillaume, Tabitha Cromwell, Zachariah Lavoie
VAMPIRE-HUNTING TECHNIQUES
Using one or more of the following stratagems may lead to a successful hunt.
- Wooden Stake: If the vampire is aware and able to move, the stake attack is hindered, as the vampire does everything it can to evade. The stake inflicts 25 damage. If this attack would reduce the vampire's health to 0, it instead is reduced to 1 health, unless the character used a level of Effort on the attack specifically to dispatch it. This Effort provides no additional benefit. (A minor or major effect from the attack could also ensure the vampire stays dead, even if Effort wasn't used to confirm the kill.)
- Blood Dependence: If a vampire can be trapped so they are unable to feed for six days, they are hindered on all tasks; after nine days they can take no other actions than attempt to feed (on a helpless creature), and after twelve days they fall into a coma-like state that only blood (provided by a third party) can revive them from.
- Special Weapon or Spell: A weapon or spell with magical enchantments specifically targeting vampires, or something similar, deals normal damage to the vampire.
- Fire or Holy Water: Vampires burn with the application of fire or holy water (usually taking 4 points per application/round exposed). If not destroyed, a vampire regains all health lost to fire or holy water damage within a day.
- Running Water: Complete immersion inflicts 10 points of damage per round. If not destroyed, the vampire that escapes the water can use an action to regain all health lost in this way.
- Sunlight: Exposure to sunlight inflicts 10 points of damage per round. If not destroyed, the vampire regains all health lost to exposure within a day.
The GM should tell the players Effort is required to finish off a vampire using a wooden stake, but a player has to figure out exactly when to use Effort to ensure the vampire does not rise again.
VAMPIRE AVERSIONS
Certain situations and substances—"aversions"—bother some vampires (though they affect vampires less than the weaknesses that vampire hunters have weaponized). If a vampire comes within immediate range of the particular aversion they suffer from, the vampire's tasks are hindered until the cause of the aversion is dispatched or otherwise dealt with.
| 1 |
Need to count like objects (like spilled rice or seeds) |
| 2 |
Holy symbol, prayer, or religious icon |
| 3 |
Not having been invited inside a home |
| 4 |
Garlic |
| 5 |
Mirrors or silver |
| 6 |
Daytime (but the vampire remains awake inside or underground instead of "sleeping") |
Adventure Seed: The vintage cloak and hat (or other garments and accessories) purchased in the used clothing shop turn out to belong to a vampire who wants them back.
GM Intrusion: The character finds something that looks suspiciously like vampire bite marks on their own neck.
GM Intrusion: The character recognizes a friend or family member as someone in the vampire's thrall.
GM Intrusion: The character struck by the vampire is caught fast in a powerful grip. If the character doesn’t escape immediately (a Might or Speed task), the vampire bites them automatically, inflicting a moderate wound.