Vrykolaka

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Vrykolaka (not to be confused with Vryloka) are a vampire strain introduced to the Ravenloft setting during its conversion to Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. Reviled as debased creatures even by other vampires, vrykolakas are bestial, often mindless vampire-kin who appear as ghoulish corpses of diseased victims with taloned fingers and an elongated tongue tipped with a wicked barb; they use this prehensile appendage to drain blood, lacking fangs. They are heralds of plague and pestilence, absorbing diseases from victims they feed on and then carrying them to healthy victims through their feeding and claw attacks. They can put victims into a feverish sleep with their gaze attack, summon monstrous vermin, and transform into both swarms of rats and into a single dire rat.

Fresh and running water is an insurmountable obstacle to them, although still and stagnant water poses no such troubles. They are repulsed by the smell of garlic and anise, and cannot cross a line of aniseed or enter a room that's been kept spotlessly clean. They can be weakened by casting Cure Disease on them, and repeated castings can even kill them off permanently, as can sunlight or throwing them into running water. To destroy them, first render them torpid by hammering an iron spike into their skull, then burn the body. A destroyed vrykolaka dissolves into a cloud of noxious fumes, as per the Stinking Cloud spell.