In the big book of things we can throw at our players, vampires come
up fairly often. They are iconic, they are deadly, they have been
imagined in many different ways, and they tend to come with specific
rules. As a result they make good choices for big bads but also for
one-off encounters. Of course, there is quite a lot we can do with
these badies and I hope trying to put it to text helps someone out
there. Of course I also hope it'll help me think of a new way to
throw one of these at my players.
Rules
The vampire, as presented in D&D 5th edition and other
places, tends to come with a set of rules. They take damage from
running water, sunlight, holy water, die from stakes to the heart,
and whatever else you want to give them. Don't want to let them enter
a residence without invitation? Also good. What's nice about this
kind of thing is that can result in different approaches, and player
hitting above their level by exploiting the weaknesses of the
creature. They don't need to kill the vampire. They just need to
survive until morning, for example. Not every vision of vampires has
the same weaknesses and rules they need to follow, but thinking about
these can lead to very interesting situations. A classic one is where
the party is trapped in a building besieged by vampires who are
trying to charm someone into inviting them in.
Magic Items
Of course, magic items are a great way to exploit weaknesses. With something similar to a
sun blade a level 1 party has a chance against a vampire spawn. Now,
the magnitude may vary depending on the rule system, but it will
still help (it still won't be a good chance in D&D 5th edition). You can also easily come up with other anti-vampire magic
items. All they need to do is give off sunlight. I fondly remember a
lantern that gave off sunlight in one of our campaigns.These may be too powerful, so you may want to make holy water easily available so that they can test for vampires. Alternately, a magic lantern can reveal the true appearance of these baddies.
Long Running Campaigns
These kinds of rules and constraints can be very helpful, especially
when making a long running campaign. Going from thralls to weaker
vampires to vampire leaders presents a natural evolution over the
course of a campaign. The same can be said about going from trying to
exploit the weaknesses of vampires to outright head on assaults
against their headquarters. That they are presentable, social, and
manipulative is also something that is easy to exploit for a campaign. Such an adversary lends them to have long running
schemes like a lich, but also able to easily be in the forefront of
their plots. Their ability to easily make new spawn also makes them a consistent threat, as well as a reason to fear death at the hands of one.
Other Vampires
There are quite a few different variations of vampires out there that
we could use. A large swarm of vargouilles can be an interesting
situations for lower level characters to fight against. I always
considered them to be rather vampiric in nature. Of course, mythology
is full of many vampiric variants. Perhaps a sorcerer who had a taste
for blood became a vampire in your campaign? Would they have an
immunity to sunlight if they did? All good questions that can lead to
interesting campaigns. Technically this also wouldn't be a monster like the vampire in the
manuals. However, it is still vampiric in nature and could help create a
new interesting villain. I recall one game where a creature was
attacking people and draining their health through their dreams. The
solution involved a dream battle where belief rolls were used to
allow players to do impossible things, such as spider climb without
casting the spell, and killing it in their dreams. The great thing
about these creatures is that playing around with the concept can
lead to a new adventure idea. It also makes sense that a vampire would look for ways to mitigate their weaknesses.
Relationships
Since vampires tend to be smart, charming, and long lives, they
present interesting relationship structures. You could easily have a
city full of vampire spawn that keep wreaking havoc, but no sign of
the vampire that leads them. They could work alone and have everyone
working for them without their knowledge. They could also have goals
unrelated with domination, such as a hedonistic delight in taking
blood. There was one campaign I played in where the vampire was
living on the street as a pickpocket and a rogue. It would take out
easy targets in order to remain less noticeable, but was acting purely for its own enjoyment.Vampires are intelligent as well so complicated vampire societies with civil wars while being under attack by non-vampires could lead to interesting situations as well. However, the relationship between the vampire(s) and their world tends to be important.
Vampire Spawn
As written, vampire spawn can be freed when their master dies in D&D 5th edition. This makes for an interesting low level badie, but it also has a major different from their master variant. These vampires cannot escape as mist back to their coffins. They have one chance at life and as such, you'd expect them to be more cautious and probably use henchmen. Or maybe they are more animalistic. Regardless, you probably wouldn't expect to see this type of vampire act the same way.
Vampire Hunt Adventure Idea
A vampire is terrorizing the village at night, but the people don't
know where the vampire hides during the day. At night they may be
under siege and find a house to hold down in while blocking all the
windows. Investigate, fighting off the vampire's henchmen, and try to
stake the vampire (probably best to go with a vampire spawn here).
Could end with a combat encounter in a room
with windows, allowing the players to hide in the light to keep the
vampire away or drag it into sunlight. Also could end with them
staking the vampire in their coffin. If these aids are given, being a level or two below the recommendation is probably a good idea or it may be too easy. Alternatively, fighting the vampire in a head on fight before it tries to leave the town and set up somewhere else could also work.
Vampire Ship Adventure Idea
A vampire is moving from city to city in a boat, claiming a few
victims, and then moving on to a different port. The players need to
investigate the cause, track it down to it's old hideout, which
heavily suggests it's a vampire (probably a vampire spawn if you want
to run this at a low level), and then try to hunt it down out in the
world before it changes locations again. This will probably be more episodic in nature and have a few false leads.
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