Vampire Bite Blog Hop - Vampires and Dragons

Welcome visitors, I’m sure most of you stopping by because you’re participants in the Vampire Bite Blog Hop. In honor of this, I had my good friend, Devan, create a piece of vampire art just for this post.

I have always loved vampires (especially vampire movies). While I like modern vampire stuff, gothic/fantasy vampire stories are my favorite. The Hammer Horror flicks, in particular, have a special place in my heart. This love tends to bleed over (pun intended) to my other major hobby, gaming. Typically, when I do vampire related posts I stat out some sort of of monster or npc (non-player character) for game masters to use in their games. I didn't think that would be as appropriate today since many visitors will be unfamiliar rpg's. Instead I thought I would point readers (and potential gamers) to resources that would allow them to play vampiric characters with the "World's Most Popular Role-Playing Game"  (aka Dungeons and Dragons and its clones/off-shoots). All of the books (and pdf's) I'm mentioning are ones that I personally own and/or have used. I'm separating them by editions of the game (as there are a few). 

Basic D&D, Labyrinth Lord, and other retro clones

Vampire Class: Fellow blogger (and blog hop participant), Tim Brannan, has created an excellent  vampire class for use with Basic D&D and it's retro-clones. The class, like others from this edition of the game, doesn't differentiate between race and class. You can find it (for free might I add) on Tim's blog, The Other Side. I'm also going to take a moment to mention that if you'd like to try Dungeons and Dragons (but don't want to spend anything) you can download a free (no art) version of the D&D retro-clone Labyrinth Lord.

Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition

Requiem: The Grim Harvest: This 2nd edition boxed set for the Ravenloft campaign setting is the culmination of a series of adventures. However, that aside it also has rules for creating undead player characters, including (but not limited to) vampires. I will admit that I own this one, but have never actually used it.

Dungeons and Dragons 3.0/3.5 Edition

Libris Mortis: The Book of the Undead: This is one of my favorite rpg books. It has some really interesting (and at times just plan nasty) material. If you want to play a vampire the book features a "monstrous" vampire class, as well as feats and prestige classes that are vampire-centric. 

Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition

Player's Options: Heroes of Shadow: This book contains multiple vampire options. The first (and most obvious) is the vampire class. This "striker" class is built around stealth and various abilities attributed to vampires. If that's not your style there's the Vyrloka race, which are a family of vampire-blooded nobles. Finally there is the Dhampir bloodline.

Pathfinder

Bestiary 2: While this massive manual of monsters doesn't contain much vampiric info for players, it does introduce player stats for dhampirs. If playing Pathfinder you might also want to pick up Player Companion:Blood of the Night, though I can't vouch for it, because I don't have it.

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With the products I just mentioned you can create your own anti-heroic (or villainous) vampire character, no matter what edition of Dungeons and Dragons you're playing.

Read other contributions to the blog hop by using the links below: