News Files - Vampires Origin of the Vampire

Over fourteen thousand years ago, a Conclave of Atlantean Sorcerers uncovered the Darkhold, an indestructible grimoire of shadowy magic written by the Elder God Chthon. In the midst of a great war against the First Evil, his horde of demons, and their human followers, and with Atlantis at the doors of destruction, these sorcerers utilised the power of the Darkhold in a last-ditch effort to save the Golden City. They used a resurrection ritual, empowered by the blood sacrifice of one of the First Evil's generals, Maloker, an Old One, to raise their fallen human allies and their enemies, creating an Army of Darkness to force the First Evil and his minions through a portal they had opened into the Darkforce Dimension, where they would be sealed for eternity.

Though Atlantis won the war, their newfound Army of Darkness, cursed by Malekor's diabolic blood, were too bloodthirsty to be controlled. When the Conclave attempted to purify them, the vampires instead rebelled and slew all of the Sorcerers with the exception of one, High Priest Varnae, whom had secretly conspired with Maloker's right-hand human lieutenant, a man named Drake, and actually performed the sacrifice of Maloker himself, and thus it was Varnae who became the world's first vampire.

Varnae and his kin fled the continent, spreading out across the world, and over the millennia, their numbers would surge and then wane as they integrated into various cultures and mythologies. Time would evolve and mutate the vampires, both socially and physically, into various sects with slightly different customs and or abilities, as their blood thinned and mixed. Differing traits were strengthened in some, and weakened in others, over the millennia. But still, in the end, all being vampire, forever cursed and sharing the same basic traits.

As the eldest and most magically-endowed of his kind, Varnae reigned as the unchallenged Lord of vampires for many millennia, until finally ceding the title to Vlad III Dracula, a 15th Century Voivode of Wallachia and notorious warlord known by the pseudonym of Vlad the Impaler. Carrying the title well into the 21st Century, it was not until a Sorcerer Supreme discovered a ritual within the Darkhold itself that could essentially reverse the magic of the original resurrection spell, and exile all vampires into Chthon's realm. Although the ritual appeared to work, with a large portion of the undead population being purged, something went wrong in the invocation itself. While the vampire race was rendered nearly extinct, some (including Dracula himself) survived and continue to propagate their brood.