Are nuanced vampires too outlandish?
Thank you Jaheira for supporting me in my very brave albeit unusual approach to vampires in DnD. When I first time heard Astarion's idea about vampires as a vampire himself - namely the fact that they are all evil, selfish, power hungry and dangerous monsters that will never treat a spawn as equal or let them become a full vampire, because it simply creates competition for them - I was like "You'd have thought that the most romantic story for a vampire would be if they fell in love with a human, made them a spawn, and then shared their own blood with them to make them a full vampire". It's in fact what happened in the First Kill - Juliette's parents are an unorthodox couple. She is the pureblood vampire from a long line of vampires, while he was just a human that she turned into a vampire. There is even a scene in the show when they lie on the bed, she cradles his head with a wrist put to his lips while he drinks her blood. It was very romantic and very not liked by the matriarch of the family, who saw the man as lesser than.
Still, even despite Astarion being technically an expert at this topic, I couldn't stop myself from imagining that at least one vampire who isn't nasty exists in the DnD lore. But in general, I guess it'd be just like Astarion said. They create spawns, but don't let them become vampires, because it creates competition in all: social, political and hunting related topics. The struggle for power between vampires.
There can probably exist a good vampire if you so wish. You just need to become creative about it. Vampires aren't a race in DnD, but not so long ago Drow were considered to be all evil, while nowadays they are given more nuance. I think it isn't impossible for vampires, either.
I just generally don't like races that are evil by default. And I feel like I'm not alone in this. Evil by default feels boring to me a lot. It's just so cheap and lazy to just create a whole ass group and then deem it evil by principle. And even though vampires are not technically a race in DnD but something more akin to disease or curse, I still feel like there is a space for nuance here. That there could exist some vampires that are good. And I saw some DMs on reddit claiming that they created good vamps in their campaigns. And when it comes to the lore of the game like Baldur's Gate 3... if Dragon Age taught me something, it's that no single character can establish lore that can't be disproven by another character. The world in real life and in fiction both is always conceptualized by people, and those people can be wrong or only see a tiny fragment of the entire puzzle. Which means that for every 10 of Cazadors there is probably at least 1 vampire that is nothing like them in terms of morality and alignment. Hell, even Cazador's own mentor - Vellioth, behaved a bit differently than what Astarion told us about vampires. He gave Cazador "the gift" which I assume meant he made him a full vampire and trained him as the future Vampire Lord. Taught him all the cruelty that Vellioth thought was needed for vampires to survive in the world. With the final lesson ending with his own death.
For all means and purposes, it very much feels like Vellioth wanted to raise Cazador into the perfect vampire and was happy to die in order to make it happen. If we only relied on what Astarion said, we would have to say that it's highly unusual for vampires to create heirs like Vellioth did. What's more, heirs that they intended to surpass them one day. Vellioth made the pact with the devils, prepared everything for Cazador to Ascend. The only thing Cazador needed to do was to get all the necessary souls to fulfill it. Why would Vellioth do all of this if vampires only cared about themselves and their own power? Why would he die for his own heir instead of become Vampire Ascendant himself? Just thinking about it makes me sure that there is much we don't know about DnD vampires. Much to be explored in the future.
If I were to theorize based on data I have now, I'd say that vampire's alignment is fluctuating between a few settings, but tends to be on the evil side of things. While The Rite of Profane Ascension is a step further on the evolutionary tree of vampires, and something that can switch them permanently to twisted beings that don't see anybody as people anymore, only objects they can own or things to be used. And it's part of the price to pay for being able to break the shackles that vampirism puts on vampires. Cazador was already twisted long before the Rite, so in his case the change would not be visible much, but for Astarion? Especially Astarion that the player was steering in the right direction all along? That's a huge leap, even considering his wacky moral compass. As after the Ascension he is no longer himself. He loses himself, twisted beyond recognition by such a great power.
And yes, Astarion is just a spawn. I know that, but the point I'm trying to make is that Cazador being as he is, doesn't mean every other full vampire is exactly the same as him with the same fucked personality.
Which means that there is still hope for full vampires to be more than what Cazador showed Astarion vampires to be. It's also worth taking into account that Astarion probably never met any full vampire other than Cazador. Even though, Cazador was in contact with vampires.
(Maybe he did see them during some balls? There was a ballroom in the Palace, so maybe there were some social gatherings held there?)
(Here is a transcript of the letter on BG3 wiki).
So it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that even Astarion doesn't have a full picture. He was just a spawn, after all, and not even the favored one. What could he know about the vampire politics other than what he heard or saw occasionally when he wasn't busy hunting the prey for his master? He definitely knows more than most, but because he was confined to the Palace alone, it may mean that he never saw how vampires in other cities behave. Though, Vellioth's training says a lot about how he saw vampire society if he needed Cazador to survive. It's definitely not a walk in a park. Gives a harsh environment vibes.
That's also the reason why I think they are mostly evil aligned. While also still considering that not every vampire is the same and that the exceptions to the rule happen. Most would probably now say that if such exceptions exist, they didn't survive, and that is probably true in many cases, but I still think that some vampires could survive thanks to their intelligence and strategizing. Even playing evil for the sake of not being targeted is on the table. As well as non-noble vampires, like peasants in some village or something. We often associate vampires with aristocracy, but it's not impossible that they have a class system in their society as well. Lower class vampires, living in some remote villages, probably wouldn't even care about power struggles beyond their tiny piece of land and "that asshole that threatens my position in the village" or something. It's so funny to imagine some peasant who is a vampire trying to outsmart his neighbor, also a peasant vampire, in order to gain better position with the mayor or the village council.
I have no idea how much or how little DnD talks about vampires, as I never read any books written for the universe. I checked Forgotten Realms wiki, but it was strangely sparse with the lore in comparison to I dunno, the long article about Drizzt or Jarlaxle, so I just assumed that vampires don't really play any major role to be expanded upon so much as to have a whole ass article just about the intricacies of their society and politics. Maybe I'm wrong. But my point still stands. The lore should be rich and shouldn't rely on shortcuts like "they're all evil duh, they're an epitome of evil, the manifestation of evil because we said so". This can't be, and this is not what I live for as a writer and an avid fantasy enjoyer. What I live for is a nuanced lore that breaks the stereotypes. To conclude: I really like complicating the vampire lore.
Maybe it's outlandish and batshit crazy, but it's what I like.