AD&D 2nd Ed was really the golden age of campaign settings. Sure, that gold was only a very thin veneer, maybe even just electroplating. But instead of focusing on that I want to enjoy what was great about that time and that was the depth of products. TSR must have known the writing was on the wall by 1996 because the Children of the Night books, starting in 1996, were an attempt to build bridges across the campaign worlds.
Children of the Night Vampires
1996. By Paul Culotta and Steve Miller with Carol L. Johnson and Jonathan Ariadne Caspian. Cover art by Daniel Home. Interior Illustrations by Jason Burrows. 96 pages.
For this review I am considering the PDF and PoD from DriveThruRPG and my memories of my original print copy.
This book is dedicated to the memory of Nigel D. Findley, who created Rudolph Van Richten. Findley had died of a heart attack at age 35.
This first of the Children of the Night series features 13 unique vampires to challenge PCs. "Challenge" doesn't always mean "fight."
I should point out that this is not the first time we have seen a "Children of the Night" for Ravenloft. The first one was "MC15 - Monstrous Compendium - Appendix II Children of the Night."
The concept is a solid one. Ravenloft breathed new life (heh) into Vampires with the very first adventure, so it makes sense that it would continue to do so and then expand on that. The book starts out by saying that while these are all unique takes on vampires native to Ravenloft's mists, they don't have to stay there, and they can be added to your own campaign world.
Each entry includes a stat-block, description and history, usually with how they became a vampire. There is also a mini adventure/plot hook you can use with the vampire in question.
Among the famous, or about to become famous, vampires include Ravenloft's Jander Sunstar, the eleven vampire introduced in the novel "Vampire of the Mists." Jander is a Chaotic Neutral (which as close to Good as it gets) vampire from the Forgotten Realms. He is just as likely to help the PCs fight vampires as he is to want to be left alone.
Also, here are Lyssa von Zarovich, Strahd's great-niece (or something like that) and one of the members of his family line that was not killed when Barovia was pulled into the Mists. Don't mistake her hate for Strahd as "goodness" she is still quite evil. She will later go on to appear in Curse of Strahd.
We get a desert vampire, Moosha, the Ixitxachitl vampire Myxitizajal, and the vorlog Don Pablo among the others.
The one I liked the most back then, because the concept was novel to me, was Lady Heather Shadowbrooke, the Druid Vampire. She is quite evil and a tragic character, really.
I certainly think this is a great addition to any AD&D 2nd Ed game, Ravenloft or not.
Note about the PoD
The Print on Demand copy I have does show some fuzziness, but all in all it is a very good copy. There are two PDFs you get from DriveThruRPG. Once is quasi OCR and the other is image. Neither seems as clear as the PoD which I find weird.
This PoD is a worthy replacement for my original book from 1996.
Children of the Night vs. Vampires
Children of the Night Vampires is not the first time a collection of various vampire NPC/Antagonists has been done for an RPG. The first one I ever bought was Vampires for the Chill RPG (1st Ed). The 2nd edition version is available on DriveThruRPG.
Both books do the same thing for their respective games, and both do it well. I give a slight nod to the Chill one since it came first. The Ravenloft/AD&D one has 13 vampires vs the Chill's 11 (10 entries), so it has that in it's favor.
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