Discussion Fluff: Vampires in Warhammer

Hey y'all!

as you may know I like both Lizardmen/Seraphon and Undead.
So it is pretty likely that in one of my next stories one or more undead, specifically Vampires as they are leaders in undead armies, will play a role.

My problem is: I know as much as John Snow about Vampires in Warhammer. This thread has the purpose to gather some knowledge in order to not make a fool of myself. If you have any information about Vampires in WHFB or AoS, regardless of how old your source material is, I'd kindly ask you to contribute to this thread.

Here are some (ok, a lot of) questions I already have, I numbered them for convenience:


1. How do they look and what are their properties?

1a. Vampires in fiction are very different. If you compare them to Vampire description in the following franchises, which one fits best, and why?
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer
- Underworld
- Blade
- Twilight
- Van Helsing
- Being Human
- Dungeons and Dragons
- The Elder Scrolls

1b. In some of the above stories Vampirism is:
- some sort of magical curse
- a subspecies of human that may or may not be compatible with regular humans
- some sort of illness
What is it here? Is blood some sort of magical healing potion for them, or merely food?

1c. The traits of Vampires may vary greatly:
- supernatural strength and/or speed
- supernatural charisma, might be magical or because of a body attribute
- thirst for blood that might be controllable or not
- longevity (may be with or without blood)
- special personality (arrogance, not having their emotions under control, aggressiveness)
- ability to transform in some way (become a swarm of bats, become a nebulous cloud, hiding their teeth/eyes/claws)
- cold or warm body temperature
- unnaturally fast healing, which may or may not require blood
- may need (human) blood. Does other blood work?
- if they don't drink blood, what happens (insanity, starvation, becoming a corpse that may or may not be revivable, maybe even after a long time, becoming some sort of monster?)
- holy symbols can stop/empower them
- flowing water can stop them
- silver can hurt them
- garlic can hurt them
- stake to the heart can kill them (maybe only if they are in their coffin)
- beheading can kill them
- (direct) sun light (or maybe other light, too, such as artificial UV light or holy light) hurts or kills them
- holy water hurts them
- they have reflections in mirrors (or not)
- they have / don't have souls
- they cannot enter a house without being allowed to do so by the owner
- they are undead or a special sort of living creature)
- can or cannot transform people to Vampires
- if they bite a human, will they always die / always turn into a Vampire / turn into some lesser form of vampire that has to follow the Vampire's orders? Can the Vampire decide?
- is the act of biting essential (in some magic way) or could they just drink blood
- can Vampirism affect other creatures except humans?

2. How does interaction with them work?

2a. Can they disguise as humans? If they can, how do they do it (and how could a human notice?)
2b. Would a Saurus Warrior notice? What about a Slann? Who would notice, why and when? Would another Vampire notice?
2c. Who are their friends or enemies (example: Werewolves were/are their friends/slaves)
2d. Is it imaginable that humans live together with Vampires (by their own, free will)
2e. Are Vampires always evil or can they be neutral/friendly toward humans
2f. Age of Sigmar specific: Can a Vampire decide not to serve Nagash (such as: Ignore his orders without Nagash noticing)
2g. Do regular humans (or some of them, name which please) usually know about some or all their traits?

3. How does their society look like?
- Living among humans in secret societies?
- Living among humans openly?
- Organized in clans/families/corporations?
- Maybe some sort of caste system?
- are they making destinctions between pure bloods (born vampires) and others?
- how do their "careers" work?


Any additional info is of course welcome. And so are links to any sources that are easily accessible.
Thank you in advance!

 

I just read the Vampire article in the Warhammer wiki, and I am as confused as before, maybe even more.
Pretty much all of the above can be true (or not)?

So basically there could be a Vampire that has a reflection and is only mildly allergic to garlic or silver, looks indistinguishable from a human and will never kill innocents. But that same Vampire might just die if they cross water, will have to drink blood in amounts that would drive other vampires batshit crazy, and cannot transform or fly like other do?

 

Hahahaha that one was really hilarious!
Yeah, there are a lot of Vampire books/movies/games around. And Vampires are really diverse in their traits.

 

Interesting notes, thanks a lot!

And about the counting thing: If you don't overdo it, it might actually be an interesting trait for a character in a story. Some people with OCD do similar things.

I think what bothers me most is the "no shadow and no reflection" thing. I know it is silly to apply real world physics to a world like this, but.... all the side effects.... it just isn't possible for a creature to not have a shadow while at the same time being visible. Thats just how light works.
Same for reflections. So If I ever write that story my Vampires will surely have both.

The "don't come in until allowed" is almost as bad. There are just so many open questions.

 

I cannot speak for Age of Sigmar, because my attention span turns into a gold fish when I read official Age of Sigmar fluff. It's just so dry.

But I do collect Vampire Counts/Death as a secondary army and I do like to haunt the Carpe Noctem forums which is similar to Lustria-Online only for you know Vampire Counts. I may be a little biased but I think Lustria-Online is the best army specific forum for Warhammer but CN is in the top tier in my opinion.

As @Y'ttar Scaletail alludes, the first vampires were Lhamians in Nehekhara who got their hands on one or more of Nagash's books in an effort to magically obtain eternal youth and they ended up as vampires. In the 8th edition vampire book the Lhamians did some evil stuff both with and without Nagash then kind of sat quietly for a few centuries. Then Vlad Von Carstein showed up seemingly out of nowhere but presumably he has some connection to the Lhamians.

A potion made the first vampires, but most vampires aren't made that way. I don't know if there is an official post for "Where do Warhammer vampires come from" but most official fluff I read at least implies that vampire creation is deliberate. A vampire decides to create a vampiric offspring. I never read any examples about a vampire accidentally siring another vampire.

So I figure it would be a complex spell or we can steal from White Wolf publishing Vampire: the Masquerade. Step one is to drain all a mortals blood. Step two is to feed the dead/dying mortal a tiny bit of vampire blood. Poof! That creates a very hungry new vampire. Of course for plot reasons I needed a vampire to turn another into a vampire who was dead for at least twelve hours, so for plot reasons in my literary universe it's a spell to raise a vampire.

This is canon. It's stated explicitly in the Vampire army book and vampires tend to have higher base stats than regular humans. Not magnitudes higher, but noticeably. One noticeable exception is that vampires have the same movement rate as living humans.

Vampirism seems to augment what is already there. A manipulative seducer is likely to gain supernatural powers of seduction upon becoming a vampire. A skilled warrior is likely to get an extra large dose of increased speed and heightened reflexes.

Bloodlines were done away with in 8th edition but in previous editions there were five major vampire bloodlines that influenced powers.

Blood Dragons were extra potent warriors. Strigoi were ugly freaks with extra strength and beast powers. Lhamians were beautiful seductresses, Necarchs were extra magically potent, and the Von Carsteins were sort of the jack of all trades. Except for the Strigoi, it's unclear whether their powers came from their bloodline or from their candidate selection. For instance the Necharchs generally only recruited wizards and the Lhamians generally only recruited beautiful manipulative women.

It varies from person to person but every vampire kind of loses control if they go a really long time without feeding. It varies from writer to writer just what constitutes "a very long time"

I think WHF vampires can live forever but if you starve them they become bestial in body and mind. That's where Vargulfs come from. I'm not sure if that's how the Strigoi came to be or not.

It's unclear whether vampires take on the emotional traits of their vampire parents who turned them or if vampires just try to recruit those like themselves. One thing that is canon is that aggressive, cruelty, and the like is strengthened in vampires.

Some can turn into animals, most cannot. I never read about a vampire becoming a nebulous cloud. It's left vague on the specifics, but in order for a vampire to appear like a normal human, they need to drink a greater supply of blood. Then again some vampires cannot impersonate human at all (the Strigoi) and some vampires simply don't bother (like Konrad von Carstein).

As far as I know, there is no official ruling on this. I figure it should be lumped in with the human appearance. If a vampire is capable of maintaining a human appearance, he or she can also maintain a human temperature. If said vampire cannot look human, he or she probably is stuck at the temperature of the environment. That's how they do it in Vampire: The Masquerade

They do heal unnaturally fast and it does take blood. This is not only canon but it is reflected in game mechanics. They need to inflict a wound in melee combat to heal or drink blood from a chalice in the case of Isabella.

There is official fluff where vampires drink elf and dwarf blood. I don't see why they couldn't drink the blood of most things. You can come up with exceptions on a case for case basis but it's up to individual writers and the needs of your story.

I think the Strigoi might have reach their quasi-bestial state by having to subsist on animal blood for extended periods of time. In my fluff pieces drinking animal blood lets a vampire stave off starvation but my vampire protagonist likened it to eating pig slop or "food" taken from an orc amp.

A case can be made that Lizardmen blood provides no nourishment because it's cold and reptilian. In my fluff, human vampires can drink it but they don't like the taste. it's like eating emergency trail rations to survive. Seraphon do not actually have blood.

I have not written any pieces involving Skaven fighting vampires but if I did I would make Skaven blood a bit odd. It tastes okay and is nourishing but it has a side effect of making the vampire a bit hyper, paranoid, twitchy, and prone to say-saying their words twice.

Don't know about Age of Sigmar but in WHF it is is cannon that if a vampire goes decades or centuries without blood they turn into monsters. They still thirst for blood and have great strength and speed, but they are basically clever animals that cannot talk, scheme, or raise their own minions. They are also relatively easy to control with necromantic magic, so a lot of vampires deliberately starve vampires they dislike in order to gain strong pliable minions.

Some vampires MIGHT be able to enter a controlled hibernation to avoid degeneration. There are certainly a lot of closeted Lhamians that do not degenerate but they have havens far from population centers they could feed on.

I took what is kind of implied in GW canon and looked into what I see in a lot of vampire fiction. A holy symbol is only as potent as the faith of whoever wields it. In 99% of cases of holy symbol wielders' faith is insufficient but a priest of Sigmar, Grey Seer, Orc Shaman or something similar can harm or repel a vampire with thier holy symobl.

It's no explicitly stated this doesn't work but there are too many Warhammer fights over rivers to make this a ture weakness.

Empire Witch Hunters like to use silver bullets but in game terms this does literally nothing. I am (very slowly) writing a piece about a Witch Hunter and he uses silver bullets blessed by three gods. The special bullets are more powerful than normal bulelts but not by much. In my story, yes the silver bullet does more damage to the vampire BUT the vampire has supernatural resilience so when you combine these it's basically as dangerous as a normal bullet to a normal person.

The Vampire army book mentions that Sylvian peasants hang garlic on their doors and windows out of fear but it doesn't actually do anything. I think in the real world garlic was viewed as a generic ward against evil that got lumped into the vampire mythos.

A stake through the heart will kill a vampire. A stake through the heart will also kill a human, saurus, skink, orc, ogre, horse, goblin, or a golden marmoset.

Joking aside. The Empire heraldry book (waste of money but I got it discounted) has vampire hunters carry stakes around without any elaboration. Vladimir von Carstein used to have a magic ring that let him come back the next night if killed and he was killed three or four times in a wide variety of exciting ways. After his ring was stolen and Vlad was killed for real, it just so happened that he was pushed off a roof onto a wooden spike.

Moving on...

Vampires in WHF do not like sunlight. It varies from writer to writer and even vampire to vampire. The effects of sunlight run the gamut from instantly deadly to mildly inconvenient. Also, a lot of vampires can cloud up the sky to fight during the day.

I will note a 5th edition offiical fluff piece from the now defunct Dogs of War army (I believe 5th edition was the golden age of army book fluff for GW). One character surprised a vampire by attacking her at night when the vampire assumed he would wait for daylight when she was weaker but it clearly implied that the vampire was capable of defending herself both with her army and with her person in the day.

Much like with holy symbols, this depends on who makes the holy water.

I don't think these are covered officially. Whatever the story requires.

The Vampire Count book is pretty clear that peasants aren't safe in their huts and this is kind of a silly weakness anyway.

Are zebras white with black stripes or black with white stripes? Vampires are not quite living, not quite dead. Most of the time, I think vampires are technically undead.

It's not revealed to my knowledge, but it seems implied that vampire creation is a deliberate action, and they are not created by accident. 8th edition didn't have it, but some previous editions (and I'm pretty sure Mordheim) do have some lesser vampires that are under the total control of their creators. For instances the rare times a Lhamian creates a male vampire, said vampire is always a slave/puppet.

Isabella drinks blood from cups all the time. Because Witch Elves are weird, they like to drink fermented blood. In one of my fluff pieces, after beating some dark elves a vampire opted to keep their fermented blood for later.

To my knowledge, GW canon never says it cannot affect non-humans but they never show non-human vampires. Unofficially there are a fair number of people on the Ulthuan and Naggaroth forums that like to dabble with elf vampire characters.

I wrote two pieces involving a vampire who used to be a chameleon skink named Huan-Kai. At some point I may even make a model for him, but not 100% what he should look like and my list of conversions on my to-do list is very large and my output of finishing models is very slow.

I'd rather write a story than paint a model, but I guess I'm sort of stuck on what to do for the next installment of Huan-kai's saga. Presumably his master, Renliss, will not be willing and able to avoid picking a fight with the Lizardmen forever. I'm still working out myself just how much free will Huan-kai has and I'm still working out how mad he is at the Lizardmen.

I do have a small number of things nailed down.

-Huan-kai can no longer change colors. He is permanently grey now, the color Chameleon Skinks turn when they die. He is trying to figure out a way to recreate his stealth with magic. He still has the 360 degree vision arc that chameleon Skinks have.
-Huan-kai had Shadow magic while he was alive and he still has it as undead. He has learned to control lesser undead (zombies, skeletons and the like) but cannot make his own zombies. He has to be allowed to control minions by either Renliss or one of Renliss' lieutenant. Presumably he will learn Lore of Vampires spell eventually. If I ever make a tabletop model for Huan-kai, I don't plan on limiting myself to the Lore of Shadow.
-Huan-kai doesn't have to breathe so he is more aquatic than ever before. But since his lungs have atrophied he cannot really fire a blowpipe anymore.
-Huan-kai is cold blooded, but he was cold blooded before.
-Huan-kai has somewhat dulled pain receptors. He didn't notice an eel trying to eat his tail.
-Huan-kai cannot sprint (on foot on in the water) as he used to, but he never tires so he can cover long distances better (essentially I docked him from Movement 6 to Movement 4)
-Renliss greatly prefers the taste of human blood or human-like creatures (like Elves). WIth animals he finds mammalian blood more palatable than reptiles. Huan-kai is flipped, but he is so disgusted by his appetites that he pretends to prefer the taste of warmbloods. If I had elf or dwarf vampires I would also run with this mechanic. Whatever the base species of a vampire is, they crave the blood of their own kind above all others though they will settle for what's available.

That's how the undead work in Shadowrun, but I actually came up with this concept myself before even cracking open a Shadowrun book, but I guess the idea is pretty universal. The thing that makes flesh eating/blood drinking undead scary is that they feed on their own kind BUT If one's own kind is relatively rare and you want to have an elf vampire running around human lands, you need them to be adaptable or they will all starve.

-I'm not sure about the fang thing, Skinks have pretty pointy teeth to begin with and Skinks have claws too. I guess it's not really important. The main cosmetic difference is he is always a dull gray. MAYBE if he drank enough Chameleon Skink blood he could regain his color change powers temporarily much like a human vampire who is well fed can impersonate a normal human for limited periods of time.


As for non-human vampires in Warhammer. An Ogre vampire would be pretty redundant, I'd probably say vampirism wouldn't take. I don't see a problem with most humanoids being vampires though I think it's unlikely more human vampires would want to bring in greenskins or skaven into the fold.

 

Wow, thanks a lot for that in-depth post!
So many good answers that help me, much appreciated.

The reason why I mentioned the stakes and beheading is this one:
There are franchises in which Vampires are basically immortal. Regardless of what you do to them, the powerful ones just turn into nebulous clouds or bat swarms and fly to their coffin where they regenerate (looking like the real corpses they are). So that's where you have the chance to kill them, either by taking their head off their bodies or by a stake through the heart, or by performing a holy rite (such as using holy water, divine magic or something to consecrate their bodies again, turning them from undead to dead again).
Any other wounds will not bother them at all.

That doesn't seem to be the case in Warhammer, which I kinda like.


Other questions:
Can...uhmm.... can Vampires, you know.... do it? I mean: derive pleasure from sexuality?
And if they can, can the female ones get pregnant? Like the pure blood Vampires in "Blade" are born.
Could they also sleep with humans? Would they? Could the human woman get pregnant?

Probably not a definitive answer on those, your previous ones seem to imply that they are indeed undead so they could probably feel the pleasure but they are not fertile anymore.

And no I am not planning _that_ type of story, I am mainly curious since it could be interesting as far as motivation of Vampire characters are concerned.

That's also interesting because I wonder how much of the original personality is still left in the Vampire. In many Vampire stories they are still _kind of_ the same person, but the emotions (especially the negative ones, but in principle all strong emotions, including love) are still there.

Example: I turn a husband and his wife into Vampires, would they still love each other?
If I turned a playboy (or a prostitute who really likes her job) into a Vampire, would they still lust after that kind of pleasure?

Sorry if this is kinda creepy. But it also applies to other stuff:
- would an alcoholic still like (or even crave) wine? Probably even if he couldn't get drunk anymore? Can vampires get drunk?
- would a collector of precious old coins still have an urge to do that?
- would a hunter still like to hunt?
- would an avid rider still like horses?

For all of the above: is it likely they would enjoy all those things in the original way (and probably find that torturing, because the horses shy away, the women/men can't pleasure them, they can't get drunk anymore to numb their pain and so on)?
Or is it more likely that their taste would still go into the same direction, but in a twisted way? (the horse guy would like to summon a lot of Black Knights, the alcoholic would crave blood even more than other Vampires do, maybe even become a snobby connoisseur with a very specific taste, the hunter would hunt people instead of deer, the collector would collect...skulls, weapons, or finger bones instead of coins, the playboy would... ummmm... become an even more cruel version of the Marquis de Sade?)
Such stuff.

 

Vlad married Isabella when she was alive and they were supposedly happily married for a long time before she became ill and Vlad turned her into a vampire to keep her around. This implies that vampires can have sex with mortals and enjoy it.

There is not a single case of this happening in Warhammer lore. And Vlad and Isabella were a happy vampire couple for at least a century. Warhammer has no official undead power couples apart from Vlad and Isabella, but THEY never had a little blood sucking bundle of joy. Nor did they create a damphyr/day walker baby when Isabella was alive.

The WHF world is complex enough, that it can probably do without dhamphyrs/day walkers. It also doesn't really need a pureblood/turned dichotomy. A vampire is a vampire.

There are no rules on this, but if a vampire is developed in depth a good writer should cover things that stayed the same and things that changed.

Your example assumes the couple is happily married. Isabella still loved Vlad before and after her transformation.

A couple that married reluctantly for solely political reasons and resented each other would be interesting to say the least. Maybe they can rekindle their love by being cruel to the peasants.

It's debatable if they would still find it pleasurable, but said players would certainly find it an easy way to get their blood fix.

Same thing. A hunter will use his old methods to find blood out of habit and convenience.

There is no official answer on this.

Some Dark Elves ferment blood. Vampires could do it too and still get drunk. Or maybe fermenting is just good for being a preservative and vampires cannot get drunk.

Also in Vampire: the Masquerade if a vampire drinks blood from someone who is drunk or high they get a contact high from this. Some vampires got hooked on that and seek out inebriated victims.

Or you could go the opposite direction. Being a vampire sobers him up and he has mixed feelings about it. He likes being more clear headed but regrets that he lost a source of creature comforts he used to have. I can imagine this would make a dwarf vampire miserable indeed...

Why not? Vampires like treasure and they need hobbies to past the centuries.

WHF vampires are certainly evil enough to do this, but my view is that evil should always make sense. If you want to make the coin collector darker, it makes more sense to have him murder and steal to obtain new rare coins rather than seek a new hobby. He might also work a butler to death every few years to make sure all his coins are properly polished.

Why not? Whether it's enjoyable or not, it's still useful. Note in 8th edition vampires can buy an upgrade to fly, but few players on CN bought this upgrade instead preferring to give vampires flying mounts.

I imagine in life he placed great tactical worth on cavalry. That is unlikely to change in death. I've seen at least one themed vampire count army where a cavalry heavy army is themed around a ex-Bretonnian noble turned vampire.

Some vampires can control beasts. Vampires with this power can probably handle living horses. Humans who got along well with beasts in life are probably more likely to have animal powers in death. But it would be good characterization to have an equestrian have to deal with horses avoiding.

There is a fairly easy solution. It's not particularly hard to raise an undead horse. It might not be the same though since undead horses probably have less personality and spirit.

Time to shill for more views and likes on my old pieces. My very first fluff piece posted on Lustria-Online was about a vampire in Lustria. Count Renliss' Journey to Lustria. Renliss is one of many red herring ins Orphaned Temple City, he was a secondary villain in Divided We Fall and a manipulative third party on the sidelines in Legacies.

Renliss has a brief cameo in many of my others pieces and is a major participant in Dead Water where Renliss battled Grand Commodore Luther Harkon though the narrator and point of view character is Huan-kai, not Renliss.

 

Thanks again!
I think I slowly get a feeling for how a Vampire could work in stories, and I like it.

I'll think about it and maybe bring up some more questions at a later point.

 

The first two combine of over-the-top and lame. When everything is epic and far reaching, nothing is.

It's dry because there are no characters. I remember the 6th edition Warhammer book was full of snide in character commentary from various groups and little vignettes. "We fight for the honor of the Lady, which is more than she ever did!" and first person descriptions of epic events and political moves. Age of Sigmar is like "10,000 Seraphon fell like falling stars upon the raging Chaos hordes driving them back." It's all forest and no trees.

But Age of Sigmar probably won't hire me to write their fluff (not that I applied). I did apply to 9th Age to write fluff for them...not that I'm bitter.


For all my whining about the fluff, Age of Sigmar had a rough start but they have solid gameplay. My greatest pipe dream for 8th edition became a reality for Age of Sigmar. "If a unit is too powerful or too weak and people always/never take it, don't change the rules or make some complicated comp rules, change the points value. Update the points value based on gameplay feedback periodically and OP units will disappear."

They are doing that now! Well, trying at least. The new models are solid too.


Still I guess now I enjoy the fluff aspect of the hobby more than painting. The fluff just disappoints me. L-O makes so much better fluff than GW they should be begging us for help!


EDIT: Also, to keep this on topic. I forgot to include a factoid about vampires and stakes. The concept that a wooden stake can kill a vampire is based on another superstition where corpses were staked to the ground to prevent them from rising again.