Vampires

This is the third in my series of Weird & Wonderful tables of "traditional fantasy" elements, the first two being Elves and Goblins. As with my goblins table (and the latter elves), my intention for these vampires is that each one represents some sub-textual or thematically-relevant aspect of vampires. Additionally, as with the goblins, I'm going with a broad definition of vampire, including not just the European creature but also creatures such as the Hindu Vetala or Chinese Jiangshi, or any creatures which steal blood, energy, lifeforce, etc. It's interesting, looking at vampiric creatures across different cultures, that vampirism and deviant sexuality, specifically female-empowered sexuality (which would have been considered deviant in those cultures), as well as liminal consciousness, sleep paralysis, sleepwalking, and out of body experiences, are so co-morbid. I also took inspiration from animals known for being vampiric or carrion-feeding, other biological or chemical vectors for blood or energy transference, and more abstract forms of emotional vampirism. These entries definitely stray pretty far from the traditional Dracula-derived modern vampire, but I tried to relate each entry to these concepts.

Vampires (1d20)	Description
1. Dilation Vampires	Psychic beings that make you think of a single, uncomfortable event. The event grows in your mind. It no longer reflects reality. It grows beyond what your brain can contain. The blood pressure builds, crushing your brain as every blood vessel bursts.
2. Blood Gnolls	Androgynous female hyena-like humanoids with blood-red fur and bright green eyes. Supernatural hunters and scavengers. Their teeth drip a crimson enzyme which can dissolve bone. They are often hired by desperate desert wanderers. As payment, they demand a sacrifice of a male virgin with a hyper-masculine personality.
3. Agnatha	A crimson-colored creature with a worm-like body and a large, round orifice for a face, layered with sharp teeth, and a large eye on its chest. Has eight appendages like a squid, with webbing between the appendages giving the appearance of a cape. The witch attracts those who are lost but have not lost hope, and offers them care and a place to rest. It nibbles at its guests each night, forming a small, infectious wound that burrows ever deeper towards the heart.
4. Floxforos	Cyan skin, blue or white hair, a burning aura. They consume heat produced by the metabolism of intelligent life, or artificially produced, life-sustaining sources of heat. They require a precise equilibrium; too little heat and they die, too much and they explode. They use fire and water magics to maintain this equilibrium.
5. Byakhee Lords	Neck and wings of a vulture, face like a cross between a reptile and raven. They enter your life after you've lost a loved one. They take the form of whatever you need most in that moment. They make you forget your loss. They replace your dreams with fantasy adventures of just you and them. They make you love them like you did your lost love. They make you give them everything. And then they leave you. They leave a void in your soul in place of your forgotten loved one. They feed on others until they have consumed every memory in the world of your loved one.
6. Playwright Vampires	A chameleon-like shapeshifter. It searches for talented but inexperienced actors. It offers them their dream role and everything they could ever want, and feeds on their sense of fulfillment. Everyone and everything in the production is an illusion except the actor and the playwright; even the audience is not real. It strings the production along for years. The actor never improves their craft because the audience loves them exactly as they are. When the actor is well past their prime, it reveals the ruse, leaving the actor with nothing to show for their life's work.
7. Plague Vampires	In their first stage of life, they are dog-sized insects which hop on powerful hind legs and stab their prey with their proboscis. Their torsos engorge with blood, and they form into a blood chrysalis. In their secondary stage they are humanoid insects with beautiful wings like a butterfly and toothy, beak-like mouths. They prefer to feed on the weak and sick, cultivating the bacteria and viruses into even more potent diseases. Once their new disease is ready, they infect the healthy.
8. Dracul Vampires	These vampire dragons gain power from accumulating zero-sum wealth. The less resourceful steal and hoard treasures, while others own property and profit from the fruits of their exploited workers' and slaves' labors. They fear economic and industrial disruption, and act as an inertial force on economies. Some are charming, and these are the most dangerous ones. They will convince you they have your best interest at heart even as they exploit you for everything you are worth.
9. Asphyxiation Vampires	A plant intelligence distributed across a field of poppies and thorny roses. They induce pleasure and psychedelia in those who pass through the fields, feeding on the blood dripping down the thorns and oxidizing their circulatory system, shutting down their muscles and trapping them. Unlike most plants they are oxygen breathers, and their trapped prey blissfully suffocate on the carbon dioxide exhausted in the field.
10. Manic Vampires	They supercharge hematopoiesis in the marrow. The lifeforce courses through their victims, stimulating every nerve ending and every neuron as if the body were alight with holy fire. Their victims live hard and fast until they (metaphorically) burst, and the vampire feasts on the ripe, juicy remains.
11. Holobiotic Vampires	A parasitic organism that lives in the gut like a fungal or bacterial infection. It hijacks white blood cell production, manipulating the immune system, both to make the gut microbiome more hospitable, and to manipulate the thoughts, emotions, and even physical form of the host. The identity of the host is usually so radically altered that the host's original identity effectively dies long before the body is fully consumed.
12. Lost Boys	Angels created by long-forgotten gods on a faraway world. They are alien and beautiful, child-like but world-weary. They inspire faith and good will in others but have none for themselves. Inevitably, the faith they garner is squandered or corrupted. They are not malicious, they are simply lost.
13. Memetic Vampires	They drink from the collective unconscious of a culture, acquiring its history, knowledge, and customs, but not its soul. They love the culture, in their own way, but don't really understand it. They trap it, exploit it, pervert it, and indoctrinate others into the corrupted culture. They lack restraint or consideration for their actions, and eventually they kill the culture that they grew to love.
14. Azure Vampires	Human-passing save for their bluish and coppery metallic skin. In post-industrial worlds they are lords, in pre-industrial worlds they bide their time. They are a dangerous people, in that they are savant-like in both their abilities as engineers and technologists, and also in business and finance. They are captains of industry, moving civilizations forward only to exploit them. They drink the blood of the poor and exploitable. They are the greatest argument against innovation and progress.
15. Liminal Vampires	They appear in hypnagogic visions, interacting with the physical world through the pineal gland and the electricity produced by myoclonic jerks. They oscillate in dissonance with your brain just before you fall asleep. They feed on your physical essence, degrading you each long and wakeful night.
16. Primordial Vampires	Deformed creatures with clubbed feet, shriveled lungs which wheeze and croak at each breath, and overly large or small or misshapen heads. They prey upon women with unwanted pregnancies, violently aborting the fetus and feeding on the amniotic fluids.
17. Vampire Blood Golems	Golems made from the blood of vampires. The circulatory system must be given life within the (un-)living vampire. When the vampire feeds, the circulatory system routes the blood only for itself, starving the vampire host from the inside. Eventually, the vampire starves, and the golem sheds its host. It is a powerful, magical being, and it hungers.
18. Black-blooded Vampires	Titan-like magical beings hiding within civilizations. They are far too powerful to find nourishment in blood. Instead, they must wait millions of years for heat and pressure to transform organic matter into fossil fuels, a far greater concentration of life than blood.
19. Ego Vampires	They are hopeless romantics, feeding on the vibrancy of passionate love and lusty sex. However, as soon as the passion burns out, so does any interest they had in their relationship. When they leave, their former lover must come to terms with the relationship, or transform into an ego vampire themselves.
20. Lymph Vampires	Obese, yellow and bluish degenerate creatures which feed on lymph, hemolymph, and hemocyanin. They take a blunt approach to solving problems, and lack a sense of nuance. They live in squalor and filth, taking as little responsibility for themselves as possible. They survive mainly on the cockroaches and other vermin attracted to their filth.