The Vampire Bestiary: Part One is the first in a series of three 64 page books from Eternity Publishing for 4th Edition D&D (with 3E conversions to follow). Each installment is primarily a monster book but also contains slightly more content than you’ll typically be familiar with. So you will also find traps, hazards, new items, new powers, adventure ideas, encounter tables, new rules and all sorts of other game elements thrown into the mix to help flesh out a particular monster entry.
Part One details monsters covering Levels 1-15. I know thats slightly lower level than Eternity Publishing is renowned for, but I wanted to get a feel for 4th Edition so I designed from the bottom up. As the title suggests, the main theme of these books is vampires. However, not all the entries are vampires, (as you can see from the list of contents below) the book also includes creatures with links to vampires, or other monsters that are simply vampire-like but not necessarily vampires in the classical sense. So Part One is only about 40% vampires, but parts two and three will be about 80% or more.
In researching this book, I learnt about dozens of different vampires I had basically never heard of before, such as the Pey…or Forgotten Vampire. The Pey are feral vampires who prey on the wounded and weak. They haunt battlefields or other areas of great bloodshed and carnage. Legend tells that you can only see them come calling when you are close to death. Often such sightings are dismissed as the delirious ravings of those at death’s door, allowing the Pey to feast and remain forgotten.
As well as simply vampires, the book also introduces a few Wights, including the Bisomus…or Twin Wight. These horrors are born from unholy rituals that involve lovers being buried alive together in the same coffin. Such perverted practices are undertaken by evil cultists such as those of the goddess Kali.
‘Boss’ Monsters
The book follows the Monster Manual 3 format (and rules changes for higher damage and so forth), but it also introduces a new approach for Solo Monsters which makes them much more interesting (I think) and challenging opponents. To differentiate from solo monsters I’ll be calling these “boss” monsters. I’ll spill the beans on what it means to be a boss monster in a future preview, but if you’d rather stick with current solo monster design (you won’t when you see the boss monster mechanics), but in the one in a million chance you would) then I have designed the boss monster rules can be easily ignored.
Contents: Monster Entries
Cannibals
- Cannibal Crazy
- Cannibal Mort
- Blood Ant Swarm
- Cannibal Sniper
- Cannibal Headhunter
- Piranha
- Cannibal Impaler
- Cannibal Witchdoctor
- Abatwa
- Cannibal Chief
- Cannibal Spirit Chief
Thuggee Cult
- Cobra
- Slave
- Thuggee Initiate
- Thuggee Fanatic
- Thuggee Look-Out
- Thuggee Deceiver
- Thuggee Strangler
- Snake Swarm
- Thuggee Taskmaster
- Thuggee Chief
- Idol of Kali
Kali, Lesser Temple
- Blood Acolyte
- Dark Disciple
- Thuggee Executioner (Thuggee)
- Thuggee Slayer (Thuggee)
- Bardi (Vampire)
- Churel (Vampire)
- Firekeeper
- Guru of Kali
- Psoglav (Vampire)
- Thuggee Chief of Chiefs (Thuggee)
- Bhowanee, Aspect of Kali
Vampires
- Jenglot
- Chon-Chon
- Pey
- Impundulu
- Uktena
- Asambosam
- Yara-Ma-Yha-Who
- Vampire Bat Swarm
- Wendigo
- Pricolici
- Strix
- Vampire
- Wendigo Abomination
- Nukekubi
- Drekevac
- Vampire Familiar
- Dracula
- Pitris (Vampire Intelligence)
Wights
- Bone Wight
- Blood Wight
- Twin Wight
boccobsblog
March 14, 2011
This is an impressive site, and it looks amazing. You will be offering your books in 3e format as well?
Upper_Krust
March 14, 2011
Hey there boccobsblog!
Thanks for the kind words.
The plan is for the book to first be released in 4th Edition, then for it to be converted by a group of other people (aided by myself) into 3.5 D&D.
I would like to also point out to anyone reading the table of contents above, that there are AT LEAST 15 monsters missing (in fact you’ll notice I actually have 2 monsters in Preview 2 that aren’t actually on the above list (Vampire Wretch and Vampire Courtesan).
The latest news is that the artist Peter Szmer has roughly 50% of the art completed. That took him about 4 weeks. So assuming that schedule is maintained hopefully we can have it all wrapped up in approx. 4-5 weeks time. I was hoping for a March release but it does look like April now to be fair. Text isn’t totally done yet, but I think 2 weeks should clear that all up.