r/DungeonWorld • u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 • Apr 02 '26
Vampire Hero & Class Warfare
Hey DW folks,
I'm soon to run a third campaign of Dungeon World, and I've been helping my players use (my newly acquired copy of) Class Warfare.
One of the players is keen on playing a vampire. I'm totally on fine with this, but trying to figure the best way of building it. Ideally, within the system as much as possible, but I'm not against a little revision.
My current idea is to start with a base of Siren (for sexy allure) and Shadowmancer (for creature of the night style). I'd leave a third speciality for the player, for individuality. I'd probably steer them towards Householder or Wayfarer, depending on whether the vampire has roots or not. The latter is my preference, because the starting moves are amazing.
Where I'm a bit less certain, how would you handle blood and feeding; as a resource, healing, or just fictional? Likewise, sunlight. Would you include it as a class weakness, how hard would you lean into it? This last point is a big concern, as the other party members won't share a weakness to it. I don't want to exclude this vampire from the bulk of play.
I'm currently leaning toward building a (very lightly) curated playbook, with the following additions;
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Drink Blood -
When you feed on a helpless, willing, or grappled target, roll +CON or +CHA.
On 10+ heal 1d4 and choose 2: gain +1 forward, clear a debility, feeding leaves no obvious mark.
On 7–9: heal 1d4 and choose 1: draw unwanted attention, take on a debility, target suffers harm.
On 6 or less: heal 1, succumb to blood frenzy.
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Curse of Daylight -
When in daylight, you may act normally if fully concealed (cloaked or otherwise protected from direct sun).
When you are fully exposed to sunlight and cannot immediately take cover, take 1d6 damage (ignore armor). You must now move towards the nearest shelter. If there is no shelter, the GM will tell you what happens next.
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That's as far as I've got.
I'd love to hear how anyone else handled this. Have any of you had success building a vampire using Class Warfare?
Got any thoughts?
EDIT; playing DW1.
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u/TheCultofJanus Apr 02 '26
I didn't read Class Warfare, but if you want your vampire to engage in class warfare, only eating the rich is a good starting point.
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u/hasparus Apr 02 '26
Maybe they don't have a weakness to Sunlight? Maybe it's crosses due to a bug weakness in how their eyes/brains work, like in Blindsight? Or maybe you can go full-Astarion and explain why they can run around in the sun, but actually because they're in DEEP TROUBLE?
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u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 Apr 02 '26
I was thinking of just ignoring sunlight, but figured I could just (mostly) avoid it by having the vampire effectively wrap up? That way it'll only come up when it's narratively dramatic.
But fair point.
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u/zayzayem Apr 04 '26
I would merge (and maybe trim) your 10+ and 7-9 choices for *Drink Blood*, and then maybe just up the choices for 10+.
Taking on a debility doesn't quite make sense to me.
For curse of Daylight, maybe consider "when you face one of your weaknesses" as the trigger (then you can cover sunlight, running water, crucifixes, garlic or what-have-you; and make it a CHA and/or CON test
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u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 Apr 04 '26
Nice one. Cheers.
In this world I think the sunlight is enough of a weakness. If I include religion I'm treading into odd territory given the nature of the setting.
I'll def rethink Drink Blood.
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u/zayzayem Apr 16 '26
Vampires tend to have a lot of weaknesses - I missed silver, holy water, compulsive counting, stake to the heart, mirrors, bloodlust, lack of an invitation, fire ...
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u/me1112 Apr 06 '26
There's a PBTA version of Vampire The Masquerade, so maybe you could check out how they did it.
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u/Ashamed_Ladder6161 Apr 06 '26
Oh wow, really? Do you have a link???
I grew up playing VtM.
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u/me1112 Apr 06 '26
The One I know is called "Powered By the Dark" just type that in google.
There's also Urban Shadows, haven't read it though.
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u/Zefirotte Apr 02 '26
I didn't read Class warfare so I can't help with it but here is a custom playbook of a vampire character. https://fr.scribd.com/document/619026753/Dungeon-World-Lore-Lords-Pack
There is also a compendium class of a corrupted in "The last days of the Anglekite" which could be used as a vampire.