1d6 Vampiric Backgrounds

26 October 2024

Contents

Intro

Happy vampire weekend!

It's been hard for me to get back into my depthcrawl series this month, so I'm taking a little more time away and making some vampire-styled backgrounds for Cairn. I've never written backgrounds for a Mark of the Odd game before despite my love for them, but Yochai has some good advice for it on the Cairn website.

For what it's worth there are only three real qualities that make something a "vampire" in my eyes:

I hope to explore all of these with the following backgrounds. Let's get into it.

Backgrounds

d6 Background
1 Classic Drac
2 Oneiroi
3 Heartworm
4 Lorehouhd
5 Chair Vampire
6 Ourovore

Classic Drac

Everyone loves vanilla, baby. You've got all the hits: fangs, bad hair, thirst for blood.

Sadly garlic's a death sentence and you'll never see the sun again. Hope it was worth it!

this shit ain't nothin to you, man

Names

Vlad, Edward, Carmilla, Angel, Olrox, Elizabeth, Lestat, Damien, Bella, Sterling

Starting Gear

Special: you only gain nourishment from blood. Human's best. When harvesting non-human blood, halve the resulting rations.

What were you before?

d6 Previous Life
1 Dracula Killer. Life's a bitch. Start with a grisly dracula head (terrifying to other vamps) and a complicated relationship with your old crew.
2 Nothing. Your scion pitied you. Even now they watch from a distance. If you look hungry they'll kidnap a peasant to stealthily leave in your tent.
3 Royal. Not that it matters since your exile. You turned your scheming vizier before you left and he refuses to find a new job. He gathers information and rumors as long as you keep him fed.
4 Tinkerer. Did you turn out of curiosity? You've got a pocketful of nuts and bolts and your latest creation: a blackout box (bulky) so your friends can wheel you around while the sun's out.
5 Psychologist. Feverishly studied placebos. Here's the result: you get nourishment from eating anything red, not just blood. The mind's a mysterious thing!
6 Farmer. Born with a crimson thumb. Plant any corpse in fertile ground to produce a blood orange bush after a week.

What's your dracula power?

Everybody gets one.

d6 Power Effect
1 Bat Mode Turn into a bat. Gain all the strengths and weaknesses of a bat. Going big to small is easy; turning back costs one fatigue.
2 Charm Person Spend an hour in prolonged eye contact with a human and they'll become your thrall. Limit one at a time; taking a new thrall releases the old one.
3 Innate Healing As long as you're fed, at least. Recover 1d6 STR at the cost of becoming deprived.
4 Telepathy Yes, you can read minds. No, you can't turn it off. Save WIL to enter a crowded area without freaking out.
5 Longevity You've been around a while. When you enter a new area, ask the Warden what this place looked like a hundred years ago. You were there, or at least heard stories.
6 Bloodhound You can always follow spilt blood to its source, no matter how old.

Oneiroi

O, blessed sleeper. Your kind feasts on the dreams of your bedfellows, storing them in thick sacks along your lymph nodes.

Most oneiroi wed early and treat their lovers to years of empty-headed rest.

dream deep and descend

Names

Sybil, Ari, Mica, Joan, Yume, Ash, Sven, Lune, Vox, Dawn

Starting Gear

Special: you gain nourishment from dreams. When sleeping in a shared bed, you may drain 1d4 dreams from the other sleeper to store as rations.

Who is your lover?

d6 Lover
1 A Guardian. Create a new character as a Hexenbane. They broke their vow for you and they'd do it again. You cannot act in combat - they fight in your stead.
2 A Merchant. Refuses to wade into danger. Can haggle an extra 1d6 gold out of whatever you give them to sell. Requires 50 gold in profit a month to make this worth their while.
3 Haunted. They can't sleep without you. Dream-rations you gain from them are fragile and explode in a nightmarish blast when thrown (1d6 blast, damages WIL).
4 Elsewhere. Through monklike ritual they have entered a state of eternal sleep. Must be carried everywhere. Gain double rations each night you sleep near them.
5 Dead. They slept often towards the end. Add +20 starting gold, ten extra dream-rations, and the deed to a mansion within a deep forest.
6 Imaginary. Remove your starting rations and start deprived. While you sleep, a sapphire being of pure love crawls from your tear ducts to defend you (10 HP, 10 STR, weeping claws 1d10+1d10).

What did you pull from a dream on the night you turned?

d6 Item Effect
1 Mantis Toy (bone) Tell her the name of a married man and set her free. He'll be dead by morning. 1 charge. Recharge: kill your lover.
2 Rose-tinted Compass Always points to the nearest sleeping creature.
3 Oracular Deck Spend a ration (all uses) to read the fate of whoever dreamed it. You and the Warden both secretly pick one word. Roll a die of fate to determine whose word impacts that character's future.
4 A Song About The Moon Perform for an hour and the sun will set. The more you sing, the more you forget (3 uses). When it's gone, the moon will sing it back - gain a use each full moon.
5 Inner Light Dim, dark gold, like a nightlight, emits from your pores. Offers visibility in feet equal to half your current STR. Can't be turned off.
6 Primordial Fear When sleeping near another, instead of feeding, you may choose to overrun their mind with fear. This renders them permanently insensate.

Heartworm

Our bodies are small in this great world. We contain so much. Sometimes we burst.

Your kind was made to stop that. Come now, pierce our hearts and take the chaos away.

Names

Attacus, Kaira, Rhyssa, Andria, Carabus, Calico, Petrius, Vanessa, Xenic, June

Starting Gear

Special: you are nourished by emotions. You feed by extending an ephemeral proboscis from your tonsils through the heart of a living creature. They aren't harmed, but their emotions are drained. Stored rations live in cysts along your tongue.

Who were you tending when the town ran you out?

d6 Client
1 A priest. He took their guilt. You took his. Gain a church secret that can blackmail any member of a religious order (1 use).
2 A wealthy husband. "No lust for any woman but my wife!" She found out anyway. Gain a discarded wedding ring - unhappy spouses always lend you an ear while you hold it.
3 A surgeon. Tricky case - you took his ennui. His success rate rose, you hear. Take bloodstained white gloves; the red will never wash out.
4 A gravedigger. You took nothing. He wanted to talk. Gain a coffin locket, thumb-sized. Place something inside and seal it forever - the world will forget it ever existed.
5 A spirit. This one's hard to wrangle. Take an extra ration (a remnant). When you kiss someone, you may spend the ration to have the remnant possess them until the next sunrise.
6 Yourself. An interesting experiment. When feeding, you can reverse the connection and pipe your own emotions into the target instead.

What emotion have you held for so long it's melded with your body?

d6 Emotion Effect
1 A dying man's regret No matter your actual appearance, strangers always view you as a decrepit elder on the verge of death. The effect fades as they get to know you.
2 A pious man's vanity Anything you write, draw, or otherwise create is intuitively understood by the viewer to be about themselves, no matter the intent.
3 A wise man's fear Your tongue can morph into the shape of that man's head. He's a negotiator of some renown and a fierce advocate for peace. 1 charge. Recharge: start a pointless fight.
4 A weak man's obsession Ask the Warden to name a character you've never met: each night, they dream of you without knowing why. If / when they die, repeat this.
5 A small man's wrath All attacks where you are truly, justifiably angry are enhanced. The rest are impaired. Abusing this should have consequences (saves to avoid going berserk, etc.)
6 A tired man's love Take three amateurish figurines carved from your flesh. Anyone you give them to will treasure the gift to their grave.

Lorehound

An unfortunate truth: for you to live, stories must die. Your kind slinks around bars and campfires, eating tall tales and histories alike until you're booted to the outskirts. Your scion turned you not from pride or obligation but desperation - they needed a safe partner to swap yarns with. And now they're gone.

Names

Artur, Owen, Velma, Dewey, Cassandra, Bellum, Margaret, Frost, Alex, Crow

Starting Package

Special: you are nourished by spoken stories. They vibrate through a baleen filter in your throat and encode themselves in Braille-like bumps along the chest until absorbed. Any stories you eat are forgotten immediately by the teller and all other listeners - they're left with the taste of your name burning against their tongues.

What happened to your scion?

d6 Separation
1 Killed by a mob after eating a friend's noose-side confession. Take a dagger wound in your back that won't heal - it can eat evidence of any crimes you commit.
2 Starved themself after eating a man's last memory of his child. Take a gravestone (bulky). Plant it, dig a hole, and sleep inside - in your dreams you can speak with everyone you've ever lost.
3 Left you. "No more." Take 12 additional gold and written directions to a reclusive settlement. You are to eat all knowledge of their founder: succeed for 1000 more gold; take too long and the impatient client will sic bounty hunters on you.
4 Died in a bar fight. Stupid. Take haunting sobriety - alcohol makes you throw up; any drink you pour loses its ABV.
5 Disappeared. You woke with a story you don't remember eating. Gain an additional ration (a nonsense). Eating it blurs your face body and makes your name slip from the world - you are unrecognizable for an hour.
6 Stored too many stories and become a gobbledygook, half mindless, unable to speak outside of words they've encoded. Take a horrific phrase: speak it to deal 1d6 blast to all who hear (including you).

How do you protect yourself now that you're alone?

d6 Remnant Effect
1 Dried Sunflower Charm Petals grow in the presence of one who loves you and wither around one who hates you.
2 Tattletale's Inkwell Writing a lie with this ink painfully inscribes the words on the author's forehead after a minute.
3 An Atom of Divinity Modify one letter anywhere on your character sheet. 3 charges. Recharge: blind yourself in one eye.
4 Spellbook: Read Mind (modified) Target makes a WIL save. On failure, they speak all their thoughts aloud without realizing it. On success, the effect applies to you instead.
5 someone else's knife Replaces your index finger. Carve someone else's face off and place it on your own to merge with it, reshaping your body to match the original owner. 1 charge. Recharge: gained automatically each winter solstice.
6 Malignant Visage A terrifying face growing from the back of your head. Anyone chasing you must pass a WIL save or panic. Loves to speak at inopportune times.

Chair Vampire

The boys back in the lab are still sussing you out, but one thing's for sure: you eat chairs.

Your teeth twist like corkscrews and grind through wood with a noise that shakes the skull.

Names

Barber, Chase, Stu, Addy, Field, Rock, Arma, Wick, Parson, Lona

Starting Package

Special: you only gain nourishment from chairs (any size).

When you eat a chair, what part of it do you consume?

d6 Portion
1 The entire thing. The way you unhinge your jaw is disgusting. Gain an additional inventory slot representing your stomach: it stores chairs (1 at a time). You can regurgitate the stored object at will or digest as a ration.
2 Its seatability. Looks the same, but anyone sitting on a chair you've fed from slips and slides right off.
3 Its identity. When you're through, the object remains the same, but nobody recognizes it as a chair.
4 Its shape. The material twists and groans into... something else. You describe the new shape (anything other than a chair).
5 Its stillness. The chair animates into a conscious being, ready to live its own life. Unfortunately you only eat dead chairs. Be free, little one.
6 Its corporeality. An image of the chair remains exactly as it was, but flesh passes through it like cold water. Bad for you, good for ghosts.

What simple wooden carving have you carried since childhood?

d6 Gift Effect
1 Shackle of Return Wooden handcuffs. When both ends clasp around a wrist, the wearer(s) will lose their physicality and slip through the ground, falling to Hell. One end is already locked to you. You don't have a key.
2 Cosmic Map Circular and incomprehensible. Bury it six feet deep and say a prayer to the stars. In a month, a meteor will crash there and wipe out the entire hex.
3 A Little You As you were at age 6. You didn't carve it. You don't know who did. When (and only when) you're truly alone, it whispers the names of everyone who's lied to you since your last chat.
4 Old Redwood's Heart Replaced your original. Given time to plant your feet in good soil, you cannot be moved or harmed by anything short of a hurricane.
5 Hired Man's Clogs Caked in dirt, always warm. Wear them and let your feet take over - they'll walk you to the nearest home that'll house and feed you, whether you know the owners or not.
6 The Face of Your Mother In its mouth is another carving: the face of your grandmother. In her mouth, your great-grandmother, and so on. Spend a charge and the Warden will offer true, genuine advice on overcoming a tough situation alongside a condescending comment about your body. 3 charges. Recharge: Remember one of those comments and repeat it to someone you love.

Ourovore

There's a mouth below your nose, a mouth behind your neck, and miles inbetween.

In with the old, out with the new. Forever.

Names

Cleo, Garter, Adder, Anna, Vi, Harley, Lora, Pythia, Rat, Winder

Starting Package

Special: you gain nourishment by eating yourself. A new, different body emerges from your neck-mouth, wet and soft like fresh birth. The process takes a full Watch. -1 STR each day you go without molting.

Where were you the first time you molted?

d6 Location
1 Your wedding. You felt you didn't deserve love, so you made a new you. Take a Faithless Ring, one half of a pair. You can twist it to clairvoyantly spy on its mate, which currently belongs to a distant spouse who wouldn't recognize you.
2 A riot. You were acquitted. They didn't like it. Take an Incendiary Pitchfork (1d8, bulky, Critical Damage: target is frenzied and attacks one ally before collapsing)
3 Alone, beneath a willow tree. You wished to be someone else and that was that. Take a Willow Veil: Whoever parts it sees the face of their lover, no matter the wearer.
4 A blizzard. You did what you had to. Take some Molten Pills which ward off cold for a day and cure frostbite (3 uses).
5 Underground. You don't know how long. Take a Passenger Fungus growing from your right ear. Whoever eats it becomes permanently attuned to you. You share all damage and can read each other's thoughts and emotions from any distance.
6 At sea. You still feel connected. When you molt, you can choose to replace your legs with a mermaid's tail or vice versa.

Which part of your original body remains the same with each molt?

d6 Holdout Effect
1 Your Lungs You know a Hymn to a Dying God. Hum it to grant her one more breath, violently sucking up all the air in the current room through your neck-mouth. 3 charges. Recharge: On taking Critical Damage, describe what she whispers to you on the edge of death.
2 Your Eyes You can pop your eyes out at will and still see through them.
3 Your Tattoos Pick a spellbook from the core list. Its contents are tattooed on your skin and usable by anyone who can read you. The first time you would take a Scar, the tats are ruined instead.
4 Your Illness Transmitted by biting - a rot, swelling from the point of contact, slowly dissolving everything beneath the skin. You can reset its progress by molting; other afflicted will be dead in a year. Still, one inventory slot is permanently fatigued.
5 Your Voice Any time you hear a noise, you may store it in your inventory (each in a separate slot). Spend a stored noise to replay it through your neck-mouth exactly as heard.
6 Your Conjoined Twin They live on your belly, fast asleep since you both left the womb. When you die, they'll wake with all your abilites and a burning desire to avenge you: set their saves to (20 minus your current stats) and reroll on this table for a new effect.

Notes

Heartworm's coffin locket was ripped from the Gravedigger from Triangle Agency.

Art sourced from public.work except for the still from Dracula Flow