This week we look back to Call of Cthluhu to one of it’s more dangerous foes, the Star Vampire.
The Star Vampire is a dangerous creature that originally lurked in the depths of space, but for players can now be found feeding on the blood of others. Its body is a writhing mass of tentacles and fangs, and its eyes glow with a sickly green light.
It has special abilities that can allow it to do not just normal damage, but draing Strength directly from anything it it’s clutches. Normally they are invisible unless they are drinking, which is when they may become visible. Otherwise the only few indications that they are nearby are the chittering and nattering of their teeth and mouths. We had these guys show up inm a recent Call of Cthluhu game and was a nice subversion of expectation for our players, who were expecting more traditional vampires in these games.
Now, for the Star Vampires – in short they are very dangerous!
The basics, they excel in Strength (130) and Size (130), and are very high in Power (70) – so being hit by one of these things could be very lethal, but if there are any powerful magic users in the group, there may be a chance to control and manipulate these things.Using its psychic powers to immobilize them and then drawing their energy out through its tentacles.
Now, players could try and attack it, but that is all dependant on if they keep it together properly… Depending on the player’s SAN check result, players will lose 1/1D10 when they see the vampire or suffer being fed from it.
The Star Vampire is a very challenging creature to kill too. It has armour (a 4 point hide) with bullets only doing half damage to the space-hide of this creature. The best way to defeat it is to find a way to disrupt its psychic powers or drain its own energy reserves, which is a dangerous and difficult task.
Now, if players hit the star vampire and bust through it’s armour, it has a HP pool of 19 to rely on. Quite a lot of HP for a creature with some damage resistences. It’s fighting skill is 45, with a poor dodge skill, so players do have a chance of avoiding attacks. But if they are hit, the 2D6 damage bonus it receives and it’s array maneuvers it has can be cripplingly deadly.
It’s basic hit is 1D6 + DB (2D6), which is already very scary in purist Call of Cthluhu, however, if players survive the first hit against it, the Star Vampire can attack 3 times per round to make it even more terrifying. If you opt not to just brute force your players, the vampire has other skills it has that players do not want to experience.
Players can be seized by the Star Vampire’s Talon Seize ability, meaning if it succeeds on the grapple, players cannot run and are stuck in it’s grasp. Automatically following this (and every round after that), the Star Vampire can bite it’s victim, dealing 2D10 STR damage per bite – YIKES! When STR falls to 0, the player is completely drained.
That’s not all. Star vampires have a 30% chance of knowing 1D3 spells, and with a Magic Point pool of 15, it can have even more tools in it’s belt.
So that’s the Star Vampire for Call of Cthluhu! A scary creature who can make an investigation very dangerous – exactly what my players look for! I recommend giving these guys a look and using one of them on your investigators. I ran a “normal” vampire investigation for mine, and when they realised it was a vampire, they tried all the usual methods to draw the creature out. When it did eventually show up, all of the investigator’s realised their grave, grave mistake…
The lore of the Star Vampire are quite sparse, so if you would like more information on it, Sandy Petersen created a great video discussing them on YouTube. It talks about how this creepy creature came about, and how it could be used in your games.
Until next time!
-KJ