Vampire

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Vampires are a class of monster represented by the overall symbol V, all of whom possess a characteristic life-draining bite. They will always be generated hostile and possess the abilities of flight and magical breathing. They are vulnerable to silver weapons.

The members of the vampire class are:

• V vampire
• V vampire lord
• V Vlad the Impaler

#chatting with vampires can give humorous messages.

Standing on an altar scares vampires as if you were standing on Elbereth or a scroll of scare monster. Any altar will have this effect, including an altar to Moloch.

As of NetHack 3.6.0, vampires and vampire lords are capable of self-polymorph into vampire bats or fog clouds; the latter of the two forms may be used at will to flow underneath locked doors. Vampire lords may also polymorph into wolves. Killing/destroying these alternate forms will cause the monster to resurrect in its vampire form.

Vampire (monster)

V vampire
Difficulty	12
Attacks	Claw 1d6, bite 1d6 drain life

V vampire
Difficulty	12
Attacks	Claw 1d6, bite 1d6 drain life
Base level	10
Base experience	327
Speed	12
Base AC	1
Base MR	25
Alignment	-8 (chaotic)
Frequency (by normal means)	1 (Very rare)
Genocidable	Yes
Weight	1450
Nutritional value	400 (human corpse)
Size	Medium
Resistances	Sleep, poison
Resistances conveyed	None
A vampire: can fly. does not breathe. has a head, a couple of arms, and a torso. regenerates HP quickly. is poisonous to eat. does not eat. (*) is undead. is normally generated hostile. can follow you to other levels. is nasty. is strong. can be seen through infravision. can leave an old human corpse.
Reference	monst.c#line1840

The vampire, V, is the weakest example of this class of monsters.

Note that in dNethack, pet (but not monster vampires) will drain corpses for nutrition the same way a player vampire does (<3 turns of age, has blood).

As pets

Vampire pets are not quite as strong as vampire lords, but they will grow up quickly. As with vampire lords, you need to wear a ring of protection from shape changers in order to keep your pet in vampire form; otherwise, it may turn into a bat or fog cloud which is a weak fighter.

Polymorphed

Players polymorphed into any V polymorph into vampire bats when the player polymorphs without polymorph control.

In SLASH'EM and UnNetHack, players polymorphed into a vampire can fly and do not need to breathe, but they cannot eat solid food and have to rely on blood as their only food source. They must drain the fresh blood of corpses. If they wait too long, the blood will coagulate, becoming useless as a nutrition source. They may also get nutrition from combat if they have a bite attack that drains life. While the enemy blood has a very small nutritional value, the vampires have the advantage of being able to sacrifice even those corpses they have fed upon. The usual penalties apply for draining other humans as well as dogs and cats.

Variants

SLASH'EM

Vampires are a starting race in SLASH'EM. See the article "Vampire (starting race in SLASH'EM)" for more details.

They are three new types of Vampires:

• Vampire mages
• Fire vampires
• Star vampires

Notably: Vampire mages can cast the summon nasties spell. Fire and star vampires are not undead, but extraterestials of Lovecraftian origin. Fire vampires are extremely fast and can cast unreflectable fire balls. While star vampires have six attacks per turn.

Undead vampires (not star vampires and fire vampires) are often generated with Opera cloaks. The effect is a bit ambiguous depending what it is.

If it's a cloak of magic resistance, then this cloak can easily be found, instead of been very rare. On the other hand, vampires are also magic resistant this way. This is an annoyance for spellcasters. Among other things, the spell of magic missile, the special spell of wizards, cease to function on the ones generated with a cloak. This is of particular importance when dealing with a Vampire mage, that is alredy though. In that case, the acid stream spell is a good substitute that doesn't destroy potential loot.

UnNetHack

Vampires are a starting race in UnNetHack. See the article "Vampire (starting race in UnNetHack)" for more details.

Enemy vampires are also often generated with opera cloaks.

Encyclopedia entry

He can transform himself to wolf, as we gather from the ship
arrival in Whitby, when he tear open the dog; he can be as
bat, as Madam Mina saw him on the window at Whitby, and as
friend John saw him fly from this so near house, and as my
friend Quincey saw him at the window of Miss Lucy. He can come
in mist which he create--that noble ship's captain proved him
of this; but, from what we know, the distance he can make this
mist is limited, and it can only be round himself. He come on
moonlight rays as elemental dust--as again Jonathan saw those
sisters in the castle of Dracula. He become so small--we
ourselves saw Miss Lucy, ere she was at peace, slip through a
hairbreadth space at the tomb door.
[ Dracula, by Bram Stoker ]

The Oxford English Dictionary is quite unequivocal:
_vampire_ - "a preternatural being of a malignant nature (in
the original and usual form of the belief, a reanimated
corpse), supposed to seek nourishment, or do harm, by sucking
the blood of sleeping persons. ..."

References

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