The Thirsting Dead

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The Thirsting Dead: A Treatise on Elanthian Vampires

Hazelnut Honeybrook, Chronicler of Icemule Trace

At the sight of his neck laid bare in the moonlight, the thirst overwhelmed her. She fell upon him, gnashing and biting. The blood was all–all she could see; all she could taste. Red and dark it flowed, a river of life filling her cold form up with its heat. It washed away guilt, sorrow, and shame. Those belonged to the living, and she was no longer among their number.

— The Widow’s Fang, by Inaris Mair Illistim

The undead of Elanith often evoke feelings of pity, disgust, and fear from the living. There are fables of lands to the west, perhaps beyond the Shattered Continent, where the Unlife never came. Perhaps in those places, the animate dead are myths that provoke excitement rather than terror. But here in Elanith, where any grave might birth a ghoul and where cities have been ransacked by rotting hordes and banshee tyrants, the threat of such monstrosities is too real for whimsy.

One type of undead has been unfairly spared this reputational tarnish: the vampire. The lich is reviled for its defiance of death, but the vampire’s cursed immortality is seen as a forbidden temptation. A zombie’s hunger for flesh is a loathsome thing, but a vampire’s thirst is viewed as titillating and seductive. Even vereri are viewed less kindly in legend than the vampire.

But whence comes this strange tolerance for a bloodthirsty monster? Perhaps it is scarcity that has lent its favor to these fiends. While Elanith’s stories are full of ravenous undead, vampires are a rarity. Travels through the Elven Nations and the Turamzzyrian Empire reveal only a handful of documented encounters, and most originate so far in the past that they could reasonably be considered part of mythic history.

The earliest available account comes from the tale of Hadarat Famfir Faendryl, a noble of House Ta’Faendryl during the Age of Chaos:

Nearing the end of his time, Hadarat grew to fear the coming of death. When night came, he forgot himself, and his days were spent in torment from the scars that time had cut into his body. He sent his servants far and wide to seek a cure for his affliction, but they returned with the same response: that his affliction was time, and for it there was no cure.

All but one. The servant returned after the rest, addle-brained and ranting of a place where death could be turned back. A wiser man might have seen in the madman’s rantings a warning, but Hadarat’s desperation had grown to be an all-consuming hunger.

He marshaled his closest advisors, whom he called the Famfiri, and they rode forth into the night to find the place his mad servant had described. On the thirteenth day, they reached a low and blasted valley, and therein was the ruin of a manor house.

Hadarat went alone into the crumbling wreckage, not knowing what it was that he sought. He had scarcely entered the house when he realized that he was not alone. Turning, he found himself facing an elf, tall and strong of body, but pallid of flesh and red of eye.

“I have come here to be free from death,” said Hadarat, thinking the being a wizard or alchemist. “If you know the way to life everlasting, there is no price I will not pay for your secrets.”

The man smiled, and it was a terrible smile, for he had fangs like a snake. “My master is Death,” he said, “and from Him there is no freedom. But I do know the way to the immortality you seek, and I will share it with you.”

The contradiction in his words confused Hadarat, but he had come too far to be dissuaded. “What is the price of this knowledge?” he asked.

“Everything,” said Amasalen.

The Lord of Blood fell upon Hadarat in a flash of fangs. He took from the elf his blood, his life, and in return filled Hadarat with his venom and unending hunger.

And with that hunger, Hadarat left the manse, restored but damned. He drank first of the Famfiri, and then made them drink of his curse, and in that sharing created the first of those that would come to be called vampire.

— The Fall and Rise of the Famfir Blood, Noya Pelaros Faendryl

The tale is notable for its placement of Amasalen as a creator of the undead. Though Arkati of the Pantheon of Lornon are occasionally tied to specific undead, such as the obvious links between the vereri and Ivas, it is most frequently Luukos who is seen as the master of the unliving.

The Lord of Blood is similarly involved in the more recent case of Zeban Redbriar, formerly a member of the Council of Ten and a servant of Amasalen. The Council was a prominent group of wizards and sorcerers who, through the aid of dark forces, ascended to lichdom after they were sealed away and left to die as part of their punishment for betraying the people of Icemule Trace. Though the majority of the Council were slain in 5101, Zeban survived the destruction of his phylactery and existed as a bodiless entity until Amasalen recalled him to service in 5122.

With Amasalen’s aid, he possessed a new body, that of a halfling farmer named Arnabas. The unholy fusion of these beings resulted in a monstrosity that closely resembles ancient tales of the vampire. In this form, Zeban was known to hunger for blood. This seemingly boundless addiction led him on a rampage across Icemule Trace’s outlying farms and onward to a half-krolvin holdfast known as the Crawling Shore.

Settling in a lair near to the village, he came by night, picking off the weak and the unwary and draining them of their blood. His victims did not die. Among the survivors of the Crawling Shore massacre are tales of their friends and family returning from death with mouths full of sharp teeth and eyes as black as night.

The guide Gorga, a spiritual and tribal leader of the Crawling Shore half-krolvin, detailed her people’s efforts at fending off the ravenous undead. Holy weapons, whether imbued with a blessing by the village’s shaman or crafted of materials like eonake or white ora, were most effective against Zeban’s creations. They also possessed a marked aversion to full sunlight.

Recent rangings to the village’s remains suggest nary a sign of life in the ruins, though whether the damned have succumbed to the terrible cold or simply departed to spread their wickedness is unclear.

The powers of the vampire are multifarious. They have the capacity to turn into mist, either when their physical form is badly damaged or when in savage pursuit of a fleet-footed victim. They seem, too, to have an unnatural connection with wolves, bats, and other creatures of the night, being able to exert their will over such beasts and use them as spies and familiars. Vampires are preternaturally strong, and have varying abilities to confound the mind of the unwary.

Perhaps the most heinous strength of the vampire is familiarity. Upon being risen as the thirsting dead, one becomes a monster, part and parcel. The resulting creature might speak with a familiar voice and bear the visage of a loved one or comrade, but within is a creature of pure evil, consumed only with its own twisted desires and unnatural hungers.

A vampire’s weaknesses are far fewer than its strengths. Other than the sting of sunlight and the might of sanctified weapons, most mystical arts are capable of harming a vampire. Rumors that they are repelled by mountain herbs like wolfsbane, garlic, and wild rose are unlikely to be true.

Those who encounter one of the thirsting dead stand well advised: flee. Run far, turn not back for a moment, and never return to the site of such an ill meeting. You have been warned.