A vampire cult? Your thoughts if you would please.

By Ignayus, in Dark Heresy

I'm currently in the process of pouring through the DoTDG book and seeing how I can use the 8 noted heretics therein as powerful opposition for my Acolytes to confront.

One of them, Myrcilla Sinderfall, I would like to take and use as the quintisential (**** my horrible spelling!) "Vampire" . Considering how she is obviously geared towards Slaneesh and that no good explaintion on how she can live for as long as she have and still look as good as she does (without sorcery or psychic powers), it just makes good sense and the fluff on her obviously oozes with illusions to elizabeth Bathory. That and it's a perfect excuse to include some sort of sick caniballistic orgy with the planet's corrupted nobles that only Slaneesh would personally approve of.

Thoughts? Ideas? I'm curious to know if someone has already taken this road and how it went.

i've developed my own brand of vampire cult in concept but never fleshed it out or attributed stats to.

as a brain storm it goes as such. they are not blood suckers as typical vamps but they are life force drinkers. the drain victims of their very essence and leave a dessicated shell. they are xenos or denizens of the warp but not affiliated to any power of chaos. everything gets blamed on chaos i find so i stayed away from that. i actually have the thought to make them devout enemies of chaos as chaos tastes terrible to them. and a universe in chaos would starve them to non existence.

i like what the fantasy genre of warhammer has done by diversifying the vampires into a variety of distinctive types. so i would aslo incorporate that also.

rooting out a vampire coven would be interesting. they don't have to be necessarily evil but looking to insinuate themslves into the very busy societies of men. some can prey. some can be protectors. but all must feed in some way on life force. they can create lesser vampires from humans. make thralls. dominate lesser minds. whatever. i might have to draw the line at turning into a bat though. LOL

Heh, this reminds me of one of the Necromunda Novels. It was called Blood Royal . I really don't want to spoil the book, but while it didn't deal with any kind of Inquisition event. It does show that blood is usefull even if you don't work for chaos.

good idea but if you want her to be slaneeshi dont let it be bloody...thats khornate and vampires and Khorne dont mix "blood is for the blood god not for drinking" though i like the ripping apart each other in a slaneshi orgy thing...it kinda reminds me of Kiaphis Cain novels with the sorceress sucking the life force out of people though energy vampires have never really interested me...

From france

A reponse about the vampire cult.

This is how i see the vampire cult. I will select three group and i will detail all three.

The groupes are vampire lord, vampire thrall and slaves ghoul.

The vampire lord is divided like this :

An unsanctioned psyker ( yes it must be a psycker) so in this case the inquisitor must be a radical. Otherwise it is the same problems as with the verminspeacker.

A sanctioned psycker in this case he become a vampire latter and than either hide their condition (very hard see later) or work for a radical inquisitor.

A nascent psycker cannot normally become a vampire ( see later)

Common caracteristic of all vampire lord and thrall. They leave no signature in the warp and are imune to warp phenomena but they are not untouchables. They cannot use sorcery. They cannot make overbleed. They cannot have the power psychic spite. They have another version of psychic vampire for each wound they inflict by drinking blood they can use a minor psychic power for 5 point a major power. A vampire canot hold more blood poind (wound) that he has wound If a vampire doesn’t drink blood he cannot replenish is capacity of using power. A vampire that doesn’t drink at least a blood (wound) per week loose a level of psychic mastery. Otherwise they follows the same progressions of psycker. The gm can say which power is apropriate and which is not except for the one previously noted.

Vampire are imune to religious symboles, belief, artefac and so on unless they were believer before becomming vampire. In this case they react has other religious people. They canno’t be touch by the light of the emperor if you don’t exist to the cahos gods you don’t exist for the emperor

Vampire are living and not undead people. Vampire are free thinker in the sense that they can embrace xenos belief ,chaos belief and so on. However most vampire will oppose this force. Why ? simply speacking humanity is their herd therefore chaos aliens and other sipmly take their meal. So most vampire will oppose them. That doesn’t me they love humanity ( see later) most of the time they defend humanity out of need.

The vampire is a mutation of the flesh of psycker no other than a psycker or a mutant can becomme vampire.
_____________________________________________________

Vampire lord :

Each vampire lord is treated as nomrmal character apart that they lose their contact, their touch with humanity with each passing centuries. Vampire lord loose autotmatically –5 felloship per century of existence. This is cumulative with other source of felloship losses.
The also gain on 1d5 points corruption point per century of existence. This is cumulative with other sources of increase corruption point. This reflect their difficulty to control their mutation and hunger.
They also gain one 1d5 of insanity point per century of existence. This is cumulative with other source of increase insanity point. This reflect their dificulties to get in touch with common reality.

A vampire lord gain on point of natural armor per century of existence. After the first one.
A vampire lord gain the possibility to creat a vampire thrall per century of existence at the condition that he burn a fate point.
A vampire lord gain the possibility to creat one 1d5 slaves ghouls per century of existence, including the first one. By spending a fate point.
A vampire lord has a unique weakness at the begining of existence. For each century they gain another one. For examples a weaknes to natural ligth forbids a vampire lord to move under the sun of a planet. Star are to distant to affect him. It can be physiological (like burns from a flamer) or purely psychological.

A vampire lord gain the folowing benefit from each spend century (cumulative) +10 to ws, bs, s,t,ag, perception, wilpower but not inteligence he has to learn anyway and of course felowships witch is reduce. The other side is that for each day that did not take drink (minimum one wound) they loose not one but all of this benefices.

If a vampire lord feel that is existence is at a end he can transfert is soul to one of his vampire thrall a the condition that is thrall is in better shape that him (insanty point corruption point and losse of felowship.) in case of sucess only is personality and useful memories are kept (skill and talent), his fate point. Otherwise he began clean like a first century vampire. To do that he must burn permanently a fate point (no possibilty to gain another one). A vampire has only 50% chance of succeeded minus the remaining willpower of his thrall unless he is volunteer ( no use of power nor skill and talent to convince the thrall to be volunteer)

A vampire lord has complet control of his vampire thral but not of his slaves ghoul. (see later) apart for the transfert.

A vampire lord that reach 0 felowships without been able to transfert his soul become an animal with no soul. Each other vampire lord in the vincinity are compel by hatred to kill him.

A vampire lord is territorial and will fight to the death is a another vampire is close to his chosen territory which increase in size per century (gm discretions)

It can seems that they are too many advantages but they have several drawback. Most of them of roleplaying one.

Tomorow and the folowing day the description of the vampire thrall and the slaves ghouls (non mutan non psycher)

Well enough for today.

I based the villan from my last campaign on the legends of Countess Bathory who bathed in virgin's blood to keep herself young. Sounds about right to me.

ThenDoctor said:

good idea but if you want her to be slaneeshi dont let it be bloody...thats khornate and vampires and Khorne dont mix "blood is for the blood god not for drinking" though i like the ripping apart each other in a slaneshi orgy thing...it kinda reminds me of Kiaphis Cain novels with the sorceress sucking the life force out of people though energy vampires have never really interested me...

I can see what you mean, but in the time I've spent pouring through the 40K fluff I've come to understand that association with a particular ruinous power lies more with the "why" then the action or method. If the "vampires" had killed their victims in a mad slaughter then that would be associated with Khorne because he represents sensless violence and war-like tendancies, where as with followers of Slaneesh, the blood and gore are a result of some horriblely debased sexual act seeing as Slaneesh is the God of all things pleasurable (and indeed, pleasure can assume all forms).

Also, while there is a rule set for psychic vampires, it just doesn't have the same "bite" (pun intended) as vampires who litterally feast on blood and gore, hell, you can even say they drink the pain and suffering they inflict upon their victims and get away with it in my opinion.

well im basing the vampires a bit off wfrp...in that no matter what khorne just doesnt like them because they use his blood for themselves

Some death cults are vampiric. IIRC, vampirism is a tolerated heresy among loyal cults.

Obviously, an anti imperial cult (with actual real vampires) would be well served by infiltrating one of these death cults.

Failing that, vampires should probably see slight bonuses to T,S,Ag, and WP, possibly receiving unnatural. They should also get regenerate, stuff of nightmares, etc.

Have top-level "head vampires" who know who the dark vampire god is. Everyone else is in the dark, seeking to emulate the top level vampires in their appreciation of art, music, food, sexuality and so on (yeah vampires eat and drink besides blood, it's a twist!) Bottom level(human) followers assist the vampires with daytime errands (you can come up with some reason they dislike sunlight, doesn't have to be that they explode or anything, maybe it renders them utterly blind), all that they know is that they run around procuring prostitutes/virgins/sisters of battle who are never seen again, and that they'll be rewarded with immortality for a lifetime's service. Maybe at the head of it all, rather than the distant figure of Slaanesh, is the very real threat of one of his/her emmissaries, a blood drinking havoc wreaker intent on corrupting the entire ruling class, culminating in a particularly vile mass orgy which consumes the souls of all in government and leaves the city/hives ungoverned, with obviously chaotic and seditious results (perhaps leaving themselves or another group to seize power)

From france

Vampire thrall : they are natural mutant which mean mutation of genetics or environemental sources not beucause of chaos influence or chirurgigal expreiment. They are created by vampire lord to serve them whereas as minions for fellowships or as receptacle to use in the previously mentioned ritual. Vampire thrall devolved more quickly than vampire lord. When they are created the gain the nascent psycker talent. They also gain 1d10 insanity point, 1d10 corruption point but they don’t loose felowship the first century and only in their second century and after does they loose –5 felowship per century.

Vampire thrall obey their master blindly at the exception of the ritual in wich they must be persuaded to volunteer naturally (no skill no talent no power just roleplaying in case of pc). They are not however completely devoted.

They are not automaton they act and think on their own. They gain 1 minor power uin the fisrt century and 1d5 minor powers there after. They do not gain major power. They also need blood (wounds) to fuel their power. However they need 2 boold to do so.

Vampire thrall are more specialized they gain on ly 1d5 point in their physical or mental traits, not both per cenury of existence. This in addition tho other source of increase.

They cannot evolved in vampire master in anyway. This slowly drive them mad because they know they are loosing ties with humanity while being denied to obtain as much power as their master. Some try to rebel some not but leaving their master or destroying it will doom them. For each year whithout a blood (wound) from their master they die slowly. Blood kept fresh in vial are acceptable.

The fisrt year they loose 1d5 in a trait and 1 wound permantly even drinking again won’t restore the loss. This continues until they die. The blood of another vampire lord won’t work. Some lord hide this because it is a good way to be removed from a troublesomme thrall other explained it clearly as way ton enforce their power.

Vampire thrall keep gaining level in their class. This is why they are so useful to their master. By them the vampire lord had acces to a group of folower with a broad spectre of skill and talents as well as connections and fund.

The relation between a lord and his thrall can go between love, friendships and bdsm specter.

Vampire thrall can creat 1d5 slaves ghouls after their first century.

Tomorow the slaves ghouls.

Something I tend to encourage but don't see near often enough in games; making the vampire an actual monster. The original vampires of legend were not suave and sexual, they were ravenous beasts who drank blood and lived in the earth ... while these aren't romantic, they are certainly more frightening than your Lestat's.

Think about it - their bodies are dead, they don't produce the oils which keep their skin moist and prevent it from flaking away grotesquely; their hair is going to be dried and terribly split, brittle as twigs; they don't sweat so they'll smell of the dust they've accumulated from their abodes - a dry deserted smell. They may tend toward demonstrations of excess, but that is because their senses have dulled - the dead don't taste or smell or feel tactile stimulus. They are potentially powerful minds trapped in withered shells - a sad mockery of immortality which they will never truly enjoy and the only thing that keeps them alive is the knowledge of what they gave up to become this thing ... they have sacrificed so much that to die now would be the worst thing imaginable.

Taking this line of thought further ... what if the vampires we see in the media, the young, handsome, charismatic creatures are in fact the youngest of the lot - not yet decayed enough to show their true nature. What if they were even the most powerful? The power of the creatures fading as their bodies withered away to nothing? The thing the old vampires truly have going for them is their vast experience and the resources they've acquired over the years ... but in all other ways they weaken until, for the oldest, even their minds go and they truly become nothing more than beasts.

That could make for a unique vampire experience for players who think they know the monsters well.

from france

Slave ghoul

Slave ghoul are normal human ( no form of mutation no psychic power) unless mad they are trick to drink blood, they are not volunteer. At least the fisrt time after that they crave for it.

They have conection that push them to find their master be it lord or thrall..
Ghoul simply take some advantage bu tno power. They gain all the talents to resit poisons toxines and 1d10 toughness and one more year to live. Ghoul need one blood (wounds) from their master per year to keep this advantages. After the first year they loose everything. Blood in botles will do. If a slave ghoul goes beyond in natural life span and canot drink she die.

Ghoul are free will they are just dependant on their juices. They know they are crosing the line of what the empire accept.and that their master are freak and mutant. It just that for some a longer life safe from deases and poisons is a irresistible candy.

In exchange of it they can bring shelter, food (human) money contact and son on to their master. But once their usefulness is over they are toasted. So they still try to be loyal.

Next time the vampire cult in it self.