Vampire lord

V vampire lord
Difficulty	14
Attacks	Claw 1d8, bite 1d8 drain life

V vampire lord
Difficulty	14
Attacks	Claw 1d8, bite 1d8 drain life
Base level	12
Base experience	399
Speed	14
Base AC	0
Base MR	50
Alignment	-9 (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 lord: 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 a lord to its kind. is male. 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#line1849

The vampire lord, V, is a more difficult vampire. Like its weaker brethren, it possesses the abilities of flight and magical breathing as well as the characteristic life-draining bite attack.

Beginning in NetHack 3.6.0, vampires and vampire lords are capable of shapeshifting; vampire lords may become vampire bats, fog clouds, and wolves. These forms will resurrect as the vampire lord if they are killed/destroyed. The fog cloud form is notable for being able to pass under locked doors.

As pets

Vampire lords make excellent pets if you wear a ring of protection from shape changers. Without the ring, pet vampires will shapeshift. They are weak fighters in bat/wolf/cloud form, and if they are wearing armor, it will be destroyed when they become wolves. But if you do wear a ring (or play a version in which they do not shapeshift), vampire lords can wear all armor in addition to their base AC of 0, which makes them very hard to hit and allows you to give them some resistances. They also do not eat (except when shapeshifted), fly, and regenerate rapidly, and their drain life attack weakens the monster they and you are fighting.

Pet vampires will grow up into vampire lords, and are easier to tame because of their lower magic resistance.