DM's, are vampires always evil in settings? What would a good-aligned vampire look like?  

I remember making a comedic vampire character who legitimately would make a town better to stop the hassle of most vampire legends. Like towns people would say "did you hear, a gentleman noticed how crossing the river with the strong rapids was dangerous so he commissioned a fine bridge be built", and "I dropped my bag of rice on the city streets and was sad, but then a nice young man picked up ever single grain of rice and helped me put it in my bag. What A nice man". In reality this vampire just wanted to be left alone and spent all of his time reading old books, when he would have to feed he would just happen to kill a bad guy in the town. Another vampire I made was for a game in a modern setting, this vampire was a massive dweeb/ otaku of everything human. Like he would look at you as if you where the cutest little puppy who needs hugs and kisses. The vampire would also dress up like a super sentai character and patrol the town to stop evil and protect people from anyone that could cause them harm. The towns people would constantly get annoyed by this vampire bs and would pay him in blood bags to leave them alone.

...God, those insect vampires sound _horrifying_ ...

A pretty good video game that poses this question is Vampyr. You play as a doctor who was turned into a bloodsucker, and are given the choice to either try to cure your ailment (and, in turn, help everyone else with the vampire plague) or give in to the thirst for the power this plague gives you, slaughtering or feeding on everyone you see. Or you can be a bit in-between, maybe only killing off certain characters you don't like

I'd like a vampire deity which created total utopia for humans and vampires alike - vampires only taking what is needed without ever killing humans and in turn protecting humans of their nation

No D&D, but a book I’m writing has a minor character that’s a half vampire, half succubus nighttime doctor at the demon hunting academy that the protagonist attends. She’s married to a human police officer. In my world, succubi are very fertile, but due to their bloodlust, end up killing their mates after giving birth. This vampire-succubus doctor was able to cure her bloodlust, but it left her sterile, so she treats all of the students as her children. She’s written to be a sweet, motherly figure without a single bad bone in her body. In my world demons (and also people in some rare circumstances) can gain powers based upon how they want to impact the world and reality around them. Most would choose combat based abilities, but her power is literally encyclopedic medical knowledge.

An old DND concept I ran once was that a vampire lord married a lycanthrope pack leader as an experiment to maintain peace among different species and powerful clans. The party ran across this isolated community, and half wanted to raze the place. Thankfully, the townsfolk did not show active hostility despite the posturing of the group. The party decided against violence long enough to learn that the entire village was populated by vampires, lycanthropes, and other outcast "monsters" like fairies and goblins that did not fit into their communities. One of the party members, a Paladin, died in that village courtesy of the angry villagers and the party because he tried to assassinate the vampire lord and his wife in their mansion. The Paladin's reasoning was "They are evil and must die, regardless of any good they have done." But in an act of humiliation, the Paladin was revived at great cost to the party and told by the vampire lord, with a fanged smile, to keep trying. So they did, up to seven times, but eventually, he gave up when he started to lose his holy powers from breaking his oaths. As a final act of humiliation, the queen lycanthrope commented as he angrily left their home, "Perhaps try to follow your creed next time."

I had a vampire in Baldur's Gate that would help people with favors in exchange for non-lethal amounts of blood. That way people have an incentive to not kill her since she is helpful and even go iut of their way to find her and provide her with sustinance, and she gets enough blood to survive without becoming a menace to the population (thus avoiding getting a target placed on her back). The vampire herself was loosely based on Nazuna from Call of the Night, though thats not entirely relevant.

I have an NPC vampire I want to run in the future. The library in a small town is open 24/7, with one day shift librarian and one night shift librarian. The day shift is your stereotypical older woman who hates noise and is mostly just there to collect her government pay. The night shift, however, is a vampire trying to live out a relatively normal life. He wears an illusory brooch that hides his fangs and tans his skin so he just looks like an ordinary high elf. He has made a deal to teach a local farmer's son how to read common and elvish in exchange for a cow each month to satisfy his natural blood thirst. He tends to be a lot more helpful and knowledgable on many different subjects, especially magic and the undead, so if (or when) the players come to the library looking for information, he can expedite the process and hopefully make a friendly impression on the players. It's not much, but he lives an honest life and it could make for interesting plot hook depending on the story.

I have a few vampires of note in my world. One is Natalia, the goddess of the damned and dishonored. Total goddess of the underworld. She is the world's first vampire. The living banished to her feeds her, and she often takes lovers of ill repute among mortals to the fatal end. She is neither good nor evil, simply a goddess doing what her domain grants her. Another is Eventide Moonshadow. He rules over a small fiefdom above ground and a dark elf alliance below ground. He is more good than evil. In his fiefdom every 20 years, there is a beauty pageant. The three winners go to his house and become his cattle. After 20 years, they are sent to another land to live out their lives with enough gold to be comfortable for the rest of their lives. Beyond that, he uses his vampirism to keep the dark elves in line. Defy him, and he drinks you dry. His sire is Natalia, so he is very powerful. The third of note is Llewellyn Bloodheart. He is also the child of Natalia, but unlike Eventide, his hunger knows no end, and he is as dark and evil as they come. So dark of heart that he was imprisoned by the gods, and in his prison, he revels in his dark power, embracing the evil. So, while Natalia is seen as neutral, Eventide is seen as good, and Llewellyn is seen as he is, evil to the core. As the only two known children of Natalia, no other vampire even comes close. Except for maybe La Belle Dame sans Merci, the child of Eventide. Like her "Uncle Llewellyn" she to has been imprisoned. She is an evil version of Natalia, minus the whole goddess bit. Every inch as evil as Llewellyn, who seduced her, and thought he was molding her as his weapon. His mistake, he made his greatest rival. But all four are long stories...

Vampirism is something that, while not inherently 'evil' depending on the setting (viral infection vs dark necromantic blood magic), is certainly antagonistic and predatory to humanity. Vampirism always felt like a curse at best for those who are afflicted with it. It breeds monsters, and those who either embrace it and become a monster of the night, or a simply broken and maddened, becoming a mindless beast. Efforts to make the Vampire less evil and safer often water down what made them unique in the first place. Twilight can be an example of that. The closest thing to a Hero I can think of would be Abhorash and the Blood knights, where they strive for self control, discipline and resilience, only drinking from worthy opponents, not from the innocent, all while striving to cure themselves of their curse.

I LOVE the World Of Darkness / Vampire the Masquerade stories!!! Please dedicate videos or parts of videos to this ttrpg system, because it's so cool, and in this saturated D&D niche with lots of the same content, this other system is a breath of fresh air!

I did a one shot on Halloween a few years ago. We were all playing as monsters. The vampire was basically Mina Harker. But when she refused to drink blood, our DM made her do a Con save. If she missed, she took a level of exhaustion.

some of these answers are pretty wild "only bad people wanna be vampires" "all vampires are narcissist and evil" "a vampire that feeds off any kind of blood rather than my specific and intensely narrow idea of what counts as edible blood is not a vampire and goes against the point of vampires" "feeding from blood bags isnt evil but feeding from willing donors directly makes it evil suddenly" like, in a novel about a handful of vampires, that works, all the vampires featured in this book are assholes who drink human blood exclusively from non consenting sources... but in an actual world where vampires existed, like dnd or other tabletop, that is so incredibly unlikely to the point of impossibility... and also vastly underestimates how many people would willingly let a vampire drink from them for personal enjoyment within safe limits. The first, many people would choose to be vampires, it could be an emergency optional treatment for terminal sickness, or for extreme disability, (which is why I would choose to be one,) The second, idk how that even works, one minute theyre human and average, the next theyre a vampire and suddenly their entire personality changes? For feeding, Its hard to do the math on it cause fictional and magical creature, so, it depends, some only need to feed once a century, and some need a pint a week but enjoys a lot more. Some can feed only on human blood, and some can feed on any blood but prefer human. So lets start at one pint a week, human blood only. A vampire would only need 2 people to feed from safely indefinitely, as one pint every two weeks is the maximum donation limit for donating blood, and any extra indulgences would just be an additional person on a 2 week schedule. Hardly impossible to find 2+ people into vampires enough to let one feed from them. Or, they could exchange good or services for safe amounts of blood, because a superhuman being would make a good labourer, hunter, and an immortal being would make a good legal advisor or inventor or painter, which is a whole lot easier than hunting people down for it.

They shouldn't have to be. Maybe one regains it's consciousness and renounces it's new identity

You can have something very simple like a town mayor who is a known vampire, but also is known to take very good care of their town and sets out to cull dangerous monster or other threats around the town on their own from time to time. In trade for a lower tax (what can be cut in the defense budget due to the vampire mayor taking down the big threats when they start to settle close to town) they instead offer some blood every once in a while to keep their mayor strong. The party can then arrive during a time where on the outskirts of town they are stopped and warned by some bounty hunter/paladin looking characters who claim its dangerous ahead, as a town is being taken over and controlled by a vampire. (A lie, as they just want the mayor dead due to rigid beliefs that all undead are evil no matter what.) Then its up to the players to figure out that they are actually lying and the vampire mayor is quite a good person who takes care of their town. Or blindly stumble into creating a mess where they try to kill the vampire, while believing the villagers are only saying good things due to being enthralled by the vampire. (even though living conditions are clearly very good, and there are no vampire spawn or undead roaming around)

I'm not sure if anyone else has mentioned it, but in D&D lore, there's Jander Sunstar - an elven vampire-turned-good. Those particularly curious might be interested to know that he and Count Strahd have a "history" together :)

When I dm'd for a one shot, we were short a person on the table, and the team itself was concerned that we would tpk early due to how unstable our group was with two fighters and a warlock. So i did a detor before a main event to explore a abandoned medicine mans manor. It was here searching that they came across my npc. I call him Grapha, a vampire well versed in blood magic in pursuits towards medicines through the supernatural. For a fee through encounters and samples he joined. His weapon was a scapul..

Theres a whole video game called Code Veid where most people are vampires. This includes the main character.

I personally imagine there are three types of vampires in any fantasy world. The survivors The Conquerors The Lovers The survivors are usually either newly made vampires or ones who have suffered the most, these guys don’t seek to rule or feast. They just want to survive by any means necessary. The conquerors are the usual big bad evil character, those who seek domination over everyone thst they view as a lesser species. The lovers are the vampire who love humanity or want them to live on as a proper food. Inspired by Bigfatsocialist’s vampires who are still very evil but also see that being overly evil will get a stake through the heart. So they are willing to help other races.

I find that vampires allow for a pretty interesting way to play with the idea of "What it means to be a person" in fantasy settings. Since they're usually not a natural-born "race," but rather a sort of affliction (often bestowed unwillingly upon characters), vampirism is an avenue that allows ideas that playing a "normal" thing like a human, elf, etc. doesn't. For several years I was able to play a dhampir in 5e. He was raised in a temple of Ilmater, god of mercy and suffering, and wanted to be a paladin like his mother. Turned out his father was a powerful vampire noble, and the curse passed on to him through the family rapier when he died during one session, so he became a full vampire (or, rather 1.5 vampires because he was already half). My boy is Chaotic Good-aligned, grew up taking care of the younger kids at the orphanage, desperate to make his god proud. A lot of the best RP I got with him was the Vampire Angst getting to him, pushing him to anger and wrath, and then his continued efforts to atone and be a good person even if he couldn't always be the hero. Definitely my favorite character I've ever played, and hopefully I get to resume his story soon!

in my setting a group of vampire nobility set up an organization called the blood bank that offers medical and emergency services in exchange for donations of blood effectively allowing most vampires to live normal lives so long as they are willing to purchase or work for blood.

Well I had a gunslinger vampire that was neutral the only thing was they loved hunting their prey way too much that is sometimes put him at odds with the party but he mostly hunted people that piss him off

In my world, Vampires are not evil but ambivalent. They are the aristocracy within their lands and permit their subjects an unusual amount of freedom compared to other monarchs. A lot of manual labor is performed by undead and so many people there have higher proficiency professions. That lead to them having a lot of great artisans and the aristocracy actually defends their lands themselves since they want to keep their lifestock save. I took a lot of inspiration from the castlevania netflix series, so of course higher vampires are savants of the sciences.

PANR has tuned in.

Ammby valant? THAT'S a new pronunciation!🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I had an idea for a good-aligned vampire that I never got to use. The idea was that she was a sheltered noble girl who had no idea that she was even drinking *blood* in the first place. It was just wine/strawberries to her. Her father had kept her cooped up in the manor all her life because he had promised to keep her safe so she wouldn't die like her mother had. But, needless to say, she got sick of being cooped up all the time and wanted to explore the world outside. She was a sweet, kind, little thing who had no clue about what was going on, but just wanted the *best* for everyone. Her father told her she had a rare disease that made sun hurt her but her umbrella was enchanted to give her protection, and she knew she absolutely loved wine and brought several bottles with her, but otherwise she had no clue. The idea was she'd just be a kind, nice, energetic, girl who would go out, see the world, and generally be high on life. She'd even become devoted to the god of the party cleric simply because she loved the idea of bringing life and beauty to the world so much. All while her wine stockpile dwindled away. Eventually it would run out and, when she tried 'real' wine, she'd be utterly disgusted and baffled as to why it didn't saite her needs. She'd grow increasingly desperate to find out what was wrong with her until, eventually, the truth came out. At that point she'd be horrified and devistated, even attempting sucide, because she didn't want to become an undead monster. At this point hopefully the god would step in and offer her a choice. Either become their devoted cleric and have a chance at salvation even if it takes three hundred years of service, or end it all right then and there, of which she'd choose the former. I never got to use the idea though for a variety of reasons.

All a vampire needs in order to not be inherently monstrous is consent. Is a friend, loved one or paid doner willing to supply you with blood? Then by feeding off of them isnt evil, just odd. The longer you live though the more likely these plans will fail, your friends die, or you turn them so they can live with you forever but now theres 2 of you in need of a doner. You also have powers which assist you in taking blood non consensually. You can shapeshift you can hypnotise whoever you want. Its almost too easy. The more monstrous acts you perform the further from human youll feel, the less taking blood and lives will effect you

I once imagined a "reverse vampire" whose saliva instantly staunched wounds.

I love the Fallout 3 "vampires" known as "The Family" who are people who used to succumb to cannibalism, but they're able to hold it back with blood, and can survive off of bloodpacks. The family can be convinced to team up with Arifu and become their guards. In DnD i also love the idea of lawful good/neutral vampires being hired guards to a town, and are mostly paid in bloodbags from the citizens.

I've never been able to use it, but I have been stewing on the concept for a chaotic-good half-drow rogue assassin (long story) who, mostly just for flavor, happens to unknowingly be a vampire. They grew up in a temple with their adoptive parents in a small, mostly human hamlet. Attending school and running errands without much trouble from the other townspeople on account of the parents being kinda scary for reasons I won't get into. One day, one of the other kids decided to play an awful prank by sneaking into the nearby wizards tower. Barely avoiding all of the deadly traps by pure coincidence. And grabbing the nastiest looking liquid they could find to sneak into his drink. Well... it was vampire blood. Fortunately for him, the binding process was interrupted by the heavily weakened vampire up and dying, and he was left a fully fledged vampire with no master. As soon as the wizards figured out what happened, they got to work with the cleanup. Discovering, much to their surprise, that the victim was still very much unalive. Not wanting to have trouble with a couple of deadly assa... I mean friendly priests, they cut a deal with the parents to keep everything under wraps by providing them with a magic amulet that would hide his vampiric features and protect him from the negative effects of healing and radiant energy. Along with a recipe for a special kind of juice made from a very common (normally poisonous) berry that would satiate his blood lust. So yeah, aside from a few peculiar allergies, being a little strong for his size, and being told to never take off the amulet. He just grew up as a normal, cheery, happy-go-lucky temple kid from a small town. Without the slightest clue of what happened to him, besides getting really sick that one time. He also has a near identical twin sister (rogue mastermind) who trails the party, switching out with him from time to time as a prank. She wears a magic amulet of her own to keep up the illusion. She knows about his condition.

I was in a small dungeon crawl campaign and a corruption had infested a local temple and a vampire lord was thought to have been responsible.......turns out the vampire just so happened to live in the spooky castle next door and had nothing to do with it. The big bad had actually stolen one of his tomes for her ritual and he came to get his book back after her defeat before flying off and leaving the party alone.

In my case, it's not only Vampires, but certain undead in general. Many first coming souls to the Gates are given a choice to sign a contract with the watcher, psychopomp, and deity of the moon, Rylia, to essentially grant the first dead a single free revive ranging from experiencing the world of Rycath once again before returning to the Astral Etheria to explore other worlds or just to say their last goodbyes to those they weren't able to before. These peoples typically come back as the Reborn race. Those who want to stay longer would have to take an alternate contract. To take upon themselves to ridding Rycath of feral undead or aiding those with contracts to guide them back to the Gates or complete their original contract (taken by Dhampir/Vampires and Hexbloods/Liches respectively). As for bringing upon enemy undeads since most common ones people would encounter (such as vampirespawns, zombies, and standard evil liches) are taken off the table, I've decided on taking on this by creating the Feral Undead. These are undead beings that ripped their way back to Rycath on either their own will (through extreme and negative emotions) or through the aid of another source (such as a well of enormous elemental power or a rogue lich), it would the jobs of the major Hunter's Guild of my world to take these beings down alongside other beings like devils and other fiends (like imps, quasits, and vargouilles) from wrecking havoc.

Just a personal preference, but I hate when any ttrpg race is just considered ‘evil’, I personally don’t find that compelling for a villain.

Vampires in my setting aren't inherently evil, and their origin is from clerics of the shattered (not dead) god of undeath. Undead in general aren't inherently evil in my setting, especially after Paizo did away with alignment. Vampires act as a control method for mindless undead. All undead in my setting start sentient and degrade over time, and they each have a unique way to recover some mental faculties. Vampires drink blood, and since their origin is in clerics, they often become doctors and use hemomancy to draw and transfer blood. They're tolerated because of their use to society as medical technology hasn't progressed far enough for blood magic to not be useful. Clerics of other gods still seek to kill them because they don't want the god of undeath to return for reasons they think are benevolent.

Not a DM or player myself yet (one day hopefully) but a DND campaign I watched on RU-vid had a good guy vampire NPC. Very minor character in the grand scheme of the story but he was there. So yeah.

I have a non-evil vampire for you: I am currently running a campaign where the party is trying to stop the bad guys from interfering wit ha royal wedding. Their contact is a half-elf vampire spawn who is working for the king, chaotic good alignment. The story being that she was forced into vampirism 200 years ago by one of his predecessors who was a vampire (and all around bad guy). Once the vampire king was overthrown , stabbed and burned, this person was given the choice: keep working for the new order or get the stabby treatment along with her late boss. She decided to take option a. She now works as an infiltrator and black ops agent for the spy agency of the king. Having someone can charm people, spiderwalk, rip someone's throat out with her bare hands and has nightvision makes for an excellent spy. Personal house rule for storytelling (and not making her overpowered): seeing as her vampire master is gone, her vampirism is slowly - over the course of the last two hundred years - starting to subside. Her powers are lessening (can't turn into bats or mist, can't fly, lessened HP, no super damage reductions), she can survive full sunlight though it is very uncomfortable and the bloodlust is less frequent though still very much present. She has a deal with the cooks in the castle who obtain animal blood from local butchers. Rumour among the butchers is that someone in the castle has a fondness for blood pudding :p EDIT: as for what she looks like: blonde, half-elven, hot as hell if her glamour magic is up and still pretty alright without it and speaks in a fantasy-french accent.

Definitely depends heavily on the setting. A good example of a setting with Good and Evil Vampires is Discworld. Vampires need to be obsessed with something to sustain themselves. If they don't get that thing, they go into violent withdrawal until they get it. Most go with blood because it represents control, AND they can get more by being violent. There's an organization called the Überwald Temperance League, or Black Ribboners because they wear small black ribbons, who are vampires who have sworn of "zer B-vord". Two key examples are Otto Chriek, who is obsessed with photography and perfectly capturing the light of a scene, and Vlad, a younger vampire from Monstrous Regiment. To avoid spoilers for Monstrous Regiment, I used the name Vlad first gives the group, but I will say they are obsessed with Coffee and this... turns into a problem at one point of the book, because they run out of their supply. (Definitely a good book. Not what I'd recommend as the first Discworld book for someone to read, but one of the great ones.)

My character is a dhampir born of a tiefling father and a vampire elf mother. Feeds on pain instead of blood and I had it they became doctors in a kingdom helping to ease suffering. The kingdom I envisioned as a safe haven for monsters who don’t want to be evil, like werewolves, vampires , cursed etc. I’d figure you could make a system of donors/ magic/ etc to keep the citizens safe from being prey. I’m not a fan of this creature is automatically evil, maybe they lean that way or the way the world treats them pushes them down bad paths, but I think if you choose undeath leans more to evil then if you were a victim now with a curse

Anyone needing a good book to help with a "Good Vampire" get "Vampire of the Mists" by Christie Golden. Tells about Jander Sunstar, an elven vampire who tries to remain good, and also teaches Strahd some things about his affliction, since Jander is older then Strahd.

A lot of people hate it, and I can understand why, but I still like an idea of vampires being a separate species of living being, who don't specifically need human[oid]s to procreate, but need humanoid blood for sustenance. And from this, they are not inherently a problem... I mean, people can loose some blood without irreversible issues, and trading exists (what vampires can sell is a different question)

It depends on how they go about getting there blood if they run a clinic for blood then neutral if not good you they became it to preserve knowledge or a trade

Most of the characters I play have been Vampires. All but one of them have been aligned with chaotic good/neutral. While one is Neutral Evil. But that’s all according to who the character is. In my dnd world, it’s the same. It’s really like who they are. Like, war criminal prince happens to be a vampire too, doesn’t mean that it was his vampirism that made him evil, that’s just how he is. Or if like the most holy and righteous Paladin becomes a vampire, it’s not like he’ll just immediately evil.

I personally prefer Alucard,who's going to cry about a few hundred thousand dead Nazi vampires?

vampire chosen as the champion of pelor, blessed with the ability to gain sustenance of the blood of the god (light) and the blood of believers and the suffering ones she nourished or healed. that woman was basically cursed to be a paladin and she was not happy about it. most likely because she got thrown out of her crypt and the local liches didnt sell their stuff to her anymore. she got to keep her awesome heavy batwinged armor set though. my lizardfolk warpriest was laughing his ass off. the werewolf ranger twins were skeptical at first, but formed a business with sleds for rental with her later.

When I make Vampires as a DM or player, they always kinda end up as Alucard from Hellsing.

I had a dm that went by the rule of cool, I wanted to play a vampire, so I asked my dm, I had always planned for the character to die, the vampires goal was to kill the vampire that turned him before killing himself, the dm said they're be rules and consequences and certain things I couldn't do, like enter temples so I had make an excuse why I wouldn't go to any holy place, blood drinking was a must but animal blood ( all animals would take an instant dislike to me) would work if human blood wasn't available, I would try to go off alone to find blood, at the beginning i would only feed off the dying or criminals/ bandits, but as the campaign progressed anybody would do, after a couple sessions the rest of the group found out when 1 of the players asked what phase was the sun in and the dm said the moons out, then the group slowly started to put things together and figured out I was a vampire rogue. Turns out the dm planned for my death sooner than I anticipated because he said the group had never asked about the time/ sun yet. Edit: and I would have to do a lot of different rolls to try and keep my secret

In our group's setting, undead are not inherently evil. However, if an undead dies, they are bound to the evil god Golgotha. So non-evil undead will often turn to Imrash, the goddess of fire, hardship, and forgiveness, to be turned into a new form of life known as Rekindled. They will superficially resemble the undead they were, but be freed from their unnatural hungers and weaknesses. Part of the preparation, however, is refraining from feeding on the living. Vampires will have to go without blood, liches must stop sacrificing souls to their phylactery, ghouls will go for months on a vegetarian diet. I actually had the players show up at an "intervention" where a ghoul was starting to lose it and had tried to take a chunk out of one of the clergy at the undead monastery, and had to be held down and given some fish to bring him back to his senses.

In my world, vampires don’t need blood anymore than a smoker needs a cigarette. Sure they CAN survive without it but they definitely feel those withdrawals and VERY FEW can deny that urge. Some try to substitute animal blood which works to an extent but doesn’t quite scratch that itch and it doesn’t really work well for weak willed vampires.

11:30 that sounds more like a wraith than a vampire. and the castle could be a hive ship.

So Vampirism in my setting is, a bit difficult to describe exactly. you see, "Vampires" and other Vampiric entities are, according to research people did in my setting, part of a group called the "Pseudo-species", which are people or creatures who 1. are not naturally occurring unless through genetic alteration (i.e. 2 vampires making a vampire child), and 2. were a particular race/creature BEFORE becoming a different species. other examples of this include Werewolves, Dryads, Hags, Liches, Drider, and a group of people called the Yokaimanese Mutants (which are people and animals turned into pseudo monsters due to MASSIVE amounts of Druidic energy found in an archipelago, and are based on Japanese Yokai, mainly Rokurobiki, Dodomeki, etc. ). In the case of Vampires, they're caused by a particular lifeform found in the negative energy plane, which eventually turns the host in question into a Vampire. For the most part, people will generally stay the same in terms of intelligence and morality, but they will need to drink blood. Thankfully, it doesn't really matter what kind of blood, as they can use any kind to survive. but the thing is is that, the closer it is to who they were, the more healthy it is for them, meaning that they will generally attack those similar to them (I.e human vampires will prefer to drink blood that's closer to human blood, meanwhile a vampire snake or dog may actually leave you alone and could actually help you hunt particular animals or kill certain animals you don't want around). Some people treat Vampires and Vampirism as a whole as a particular condition, with them trying to find a cure for Vampirism, as it could possibly lead to individuals to disintegrate, die of garlic poisoning, starvation despite eating normal food, or even prevent normal activities like going to a church or temple. Others on the other hand, treat them as entirely separate people, whether born naturally or infected themselves, and are willing to hunt some people down in order to rid themselves of dangerous vampires. One of the most interesting cases of Vampirism in the world is a character named Zadicus Paine (aka. Crow), A vampire lord who sought full control over a region known as Seara, via the use of a fully Vampirized army. the issue with this being he couldn't just turn an entire nation into thralls or casually kill everyone by himself in one night. However, with some help from a servant of his, he eventually created an offshoot that combined the Vampirism-causing Parasite, with the genetic coding of werewolves, dubbing them "The Pricolli", which are Vampiric Werewolves, and probably the most terrifying thing I've made, and is based on creatures from Romania by the same name.

My character in Vampire the Masquerade is lawful good vampire. She wants to change the world by setting up a system to cather to her blood addiction, so she has time to focus on her happy marriage. But it's not easy. In VtM, the oldest vampires can only drink from vampire blood. Thus vampires of diva clan Toreador act smart: they do the management of assets, and on the side, they keep cattle: They bred my PC's bloodline for generations to cultivate a specific taste, as one does with wine. Once a mortal of this bloodline has "aged well" the blooddoll will either serve as consumption product at exclusive parties until they die of old age, or be turned into a vampire. This newly turned vampire is essentially cattle, as the oldest vampires will feed on it. And thereby, they are sated enough that they won't drink prey on the asset-managers of Clan Toreador. My character's focused on turning the world into a utopia where vampires drink blood from bags. Why? So vampires can focus on what's important: the 'game of thrones' with other vampires. No matter how old you are... Blood addiction is mundane distraction. Humor and murder and intrigue are absolutely timeless!

Bloodlines = my Gangrel was the nicest childe in all Santa-Monica, proud Anarch. And as a fan of Brian Lumley - Tibor! He is not so bad Vamphyri. And Genevieve from Kim Newnan - she is a good person and field medic, too.

Just because they are evil doesn't mean their actions are 'traditionally' evil. Selfishness, hedonism, gluttony and greed; these are all considered evil, but that doesn't automatically mean the guy that eats 6 meals a day and refuses to give to charity is out to actively hurt others. I like the Eberron campaign, where one of the kings of the 5 nations is a vampire, of evil alignment and yet was one of the major supporters of ending the hundred year war and fighting a secret war against a powerful evil cult. He mostly feeds off willing volunteers and makes sure not to take too much in one meal.

An interesting viewpoint is that in Eberron. The Blood Of Vol view undead as martyrs, especially litches and vampires. These are people who in the religions eyes, cannot taste or reach inner divinity due to being stuck in a half life.

diskworld black ribbon society

How many good vampires can we think of? One ha ha ha...

Well for me I tend to use baseline D&D lore as a starting point (Orcs tend to be warlike, Dwarves like to craft and live in mountains etc) but I never like to make it where something thinking is evil or good by default. With Vampires though they are in fact monsters something undead existing against the natural order. So going with baseline D&D again I would always make them evil but not because they choose to necessarily but because being a vampire changes them stripping them of human emotions (Think Sam from that one season of Supernatural). So a vampire might start out as a good person even try to avoid feeding or only feeding on evil beings, but eventually as he continues he will become more and more evil because he simply starts ceasing to care. Or he might start acting like Dr. Doom where he sees himself as good but is egotistical and frequently engages in evil (IE the only way to fix this world is for me to rule it).

I have a character that is a vampire aasimar paladin who is keeping the curse to not spread it to other people. He would have to fight the curse and his celestial side as well. I would try to play him as a Lawful good character but he could slip.

I have two "good" vampires in my campaign. One who's "good" and one who's actually good. The former is a lord who everyone knows is a vampire and everyone loves anyway. He's ruled over his land for just under a millennium and is by far the best lord to live under in the country. He's got the lowest taxes and the fairest laws. The party spent a few sessions with him and his family and found him to be very nice but extremely boring, kind of like an old uncle - as he was meant to be. Eventually they found out exactly how he'd stayed alive and fed his family without "hurting anyone". Turns out he had what was basically a human farm. It started with criminals when he first took power. And over a thousand years he had specifically bread the absolute worst genes into them that he now has a race of deformed, blind and deaf people who barely had any form of intelligence. When he was confronted on it, he explained how when he was first turned he tried to live ethically. He only fed off people who consented. Nevertheless, a vampire hunter tracked him down and tried to kill him. Nobody helped him and villagers cheered as he was almost steaked. That was when he learned that "murder is okay, so long as the world hates the victim". That's how he justifies the farm. Caging the original people was okay to him as they were bad people, and the current ones are barely even human anymore. He was a commentary on the benality of evil. Surprisingly, the party were chill with it and they found a pretty good ally with him. The second one's a lot shorter story, but she's sort of in the same place that the first one was originally. She was turned very recently against her will and tries to live as ethically as possible. She feeds as little as she can and only from people who let her. Recently, she let the party use her as bait for a seriel killer who didn't know she was a vampire and thus couldn't actually kill her. Generally, I disagree with any creature being inherently evil. Not for any weird "orcs are racist" reason but for me, it's just less interesting. A vampire genuinely trying their best to be a decent person despite their terrible circumstances will always be more interesting too me than Dracula knock-off #20483

In my world vampires are not undead but are willing or unwilling people who are possessed by formless demons who feed off blood. The creators of these demons are twin batlike demon lords who lord over the abyssal realm of The Bleeding Isles.

> are vampires always evil? yes, well kind of, as long as evil is something close to "bad for human society" they are infact always evil unless the creator of the world has gone out of their way to shirk the mythology they come from. Before Dracula vampires vampires were a category of monster that had one through line: making life worse for everyone around them. Sometimes they'd cause diseases to spontaneously appear, sometimes they'd cause famines, sometimes they'd cause emotions like anger to flare up and cause fights to happen, some of them preyed on young women, and some (the kind that became popular) drank blood, but all of them - without fail - made society worse around them. So unless someone goes out of their way to change the only connecting theme of vampires they are almost definitionally evil, hell I would go so far as to say you should use vampires as the definition of evil.

So... In regards to Fabula Ultima? Let's understand the origin of Vampires, Dracula, and the understanding of them from his first appearance in fiction. Vampirism is corruption. Remember in Dracula's mansion he had three other female Vampires and how they were savagely lustful over the POV at the time? Imagine how they used to be. We actually get to see that with Dracula's 4th victim. She was a maiden who was originally going to get engaged to one of her suiters. Then Drac happens on the scene and says "Mine", bites into her, turning her into a Vampire, and is just the most evil person, feeding on children! That's what Vampirism is at its core: a corrupting force that will drag more in it if given the opportunity. Therefore, Vampires would naturally be evil since Corruption is something that we all should avoid becoming and inflicting onto others.

what about intelligent vampires? extremely opportunistic and gifted as a politician. increasing the wellbeeing of his people so they agree donating their blood.

Anybody have a guess to "where" the background music is from?

Dark souls rules a vampire will slowly be drained of their humanity until they are hallow once that humanity is gone it can’t be reclaimed.

Nobody's gonna notice if a few bandits disappear right?

I actually if i were dm would make vampires not inherently evil, but there at war with there natural preditor instincts, some may want to just continue living the life they once had, but even if they only feed off of animals, donated blood, or willing people, they need strong willpower to not fall into there inner beast. This makes all vampires, even good ones dangerous, and there might even be some prejudice against them kinda like raceism, not helped by those that are truly monsters or evil Just a thought due to the fact that ive always loved vampires, from dracula, to interview with a vampire, to even elder scrolls or even twilight... just always been a fan I feel like the harder part about alowing a pc to be a vampire would be to balance them so there not detrimentally bad or op

umm Vlad is Dracula. That out of the way, vampires being automatically evil would mean humans would be evil because we eat cows. First lets take the two vampires at the beginning of this statement. Vlad Tsepsche, would not technically be considered evil. Even in Bram Stokers book arguments could be made that Dracula was not evil, anymore then saying Quasimodo would be evil.

Always Evil? No. Good? No. Morally questionable, absolutely. Vampires, are predators, and in a lot of settings, my favorites especially, only feed on people. So I don't think it's likely, nor to I like the idea of one being truly good. One of my games had the closest thing to good vampires I like to get. There was a society that worked within a modern government, who collected blood from humans and found a way to mix it synthetically with animal blood to sustain and satisfy them. They also have blood dens where people can get their rocks off by offering themselves to the vampires. Where this society would feed on them in limited quantities. This is not because they care about humans as a whole how ever, more so they have to share the same world with them, and they respect that humans are dangerous. It would be like if the only thing we humans could eat are bears, dangerous to hunt, more ethical to farm in very, very limited quantities. In this vampire society, this was made even more complicated by the fact that humans are smart, have governments, regulations. So, they adapted. Staying hidden, and working around loop holes to thrive as a species along side their pray without suffering for it.

so... you know how vampires are often associtated with bats and like, their myths started due to vampire bats and all? i plan to make a breed of vampire based on spiders... as for the question at hand, i dont believe anything should be *inherently* evil, just as i dont believe celeatials should be *inherently* good. yes, vampires feed on the blood of others, but theres plenty of evil people in the world that a vampire could target. like, what if they target bandits, murderers, and thieves? heck, if they make peace with a local town, the town can offer the criminals on death row to the vampire, letting the vampire serve as executioner. enough towns doing this and the vamp would be well fed without ever unjustly killing. 2 examples i can give of non-evil vampires (not in dnd but could be adopted into dnd). 1) theres a book series called nightlord that has the MC meet up with and have a pleasent evening with a beautiful woman. unknown to him, the woman is a vamp and turns him (for reasons i wont spoil). after he gets use to it something causes the woman to no longer be around him (again, no spoilers) and he is forced to dimention hop. once ge masters dimentional travel he starts going into different earths to feed on people who try to mug him or other criminals he cones across. he also feeds on sick/elderly people who are dying and just want to pass on. he'll feed on them to grant their desire. thats another way vampires can be good.. by granting death to those who really want to die andbwho would willingly give themselves to the vampire. 2) as for my second example.. actually involves 2 of my own characters from elder scrolls online so theres no spoilers here as its my own backstory. so the two characters in question are brother and (older) sister. their home was raided and the sister tried to fight the bandits off. she was wounded and when it appeared shevwas going to die a vampire came through and killed the bandits. he then "took pitty" on her and turned her to help her heal. now she works as an adventurer and only feeds on cultists and bandits. her brother, having witnessed her transformation, decided to study vampirism to learn of any ways to curb the hunger and/or cure the disease (i know theres a cure ingame but the rp is that there isnt) and the best way he knew to study it was to track down the one who turned her and get turned himself. so the brother is a vampire purely for academic reasons and the sister was forced. both only feed on cult members and thieves tl:dr its perfectly reasonable to have vampires fit into society as a means of taking out actual evil people.

I have to be honest - unless I was running a White Wolf game - I wasn't big on Vampires or werewolves in my game. I had - I don't want to say bad guy, but he wasn't good either - a Lich as a major story element. I would use Ghost, Wrights, and others but I think because of White Wolf I stayed away. Completely missed the boat on Strahd and Ravenloft as well, though I had the first module - never really used it. Which is good considering it has so many cringe/horror (no pun intended) stories coming from the players.

I don't really like "absolutely" evil or good for most things. Normally I'd think absolutes like this are something only things like angles and devils would be. But then you think of our own mythology, where an angle had his pride hurt and rallies together other dissatisfied angles to rebel against God and became devils. Is it likely to find a "good" vampire? Hell no! But is it possible? Potentially. I think the Dresdon Files gave a pretty good description of what it's like to be one. After a long race, in dry air, on a sandy beach. Your mouth is so dried out and full of dust and sand it's maddening. At the end you have a bottle of water, but you're only able to have a couple of drops before you have to stop, enough to keep you going, but just making the thirst more painful, all while being surrounded by what you need to stop that thirst, if you'd just reach out and take a drink. So a "good" vampire is constantly torturing themselves (while being weaker than other vampires, making them easy targets), all for that slender belief, that they're not a monster.

Here a homebrew alternative that I made a for people that want to play something vampiric, but good aligned. Their called Dhampir(not the same ones in the books), their have all the traits of vampires but do not have the weaknesses or the undead Stuff. They are humans that were transformed by the god of death to help combat undead/vampires. unlike vampires, people only transform to Dhampirs if their willing and if they are human.

9:31 You mean kinda like Astarion from Baldur's Gate 3? >:3.

Sympathetic addicts, easily.

To reward discrimination against people you think are too unlike you is never a good idea. Now I’m not the “no, what if the guys attacking us are good” all the time guy. But there needs to be an extra step. Don’t attack because they are a vampire, but because they are part of this group of vampires. When is rewarding the idea that standing out=evil is how murder hobos happen

No but they're always sexy. 🤭

Nah, they can be nuetral. Their diet prevents them from being good

D from vampire hunter d is or more neutral

*Laughs in wod fan* Everyone knows vampires are evil cuz they’re wyrm tainted capitalists, not cuz they eat people. People are delicious and there’s to many of em anyway

A noble vampire that allows taxes to be paid in coin or blood(non lethal like donating blood). The poor in the area are given medical care to keep them healthy which is paid for by the taxes from the rich. Under this setup a group of vampire hunters are called by a noble to stop a vampire that is attacking their citizens. Party meets their employer and discover that they are a vampire and wants to hire them to stop a poacher.

Vampire mascarade (not d&d) one my player : Knight vampire of the 2nd croisade. Think god have put him into the path of the vampire to slay evil vampire for eternity. Have read the bible, and jesus & cain eat fish. So he only eat blood of fishe he have fishing himselfe (or his ecuyer). Travel around world and seek evil vampire or demon to kill themes. He trie to obtain true faith (yes a vampire), but no golconda, it's a path for innocent who do not work for god. A Nearly-Mute knight in dark armor with a child(tzimize) and a cat (garou+vampire). Paper of all popes who approve his work for religions to seek and destroy surnatural evil. One of my good vampire player. It's not an armor, it's a sacred (by the 3 religion pope) iron Maiden made to hurt the vampire beast, he thnik he must eat all the vampire beast and make themes repent of their sins. Be carefulle player with him. ^^

In my setting theres three sects of vampires: Noble vampires (Nobilis vampiris), Common vampires (normalis vampiris), and Survivors (Endurus vampiris). Only common vampires are distinctly "vampires". Noble vampires are essentially unaging mortals who rule the ancient regions of the world in a hands-off manner; They raise leaders and nurture the species - intelligent and not - under their control, even going so far to protect their people from encroaching evil to their own harm. They operate under a noblesse oblige, where those with the means help those without. Noble vampires can create more noble vampires, but its an inheritence process that involves a vampire and a mortal swapping soul fragments (the parents soul eventually recovers, as the childes soul settles in. The childes soul then begins to grow over time. A parent can easily be overpowered by a childe if they sire to many). Noble vampires generally feed on their mortal lovers in consensual encounters. Common vampires are a form of undead who, due to the corruption of undeath, are often power hungry and occupy positions of political or personal power where they can hide away - usually theyre members of aristocracies, gangs, or larger organized crime groups. These vampires feed non-consensually, as they need a victims emotions to be high in order to extract their life energy and stave off the encroaching decay that is the curse of undeath. The 'encroaching decay that is the curse of undeath' is also a mental thing that afflicts almost every common vampire, with exceptions for extremely powerful vampires or ones that "ascend" to become high vampires. High vampires hearts beat red and black blood, and while undead, they are also "alive" in a way that normal common vampires are not. Common vampires create more common vampires by feeding on a victim past their death. Survivors are vampires who dont drink blood, and instead cycle their life energies with others (which can cure illnesses and even do simple regeneration). These kinds of vampires are "natural", created by the will of the world to witness and spread their story with the people who need to hear them. Survivors cannot die of their own will, and can only be killed by something powerful enough to subvert the will of the world, making them often standoffish and world-weary. Healing spells and anti-undead measures work on them, but they cannot be killed, only sealed. Survivors are the cause of common vampires, as some - who resented the world that gave them true immortality - weaponized their life to taint others and turn them in predatory monsters. Other survivors are mythical saints or hermits, healing others for nothing or offering transcendental teachings to those lucky enough to encounter them. Other survivors roam battlefields as immortal mercenaries, slipping away when they "die" only to appear in another country a few months later under a different name.