Vampire Hunters OGL Compatible Edition.pdf

September 23, 1991

A few months into my assignment as Deputy

Battalion C.O., however, I began to notice a disturb-

ing trend. More and more Marines were getting

mugged off base, and a few even turned up dead. They

were usually discovered by wayward transients or

late shift civilian cops in the back alleys of San Diego

or in Balboa Park. Losing Marines to the criminal ele-

ment of the civilian sector was bad enough. They

were tragedies, to be sure. But it was soon followed

by an alarming increase in the number of incidents of

AWOL. That’s ‘absent without leave’ for those of you

not familiar with the term.

Every military commander acknowledges the

possibility or even likelihood of an occasional AWOL

troop. Cars break down, airports get snowed in and

sometimes the weekend runs a little longer than you

expected. AWOLs aren’t tolerated, mind you, just

anticipated. But these were somehow different.

These Marines simply reported hours, sometimes

even days late for duty, looking sick as dogs with

absolutely no reason or excuse whatsoever for their

absence. At one point I put the entire Battalion on

Base Restriction for the weekend. Nobody left with-

out my permission. Liquor sales in town dropped

approximately 37% that weekend.

Then something really strange happened. I say

‘strange’ as if it had any semblance of normality at

all. Far from it. While checking out a report of a fam-

ily fight in one of the base housing units, the MPs

It took several months before I could assemble

enough proof for a believable case to my superiors.

Little did I know that all of my efforts, all my

hard-gained facts and evidence, would be ignored.

Perhaps unheeded would be a better word. The end

result was the same, however, for all intents and

purposes. I was stripped of my position, threatened

with transfer, and ordered not to discuss the ridicu-

lous story I had created (their words).

A transfer was out of the question. After serving

three tours in Viet Nam and assignments at more

remote locations than I care to count, I settled

down at the United States Marine Corps Recruit

Depot in San Diego. I learned a lot in my twenty-

three years and I felt I could best serve the Corps

leading a Recruit Training Battalion. It was easy to

get the assignment. Hell, after three Purple Hearts

and a handful of Silver Stars, I had proven my met-

tle. I paid my dues. Of course, being a childhood

friend of the Chief of Personnel Assignments didn’t

hurt either.

It was a typical desk tour, at first. Training

young Marines and maintaining the low attrition rate

mandated by the HMFICs... It wasn’t glory duty, but

I had long since outgrown my glory hound ways.

Besides, I had little room on my uniform dress coat

for new ribbons.

discovered one of our Marines sucking on his wife’s

neck. I’m not talking about an act of passion. That

Marine was drinking blood from an open wound on his

wife’s neck! The MPs tried to catch him but were

overpowered. One of the MPs even fired his sidearm!

He swore he hit him square in the back, but he

escaped. No trail of blood, no later sightings, noth-

ing. He was just gone, lost in the night.

I did some checking and it seems that our perpe-

trator was one of those previously busted for being

AWOL. I put two and two together and drafted an

informal report of findings and sent it up the chain.

The next thing I know I’m sent for a psych eval and

I’m fired from my position as Deputy C.O. A short

time later my wife left me, my car was stolen, and

my medical records turned up missing. Lost in the

shuffle they said. It’s become painfully clear that

not only do we have a very serious problem on our

hands, but it is more far reaching than I had imag-

ined.

Forget every Hollywood stereotype, legend, or

myth you’ve heard about Dracula. Vampires are real,

my friends, and if bloodsuckers are real that opens

up the door of possibility for a whole bunch of weird

stuff. I’m talking about werewolves, ghosts, and God

knows what else.

So, in the face of this incredulous discovery, I

did what any patriotic, self-respecting Marine would

do. I retired quietly from the Corps and started a

business - Vampire Hunter$, Inc. It’ll be a cold day

in Death Valley when I lay down and surrender to

these supernatural freaks. If I’m going to go, I’m

going to go down fighting and I’m taking as many of

those creepy leeches with me as I can! As the saying

goes, ‘Our business is killing, and business is good.’

Semper Fi.

WELCOME TO VAMPIRE HUNTER$

Vampires exist.

Vampires stalk our cities, finding nourishment in the

crimson lifeblood of an unwitting and helpless society.

They are among us. They have been with us for centuries.

The signs have been there all along, and yet mankind has

not heeded them. People allow themselves to suspend

disbelief long enough to be scared by a motion picture or

a well told ghost story, but there is always the sunlight to

welcome them back into their ignorant waking slumber.

Vampires are not alone. They have undead cousins

with whom they share the night. Evil shapes and spirits

of a thousand faces and forms. Some formless and face-

less, but all the more frightening and wicked in their

intent. Werewolves, lupine, lycanthropes. They stalk the

forest and the moors of our civilization like wild beasts,

but possessing the cunning and design of a man.

In Vampire Hunter$, you play the role of someone

who has become aware of the existence of the undead in

our world. Your character has joined the ranks of the few,

the proud, the hunters and investigators of the super-

natural. Whatever your character’s motivation, they are

now part of a brotherhood. A small society of like-mind-

ed people, average folk, who have banded together to rid

the world of the despicable mockery of life known as the

undead. Through circumstance, your character has found

employment with a relatively new company. Vampire

Hunter$, Inc.

Your character has walked through the doorway of

opportunity, of realization and resistance. The world is

full of supernatural occurrences. They’ve heard the

rumors, read the news accounts and watched the docu-

mentaries. But the media has worked hard to dismiss

many of those stories as mere hoax, or “natural” phe-

nomena, trying to explain away the bizarre with scientif-

ic theory and conjecture. But the truth is out. It’s just a

matter of convincing the rest of the world that it is,

indeed, the truth.

Lt. Col. Andrew Jackson Steele

USMC (Retired)

You should now have a feel for the world of Vampire

Hunter$. Before you begin designing a character, howev-

er, it’s probably a good idea for you to understand the

mechanics of the game. Vampire Hunter$ is fully compat-

ible with the worlds most popular role playing game and

does require the use of the PHB, SRD 3.5 or the Modern

SRD.

PLAYER CHARACTERS

Player Characters (PCs) are the game personas of the

players. They are the ones who live in the game world and

who interact with the problems and creatures the GM

throws at them. PCs are the central cast, if you will, of

each Vampire Hunter$ adventure or campaign. They

direct the outcome of the story as much, if not more,

than the GM. How PCs deal with various situations and

obstacles in the game will determine the course of the

adventure. Because Player Characters in Vampire

Hunter$ are considered to be “heroes,” they are likely to

encounter at

least as many

creatures and

problems as regu-

lar NPCs. It’s a

dangerous world,

and the PCs often

discover this the

hard way. You’ve

been warned.

SOME COMMON TERMS

If this is your first role-playing game, there are a few

terms you should familiarize yourself with before read-

ing any further.

PLAYERS

The person reading this book is a real, live human

being. In the game rules we refer to flesh and blood folks

in the real world as either Players or Gamemasters.

Players are just that; they are the ones who play the

game and who create the characters that live in that

game. During the game, the Player directs the actions of

his character, telling the Gamemaster what their charac-

ter is doing from turn to turn. In addition, the Player

assumes the role of the character when interacting with

the various Non-player Characters in the game. In these

instances, the Player talks and talks as if he were his

character. This is what is commonly known as role-play-

ing.

NON-PLAYER

CHARACTERS

In every story

there are central

characters — the

heroes or protag-

onists around

whom the story

focuses. The other characters with whom they interact

are the “supporting cast” of the story. In a role-playing

game, the PCs are the heroes. All of the other characters

that appear in the adventure are called Non-player

Characters (NPCs). Non-player characters can be anyone

from a taxi driver who takes the PCs to a certain location,

or a major villain who the PCs encounter each adventure.

NPCs may or may not have speaking parts. Walking down

a city street, PCs are likely to see dozens of other people

also walking or driving around. Even if the PCs do not

interact with these people, they are still considered

NPCs.

Average actions have a DC of 20. Someone well

trained can achieve this score about half the time.

Complicated tasks have a DC of 25. Most normal

characters will fail as often as not.

Extreme tasks are rated at a DC of 30. Even very

good characters will be hard pressed to perform these

actions continuously.

Ridiculous tasks have a DC of 35. Even the most

skilled will fail at least most of the time.

Specific examples of various actions and their diffi-

culties are given later on in this book. Now that you know

how difficulties work, its time for the final step in deter-

mining success or failure, the Skill Check.

THE GAMEMASTER

The Gamemaster (or GM for short) has a little more

challenging task. He doesn’t just play one character.

Instead, he acts as a referee, storyteller and “supporting

cast” of each adventure, all rolled into one. The GM runs

the whole game world and plays the parts of all of the

NPCs in the game.

By running the game world, we mean that the GM sets

each scene for the Players. He describes the setting in

which the PCs find themselves, so that the Players may

decide on a course of action. As a general rule of thumb,

the more detail a GM puts into his descriptions the more

“realistic” it will seem to the Players and the more fun it

will be. The role of the GM is detailed more thoroughly in

Chapter 9, RUNNING ADVENTURES.

Skills

“Some people are born naturals. Others train their

whole lives to reach a level of proficiency required to

make it as a hunter. Either way, only those with the drive

and the Skill have a chance of survival.”

Characters in the Vampire Hunter$ game are defined,

in large part, by their Skills. These Skills let you know

what your character can do, and how good he can do

them.

Of course, some creatures may have such high scores

due to their nature as unearthly or supernatural beings.

For example, vampires tend to have a very high Strength,

giving them a bonus of 4 or 5 in strength based skills,

and sometimes even as high as... well, that would be giv-

ing away the secret. Your PCs will find out for themselves

soon enough.

Rules for acquiring and increasing skill ranks can be

found in the SRD or PHB.

DICE

“Once you’ve done everything you can to stack the

odds in your favor, you just roll the dice and hope you

don’t crap out.”

You’ll need the standard set of dice required by most

all SRD 3.5-based games.

DIFFICULTY CLASSes

“Nothing is as easy as it seems; ever. If it is, then be

prepared because you obviously missed something.”

The DC of a given action is a number that reflects the

complexity of a given task. The DC represents a target

number that a player must meet or beat when making his

skill Check. In some situations, the DC will be set by the

GM, based on his interpretation of the situation and the

effect the PC is trying to achieve. Most of the time, the

DC of an action is already set (such as for combat Skill

checks).

Simple actions have a DC of 15. These basic actions

can be performed by those with minimal training.

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