The Beast Fears Fire - Vampires

Vampire [Ignorance 4]
Impusle - To spread the infection.

Vampires are unusual in that they are not the result of a person intending to preserve their consciousness (though perhaps the original vampire was, we have no way of knowing), but as the result of a curse.  Anyone who has been victimized by a vampire at any time in their life runs the risk of becomming a vampire upon their death.  It's a very small chance, but it is enough of one that most funerary rites for most cultures take this into account.  The cultures local to Crickton take the most common and practical route of cremation (though, on very rare occasions, this has not prevented a vampire from reforming once it has already been created). 

A vampire exists to bring more spirits into its power.  It does this by victimizing as many people as it can within its range, weakening them, sickening them and letting them die.  Any vampires that rise from the process do so in the thrall of their creator.  Vampires tend to "last" for 50 to 100 years before degrading, but very successful vampires have managed longer.

Vampires can manifest, and when they do, they are vulnerable to physical attack.  That said, the most you can do to a vampire with weapons and magic is force it to discorporate and flee to its body.  When manifesting, a vampire will usually take a form similar to a darkly attractive and magnetic version of its former appearance in life (this can be a not insignificant disguise, mind you) or a flying animal appropriate to vampire legends local to its "birthplace" - in Crickton, this is eather the form of a human-sized, feindish looking bat or a flock of sooty, red-eyed pigeons.

Vampires are reliant upon their bodies, though they have no control over and cannot interact physically with them.  The body of a vampire looks like the person did within an hour or two of their death; as long as it is not exposed to direct sunlight, it never decays (even if the vampire spirit is degraded, interestingly).  When exposed to direct sunlight, thing rots very quickly, and in some cases, spontaneously combusts (though usually just to the smoldering state; it's very rare to see one burst into cheery flame).  Destroying a vampire's body, either through exposure to direct sunlight or through dismemberment and cremation, destroys the vampiric spirit.

Harm - Peril
Vampires are extremely strong in person and very hard to fight, but that's not the real measure of the danger they represent.  Their true danger lies in their ability to victimize and enthrall.  Victimization takes on a lot of different forms depending on the vampire and their relationship to their victim (however they define that), but grabbing and biting, appearing to drink blood from their victim is by no means out of the question.  It's by no means the only way a vampire victimizes a person, but that one is a classic.  People the vampire victimizes develop a low grade fever, listlessness and fatigue, the last of which becomes more pronouced, and involves feelings of weakness, dizziness and anxiety.  Death usually comes in a week or two from onset, depending on the predelicitons of the vampire.

Once a vampire victimizes a person (and whether they know it or not), the vampire can then enthrall that person.  This takes on three different forms, depending on the personality of the vampire.
Fascination - The victim believes the vampire to be a trusted friend or loved one (and they usually were such at one point) and is willing to do things for their loved one and justify them, using their full capacity and creativity.  The downside for the vampire is that they are essentially the same person and while they are storngly motivated to help the vampire, they won't do things they wouldn't do for that vampire.
Domination - The victim is under total mental thrall of the vampire, their will is suspended.  They will do anything the vampire asks of them to the letter of the specification, but dominated folks tend to be kind of dull and single-focus, so require a lot more management.  Victims do not remember what they did when they were under domination.
Possession - The vampire takes total control over the victim's every action, with full access to both the victim's and the vampire's knowledge, memories and capabilities.  The downside to this is that they can possess only one person at a time, and the rest of the time, their victims are free willed.

Regardless of the vampire's power, victims are under a strong compulsion not to speak of (or remember) their victimization.

A Horrible Night for a Curse
When you are looking for clues in a place that a vampire has claimed as territory, face Ignorance.
On a Hit, you are aware of the vampire's activities and can identify one of its victims.
On a Hard Hit, you can identify a victim and the victim who was most recently acting on the vampire's will, what the vampire's last command to its enthralled victims was, or the identity of the vampire. 
On a Miss... was that the vampire?  Gain the Peril Sick.  Maybe it was...

A Miserable Pile of Secrets
When you have been victimized by a vampire, face Ignorance.
On a Hit, you are aware of the vampire's influence, what the vampire looked like, how it victimized you, and what it wants you to do right now.  You do not need to do that, though.
On a Hard Hit, you are also aware of the current location of the vampire's body.
On a Miss, you gain the temporary Strength Trait Enthralled - you gain Strength when you do what the vampire wants you to do.  You do not gain Strength from any other means (including Soft Moves) until and unless the vampire is destroyed.  You also become Sick or suffer 4 Harm if you are Sick.


She said "I'm so cold, I'm so cold in the night"
Astute students of the supernatural are likely wondering, what with their ability to reproduce and their incredible strength, why have vampires not killed everything. 

The fact of the matter is, that, thanks to a parting shot from the Western Kingdoms, they almost did.  Rierdan had at least one prison camp where Crick and Murrenic POWs got exposed to a vampire before being sent back home at the end of the war.  The epidemic that wiped out so much of the population on both sides of the war was an epidemic of vampirism.  It turns out that vampires are incredibly territorial and unable or unwilling to travel on their own.  New vampires come about in a place where a victim who did not know they had been a victim (or did and didn't care), and a vampire who manages to depopulate their territory tends to remain there until they degrade or new people move in.  The vampires that ravaged Crickton are now almost all degraded. 

The bodies of vampires are home to deposits of a dark red crystal called pigeon's blood which is both magical and quite valuable.  Their hearts, in particular, can often be completely crystalized, and highly prized.  The downside is that, if the body is exposed to direct sunlight, the reaction destroys the pigeon's blood (once harvested, the crystal's reaction to direct sunlight is to be really sparkly). 

The downside to not exposing the body, pigeon's blood and all, to direct sunlight is that, if you don't, there is a chance that the vampire will reform in a month, even if the spirit previously degraded, and pick back up where it left off for a lunar year.  Without a body, there is no way to destroy the vampire, but driving it off does force it to become dormant for a month.  Once the lunar year (give or take a few days - a vampire that returned on the second day of a waning gibbous is probably going to vanish on the full moon, for instance) is through, the vampire degrades totally.  Destroying the pigeon's blood that came from the vampire in question's body does not help matters.

The ashes from a vampire destroyed by sunlight, if consumed by a victim of a vampire (does not need to be their vampire, it can be any one), drastically lowers the chances of that person rising as a vampire.  Many settlements in Crick have administered vampiric ashes to all their citizens as a matter of public health.