The Beast-Kin Vampires

Man is not the only creature to return from the Shadowed Lands in search of blood. There are other things in the night, other kinds of vampires. Here are just a few, born of animals tormented by man, possessed by spirits of blood and death, returned from the grave for vengeance against all who go on two legs. Some say ancient shamans or druids made them. Others, that they simply rose in protest against humanoid injustice. By some means, whether conjuration or necromancy, wizardry or druidry, they were brought back from death, with the powers of death, and an endless hunger and thirst. To better hunt their prey, each has learned to mimic it, to take humanoid form. They call themselves the Beast-Kin, and these are just some of the varieties.

The Batwing: Few things manifest man's fear of the night as bats do. But so few are ever any threat to man, even the vampiric varieties sticking mostly to cattle and doing little enough harm even to them. But man does not care, and kills what he fears, and so the batwings are the reverse of the standard vampire...and though perhaps not the most deadly, they are amongst the most fearsome of the Beast-Kin, turning their enemy's baseless fears into a weapon against them.

The Midgecloud: The easiest of all transitions, for they drank blood in life. A midgecloud is a communal creature, the revenant of a swarm of biting flies or mosquitos. For the crime of drinking blood, as they needed to do to live and reproduce, humanoids slew them by the thousands, with their clouds of poisons, their herbs, their magic. Now they are undead, and thirst for the life of those who slew them. They can suck the life from plants and crops as well, and do so to terrorize humanoid settlements. They also carry disease.

The Owlbeak: Owls are hated as ill-omens all too often, blamed for deaths, when in fact their control of vermin helps prevent human deaths. They are renowned for their intelligence and wisdom, and these beliefs seem to influence the way they return from the dead, as wizardly casters with a deep store of knowledge and insight. Their association with the dead gives them powers of necromancy and darkness.

The Pantherpaw: Almost as much as tiger, panthers are blamed for mankilling when it almost never occurs. Tales are told of their ability to charm people into their lairs to die...perhaps a very few can do such things, but after death, all pantherpaws become capable of it. And they do so gladly to revenge themselves upon their abusers.

The Snakeskin: Reviled by man and their cousins, often for no good reason, the serpent is persecuted, slain when seen, just because some may be venomous, some might harm a two-leg. Now they stalk the kin of humanity on two legs or slithering on their bellies, whichever way most easily lets them capture their prey. They are well known for their paralyzing gaze.

The Spiderblood: In life, most of these were harmless, slain by humanoids for the crime of being frightening, for being different. Now they often use their magic to appear harmless, turning the tables on their erstwhile tormentors. A Spiderblood's true form is a spider perhaps two to three feet across...but unlike other beastkin, they can take at least three forms in addition: a spider-eyed goblin, a harmless seeming halfling, or most sinister of all, a human child.

The Tigerheart: Mighty among hunters, the tiger roams the jungle or the steppe, feared by all prey. Only rarely does one kill a two-leg...but that does not stop the humanoids from hunting them, for sport, for glory, for fear...the tigerheart hunts the hunters, and teaches them that they should have been more afraid. A tiger's stripes are camouflage...and these tigers can change their stripes, taking humanoid form in order to hunt them in their cities, just as the two-legs hunted the tiger in its own home.

The Toadtongue: Unjustly reviled for spreading plagues when in fact they prevent them, called ugly, blamed for warts and misfortune, after death the frogs and the toads become true terrors, striking from the waterside with pure brute strength and poisoning those who stand against them. Less bright than their cousins, they act as a sort of armored vanguard for organized groups. They easily disappear when they need to, overlooked, as their original tiny selves.

The Wolfsoul: A werewolf is a man given in to his savage side, far worse than any true wolf. But real wolves have been hated and feared unjustly for millenia, hunted down and killed just for existing nearby, much less for occasionally stealing a cow or sheep. These wolves, slain by the cousins of mankind, return for vengeance, and for blood. As they did in life, the Wolfsouls travel in packs, and coordinate their fury in a calculated manner. They take the form of man when it suits them, the better to hunt...in sheep's clothing, as it were.