Dhampir: Clan Rathmore

Partially transcended, the Rathmore bloodline are the least volatile of the vampires within Kovarik. They feed more on magic than blood, and their tastes show this, often drinking from mages or monsters more often than the peasants that serve them. Their patron, Celestine Rathmore, is the oldest of the vampiric progenitors to remain awake, all the others aside from the infant Cacinoe have been slain or taken to hibernation, awaiting the success of their Seekers. By all accounts her political clout and strength has kept Kovarik from falling to ruin beneath the more hedonistic clans. They find the effect of antimagic leaves them sickened and weak, obliterating the stockpile of energy that sustains them.

## Racial Traits

### Standard Racial Traits

* **Ability Score Modifiers**: Dhampirs are fast and seductive, but their racial bond to the undead impedes their mortal vigor. They gain +2 Constitution, +2 Intelligence, and –2 Wisdom.
* **Size**: Dhampirs are Medium creatures and thus have no bonuses or penalties due to their size.
* **Base Speed**: Dhampir have a base speed of 30 feet.
* **Languages**: Rathmore characters speak Low Elven (Common) and High Elven.

### Other Racial Traits

* **Undead Resistance**: Dhampirs gain a +2 racial bonus on saving throws against disease and mind-affecting effects.
* **Resist Level Drain**: A dhampir takes no penalties from energy drain effects, though he can still be killed if he accrues more negative levels then he has Hit Dice. After 24 hours, any negative levels a dhampir takes are removed without the need for an additional saving throw.
* **Spell-Like Abilities**: Beginning at 5th level, A Rathmore dhampir can use Gaseous Form once per day. The caster level for this ability equals the dhampir’s class level. as a spell-like ability
* **Fangs**: Whenever the dhampir makes a grapple combat maneuver check to damage an opponent, he can choose to bite his opponent, dealing 1d3 points of damage as if using a natural bite attack. As a standard action, the dhampir can bite a creature that is bound, helpless, paralyzed, or similarly unable to defend itself. that creature has no idea you used bloodthirst on them, simply experiencing the feeding as lost time
* **Darkvision**: Dhampir see perfectly in the dark up to 60 feet.
* **Low-light Vision**: In addition to their ability to see perfectly in the dark up to 60 ft, dhampir have low-light vision, allowing them to see twice as far as humans in conditions of dim light.
* **Negative Energy Affinity**: Though a living creature, a dhampir reacts to positive and negative energy as if it were undead—positive energy harms it, while negative energy heals it.
* **Magic Eater**: You may use your fangs ability against a helpless, unconscious, grappled, or recently dead (under 1 hour) creature that has or had spell slots, spell points, power points, or spell-like abilities. You gain the Blood Drinker feat, but may only use it and any feat with it as a prerequisite against creatures with at least ½ your hit dice and that fulfill your Magic Eater requirements. If you gain the Diverse Palate feat later on, you do not expand the types of creatures that you can feed on, instead when you would gain temporary hit points from Blood Drinker, you also gain 20% concealment and while in dim or darker lighting you may attempt a stealth check to hide even while observed for one minute, as your body blurs into non-reality. You may not take the Diverse Palate feat more than once.
* **Tenuous Reality**: Any time a spell effect on you would be suppressed or dispelled, such as being the target of dispel magic, anti magic field or a similar effect, you must make a Will Save DC (10+½ your Hit Dice + your Wisdom modifier) or become staggered for 1 round. On a successful save, you become sickened for 1 round instead.

## On Vampires: Clan Rathmore

When the blasphemous ritual that shrouded the land of Kovarik in an eternally overcast sky was performed, there were four powerful vampires present; Silvis Leanan of the Silver Court, Cathas the Godsblood Apostle, Aberforth Attorace *(The Manticore)*, and Celestine Rathmore. These vampires each crowned themselves kings and queens of Kovarik, and all except Cathas of the Godsblood rule even now.

The Rathmore are, perhaps, the most worrisome, the least bound by their monstrosity. Celestine Rathmore is intellectual, well spoken, shrewd, and noble. A true ruler of that awful land. Her and her ilk’s preference to feed on the magically endowed means that the peasants beneath them are relatively safe from predation, and the monsters that have flocked to Kovarik since the ritual are often hunted by Rathmore parties for sport.

The term ‘vampire’ is perhaps a confusing one, as the three *(now four, with the Cacinoe)* clans still on the surface have nearly nothing in common besides their need to feed parasitically on blood or spirit. The Rathmore especially were confusing, requiring only the blood of the magically inclined to survive.

It was only after capturing one a few hundred years back that I was capable of sating my curiosity. The Rathmore are undead, true, but unlike other forms of sentient undead they are the closest to the blasphemous magic of Liches. True corpses, the Rathmore are animated by complex magics, and are thus rendered weakened by any effect which disables magic.

Their abilities are similarly strange, though they lack the sunken, mummified or skeletal appearance of true liches they have similarly unnatural powers, capable of turning into clouds of bats or manipulating blood. Particularly old Rathmore develop even more esoteric powers, and their progenitor is rumored capable of watching others through the eyes of ravens, or transforming into a great wolf. Almost universally however, they are far stronger and faster than even us elves, and are invigorated by the consumption of blood, their forms blurring and attacks seeming to pass right through them on occasion after gorging themselves.

It’s said that a lifetime or more ago *(Our estimates place Lady Rathmore at somewhere near 600)*, Celestine Rathmore was one of us, an elf who lived in Syltsiel, but fell in love with a human of hers, and sought blasphemous rituals to extend his life. The experiments changed her, but were not completed in time to save her lover.

-Illaria The’inn, Blade of Bright Leaves

*The truth of such things is nebulous, Your Highness. In my brief experiences with the Lady and her ilk, I’d describe her as terrifying. Standing in a room with her is like standing in a room with a chained dragon. Her eyes follow you like a predator and her every word is chosen carefully, poisonously. However, I have never once been betrayed by her, and she’s followed through on every agreement made at negotiating tables. I advise caution, but she could certainly make a powerful ally, and is beyond a doubt the most stable of the progenitor vampires, barring perhaps the newest of Clan Cacinoe. - S.H.*