Vampire Templates for Cabal

[Apollonian]

I'm putting together a (Victorian London) Cabal campaign framework, and as part of that I'm building quite a few monsters-as-PCs templates. The intent is that PCs will take mandatory Nature template (vampire, mage, werewolf, etc.) and an optional Role template (infiltrator, negotiator, enforcer...) and then have a few points left out of 150 points (or 200, I haven't settled on the cap) to tweak characters to their satisfaction.

The campaign is TL5, 1850s London, using Ritual Path Magic. Characters are Outer Circle Cabalists concerned with conspiratorial occult doings in the Material Realm, with the occasional jaunt into the Astral.

All that said, I'd like some feedback on the vampire templates I'm designing. They're meant to be for lower-powered vamps, so quite a bit less oomph than the vampires from Monster Hunters, for example. Let's start with the Nosferatu.

Nosferatu
The Nosferatu are vampirism as contagion. They are hideous, strong, and stealthy. Often dominated by bestial appetites, they must control those appetites to maintain the secret of their existence. When they feed, they spread disease among their prey, including their own condition. They have a bond with certain vermin, and affiliation with the decans of disease and decay.

Newly Infected Nosferatu [75]

Attributes (70): ST +5 [50]; IQ-1 [-20]; DX +1 [20] HT +2 [20]
Secondary Characteristics: HP +5 [10]

Advantages [142]: Acute Taste & Smell 3 [6]; Can burn HP for extra effort [1]; Doesn't Breath [20]; Immunity to Metabolic Hazards [30]; Injury Tolerance (Unliving) [20]; Night Vision 5 [5]; Unaging [15]; Vampiric Bite [30]; and 15 points from Optional advantages.
Optional: Acute Hearing [2/lvl]; Acute Taste & Smell [2/lvl]; Claws (Sharp Claws) [High Pain Threshold [10]; Silence [5/lvl]; Speak With Animals (Vermin and graveyard animals only, -50%) [13]

Disadvantages [-162]: Appearance (Hideous) [-16]; Draining (blood) [-5]; Dependency (Graveyard or plague ground earth; common, daily) [-30]; Infectious Attack [-5]; Secret (Vampire; possible death) [-30]; Supernatural Features (No Body Heat*, Pallor*) [-6]; Trademark (traces of disease and death) [5]*; Unhealing (Partial) [-20]; Weakness (Sunlight, 1d per 5 minutes) [-30]; and 15 points from Optional Disadvantages.
Optional: Bad Smell [-10]; Disturbing Voice [-10]; Odious Personal Habit [-5 to -15]; Uncontrollable Appetite (human blood; mitigator, not if at full HP, -60%) [6]**

Features: Affected by Path of Undead (instead of Body/Mind) magic; Neither has nor uses FP.

Skills [15]: Brawling (E) DX [1]; Observation (A) IQ+1 [4]; Stealth (A) DX+1 [4]; Survival OR Urban Survival (A) Per+1 [4]; Wrestling (A) DX [2]

* This represents the nosferatu leaving the smell of decay, various diseases and parasites, and particles of grave dirt or what have you wherever it goes and on its victims. It takes no time at all to apply, but it is completely involuntary and automatic. It could be mitigated by someone else's Housekeeping skills, I suppose...
** A little unsure about the mitigator on this one. As long as the Nosferatu is at full HP, i.e. fully fed, it ignores Uncontrollable appetite, BUT Draining means that it's hungry at the beginning of every night. Does it seem legitimately costed?

I'm trying to build a creature that is physically formidable but socially badly hampered, has good reason to stay underground and in the dark, and has the skills to physically hunt down and subdue prey. As a PC, it'd be a good choice for someone who wants to work up a bruiser or a stalker, or wants to play up the angst of being forced out of mortal society and into the shadows. Any ideas on how I can improve the template? Missed traits or skills? Stuff that looks unnecessary or conflicts with the concept?

[johndallman]

If you can find a copy of Pagan Publishing's Call of Cthulhu supplement The Golden Dawn at a sane price, I think you'll find it very useful for this campaign. It has a lot on English occultism, although it's set a bit later than your game.

[Kelly Pedersen]

The template should probably have Social Stigma (Monster), as well as the other disads, or Secret (Monstrous Vampire) if they've somehow managed to act in human society without their vampiric nature being revealed so far. The social stigma means that humans who don't even see the creature directly will still have reactions along the lines of "I will not work with or for such a foul monster!"

Rather than Trademark for the "traces of disease and death", I'd suggest adding it to Supernatural Features. I'd call "constantly leaves bits of rotting flesh, grave dirt, signs of disease, etc." a -10 Supernatural Feature, giving -2 to reactions to anyone who spends any time in areas you've spent any significant time in, +2 to rolls to determine your supernatural nature, and +2 to rolls for skills like Tracking to trace your passage. Trademark is less appropriate because it has a self-control number by default, so the vampire would technically get a roll to resist leaving signs of death and decay, which would be weird. Also, Trademark is usually supposed to be a unique way of tracking the specific character, which leads to odd things like the super-detective character saying "Ah, of course Count Orlock was here - I recognize his unique traces of grave earth and soiled bandages".

To cover the "spreads disease among those they feed on" element, I'd add Social Disease to the base disadvantages of the template. Biting someone should definitely count as "close, unprotected physical contact".

In general, I'm not really in love with the way the template gives optional advantages and disadvantages. Those sorts of things are really more appropriate for an occupational template, not a racial template. Racial templates in general are a bit more "fixed". Giving options isn't unreasonable, of course! But the format would be better, I think, if it more closely followed other GURPS templates. What I'd suggest is to keep the base template as it is, and then create a few "packages" of advantages and disadvantages that go together to create "subraces". For example, you could offer "Predatory", a package that contained Acute Hearing 2 [4], Acute Taste and Smell 2 [4], Combat Reflexes [15], and Bestial [-15]. Build all your packages on the same point value, and you can just say in your advantage list "pick an 8-point (or whatever point cost you go for) package from the options below".

Another option for adding choices to your racial template is the "Racial Gifts" perk. This allows someone to spend points on additional features that their race permits, but doesn't make required. For example, in Monster Hunters, the Demon template has "Demonic Gifts", so a character with it could spend points on things like horns, bat wings, claws, fiery auras, and so forth.

[Flyndaran]

Why does it have Unhealing: Partial? Does it naturally heal in graveyards?

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

The template should probably have Social Stigma (Monster), as well as the other disads, or Secret (Monstrous Vampire) if they've somehow managed to act in human society without their vampiric nature being revealed so far. The social stigma means that humans who don't even see the creature directly will still have reactions along the lines of "I will not work with or for such a foul monster!"

The template already has Secret (Vampire; possible death), which I think covers that. Given that it's meant for play among Cabalists, who are pretty monstrous in themselves, I don't think Social Stigma applies for them.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

Rather than Trademark for the "traces of disease and death", I'd suggest adding it to Supernatural Features. I'd call "constantly leaves bits of rotting flesh, grave dirt, signs of disease, etc." a -10 Supernatural Feature, giving -2 to reactions to anyone who spends any time in areas you've spent any significant time in, +2 to rolls to determine your supernatural nature, and +2 to rolls for skills like Tracking to trace your passage. Trademark is less appropriate because it has a self-control number by default, so the vampire would technically get a roll to resist leaving signs of death and decay, which would be weird. Also, Trademark is usually supposed to be a unique way of tracking the specific character, which leads to odd things like the super-detective character saying "Ah, of course Count Orlock was here - I recognize his unique traces of grave earth and soiled bandages".

To cover the "spreads disease among those they feed on" element, I'd add Social Disease to the base disadvantages of the template. Biting someone should definitely count as "close, unprotected physical contact".

Good point on the Trademark thing; I'll use Unnatural Feature instead. (And possibly recommend Trademark as an individual flaw, since I love that each nosferatu might have its own particular flavor of filth that it spreads...) As for the spreads disease bit, I found the perfect trait: the Perk Pestilent from GURPS Horror.

Originally Posted by Kelly Pedersen

In general, I'm not really in love with the way the template gives optional advantages and disadvantages. Those sorts of things are really more appropriate for an occupational template, not a racial template. Racial templates in general are a bit more "fixed". Giving options isn't unreasonable, of course! But the format would be better, I think, if it more closely followed other GURPS templates. What I'd suggest is to keep the base template as it is, and then create a few "packages" of advantages and disadvantages that go together to create "subraces". For example, you could offer "Predatory", a package that contained Acute Hearing 2 [4], Acute Taste and Smell 2 [4], Combat Reflexes [15], and Bestial [-15]. Build all your packages on the same point value, and you can just say in your advantage list "pick an 8-point (or whatever point cost you go for) package from the options below".

Another option for adding choices to your racial template is the "Racial Gifts" perk. This allows someone to spend points on additional features that their race permits, but doesn't make required. For example, in Monster Hunters, the Demon template has "Demonic Gifts", so a character with it could spend points on things like horns, bat wings, claws, fiery auras, and so forth.

Hrm. These are a combination of racial and dramatic templates, not just pure racial templates like "Minotaur" or "Vulcan". I want to represent that, in the Cabal setting, supernatural critters tend to be more individualistic than in a lot of fantasy settings. I could do bloodlines, but I'd rather avoid sub-splats...

I may just build up a stack of Vampiric Powers (ala VTM's Disciplines) that any Vampire can buy as a Feature, and go from there. Unfortunately that leaves flavorful disads in limbo.

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

Why does it have Unhealing: Partial? Does it naturally heal in graveyards?

It can heal via Vampiric Bite. (Though I do like the idea of it being able to heal in graveyards. Might add that in.)

[dcarson]

I'm seeing a monograph by Holmes on the varities of grave dirt like his one on cigar ashs.

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

...
It can heal via Vampiric Bite. (Though I do like the idea of it being able to heal in graveyards. Might add that in.)

Vampiric Bite has its own cost and as magic, wouldn't count against the disadvantage. Unhealing is about natural healing. It doesn't preclude spell based or Leech-like powers.

Machines have Total Unhealing despite being repairable.

Healing in graveyards though, being as it's just natural healing in a specific environment, would qualify for limited Unhealing.

[Kelly Pedersen]

Originally Posted by Apollonian

The template already has Secret (Vampire; possible death), which I think covers that. Given that it's meant for play among Cabalists, who are pretty monstrous in themselves, I don't think Social Stigma applies for them.

I had missed the Secret disad, yeah. I would argue that should the Secret be revealed, Social Stigma (Monster) would still be appropriate as one of the disads the Secret "converts" to, though. Certainly, other Cabalists won't necessarily judge you. But in all but the most Cabal-heavy game, I'd still expect players to have to deal with non-Cabalists sometimes. And that's where Social Stigma (Monster) will get you. It means the vampire is more limited than a human Cabalist, because normal humans will tend to be unwilling to work with the vampire, which seems reasonable.

Originally Posted by Apollonian

Hrm. These are a combination of racial and dramatic templates, not just pure racial templates like "Minotaur" or "Vulcan". I want to represent that, in the Cabal setting, supernatural critters tend to be more individualistic than in a lot of fantasy settings. I could do bloodlines, but I'd rather avoid sub-splats...

I can see the point here. If that's what you're going for, I'd definitely recommend the "Racial Gifts" perk, and just have each template say "add 15 points in advantages from the 'Vampiric Gifts' list."

Originally Posted by Apollonian

I may just build up a stack of Vampiric Powers (ala VTM's Disciplines) that any Vampire can buy as a Feature, and go from there. Unfortunately that leaves flavorful disads in limbo.

It doesn't have to leave the disads out, actually. If you go the Racial Gifts route, nothing says that the gifts have to be single advantages - you could make a list composed of packages like I described above, with a few thematically-linked advantages and disadvantages bundled together.