To His Holiness Gabriele Rangoni, Bishop of Eger: The monster is dead, this I can confirm, having seen his head separated from his shoulders by an Ottoman’s blade with my own eyes. Despite his force’s victory that day, so many died that I find it doubtful it could be counted a victory, and the Ottoman’s managed to escape WITH his head. So it is with sorrow that I cannot present it to you upon my return. His body was not recovered after the battle either, his men burying all those who died in a mass grave, given that the volume of the dead was so great that there not enough remained alive and hale to dig individual graves.
It is with regret, and begging your forgiveness, that I had to bless the grave in which the monster lay with his men. I could not in good conscience doom so many brave warriors to perdition, just to spite one demon in man’s flesh. May he be cursed ever after for this, his last outrage.
- Your loyal Servant Antonio Bonfini, Church Historian and Campaign Scribe, Twentieth of July, Year of the Lords Fourteen Hundred and Sixty Two
I awoke later, amazed at my survival, perhaps one of the men had an elixir potent enough to save me despite my impalement? Then I notice several things which shock me. At first is that I cannot move, as if my entire body had great weights pushed against it from all directions, encasing and trapping me in a way that not even the Ottomans could do at their worst. Also that I cannot see, even after managing to open my eyes by sheer force of will…Everything is STILL black! Finally, when I try to gasp my shock, I find that there is no air to draw into my lungs. But despite this, and my panic at it, I find no feeling of breathlessness, like I need not breathe at all.
So I am trapped, helpless, and so SO thirsty. It is like my very BONES are hollow and empty, from the need for water! Am I to stay here for eternity? I knew after some of the things I have had to do to protect my people, that I would be doomed to the hells for it, but I have accepted it as a price worth paying to keep my lands from the depredations of The Church’s dogs or the Ottoman’s savagery. Is THIS my punishment?
I always thought that, come my time to pay the price, I would accept my punishment with quiet courage, infuriating my tormenters with my silence. But I believed there to BE demons to torture me, not this…NOTHINGNESS! So, consunmed with a familiary fury, I struggle against my bonds. I don’t know long I fight them, but eventually I achieve a minor victory: I can curl my right hand into a fist!
It is while celebrating this victory with silent whoops of joy, that I feel something oppressive press on my very soul. I thought it impossible, but my vision dims BEYOND pure black, and I feel unbearable weariness overwhelm me. It is impossible to muster the effort to fight against both this weariness AND my binding, so I soon find myself passing into the lands of sleep.
I dream of horrors as I always do, eventually waking from the nightmares inside my own mind to once again realize my situation. I’m damned, and without even the benefit of a torturer to tend me. My thirst is now greater, and I know that I cannot go more than a day or two longer until it kills me. But wait, if I am ALREADY dead, then can I die again?
Ignoring this question, consigning it to the realm of useless philosophy like so much else, I return to fighting for my freedom. Yet the thirst makes it harder to think, as it keeps distrcting me, still I manage to make MORE progress, now able to lift my right forearm by maybe half a finger’s length. It is as I am trying to lift the same shoulder, thinking that I can then use the arm’s motion to dig myself out of this soft but heavy material I am bound in, that the same lethargy washes over me, NO! I am so CLOSE! I…must…nooootttt…
My dreams are of the time I found that village headman who had been shorting his taxes to the crown, and ordered him impaled in the town square. It was early in my first reign, and my men were still fresh and unsure of my seriousness, so I had to strip and impale him myself. Still, once they knew I was serious, they helped me lift him up until his buttocks rested on the pike’s cross guard, and we buried the pike in a ground and then I held it in place while rocks were piled around it. He was still alive this whole time, his throat letting out only a hoarse whisper from having screamed his voice out, his legs bound together before him and his arms behind. As I waited there his blood and filth drizzled down, covering the pike’s haft as well as my hands.
All of this is as it happened, but instead of feeling the disgust I knew back then, I feel a lust to LICK that foul mix from my hands. A desperate NEED for that fluid to slake my thirst, one so powerful that it takes me a while to realize I am awake again…that same thirst having followed me into this waking hell. I can FEEL my mind starting to unravel, the thirst and dreams taking their toll on my ability to think in straight lines and maintain my focus. Yet still…I manage to continue the fight.
Eventually, after days of this, the thirst takes my mind and I thankfully remember no more.
***
This tastes so GOOD, I find myself thinking, my face buried into something warm while my arms are wrapped around it as it twitches and shudders. Pulling my face out of my meal, I see that…I’m eating a damn DEAR?! No…I’m DRINKING from its torn flesh, while it still lives, and it tastes GREAT!
My thirst finally slaked for the first time in I don’t know how long, I release my grip on the beast and let it fall to the ground, before I jerk its head to snap its neck so that it doesn’t suffer from dying slowly of the open wound my…teeth…left in its flank.
My teeth, there is something wrong with my TEETH, feeling around in my mouth with my fingers, I can tell that my eye teeth have somehow extended down from my upper jaw, until they are a thumb’s width longer than my other remaining teeth. Wait, my “remaining” teeth isn’t right, I have ALL my teeth back too. And…isn’t my jaw open further than normal? It was, since I could fit my entire balled-up fist inside my maw now, like a ghoul or some other night creature that was once human, after I feel my elongated teeth slide into my upper jaw until they are once again normal size.
I…I think I’m STILL damned, but just not fully dead. I think I have become some kind of night-walker, one with a thirst for blood it seems. But I can still think, at least now, so at least I am still “me” and not some savage flesh-hungry monstrosity.
Having calmed down with the realization that at least I am still walking the Earth, I look around and wonder why I can see so well in the dark. I can hear night birds twittering and hooting in the woods far away, so I KNOW it is night, but somehow it is bright as day to my eyes. Only the shading is poor, like the world has had all its color washed out from dyed cloth, leaving even the green of the tree leaves around me to us be some strange shade of grey. Well, except for red. For some reason I can still see the beast’s blood as red, and even the dried blood on my hands shows itself to be red-tinged grey. Is it because my body now sees only blood as food, so my eyes are changed to help me find food?
To test the idea, I lick the dried blood on my hand. It tingles a little bit, like my body is absorbing it, but the taste is NOT the thrilling tang that I had when drinking directly from the beast. Instead it is…If I am honest, it is kind of like tasting shit. I might be able to SURVIVE on dried blood, but I don’t think I would LIKE it. Maybe it would be better if bottled, like wine? Well I have no bottle to test the idea with, and from the look of me I’ve been crawling in the dirt and rolling an animal parts for hours…I need to clean up and find out WHERE the hell my SWORD is!
When I was examining my location, I saw what looks like my own boot tracks further back up the game trail, so I set out to follow it. As I do I see several torn apart animals, birds squirrels, and even raccoons, all without any of the pale-red tinge of blood around them. Seems I was hungry AND walking-in-the-moonlight mad. Eventually, I find my…grave.
Well THIS explains why I felt like I was trapped from all sides, it seems I was BURRIED! There are several stones thrown around the area, where evidently I threw them aside once I had crawled out of the thigh-deep hole I was evidently planted in. Guess I really DID die, didn’t I?
I find a branch about man-height that I can pull off from a tree, amazed at my newfound strength. Even more strength than I had in my prime. And it makes a good tool to break the earth so I can start digging down into it, Dragon’s Fang has to have been buried WITH me. Whoever put me here obviously did so in secret, but was concerned enough with my wellbeing to actually bury me AND cover the grave in stones so I would not be dug up by scavengers…they WOULD have buried the blade with me.
I have most of the grave excavated without luck, when I hear the morning birds start to twitter and voice the sun’s arrival. For the first time since my awakening I notice lethargy coming over me, and look around as color starts to flow into the world with the false dawn’s light. Then the light reaches my grave, and my hand, FUCKING FAGGOTRY WITH HORSES, THAT HURTS!
Jerking my hand from the beam of light I see that my own flesh has started to blacken on the two fingers that it touched, like meat left overlong in the campfire. DAMNATION, I am a NIGHT-night creature…one that cannot bear the touch of day, instead of just slumbering while the sun is up. There was no place to hide in the area, no cave and no home to keep the daylight off me. No place, but my own grave.
***
It was hard to stay awake long enough to pull down enough dirt to cover my body, but I did so with only a light wound delivered by the day, and once my face was covered I let the exhaustion brought on me by the daytime take me.
My dreams that night were of my brother Radu, the last time I saw him in Mehmed’s court, dressed in thin silks and wearing sweet perfumes, his face painted like a whore’s. I thought him suffering in his own way, as I suffered in Mehmed’s army, and never thought he would betray me. I never thought that he would ENJOY his life as a catamite, but he did…and he resented me my “freedom”.
I awake not only thirsty again, but also fueled with rage from the past. I struggle frantically against the earth over me, before realizing that I am NOT trapped, before calming down. At least this time I know how to slake my thirst. But while shaking the dirt from my loose shoulder-length hair, I see myself and realize that I have OTHER pressing needs. I am FILTHY…I need to clean myself.
It is a brief walk down a game trail until I find both my needs fulfilled, a boar sleeping beneath a bush besides a small trickling stream of water. It wakes when I pounce on it, scared and its legs flailing as it thrashes around when I lift it from the ground. The night is broken by its shrill squeals as I dig my mouth into its thick neck, my eye teeth having elongated once again when my prey was in sight. It must be some reaction to needing to eat, like seeing a beautiful barmaid after weeks of being on campaign. Ahhhh…this is better than the best wine I have ever tasted…
My thirst slaked once more, with the boar laying on the ground unconscious but alive, I see that my hands have returned to normal. This realization lets me know that the blood’s life is needed to restore my form, like everything alive is walking around with elixers of health in their veins. DAMNATION, but this means that as long as I can consume a creature’s blood, will I be able to live forever?!
After a bit of marveling at the implications, I pull myself back to the mission, I need to get this dirt and blood off me, before my people can SMELL me coming before I can be SEEN! Sitting down long enough to untie my boots and pull them off, I toss them into the little stream so that the water can soak and run off the caked-on mud and blood. Then I unstrap my thick leather armor, dropping it to the ground since with a gaping hole in each side it is essentially useless anyway. Then I can let loose my belt and remove my tunic, untying my pants from my body straps so they can be pulled off as well.
Once naked except for the filth and grime, I crouch down to put my tunic in the water, only for my hands to feel like they are pushing into thick mud as I try to get them over the stream. Oh, joy of joys, this must be some other effect from my new night-creature nature. Its like water doesn’t WANT me near it, well I am the LORD of this land, its waters included! With a snarl and savage PUSH I manage to submerge the tunic in the shallow stream, before a scream rips out of my lungs and I LUNGE backwards!
Roling on the ground I pull my arms to my chest, my world just white-hot agony until it quickly fades. It was like I shoved my hands into molten metal…seems the waters of my home REALLY don’t like me. Looking at them I see my hands are scorched black, the bones visible, with splatters of charred flesh up my forearms where the water splashed upon them. I can still flex the fingers, the ligaments beneath the skin still attached to my bones, They…they don’t hurt anymore, even WHEN I move them. Am I no longer going to feel the aches and pains of my wounds?
Pushing that into the bag with everything else I must take time to consider and explore, I pull myself to the still-panting body of the boar, and dig into it once more. After draining the last of its life’s fluids my hands have returned to normal, and I return to my crouching, trying to figure a way around this dilemma.
Very well, I must still clean my clothes and body, but I can no longer TOUCH the water. And I must be able to pass through this invisible resistance, otherwise I am trapped within the bounds of whatever streams form after the rain…NOT a tactically sound position.
Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.
A stick from the ground can penetrate over and into the water without difficulty, and remove my soaked tunic from where it was caught on my boots. Touching it with the tip of a finger shows that the water soaked into it is not harmful, even the water that falls from it as I squeeze the woolen fabric, It must be something to do with NATURALLY-flowing water, once removed from the stream it becomes safe for me. Good, I can work this.
After soaking and wiping down my body with the tunic-stick combination, it is still filthy but my hide is as clean as I can make it. Then it takes an hour or more of soaking and wringing out my tunic and pants before they too are mostly clean. I hang them in a tree so that they may dry in the night, upending my boots on a couple branches to drip dry as well, and turn to face my OTHER challenge.
This feeling of mud, how far does it go? Standing on the bank of the stream, one that is only as wide as a long stride, I push my arm into the air above it. The thick mud sensation quickly grows in hardness, until my hand stops at the midway mark as if fetching up against a stone wall. Stepping back, I throw a few pebbles and a stick across without issue…it is only my BODY that it seems to push away.
If I am to test this, as stupidly as it seems, I am going to need an plan for if it fails. With this realization I spend some time stalking the stream, until I find a doe sleeping beside it, and fall upon her. Despite her desperate lowing, a quick fist upside the head knocks her stumbling, another insuring she will sleep until I need her. I am careful to place her near my clothes as they dry, No need to be cruel without cause, and steel myself for the pain I could be facing.
I walk back up the game trail a good six paces until it turns, and turn around to face the stream with its small clearing on the other side. Leaning over I run fast as I can towards it, leaping at its edge for the other side, my arms stretched before me. I feel the impact of my arms at the midway point, collapsing them into my face just before it feels like my head has struck solid stone! I feel my body go upright as my legs rise, scaring me that I will fall into the stream and be consumed by it, before I seem to flip THORUGH the shattering barrier! Collapsing as I roll over the thick grass on the other side of the stream, I cannot help but laugh.
Then the realization hits me, The parts of my body NOT in contact with the ground when they passed over the water were able to do so with ease. It must be some strange power connected to the ground, allowing me to pass through it if I am NOT pushing against the earth. Thinking of a way to test it, I repeat what I did but to get to the game trail instead. Only this time instead of jumping like I am trying to dive into a woman’s legs in a hay loft, I pull myself into a ball a half-step back from the stream, and allow my running speed to carry me across. Nothing pushed me away, I think just before hitting the opposite shore, rolling across the ground to fetch up in a tree.
After laughing at my new wounds, and my success, I nip some blood from the deer before dressing myself in my half-dried clothes. I need weapons, which means I need a town. I can follow the stream until it meets a river, then follow THAT to a village. With fresh hopes of sleeping under a roof come dawn, I head out to find out where in Wallachia I am.
***
I have to perform my undignified umping ball trick a few times walking downstream that night, but eventually I come to a small farm ust after I start to feel the oppressive exhaustion that come when the sky lightens, JUST in time, maybe I can sleep beneath a hay pile?
I see a young man in front of the farmhouse as I turn around it, obviously up before dawn to tend his fields, as he is carrying buckets of water from the river to a trough before his house. Seeing me in what must be very pale light for him he calls out, “Grigori, is that you? Your wife has been worried since you went hunt-, OH! You are not Grigori!”
“No good man, but as you can see from my dress I have NOT been having a pleasant time in the woods! I am grateful to have found another man to talk to after wandering lost for so long, but I am tired beyond mentioning. May I impose upon you for a roof to sleep under, and a blanket to keep out the morning’s chill?”
He stares at me in shock, “Your voice stranger, you talk like a nobleman. Of COURSE I would give hospitality to a lost noble, come in, come in!”
Opening his home’s door he calls out, “Merta, we have a guest! Put more porridge in the pot for him.”
I grasp his shoulder as I move inside behind him, barely escaping the creeping rays of the sun, “No goodman, I will not impose upon your meagre food stores, especially since I have no coin to trade for it. A bed to lay upon and a blanket to sleep beneath will suffice, and I will leave to seek my meals once I awaken.”
“Oh, very well, but if you need anything please let us know,” he says with a tinge of disappointment in his voice.
Then his wife comes into the room, moving slowly from her obviously being with child, and carrying a candle as she takes me to their bedroom. “Here good sir, you may sleep in our bed until your energy returns, it isn’t like WE will need it for the day!
Looking around I see that this room has no windows in it, and the doorway is blocked off by a pair of tattered cloaks tacked above its lintel, “Thank you goodwoman, this will do for me. Please do not distub my slumber, I have not had a bed for…well, I cannot SAY how long I have been trapped in the woods!”
She looks over my clothes with the critical eye of a mother examining her child, “From the look of your rough-worn clothes, I would call it TOO long. Throw them out of the door before you go to sleep, and I will patch them up best as I can.”
With my thanks she leaves, and shortly afterwards I climb naked into the hay-filled bed on the packed-dirt floor, pulling the covers up to my chin as blackness takes me. It makes me glad that my people are so good natured.
***
I dream I am back in the wagon, being taken to my training as one of Mehmed’s janissaries. But despite the wagon’s shaking, I am comfortably wrapped in warm cloths this time, and sitting atop several cushions, creating a comfortable nest I am loathe to leave. Eventually I wake up to the sounds of flesh being struck, and a woman crying.
Is that Merta?, with that thought I throw aside the blanket, and leap up, the weariness that grips me letting me know that the sun has not QUITE set. Pain be damned, I will NOT let my kind hosts be mistreated!
I throw aside the door coverings and run into the front room, to see an Ottoman soldier standing there laughing with his hand wrapped in Merta’s hair, and my blood BOILS! Stifling back a scream so he does not see me coming, I run and throw myself feet-first into his chest, throwing him back on his ass as he releases her hair and she stumbles forward.
The sun’s failing light stings my skin and hurts my eyes like hot needles, but I am not burning yet, so I pick myself up as I hear somebody behind me shouting, “Who be YOU?!”
Turning around I see a second Ottoman soldier at the trough beside the door, holding who I assume to be my host’s head under the water of the trough as his legs and arms feebly flail around, “Your death!”
I run towards him as he stands and draws his blade, letting go of his victim’s head letting him weakly fall to the base of the trough and start gasping. The second soldier lunges at me with his blade, but his foot slips in some of the water splashed out of the trough, and he misses me.
Not being the kind of man who would throw away good fortune, I grab his wrist as he stumbles past, and swing my other fist UP into his elbow, hearing it crack. The man screams as the blade drops from his paralyzed fingers, and he drops to his knees to grasp at his arm to whimper and cry.
Behind me I hear the first soldier starting to stand, so grasping my kneeling prey by the back of his helm as well as his arm I spin around, hurling the two into one another to keep them both down. Kicking the fallen blade up by the guard, I grab its handle point down, and before the two can untangle themselves I plunge it with all my newfound strength THROUGH the chest of the man I just threw…pinning his corpse to the ground over his compatriot, thus trapping him there as well.
“Jinn!,” he screams in my face as I lean over, giving my body’s weight to that of the corpse pinning him to the ground.
I grin at him and watch his face pale in fear, as I reply to him in his native tongue, “To you I am a Devil, and I can be one in truth if you do not obey me. So stay HERE, of you wish to keep your heart in your chest!”
It is after standing up that I realize my fangs have extended, in response to my thirst and the heat of combat, Ah, now I understand his fear. Panting above him to push breath into my lungs that I do not need, the lust for blood fades and I feel with my tongue that my teeth have returned to normal, as I feel a shawl drape around my shoulders. While wondering why, my host speaks to me as his hands leave my shoulders, “Thank you for saving us from these tax collectors my lord, I am sorry we thought you dead.”
“Dead?,” I ask as I turn around, “Why would you think me dead?”
Merta comes back from inside their home, my cleaned and repaired clothes in her arms, “That was my fault lord, when I went to give you your clothes this evening I thought you not breathing, and panicked telling Herman about it. Our shouting must have attracted the attention of the headman’s tax collectors, but at least they have only been busing us for a brief time before the noise woke YOU!”
I look at them puzzled, “The headman? Of what territory? And how does he keep OTTOMANS as tax men?”
“You must have been lost in the woods for longer and further than we thought, my lord,” the goodman says, Herman I now know, “The headman of Târgovişte has used the Ottomans from his garrison to collect taxes since I was a child.”
I look dumbfounded at the two of them, shocked as an uncomfortable realization hits me, How LONG was I REALLY buried in the earth?! “
“Of course my lord! I will fetch those right away!,” Herman quickly puts deeds to words, leaving me alone with Merta and my prisoner.
While I am pulling him out and flipping him over, holding his wrists together as I remove his arms, she works up her courage, “Lord, might I have the pleasure of your name? My child will need one, and I doubt Herman would object to it bearing our savior’s.”
I feel a feathering in my chest, the burden of my dark thoughts lifting at such sentiment, “Of course good woman, I am Vlad of house Dracul, called Impaler, once and future ruler of these lands and eternal foe of the Ottoman scourge.”
“But…but…he is DEAD! You CANNOT be him, his head is preserved as a trophy in the Ottoman court, EVRYBODY knows that!,” she proclaims in frustration, thinking I am lying to her.
My pride piqued I lift my hostage’s head by the hair, like he once held her, and give him a quick shake to loosen his tongue, “He be a jinn, he walks again, VLAD HE IS!”
After forcing his screaming face into the dirt to silence him, Merta and I do not speak of it again, remaining silent until Herman comes back with what I asked for. Despite their skittishness, the horses are calmed well enough to carry me and the Ottoman’s corpse, his partner pulled running behind us by the rope bound around his arms, as we trot into the dark along the river towards Târgovişte “city”, City? The damnable place was barely a market town last time I was there!
***
Once we are off the farm and out of sight of its fields, I stop our little train and dismount, as my prisoner collapses on the ground to pant and gasp. Meanwhile I cut a length off the rope long enough to tie to the bucket’s handle, and toss it into the river, pulling up about half an unspilled pail of the cold waters. Perfect, just what I will need, I think as I return and remove my clothes to place them on my mount.
Going to the other horse I untie and remove the dead Ottoman’s corpse, lifting up his body to remove the sword plugging up his body like a cork in a wine bottle, and drinking from him to finish the comparison. “You are a devil, Vlad of the Dead Men, and now you PROVE it to my own eyes!,” my unwilling companion complains in Arabic.
I can’t help butch laugh at him, deep and powerfully, after my thirst has slaked, “I never claimed OTHERWISE, and here you are…taunting me like a fool. Now, what is a devil to do to such a man.” Once again, he is shocked by my obvious mastery of his own language, which I enoy as I clean my flesh off from the splattering blood.
Taking his own blade with its offset axe-like head to the woods, I find a couple small trees three men high, and cut them down, before returning to our horses to remove most of their branches and all of their bark. Cutting the very tips off I use one of their knives to cut new thicker points on each, before tying them to the same horse as the body. Then we are off again.
After another hour or so of stumbling along the riverbank, my prisoner collapses, and I wind up having to pick him up and put him atop his companion to avoid leaving an easy-to-follow drag trail. No point returning Herman and Merta’s kindness with Ottoman reprisals for what I am about to do.
Eventually, maybe halfway through the night, I see the buildings of Târgovişte up ahead, Yeah, that is a “city” now, or at least a small one. And move us off the riverbank to the road that leads into it. My strong seemingly painless hands make easy work of digging holes beside the road, and I hoist the corpse of the first declaration of war easily enough. The second wakes as I am pulling his hauberk’s backside up, and obviously tries to resist, but compared to my damned-born strength (and a few kicks to the ribs) he is eventually screaming as his buttocks sit on the pair of branches I left in place. Facing his companion on his longer pole, with the tip poking out of his mouth, as a parting gift for him to die viewing. Invade MY lands, and manhandle MY people, and you think you will not face ME just because I am dead?
I take a fancy to that thought, and decide to write it on the rag, before tying it to the base of the corpse’s pole so that it does not get drenched in blood…since all his remaining blood is flowing now in MY veins. Of course, the only ink I have to write with is the OTHER man’s blood, as an added insult.
Then it is just a short walk with the horses and the Ottomans’ arms back to the river, and I walk them into Târgovişte to do what I have always done: found my foes weaknesses in their own camp.
***
NAME: Vlad Tepes III
RACE: Vampire (Human)
AGE: 45.2 years alive
HIT DIE: 6
ECL: 6
XP TO NEXT LEVEL: 19,200 / 21,000
SIZE: Medium
SPEED: 30 ft.
ERA: Renaissance-Era
ABILITY SCORES: Cha 16, Wis 10, Int 12, Dex 10, Con 13, Str 16
FAST ACTION: 10%
DURABILITY: 6 TEMPORARY HIT POINTS: 23
SAVING THROWS: Fort +13 (10), Ref +1 (0), Will +8* (6) [* Booster +1] [+1 vs. being disabled]
[Immunity (ability drain, age, Compulsion, disease, poison, Transformation from others, Fortitude save effects that don’t apply to objects as well]
ARMOR CLASS: 18 (+6 Brigandine, +2 Large Wooden Shield), flat-footed 18, touch 10
ATTACK: Base Attack Bonus +6, Melee +8, Ranged +6; +4 to Stunts.
* Dragon’s Fang +9 melee (1d8+3 Slashing, 19-20/×3, plus 1d6 Fire) [flaming longsword +2, Serrated, Lever Grip ×3]
SKILLS (+3 to Social skills and NPC Attitude checks, –3 instead in enemy territory):
* Charisma-Linked (+2)
* * Bluff +5 (0)
* * Diplomacy +6 (0)
* * Gather Information +5 (0)
* * (Wildman) Handle Animal +5 (4) [+2 from Animal Affinity, –5 from being a Vampire]
* * (P) Intimidate +12 (9)
* Wisdom-Linked (+0)
* * (Stalker) Listen +7 (4) [+1 from Stalker, +2 from Alertness]
* * (P) Profession (manager) +8 (7)
* * (P) Sense Motive +9* (9) [* +1 for verbal uses]
* * (P) Spot +7 (4) [+1 from Stalker, +2 from Alertness]
* * (Wildman) Survival +6 (4) [+2 from Wildman]
* Intelligence-Linked (+1)
* * (Wildman) Knowledge (geography) +2 (1)
* * (P) Knowledge (military & tactics) +10 (9)
* * (Wildman) Knowledge (nature) +4 (1) [+2 from Wildman]
* * (Enduring) Knowledge (nobility & royalty) +5* (4) [* Booster +1]
* Dexterity-Linked (+0)
* * (Stalker) Balance +1 (0)
* * (Stalker) Hide +2* (2) [* +2 in wilderness]
* * (Stalker) Move Silently +2* (2) [* +2 in wilderness]
* * (P) Ride +7 (7)
* Constitution-Linked (+1)
* * (P) Concentration +1 (0)
* * (P) Strong Heart +11 (10) [ranks converted to Temporary Hit Points]
* Strength-Linked (+1)
* * (P) Climb +1 (0)
* Linguistics +2 (2)
* Wild Empathy +8 (<3>) [+2 from Animal Affinity]
FEAT (Simple Weapon Proficiency, Martial Weapon Proficiency, Light Armor Proficiency, Medium Armor Proficiency, Heavy Armor Proficiency, Shield Proficiency):
* HD 1: Animal Affinity
* HD 3: Leadership
* HD 6: Iron Will
* Human: Royal Blood
* Vampire: Alertness
* Vampire: Improved Grapple
* Undead Con 12+: Toughness
* Birth: Born Under a Dark Star
* Wildman 1: Track
TRAITS (Tough Hero):
* Favored: Wildman ×1
* HD 1: Combat Bonuses ×1
* HD 1: Stalker ×1
* HD 1: Weapon Training ×1
* HD 2: Combat Bonuses ×2
* HD 2: Enduring ×1
* HD 3: Combat Bonuses ×3
* HD 3: Enduring ×2
* HD 3: Wildman ×2
* HD 4: Combat Bonuses ×4
* HD 4: Enduring ×3
* HD 5: Combat Bonuses ×5
* HD 5: Enduring ×4
* HD 5: Wildman ×3
* HD 6: Combat Bonuses ×6
* HD 6: Enduring ×5
SPECIAL ABILITIES
Vampire Special Abilities
* Blood Bite [Con damage from Bite attack counts as Feeding, can Bite in Grapple as a touch attack]
* Darkvision 60 ft.
* Inflict spells instead heal Strength, cure spells instead cause Strength damage
* Feeding [Blood drank restores equal ability score damage, further from Human is less effective]
* Human Blood [counts as Human for spell effects based on race]
* Insanity Recovery [Feeding heals Insanity as if it was ability score damage]
Vampire Weaknesses
* Allergies [1d8 damage from contact with daylight or holy symbols and holy ground, unless consecrated to a deity of darkness, death, or evil]
* Blood is Life [bleeding effects still apply to you]
* Cursed Blood (Soil Bound) [Can only sleep if in your homeland, or near at least 1 Lb. of its earth]
* Daytime Sleep [fatigued during daytime hours, Sinker –1 to skill checks during the day, cannot sleep at night]
* Hospitality [needs invitation into homes, cannot harm those they invite into theirs if they behave]
* Hunger [stacking –1 Intelligence penalty at dusk, which inly goes away a point at a time from Feeding]
* Taint of Evil [alignment counts as Evil for spells and special effects, even if you are not]
* Vulnerable Dismemberment [Slashing weapons can still deal critical damage]
* Vulnerable Heart [Piercing wooden weapons can still deal critical damage]
* Ward Away [cannot come within 10 ft. of a holy symbol or mirror strongly presented to them by a living being]
* Water Allergy [1d6 damage from contact with naturally-running water, and cannot pass it under your own power]
Leadership 7 [3 base from HD, +3 from Charisma, +1 from Intimidate]
Fear-descriptor effects +2 DC