As is the case with many monsters found in the wastes, legend has it that the Life Stealing Vampire is actually an alien life form that almost caused the complete and utter depopulation of England back during the late 20^th century. But then again, most creatures have a legend behind them. Funny though how many legends have their origin in fact, and not myth.

These horrific monsters have two basic appearances. First, they always appear as young, beautiful or handsome men and women. The physical appearance is quite literally pulled from the mind of a victim, in order to put the victim at ease. The victim will be drawn to the monster without any cause for fear or apprehension.

Chris Van Deelen is the author of the Skirmisher Publishing LLC sourcebook Creatures of the Tropical Wastes sourcebook, co-author of its Wisdom from the Wastelands game supplement and contributor to the 'Sword of Kos: Hekaton' Anthology.

No. Enc: 1d3
Alignment:  Chaotic
Movement: 90’ (30’)
                    150’ (50’) Flying
AC: 7
HD: 12
Attacks: 2 claws or 1 bite and special (see description)
Damage: 1d8 / 1d8 or 1d6 and special (see description)
Save: L
Morale:10
Hoard Class: None

As is the case with many monsters found in the wastes, legend has it that the Life Stealing Vampire is actually an alien life form that almost caused the complete and utter depopulation of England back during the late 20^th century. But then again, most creatures have a legend behind them. Funny though how many legends have their origin in fact, and not myth.

These horrific monsters have two basic appearances. First, they always appear as young, beautiful or handsome men and women. The physical appearance is quite literally pulled from the mind of a victim, in order to put the victim at ease. The victim will be drawn to the monster without any cause for fear or apprehension.

The second form is that of a hairless vampire bat, with a wing span of well over fifteen feet in length, and a hideous visage that is enough to put the fear of god into the most stalwart of warriors. In either form, the creatures are around average human height and weight.

No one knows how long these creatures can live, and once again legend has it that those encountered are the same ones that originally caused the near-total destruction of the UK isles. At the same time, no one knows if, or how, they reproduce, although again it is speculated that they are of both sexes, since they appear as male and female to those who observe them.

In combat, they attack only one creature at a time. They approach the creature and gaze into their eyes and then the victim must make a save versus death. If the save fails, the monster then begins to draw out the victim’s life-force, which can be seen with the naked eye as a blue shimmering cascade of energy. The attack takes 1d6 rounds to complete and if the creature is able to finish drawing out the victim’s life energy all that is left is a desiccated, nearly skeletal corpse.

The monster then heals any damage it has sustained, and gains an additional number of hit points equal to 2x the victim’s constitution score (or in the case of creatures without a constitution score, they gain 2 hit points per hit dice.

These hit points last for 48 hours or until they are removed as the creature sustains damage. There is no limit to the number of extra hit points the creature can have as a result.

But that isn’t the worst aspect of these creatures. The creatures that they kill are suddenly resurrected exactly two hours after their death, appearing as animated corpses. These creatures will actively seek out others of their own kind (as long as they are of the same basic genotype, like Pure Humans, Human Mutants, Mutant Animals etc.) and will attempt to siphon their life force as well, by using the same attack as the monster that condemned them to such an existence. It should be noted that they cannot harm plants for some reason, even if the plant is humanoid in appearance.

For all intent and purpose the creatures have the same hit dice, AC and attacks that they had in life, but if they are killed while in this state, their bodies explode into fine ash.

If the attack succeeds, the victim is restored to their former vitality and appear as if nothing has happened. The only thing is that they have to feed like this once every two hours or they revert to the desiccated form in 1d4 rounds and are forever dead.

Any victims they produce as a result will likewise rise in two hours and will actively hunt down more victims. Just one victim can wipe out an entire community in a matter of a couple of days.

The monster gains benefits from the creation of more of these creatures, as for every victim that it’s ‘spawn’ creates gives the creature 1 hit point per point of constitution or hit dice.

There is one sure way to kill one of these creatures. They are vulnerable to iron. Any iron weapon that pierces their body acts like class 18 poison to them. Even if they save, they still suffer from the attack, and they immediately have to make a moral check or be forced to flee.

If by some stroke of luck one of these monsters is killed, all its victims are returned to their normal state (unless they too have been killed) and are greatly weakened, having only 1 hit point per hit dice or point of constitution. These creatures have no need of treasure or artifacts and don’t bother to keep any such items. They also are constantly on the move so they don’t have any fixed lairs.

Mutations: Aberrant form (chimera-bat), fear generation, neural telepathy, shapeshift (special), vampiric field (special)

Source: Lifeforce (1985)