Author and world creator Anne Rice died this past weekend at the age of 80.
Rice's writing, whether her books on vampires, witches, mummies, or erotic fairytales, had a huge effect on horror writing, modern media vampires, and not least of all, games.
I recently watched the 2017 "World of Darkness" documentary where Vampire the Masquerade creator talked about how he tried to avoid everything Anne Rice when he was writing, only to watch all the movies and read the books that influenced her.
There was certainly something in the air around then. World of Darkness / Vampire the Masquerade came out in 1991, with development starting in the late 80s (on the way to Gen Con according to the documentary). Back in 1985-86, I read "The Vampire Lestat." I actually read it before I read "Interview with A Vampire" so my opinion of Lestat was a bit higher than my friends that read the books in the proper order. "Lost Boys" came out in 1987. All of this led to some interesting discussions at the game table on the nature of vampires.
Once again I am going back to my original "Red Book" and I pulled the stats on an old favorite, the Children of Darkness, updated to my new Basic Bestiary stat block. Though spoiler alert, you have seen a variation on these with the Children of Twilight.
Medium Undead (Corporeal)
Frequency: Very Rare
Number Appearing: 1 (1d4)
Alignment: Chaotic [Chaotic Neutral]
Movement: 180' (60') [18"]
Run 360' (160') [36"]
Armor Class: 2 [17]
Hit Dice: 10d8+20*** (65 hp)
To Hit AC 0: 6 (+13)
Attacks: 2 fists or by weapon
Damage: 1d6+5 x2, or weapon+5
Special: Constitution drain, immune to mind-affecting spells such as sleep, hold, and charm, plus additional powers
Save: Monster 10
Turn As: Type 12 (Lich)
Morale: 11 (12)
Treasure Hoard Class: XX [C]
XP: 3,000 (OSE) 3,100 (LL)
Str: 22 (+5) Dex: 18 (+3) Con: 16 (+2) Int: 16 (+2) Wis: 13 (+1) Cha: 20 (+4)
Few undead creatures are as powerful as the vampire and none are as successful as hunters as the vampire. The Children of Darkness are among the most powerful of the vampires. The transformation to the undead causes the Children of Darkness to become the perfect predator. Their physical form becomes perfect; imperfections disappear, they become stronger, can see and hear better, and naturally, can smell blood. These vampires only prey on humans and as such only humans become Children of Darkness.
The Children of Darkness share many of the same strengths and weaknesses as the common vampire. They are strong (they have strength scores of 22), undead, immune to mind-affecting spells such as sleep, hold, and charm. They are also immune to having their minds read. However, unlike other types of vampires, they can enter dwellings, holy ground and are not harmed by holy items like symbols of holy water. Additionally, they cannot turn into bats, wolves, or mist. They do not need to rest in coffins, but many do since it is a good guarantee that they will lie undisturbed. Like all vampires, Children of Darkness are damaged by and can be destroyed by sunlight. They take 2d6 hp of damage per round exposed to sunlight. These vampires are turned by Clerics as Liches or Type 12 Undead.
These vampires can attack with their fists causing 1d6+5 points of damage per hit or attack with a weapon with a +5 to damage. Additionally, these vampires can have a special power. These powers can include, Charm, Levitation, Pyrotechnics, Telekinesis, or Telepathy. Typically these vampires gain their first power soon after becoming a vampire and an additional power for every 100 years of age. Children of Darkness over 1,000 years old are believed to be able to fly or even immunity to sunlight.
Magical weapons can harm them and if they are reduced to below 0 hp they do not die, must retreat where they will heal at the rate of 1 hp per day. Damage above this 0 hp threshold is regenerated at the rate of 1 hp per round. Vampires can "heal" hp on an eight-for-one basis for any hp they drain from constitution points (1 con point = 8 hp).
The deadliest attack is their Constitution Drain. Once they latch onto a victim they drain them of blood via a bite. This bite drains the victim of two (2) points of constitution per round, with most humans drained to zero in five rounds. A human drained to below 0 constitution points will die. A drained human will not return as a vampire unless the Child of Darkness also gives them some of their own blood. They can only do this if the human is at 0 points of constitution, no more, no less.
Children of Darkness will band together in small groups for protection. Many will share the same sire or will even be "orphans", Children whose sire has abandoned them. They have a complex set of laws they must abide by which includes not turning children into vampires, (though feeding on them seems to be ok) not creating too many of their own kind (which is difficult to start with), and not killing their own sires. Some even take this as far as not killing others of their kind.
The Children of Darkness see themselves as superior to all other types of vampires. They view other vampires as mutations or aberrations. Their own rules prohibiting them from killing other vampires do not apply to other vampire types. They often refer to all these other types as "Children of the Devil."
Every hundred years or so a Child of Darkness feels the need for a deeper sleep. They will find a secluded location away from the sun where they will sleep for a decade or more. Sometimes very old vampires will fall into this death-like state and forget to awaken.
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About twice as much text as my late 80s version. For this stat block, there is now a "Turned As" listing. This is something I'll introduce in Basic Bestiary II: Undead (currently 220 entries, but only 140 are complete). "Named" undead will get a chance to make a saving throw but I will detail all of that and my alternate rules for Undead Level Drain in the book.
I was saddened to read of her passing. Rice's work and Lost Boys (and the other movies of the era) were certainly the key players in the zeitgeist. Another forgotten player in the vampire culture was was Fred Saberhagen, too, with his clans of vampires battling in modern day Chicago in books like An Old Friend of the Family, from the early 80s) as well as his revisionist Dracula of the Dracula Tape.
ReplyDeleteAnother vampire author that - at the time - seemed very influential on White Wolf t is now largely forgotten, was Nancy Collins. When Vampire the Masquerade came out I was also struck by how (even more than Rice)it seemed to echo elements of Nancy Collin's Bram Stoker award-winning vampire splatter punk Sunglasses After Dark (1989).
I have no idea whether there was any actual inspiration; oddly enough, Collin's work was later reprinted by White Wolf's fiction arm and she penned a crossover between her universe and theirs, and, even more oddly, both she and White Wolf initiated a lawsuit claiming that Underworld had ripped off ideas from both of them... which just goes to suggest how closely Vampire actually followed elements of Collin's well-realized universe, which also included werewolves and many other supernatural creatures...)