Dhampiree

Medium humanoid (dhampire), neutral

Armor Class 16 (reinforced leather coat)

Hit Points 119 (14d8 + 56)

Speed 35 ft., climb 20 ft.

STR 14 (+2) · DEX 18 (+4) · CON 18 (+4) · INT 14 (+2) · WIS 16 (+3) · CHA 13 (+1)

Saving Throws Dex +7, Con +7, Wis +6

Skills Insight +6, Investigation +6, Perception +6, Stealth +7, Survival +6

Damage Vulnerabilities bludgeoning

Damage Resistances necrotic

Condition Immunities charmed (by undead), frightened (by undead)

Senses darkvision 60 ft., passive Perception 16

Languages Common, one regional tongue (often Albanian or Romani)

Challenge 6 (2,300 XP)

Traits

Born Vampire-Sense. The Dhampire is always aware of the direction (but not exact distance) to the nearest undead within 1 mile. He can see invisible or ethereal undead as if they were visible.

True Grasp. The Dhampire’s weapon attacks ignore resistance or immunity to nonmagical damage possessed by undead and can strike creatures on the Ethereal Plane.

Boneless Frame. The Dhampire has advantage on ability checks and saving throws made to escape a grapple or to squeeze through a space as narrow as 4 inches wide.

Uncanny Poise. The Dhampire can’t be magically put to sleep, and he has advantage on saving throws against being charmed or frightened.

Sleeve of Shared Sight (1/Rest). The Dhampire can use an action to allow one willing creature that can see him to look through his shirt sleeve. For the next minute, that creature gains the benefits of Born Vampire-Sense.

Actions

Multiattack. The Dhampire makes three Vampire-Bane Stake attacks. He can add Vampiric Smite to one of these attacks per turn.

Vampire-Bane Stake. Melee Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, reach 5 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (1d10 + 4) piercing damage. Against undead, the attack deals an extra 7 (2d6) radiant damage.

Hand Crossbow. Ranged Weapon Attack: +7 to hit, range 30/120 ft., one target. Hit: 9 (1d6 + 4) piercing damage plus 7 (2d6) radiant damage if the target is undead. The bolts are carved from hawthorn wood and count as magical for overcoming resistance and immunity.

Vampiric Smite (Radiant). Once per turn when the Dhampire hits a creature with a Vampire-Bane Stake or crossbow bolt, he may cause the attack to deal an extra 13 (3d8) radiant damage. If the target is undead, it has disadvantage on the next saving throw it makes before the end of the Dhampire’s next turn.

Bonus Actions

Hunter’s Focus. The Dhampire targets one creature he can see within 60 feet. Until the end of his next turn, he has advantage on attack rolls against that creature and knows its exact location, even if it becomes invisible or ethereal.

Reactions

Incorporeal Clutch. When a creature the Dhampire can see within 5 feet becomes invisible, enters an object, or shifts to the Ethereal Plane, the Dhampire can make one Vampire-Bane Stake attack against it as if it were still on the Material Plane. On a hit, the creature’s attempt to move or become incorporeal fails and the creature remains where it is.

Lore

A child born of a human woman and a vampire; if it survives birth, it grows up to become a vampire hunter.

In the folk traditions of the Balkan peoples and the Eastern-European Roma, a Dhampire is the hybrid child of a living woman and a vampire father, which gives him the paradoxical status of the undead’s “biological opposite” — a born vampire hunter. The very word goes back to the Albanian Dhampire, a fusion of dham (“tooth”) and pirë (“to drink”), preserving a direct nod to his blood-drinking progenitor. As the motif spread through different ethnic zones, an array of regional names appeared: in Serbian and Bosnian lands one finds the patronymic Vampirović, stressing kinship; Bulgarian variants ending in –dzhiya cast the Dhampire as a practitioner of the hunter’s craft; in certain Bulgarian districts the term Svetocher, “bright man,” contrasts him with the vampire’s dark nature; among Roma groups the forms dhampyre and vampirovitch took hold. Modern Albanian surnames such as Dhampireaj show how deeply the image is embedded in collective genealogy.

The traditional portrait of the hybrid is far from today’s romantic clichés. A Dhampire is said to have an unfinished, “soft” anatomy inherited from his vampire sire. Instead of bones he possesses a rubbery substance that merely keeps his humanoid shape, and for the same reason he lives a shorter span than an ordinary human. Many tales emphasize his lack of a shadow — a sign of imperfect grounding in the world.

From Vampire Bestiary 5E, p. 44 · Fern Flower Press