Dungeons & Dragons’ Updated Vampires Perfectly Capture Gothic Horror

While Dungeons & Dragons has always been known for epic fights between heroic bands of heroes facing off against dragons, there are plenty of other creatures that have cemented themselves as being staples in the game – with none being quite as notable as vampires. Whether a Dungeons & Dragons player’s mind jumps to the gothic demiplane of Barovia ruled by Strahd von Zarovich from Curse of Strahd or the snarky, blood-sucking Astarion from the recent smash-hit Baldur’s Gate 3, vampires have, and always will be, one of the iconic TTRPG’s best monsters.

That said, the 2025 Monster Manual has greatly expanded the types of vampires players can encounter as they travel across every corner of Toril. In the 2014 Monster Manual, vampires were relatively barebones, with the highest CR options available being the Vampire Spellcaster, Vampire Warrior, and the aforementioned Strahd von Zarovich being CR 15. Despite this categorization, the higher CR vampires felt lackluster in many ways, especially given how much power and influence they’re capable of having in campaigns. The new Monster Manual introduces a wider range of vampiric nightmares for Dungeon Masters to toy around with, giving a vampire-centric campaign setting the ability to throw scaling threats at players over time and truly make them feel plagued by these infamous creatures of the night.

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From Vampire Familiars To Umbral Lords, the New Monster Manual Has Everything One Needs For a Gothic Nightmare

In the past, the lowest CR vampire available to DMs was the Vampire Spawn, which had a CR 5 in the 2014 Monster Manual. For Dungeon Masters that want to start throwing vampiric opposition at their lower level parties earlier into a campaign, the 2025 Monster Manual has introduced the Vampire Familiar. While these familiars are still living, breathing humanoids, they are loyal to their vampiric masters – willingly or otherwise. The Monster Manual states that while many of these familiars serve Vampires with the intent to become blood-sucking immortals themselves, others have been placed under some sort of charm, or have found themselves on the bad end of a terrible bargain. With resistance to Necrotic damage and immunity to being charmed by player characters, these CR 3 villains have a threatening multi-attack using their Umbral Dagger that can dish out an average of 12 damage per hit and paralyze their foes with potent poisons.

The Vampire Spawn was also adjusted for the new Monster Manual. While it has retained its original Challenge Rating, updated Spawn have been buffed across the board with higher average hit points and 16 AC. While the Vampire Spawn’s weaknesses are exactly the same as they were in 2014, their attacks have been buffed, making them far more threatening to parties who encounter them. In the 2014 Monster Manual, the Vampire Spawn’s claw attack gave them the option to forgo damage to instead grapple the creature they were targeting. The 2025 Vampire Spawn now gets the best of both worlds, dealing damage and automatically grappling the target with an Escape DC set at 13. Interestingly, the Vampire Spawn’s bite attack is now a Constitution Saving Throw with a DC of 14, but does an additional d6 in Necrotic damage and still decreases the target’s hit point maximum.

Moving up from the Vampire Spawn is the new CR 8 vampire, the Vampire Nightbringer. Described as being “born of necromantic rituals and planes of existence suffused with negative energy, Vampire Nightbringers manipulate shadows and feed on the raw life force of living creatures.” These new monsters stand out from their vampiric brethren partially due to the fact that they only suffer from Sunlight Hypersensitivity – but none of the other downsides that other vampires are afflicted with. They’re also completely immune to Necrotic and Cold damage, as well as being Charmed, suffering Exhaustion, or being Frightened. While their stat blocks are pretty light, they still offer a great in-between for parties before they face off against “true vampires”.

For endgame threats, the 2025 Monster Manual has buffed the classic Vampire stat block, increasing its average hit points from 144 to 195, and adjusted their Legendary Resistance to 4/day if the Vampire is in its lair. Speaking of the 2025 Vampire’s lair options, their regional effects have been adjusted to add far more flavor for DMs looking to send a chill up their player’s spines. Medium and smaller beasts now have the Charmed conditions within one mile of a Vampire’s lair, and their Looming Shadows effect now makes it so that when any creature other than the vampire and its allies takes a Short Rest within one mile of their lair, they must succeed a DC 15 Wisdom Saving Throw or take no benefit from that rest. As with other high CR creatures in the 2025 Monster Manual, the updated Vampire stat block gives it four legendary actions while in its lair.

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The final update made to vampires in the 2025 Monster Manual is the brand-new Umbral Lord, who has the same CR 15 as Strahd von Zarovich, but in practice, feels far more potent than its Barovian predecessor. While the Umbral Lord still suffers from the classic weaknesses of other vampires, it makes two attacks on its turn and is able to use its Grave Strike or Sickening Ray in any combination it chooses. It also has a gnarly bonus action, Sanguine Drain, which forces the targetted creature to make a DC 18 Constitution Saving Throw.

On a failure, the target takes 4d6 Necrotic damage, having their hit point maximum decreased by the amount of damage taken and regaining that number of hit points. This ability is a massive step up from the Vampire Spawn’s bite, as it doesn’t require the Umbral Lord to have the target grappled. Umbral Lords also have the ability to use 4 Legendary Actions per day in their lair, or 3 if they’re caught in combat outside of it.