Sanguinovore (Wermspittle)

Sanguinovore
No. Enc.: 1d2 (1d2)
Alignment: Chaotic
Movement: 120' (60')
Armor Class: 2 (+1 or better, or silver weapons required to hit)
Hit Dice: 6 to 12
Attacks: 2 (see below)
Damage: 2d6+Terror, Flame, or Drain
Save: F8 to F14
Morale: 11

All that feeds is in turn fed upon, even among the undead and there are worse things than vampires in the Eight Known Worlds.

Wrathful, vengeful spirits caught-up in their hatred over having been slain and drained by oupirs, nosferati and other vampiric types, Sanguinovores prowl the catacombs, cemeteries and desolate places of the night in search of these vain and arrogant hunters of blood. They hunt the hunters. In their unhallowed existence  they prey upon those who once preyed upon them in life -- as well as anyone tainted by their service to such masters (blood-minions, bitten-servants, etc.). They hunt the vampiric types, but will prey upon any undead they encounter, draining them of their unholy energies and feeding on their ectoplasm. Lacking undead to feed upon a Sanguinovore will sometimes attack the living, but this is a very rare occurrence.

Sanguinovores seek out those vile creatures that would sup upon the blood of the innocent and the corrupt alike and they violently drain them of their unholy vitality, devouring the stolen life-force and consuming the remnants of whatever soul these things still possess, destroying them utterly, leaving behind only a singed and scorched non-shadow and some ashes. Any vampire destroyed in this manner is completely irrecoverable. Even a Wish won't bring them back.

It is because of the incredible fury of the Sanguinovores that many vampires seek out charms, wards and spells of protection against intruders. Sometimes it helps, other times it only delays the inevitable. Sanguinovores are implacable foes driven by a hatred that will not die, with an appetite for vengeance and destruction that is a grotesque inversion of the vampire's own already twisted thirst for the blood of the living.

Terror
Sanguinovores can opt to inflict Terror instead of damage upon their foes, and this ability affects the living and the undead who would normally be immune to such things, though the victims do gain a Save against this ability. (Treat as Cause Fear or Feeblemind as you prefer). If the Sanguinovore successfully hits the same opponent twice in a row, the Save is at -2.

Flames
They can also elect to inflict 3d6 burning damage once every 4 turns, which will affect any opponent living or dead. If the victim set afire fails their Save, they will burn for an additional 2d6 next turn, then if they fail another Save, they will burn for 1d6 the turn after that. This will affect immaterial, insubstantial and those undead in gaseous form. All sanguinovores can likewise assume gaseous form, and even at their most manifest, they are still more spirit, shadow, ectoplasm and foxfire than anything truly material.

Draining
Sanguinovores can also inflict a draining attack on any form of undead that feeds on blood, effectively parasitizing them. They never drain blood from the living, though they have been known to kill people in order to later drain their corpses....so they are not altogether 'friends,' nor defenders of the living by any means.

Vulnerabilities
Sanguinovores cannot normally cross sanctified thresholds, nor can they trespass holy ground. Holy Word will drive them off with no save on their part. Silver weapons affect them normally, but they will generally seek to avoid confrontations with those so armed.

Truly Hell-Bent
Sanguinovores are known to slowly grow more powerful with each gory victory they win over their eternal enemies. But this pursuit of the vampiric is not any sort of redemption for them--the Sanguinovores are damned to wander eternally, feeding upon their most hated enemies and never to be reborn, even if they are destroyed, unless they are first Blessed.

Destroying a Sanguinovore without first blessing it will cause it to rise as an even more twisted and vengeful form of undead that will then prey upon any and all sources of blood -- living, dead or undead. These re-risen necromantic abominations retain all of their  previous abilities...and may develop others...and their unmitigated hatred will thenceforth be focused upon those who brought it into this state.

Blessing one of these creatures will send it into a frenzy (double attacks/double damage/double movement), but is the only way to make sure that they are really, truly and completely destroyed and never to rise again.

There are hierophants, theopolitans, sacred savants and others who have pondered the grim and terrible nature of the Sanguinovores and several have put forth various theories and ideas of methods that might work in terms of recovering these raging, lost souls, but so far few have had the chance to actually attempt such thing outside of the confines of cloistered academia.

Ordrang
Sanguinovores are ruthless, fearless creatures of unremitting hatred obsessed with destroying vampires at all costs, but they do fear one thing -- the Ordrang are, if anything, even more implacable and unrelenting and will consume a Sanguinovore's mostly ectoplasmic remains with a mindless ferocity. The Ordrang are also the one creature completely immune to the Sanguinovore's Terror ability.

Folklore or Fact?
There are rumors of extraordinarily powerful Sanguinovores that have spell-casting capabilities and of course there is the tale of the Scabrous Lord, a great and powerful Sanguinovore that became somehow corrupted and distorted by having drained a demi-god's lich, inhuman mummy or some mythical Lord of Vampires (the story changes according to location and who is telling it). This Scabrous Lord is reputed to have become something twisted and despicable, a blasphemous being that fed upon the living and the dead equally, indiscriminately, and that no longer respected any boundary, including the wards of the pious. But of course such a thing is too terrible to contemplate. It's just a bed-time tale used to frighten the gullible and to keep children indoors during the cold drizzly nights of October...