Toothy:Notes
Veor and Kit had met the vampires in a previous adventure. The vampires had been hiding in the Hormikleton Forest to avoid the Dark Circle drawing them in. Some of the forest werewolves had started a disagreement with the vampires. The vampires thrashed them, even with the werewolves using earth elementals. We helped make a peace treaty between them. The vampires seemed cultured and civil. They were a family unit of around a dozen, with maybe 30 "children" who were humans with supernatural ablities, and fifty "minions", were were tough gargoyles. They do not require anywhere near the usual amount of blood (1 human drained / vampire / day), but I bet they'd like it!
They could charm with their intense gaze (Jhiselle was under one's thrall). They were very hard to spot in the forest. They had a wild-hunt sort of thing where they and "guests" like Jhiselle could run through dense forest after deer, etc at 30 mph. Two of them took out a forty foot earth elemental by choosing to go in close and just shredding it, while evading and running around on it. They have very high initiative, lightning speed and reflexes. They use either long-range mental speech or racial equivalent to communicate. They can go into a trance and have another vampire speak through them (?voluntary possession?). Mebh accidentally sent one through the air above the forest during daytime for a few minutes (reverse Whispering Wind - oops!) and he was very badly sunburnt and grumpy, but not dead (sunlight damage ~ 1 FT/pulse?).
Summary of standard Vampire Thrall: A vampires may create a telepathic bond between himself and a victim who is not undead by performing the Kiss of the Undead. The vampire opens a small wound over his heart with any handy edged weapon and forces the victim to drink the vampire's blood from this open wound. Thereafter, the vampire and the victim will have a limited knowledge of each other's thoughts and location until one or both are destroyed.
Summary of standard Vampire abilities:
- All vampires are automatically Mind Mages. (Some of these had other colleges).
- They can change shape between Bat, rat, wolf, cloud of mist or human in a pulse. (Some of these had additional man/wolf hybrid form - other shapes unknown)
- Vampires are hypnotically attractive to humans. (Most of us just kept hostile & it was OK).
- They can summon, control, and communicate with all common land mammals, particularly bats, rats and wolves. (Didn't see this, but difficult to spot in a forest).
- Vampires cannot die. They can only be destroyed:
- By direct exposure to sunlight. (several minutes at least)
- By being staked through the heart while in their coffin. (what coffins?)
- By hearing the crow of a cock at dawn while out of their coffin. (myth)
- By failing to replenish Endurance through feeding. (They lasted weeks without feeding)
- By having their heart pierced by a silvered weapon. (WE GO FOR THIS)
Weaknesses that often don't apply:
- Vampires do not cast a shadow.
- Their reflection does not show up in a silvered mirror, but does show up in non-silvered mirrors.
- They may not cross running water (streams, rivers, and the like). (these guys ran across streams when hunting)
- They must sleep from sunrise to sunset in a bed of earth taken from their grave. (They were up and outside (in the shade) in the daytime)
- Vampires may not enter an inhabited dwelling unless invited in by its inhabitants.
- Garlic repels vampires. Yeah, right.
- Relics and holy items associated with the Powers of Light are repellent to
vampires. (This didn't work in the Forest, but probably does in town)
- Vampires flee from dogs with angel eyes (dark circles around the eyes).
- Vampires suffer [D - 5] damage from the touch of consecrated objects, but will become infuriated by their touch so that they attack the wielder of such objects instead of fleeing their presence. (True, but they are unarmed/close combat kings)
Notes on the Forest
Referenced from memory of the previous mission
- The forest serves as a Barrier to all younger powers. All memory of the powers will be lost while in the forest.
- The Forest is magically attractive to elementalists/shape changers etc, and they may not wish to leave the forest. This may or may not include celestials.
- The Ethereal version of the forest does not match the physical version.
From Robert
- The magic of the forest seems unstable, a priest apparently was able to connect to the powers in there.
- The Werewolves have apparently been destroyed.
