Prestige Ancestry: Dhampir
Poised between the worlds of the living and the dead, dhampirs retain their grip on life yet are endlessly tested by vicious hungers. Their ties to the Undead grant dhampirs a taste of a vampire’s deathless prowess in the form of increased speed, darkvision, and a life-draining bite.
With unique insights into the nature of the undead, many dhampirs become adventurers and monster hunters. Their reasons are often deeply personal. Some seek danger, imagining monsters as personifications of their own hungers. Others pursue revenge against whatever turned them into a dhampir. And still others embrace the solitude of the hunt, striving to distance themselves from those who’d tempt their hunger.
You are one such creature, born from the death of your previous life. Dhampirs often arise from encounters with vampires, but all manner of macabre bargains, necromantic influences, and encounters with mysterious immortals might have transformed your character.
Prestige
The Dhampir is a Prestige Ancestry. It can be taken after character creation at any point when you would receive a Feat in place of taking a regular Feat. A character must meet the following prerequisites to do so:
- You must have a Constitution score of 15 or higher.
- You must have 30 or more hit points.
- You must have a Common Ancestry.
- You can't already have a Prestige Ancestry.
Your DM might allow you to ignore one or more of these prerequisites, and may allow you to take this Prestige ancestry at 1st level.
Regardless of when you gain this ancestry, its features modify or add onto your base ancestry's. If a feature is present on both the prestige ancestry and the base ancestry, you take the version of the feature in the prestige ancestry unless specified otherwise. If your DM allows you to gain more than one prestige ancestry, you use the newest version of any feature it has that you previously gained.
Dhampir Traits
Creature Type. You count as an Undead in addition to any other creature types you gained from your base ancestry.
Darkvision. Thanks to your vampiric powers, you can see in dim light within 60 feet of you as if it were bright light and in darkness as if it were dim light. You discern colors in that darkness as shades of gray.
Deathless Nature. You don't need to breathe.
Spider Climb. You have a climbing speed equal to your walking speed. In addition, at 9th level, you can move up, down, and across vertical surfaces and upside down along ceilings, while leaving your hands free.
Vampiric Bite. Your fanged bite is a natural weapon, which counts as a simple melee weapon with which you are proficient. You add your Constitution modifier, instead of your Strength modifier, to the attack and damage rolls when you attack with this bite. It deals 1d4 Piercing damage on a hit. While you are missing half or more of your hit points, you have advantage on attack rolls you make with this bite. When you attack with this bite and hit a creature that isn’t a Construct or an Undead, you can empower yourself in one of the following ways of your choice:
- You regain hit points equal to the Piercing damage dealt by the bite.
- You gain a bonus to the next ability check or attack roll you make; the bonus equals the Piercing damage dealt by the bite.
You can empower yourself with this bite a number of times equal to your proficiency bonus, and you regain all expended uses when you finish a long rest.
Dhampir Hunger. Every dhampir knows a thirst slaked only by the living. Those who overindulge their thirst risk losing control and forever viewing others as prey. Those who resist might find exceptional ways of controlling their urges or suppress them through constant, molar-grinding restraint. In any case, temptation haunts dhampirs, and circumstances conspire to give them endless reasons to indulge.
While many dhampirs thirst for blood, your character might otherwise gain sustenance from the living. Roll on or choose an option from the Dhampir Cravings table to determine what tempts your character to feed. Your choice affects your features later.
Table - Dhampir Cravings
| d6 | Hunger |
|---|---|
| 1 | Blood |
| 2 | Flesh or raw meat |
| 3 | Cerebral spinal fluid |
| 4 | Psychic Energy |
| 5 | Dreams |
| 6 | Life energy |
You gain nourishment from your chosen Dhampir Craving. When you consume an appropriate amount of what you crave, as determined by the DM, you gain 1 day's worth of sustenance. If you go without satisfying your Dhampir Craving for more than 1 week, you begin to starve.