Pavonian Vampires[]
The Pavonian breed of vampire is not a race in and of itself, but rather a mutation of the human genome. Who precisely created the first vampires is now unknown, nor even whether it was the work of the Faeren or the Formor.
The Pavonian vampire is a creature of living magic. Magic permeates every fiber of her body, granting strength, speed, healing, and sometimes other, more esoteric boons. But to fuel this magic requires an equally magical diet, and the vampire must thus feed on the essence of life itself. Blood. And not just blood, but the blood of sentient beings. The vampire must consume blood equal to her own blood volume (generally about five liters) every thirty days, though most prefer to consume somewhere around half again as much. No substance beside blood can nourish a vampire, though they may still consume such for enjoyment.
In addition to their dependence on blood, vampires possess one other remarkable weakness. The magic of the vampires, whether it comes from the darkest recesses of the Faeren winter-magic or from the twisted shapings of Formor biomancy, is profoundly opposed to the magics of the North, of warmth and light and life. And the greatest symbol of this summer-magic is the Sun. Sunlight burns through vampiric magic, and hence any part of a vampire exposed to direct sunlight will literally burst into flames as the sunlight burns up the magic infusing a vampiric body. In addition, vampires do of course possess much the same weaknesses as all other races. Though they are more resistant to damage and heal more quickly, they will die just like anyone else if you cut off their head, or stab them through the heart, or just cut big gashes all over them and bleed them out.
The specific powers and alterations all vampires may be assumed to possess are as follows:
- Enhanced all-round physical abilities (strength, speed, resistance to damage, healing, etc)
- Enhanced senses.
- The power to see perfectly in dim light or even total darkness.
- Perfect healing (As long as they remain alive, vampires will eventually regenerate any wound, up to and including missing limbs. In addition, they do not suffer from the degenerative effects of aging, making them functionally immortal.)
- Venom (In addition to making puncture wounds, vampiric fangs inject an extremely potent and addictive narcotic, comparable in effect and potency to grape-lotus syrup.)
The creation of a new vampire, known as "turning", is a dedicated and difficult process. The prospective sire must first drain her victim almost to the point of death. Then, just before blood loss claims the unfortunate fledgling, the sire cuts herself and gives the fledgling the sire's own blood to drink. The fledgling will generally require about half the sire's blood before becoming stable, and will then drop into a coma for several hours while the blood begins the process of reshaping her. Upon awaking, the fledgling will be ravenous for blood, and will only have a few hours to feed before dying. At this point, the victim has become a vampiric fledgling. She will remain as such for the space of several years, during which she must, in addition to feeding from humans or other sentients as a full vampire does, drink small amounts of blood from her sire periodically in order to guide the continuing transformation. Once the transformation is complete, the fledgling has become a true vampire in her own right.