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Vampires in Vale Sangora
The vampires in The Blood of Dawnwalker are ancient, intelligent beings who operate as a political force. In Vale Sangora, they rule openly, treat humans as a managed resource, and present themselves as saviors because of their ability to cure the Black Plague. They are organized under the Vrakhiri the four ancient vampires who each control a territory in the valley.
Vampire biology
Vampires in this world grow a series of needle-like fangs that emerge from different parts of their skull as they age. The older the vampire, the more fangs they develop. This is not the traditional two-fang image. It's a progressive physical change that marks the passage of centuries. Pulling out a fang to turn someone is a real physical cost.
Garlic has no effect on vampires. The developers confirmed this outright during the January 2026 Reddit AMA: garlic is useless. Whatever weaknesses these vampires have, the traditional folk remedy is not among them.
The turning ritual
To create a new vampire, the sire pulls out one of their own fangs and pierces it through the target's heart. The fang "sprouts like a seed, unfurling thin, seeking tendrils" that penetrate every part of the body, remodeling it from the inside. The transformation is not instant. It happens slowly over the vampire's endless life. No one fully understands what the transformation's final form looks like.
When turnings fail
Two types of failure are known. If a fang breaks off during feeding and lodges somewhere other than the heart, the vital energy in the tooth explodes, producing a murohni a deformed, mindless beast that lacks self-preservation and eventually burns in sunlight.
If the turning is disrupted by an external factor (like silver poisoning in the target's blood) the result can be a Dawnwalker, a stable hybrid that is human by day and vampire by night. This outcome is far rarer than murohni.
The plague cure
Vampire blood cures the Black Death. In the 14th century, when the plague was killing a third of Europe's population, this gave vampires leverage that nothing else could match. Brencis used this strategically. Curing the plague created dependency. The humans of Vale Sangora can't leave without losing protection, and they can't rebel without risking the cure being withdrawn.
The blood tax
Under vampire rule, humans provide blood on a regular schedule. For the vampires, it's sustenance. For the humans, it's the cost of survival. The arrangement is presented as a deal between equals, but the power dynamic is obvious. You don't negotiate from a position of strength when the other side controls whether you live or die of plague.
Why vampires emerged
Rebel Wolves has described the Black Death as a "moment of weakness" in human society. Vampires had spent centuries in the shadows. Brencis alone has been alive since the Roman Empire. The plague created enough chaos and desperation that vampires could seize power openly. When people are desperate enough, they'll accept almost any bargain.
Folklore roots
The game draws from Eastern European vampire folklore rather than the Western literary tradition starting with Bram Stoker. Romanian strigoi (undead beings that feed on humans), moroi (the distinction between living and dead vampires), Polish strzyga (female demons that transform at night), and broader Balkan undead traditions all inform the design. The Carpathian Mountains setting is deliberate. The region has the deepest roots in vampire mythology of anywhere in Europe.
The game also acknowledges the existence of multiple intelligent humanoid species beyond vampires and humans in Vale Sangora, though these have not been detailed. The world is not a simple human-vs-vampire binary.