Stop In For a Quick Bite – Origins of the Warhammer Fantasy Vampire Bloodlines – PRIME
The legend of the vampire has been around far longer than the Old World.
In classic Warhammer Fantasy, the Vampire Counts were a frightening and powerful faction, a force of shambling undead warriors surrounding a powerful central hero, gifted with the skill and intellect of several mortal lifetimes. In addition to all the special abilities the vampires gained, they also owed their look and fighting style to the great vampire their blood kiss stemmed from.
Each bloodline began in the ancient kingdom of Nehekhara, famous for being the region of the Tomb Kings, where a corrupted copy of Nagash’s dark sorcery was enacted by a small circle of powerful individuals, offering them eternal life but cursing them with a thirst for blood. Unique as that is, each bloodline has its roots in the legends and stories of the real world, both from terrifying cultural folklore and more modern fantasy book series.
Von Carsteins
Stemming from the noble and erudite Vashanesh, or Vlad as he came to be known, the Von Carsteins are one of the most iconic bloodlines of the Old World, and certainly one of the most easily recognizable. Setting up shop in the Imperial Province of Sylvania, the Von Carsteins have been one of the primary antagonists of the Old World, particularly Mannfred, the current Mortarch of Night in Age of Sigmar.
As the most easily recognizable, so too are the origins of the Von Carsteins, the most obvious, stemming from the legendary vampire Vlad Tepes, Dracula, specifically his portrayal in the book of the same name by Bram Stoker. The noble bearing, the control over the beasts of the dark wood, and the naming convention all stem back to the famous Transylvanian lord.
Blood Dragons
One of the rarer bloodlines, the Blood Dragons are the offspring of the towering warrior Abhorash, a great fighter even before his initiation into undeath and one who is said to have regretted it. So powerful was this lord that it was said he drank of dragon’s blood and therefore freed himself from his thirst, a blessing he shared with his most trusted knights and retainers. Their rarity stems from the fact that Abhorash hated the affliction he had been cursed with by Neferata and so was loathe to burden others, though it could also be argued he found them unworthy. Another famous Blood Dragon was the Red Duke of Aquitane, who was rumored to have met Abhorash after falling to an assassin’s knife in Araby and been gifted the Blood Kiss in recognition of his skill and noble bearing.
Their real-world origins also seem to draw from Vlad Tepes, but not in his aspect as a Count but rather his brutal efficiency as a battle commander. Vlad’s father waged a bloody war against the Ottoman Empire in the early 1400s before turning on his home country and assisting them, and Vlad himself was a savage warrior and commander, destroying all who opposed him in whatever way he needed to. Though the historical man was far less noble than the warrior he inspired here, his power as a warrior is a fairly clear source for the warrior ranks of the Blood Dragons. Also, Dracula stems from Vlad’s Romanian title of Dracul, meaning dragon, which is a fairly obvious point of inspiration.
Lahmians
The children of the seductive Queen Neferata of Lahmia, the first Vampire, the Lahmians represent the alluring, charming nature of the curse of undeath, making vampires sexy again. Neferata longed to be queen forever, eternally young and beautiful, so she distilled an elixir of sorcerous power, sharing it with her trusted advisors but dooming them in the process.
The inspirations here are vast, but the two that first spring to mind are Elizbeth Bathory and the romanticized vampires of Anne Rice. The former was a Hungarian countess and serial murderess, the Guinness World Record holder for most prolific female serial killer in fact, who allegedly believed that bathing in the blood of young girls would keep her beautiful forever. However, these rumors appeared long after her death, and the truth of them is dubious at best, but the legend remains nonetheless. The latter, such as Lestat, Louie, and of course the vampire queen Akasha, were from the series of books by Anne Rice about a group of vampires who favored seduction and charm over magic or brute force, and Akasha herself was called Queen of the Damned, so she is an almost dead ringer for Queen Neferata. Also, not for nothing, there is an ancient Greek monster called the Lamia, who has been depicted in some aspects as a woman with the lower body of a serpent, playing into the Lahmian theme of snakes.
Necrarchs
The finest necromancers in all the Old World, nearly matching Nagash himself in power, the sorcerous Necrarchs are the offspring of W’Soran, the only founding vampire to truly follow Nagash, and as such, he was the only one privy to the Great Necromancers necromantic books. They are incredibly powerful spellcasters, but their sorcerous power has made them twisted and reduced, so they look the most like living corpses. While he wasn’t a powerful spellcaster in the film, the Necrarchs seem to resemble the titular character from Nosferatu, a take on the tale of Dracula. They also resemble the common theme of liches, though they do not require a phylactery to function or maintain their immortality.
Strigoi
The bestial monstrosities of the northern wastes, the Strigoi were actually founded by Ushoran, a master infiltrator and courtier whose face-changing skills resulted in a creature of predatory cunning. The lords of the flesh-eating ghouls, and usually called Ghoul Kings themselves, the Strigoi are the monstrous aspects of the vampires given horrifying form. Their nails are long and claw-like, their teeth are dagger-sharp and long, and they run on all fours like an animal. Aside from the werewolf analogy (some believed that vampires could assume the form of wolf-like creatures), there is a Romanian myth about unquiet corpses that rise from their graves, taking the form of beasts of the woods and gaining power from the blood of the living. Also, according to some sources, the Strigoi ghouls are not all undead, but rather living men who have resorted to corpse-eating, which calls to mind the legend of the Wendigo spirit, a semi-demonic entity that possesses the body of a cannibal.
Which bloodline was your favorite?
