Origination of the Dhampir

Dhampirs start off on the wrong foot in this world, and things never get any better. To begin with, the birth of a half-vampire child comes as a great surprise to at least one of the parents. It may be greeted with elation or superstitious disgust, but never without fear.

For a female vampire, motherhood adds burden and danger to an existence already brimming with both. She may have a rough time of it physically... her undead body is hardly suited to the task. She'll also have a lot of explaining to do if another vampire catches her in maternity wear!

A Kindred father may believe that his lover has been unfaithful to him (after all, it can't possibly be his); but if he knows better, he must face a terrible decision. Should he stay, take responsibility and accept whatever befalls him and his new family as a result... or should he abandon his own flesh and blood? Nor is the human parent likely to have it any easier. Just loving a vampire, knowingly or unknowingly, is enough invitation to tragedy. The additional strain of raising a baby in an atmosphere so charged with pain and uncertainty can break even the strongest spirits. Furthermore, mortal mothers of dhampirs often develop life-threatening complications during pregnancy and labor (whether due to the clash of mortal and immortal vitae, or more mysterious factors): depressed immune functioning, hemorrhaging, toxemia, etc...

With so many perils, it's all too easy for a dhampir to end up abandoned or orphaned at an early age. Dad runs off and Mom dies at the hands of the scourge. Or Mom succumbs to drug addiction and Dad decides his child will be happier "among normal people." That is, assuming Dad was ever told about the baby in the first place. Even if the family is in tact (for now), their prospects for domestic bliss are slim in the World of Darkness. For one reason or another many dhampirs must learn their true nature on their own, while being passed from foster home to foster home, or holding down a minimum-wage job to feed themselves and an ailing grandmother, or serving their time for assault in a juvenile detention center.

Self-Discovery - If the thin-blooded are ignorant of their heritage, then how much more so are their mortal offspring? A dhampir's occult legacy usually doesn't manifest until the onset of puberty; in addition to the usual tribulations of growing up, the child must face a second layer of transformation, far darker and infinitely more mysterious.

The process varies from individual to individual. Most simply become aware, sometime during their teens, of a special reserve of physical strength that they can call upon... instinctively at first, in times of stress. They may be afraid of this power and the feral pleasure that accompanies using it, or they may be delighted to discover such a useful weapon against a harsh world and immediately set about finding its limits. Other dhampirs bloom later. For them, mystical dabbling or a sudden encounter with a vampire might be what it takes to spark their hidden potential.

In any case, once a dhampir is fully awakened to her supernatural essence, she can never go back. The Blood forever alters her physically and mentally. Her aging slows to a crawl (which can be a real social disadvantage when it happens in early puberty). She gains a limited ability to learn vampiric Disciplines. She also gains an inner Beast, which, though mild compared to a vampire's, is still strong enough to test her heart and will.

Dhampir Life - Dhampirs come up with a general variety of justifications and strategies for dealing with their heritage. Some curse their undead parent and seek to slay him, hoping that such action can cleanse them of their own darkness; others express their hostility in a more general fashion by becoming hunters. Some decide that they must be irrevocably tainted with evil and set about to finding a dark power worthy of their servitude. Many are either unaware of their vampiric ancestry or refuse to believe in it; instead, they choose to see themselves as psychic, enlightened or touched by a cruel diety.

A tiny number have enough contact with their vampiric parents to learn whatever they may know about the world of the undead (which generally isn't much). This can be both good and bad. On one hand. the support of "someone who understands" can be of great help in weathering the disturbing changes wrought by Kindred vitae. On the other hand, if you've ever been embarrassed to let a friend meet Mom and Dad because the dress funny and make bad jokes...

Whatever the particulars, every dhampir must contend with the same dark legacy, Wielding the blood-strength is a source of exultant pleasure... a pale shadow of the vampiric Kiss perhaps... but also of deadly temptation. Although dhampirs don't need to feed as vampires do (in fact, most profess no taste at all for human blood), lost vitae replenishes itself only gradually, and the anemic weakness and emotional letdown that result can be devastating. Some dhampirs become addicted to the rush of using their Disciplines and turn to powerful stimulants in an effort to reproduce it. Others discover a far more potent substitute: Kindred blood.

The beast is an even greater thorn in a half-breed's side. True a dhampir doesn't often encounter the sort of provocation that might bring about a homicidal rage; but it takes only one such incident to break up a romance, destroy a friendship or scuttle a promising career. When a 17 year-old Dhampir drives home through gridlock after a day of flunking his classes to find his girlfriend has canceled their date and the cat's puking on his bed, his rage may exceed anything he has ever known.

Kindred Society - Dhampirs are a new phenomenon in the World of Darkness. Although legends of half-vampires have circulated for centuries (indeed, in one Slavic village the entire population claims descent from a common vampire ancestor, and its citizens bear the name Lampijerovic... "little vampire".... in testament to that belief), such stories have been almost universally dismissed as folk tales. Nevertheless, for all the scoffing, some Kindred remain fascinated with the idea... particularly those who died before they could satisfy their longing for a family of their own. Secretly, lest they incur the scorn of their fellows, they experiment with the various methods prescribed by myth: charms, relics, dark Tremere arts, pacts with the devil, even true love. All to no avail.

Now, suddenly, plain old-fashioned sex appears to be doing the tricks for some. The existence of the dhampir is still contested by cynics, who suspect some kind of millennial hoax, but to those who have an inkling of thin-blooded oddities, the idea is all too plausible.

At present, a dhampir who falls into the clutches of a full vampire will most likely be mistaken for a revenant or a masterless ghoul... hardly cause for joy, perhaps, but good fortune indeed compared to the lot of the dhampir who is recognized for what she truly is. To Camarilla vampires, she is the ultimate Masquerade breach: an elemental and irrevocable mingling of Kindred and Kine. To vampires of a scientific bent, particularly Tremere or Tzimisce, she is also an intriguing development in Kindred biology, and thus a prime subject for experimentation (her parents can expect to attract such interest as well, since they obviously must be unusual specimens themselves). To Sabbat and other die-hard Noddists, she is an ominous portent of doom... which may not be her fault, but killing the messenger is as honored a tradition among vampires as among mortals.

A few Kindred, mostly elders who matured in times of greater religious faith, might take a more enlightened view of her emergence. To them, the spectacle of true life issuing forth from the withered loins of a vampire can only mean one thing: God is forgiving, and He has sent this miracle to show the Cainites that redemption is possible even for their cursed race. They may well honor her as a sort of living relic. But these Kindred are the ones she should fear most of all; a reluctant messiah is a perilous thing to be, and the same fanatics who appoint her High Priestess of their Gehenna cult tonight might decide tomorrow that she looks better atop the alter than behind it.

(All text taken from White Wolf's "Time of Thin Blood" - "Chapter 2: Alas, That Great City" pgs. 48 & 49)

Dhampir - Children of the Undead

A 15th generation vampire of either gender can have half-mortal offspring, conceived and born in the normal way. In their folklore, the Gypsies call such a child of the living and the undead a Dhampir. In game terms, dhampirs are almost identical to revenants. Actually, they are revenants, except they're descended from vampires instead of from ghouls. The most important differences between dhampirs and revenants are cultural, Revenants grow up in a freakish, monstrous subculture of vampires and ghouls. Only quite unusual circumstances could lead to a revenant growing up among normal, contemporary humans. A dhampir probably spent most of her time among normal humans. She might not even know about her supernatural heritage. Learning about the secret World of Darkness may come as a bit of a shock.