Dark Vampire miniature

Varkhulos, the Hemophage Abomination

A vampire that has “evolved” by feeding on other undead and fiends. Its ribs open like a cage, its throat unhinges like a serpent, and its shadow moves half a second late—like it’s deciding whether to obey physics.

Visual & Vibe

• Silhouette: Tall, emaciated torso; too-long arms; cloak-like wing membranes stitched to exposed shoulder bone.
• Face: Noseless, lamprey mouth behind a “human” mask of dried skin (sometimes worn, sometimes fused).
• Tell: Blood in the room vibrates toward it in tiny beads. Candles gutter sideways.

Roleplaying Notes

• Voice: Soft, precise—until it feeds, then it “clicks” like an insect choir.
• Motivation: Hunger as theology. It believes blood is the “true soul” and wants to harvest a city into a living reliquary.
• Preferred bargains: “A vial a week and I spare your family” (then it keeps them as livestock anyway).

Stat Block (D&D 5e)

Varkhulos, the Hemophage Abomination
Huge undead, lawful evil

Armor Class 18 (natural armor)
Hit Points 225 (18d12 + 108)
Speed 40 ft., climb 30 ft., fly 40 ft. (hover)

STR 22 (+6) | DEX 16 (+3) | CON 22 (+6) | INT 14 (+2) | WIS 16 (+3) | CHA 18 (+4)

Saving Throws Dex +8, Con +11, Wis +8, Cha +9
Skills Athletics +11, Perception +8, Stealth +8, Intimidation +9
Damage Resistances necrotic; bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing from nonmagical attacks
Damage Immunities poison
Condition Immunities poisoned, charmed, frightened
Senses darkvision 120 ft., blindsight 30 ft., passive Perception 18
Languages Common, Infernal, Abyssal
Challenge 13 (10,000 XP) • Proficiency Bonus +5

Traits

Legendary Resistance (3/Day). If Varkhulos fails a saving throw, it can choose to succeed instead.

Regeneration. Varkhulos regains 20 hit points at the start of its turn if it has at least 1 hit point and isn’t in sunlight or running water. If it takes radiant damage, this trait doesn’t function at the start of its next turn.

Spider-Climb. It can climb difficult surfaces, including upside down on ceilings, without needing to make an ability check.

Misty Escape. When reduced to 0 hit points outside its resting place, Varkhulos transforms into mist instead of falling unconscious, provided it isn’t in sunlight or running water. While it has 0 hit points in mist form, it can’t revert, and must reach its resting place within 2 hours or be destroyed. If it reaches the resting place, it reverts and is paralyzed until it regains at least 1 hit point.

Blood Scent. Varkhulos has advantage on Wisdom (Perception) checks to detect creatures that aren’t at full hit points.

Monstrous Weaknesses.

• Sunlight Hypersensitivity: In sunlight, it has disadvantage on attack rolls and ability checks, and takes 20 radiant damage at the start of each of its turns.
• Running Water: It takes 20 acid damage when it starts its turn in running water.
• Stake to the Heart: If a piercing weapon made of wood is driven into its heart while it is incapacitated in its resting place, it is paralyzed until the stake is removed.

Actions

Multiattack. Varkhulos makes three attacks: two Claw attacks and one Bite attack.

Claw. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 10 ft., one target. Hit: 13 (2d6 + 6) slashing plus 7 (2d6) necrotic.
If the target is a creature, it must succeed on a DC 18 Constitution save or its hit point maximum is reduced by an amount equal to the necrotic damage taken. This reduction lasts until the target finishes a long rest. The target dies if this effect reduces its hit point maximum to 0.

Bite. Melee Weapon Attack: +11 to hit, reach 5 ft., one willing creature, or a creature that is grappled by Varkhulos, incapacitated, or restrained. Hit: 10 (1d8 + 6) piercing plus 14 (4d6) necrotic.
Varkhulos regains hit points equal to the necrotic damage dealt, and the target’s hit point maximum is reduced by the same amount (as above).

Hemophage Spew (Recharge 5–6). Varkhulos vomits a cone of living blood, 30 feet long. Each creature in the area must make a DC 18 Dexterity save. On a failure, a creature takes 35 (10d6) necrotic damage and is blinded until the end of its next turn; on a success, it takes half damage and isn’t blinded.
Creatures that fail also leave blood echoes: until the end of Varkhulos’s next turn, it has advantage on attack rolls against them.

Sanguine Puppet (1/Day). One creature Varkhulos can see within 60 ft. must succeed on a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw or be magically dominated for 1 minute. While dominated, the creature uses its reaction at the start of each of its turns to move up to its speed and make one weapon attack against a creature of Varkhulos’s choice (prioritizing allies). The target can repeat the save at the end of each of its turns, ending the effect on a success. This is a necromantic blood curse, not charm.

Bonus Actions

Goreline Grapple. Varkhulos targets a creature within 30 ft. that is bleeding (not at full HP). The target must succeed on a DC 18 Strength save or be pulled up to 15 ft. straight toward Varkhulos and become grappled (escape DC 18). Until the grapple ends, the target’s speed is 0 and Varkhulos can bite it.

Legendary Actions (3/round)

Varkhulos can take 3 legendary actions, choosing from the options below. Only one can be used at a time, and only at the end of another creature’s turn.

Skitter. Move up to half its speed without provoking opportunity attacks.
Claw. Make one Claw attack.
Drink the Wound (Costs 2 Actions). Make one Bite attack against a grappled/incapacitated/restrained target.
Blood-Black Blink (Costs 2 Actions). Teleport up to 30 ft. to an unoccupied space it can see that is in dim light or darkness.

Lair & Regional Effects (Optional but spicy)

If fought in its lair (a slaughter-chapel, ossuary cistern, or “blood mill” beneath a city):

Lair Actions (Initiative 20, losing ties)

1. Blood Ceiling: Rivulets rain upward; up to three creatures Varkhulos can see must succeed on DC 18 Dex saves or become restrained by coagulating strands until the end of their next turn.
2. Choir of Throats: Spectral mouths open in the walls—each enemy must succeed on a DC 18 Wis save or be frightened until the end of its next turn.
3. Red Tide: A 20-ft-radius area becomes difficult terrain; enemies entering or starting there take 10 (3d6) necrotic damage.

Regional Effects (within ~1–6 miles)

• Animals are born bloodless or with two hearts.
• Shadows “lag,” making people see movements that haven’t happened yet.
• Fresh wounds reopen at night; long rests restore -1 fewer Hit Die worth of healing unless protected by consecration.

Tactics (How it feels at the table)

• Phase 1: Skirmish + isolate: Goreline Grapple → Bite → Skitter to ceilings.
• Phase 2 (below half HP): Plays mean: Hemophage Spew to tag “blood echoes,” then Blink to focus-fire.
• Phase 3: Retreat-to-lair vibe: tries to Misty Escape unless PCs control sunlight/running water/holy ground.

Signature moment: It drags the cleric 15 feet through the air by their own blood.

Quick Scaling

• Harder (CR ~15): HP 285, AC 19, Regeneration 25, Hemophage Spew 12d6, add a 4th Legendary Action.
• Easier (CR ~11): HP 180, Regeneration 15, remove Sanguine Puppet, lower save DCs to 16.

Hooks You Can Use Tonight

• A “miracle” blood-relic cures disease… because it’s Varkhulos’s saliva (infection vector).
• The city’s missing persons all show up again—alive, polite, and donating blood weekly.

A rival vampire hires the party: “I hate it because it’s messy… and because it’s winning.”


Background: Varkhulos, the Hemophage Abomination

Before it had a name, Varkhulos was a mistake buried under a chapel.

The city of Cindervale once revered a saint whose blood was said to cure any illness. When plague came, the clergy opened the reliquary and found not holy ichor, but a sealed cistern—a stone womb beneath the cathedral—lined with scripture meant less to bless than to contain. Desperate and proud, the High Prelate ordered the seals broken anyway.

Inside was an ancient vampire—starved, half-formed, more marrow than man—bound in chains of silver and prayer. The clergy believed they could bargain with it, siphon its “miracle” into phials, and sell salvation by the drop. For a time, it worked. The sick recovered. Donations poured in. The cathedral’s vaults filled with gold…and the cistern filled with new blood.

But the creature in the pit did not merely drink.

It learned.

Each feeding rewrote it. Each vial taken and replaced, each transfusion and tithe, each execution disguised as “penance”—all of it became a curriculum. The vampire absorbed not only life, but the shape of corruption. When a rival coven tried to claim the miracle for themselves, the starving thing tore them apart and fed on their undeath as well. When a fiend-worshipping noble sent a demon to steal the saint’s blood, Varkhulos devoured that too, and its body began to express the blasphemy: ribcage splitting like a reliquary gate, wings forming from stitched membranes, a heart that burned red and bright like a hostile star.

By the time the clergy understood they were no longer milking a monster—but building one—it was too late.

On the Night of the Red Mass, the candles in the cathedral guttered sideways. Choir voices became screaming. The cistern’s lid cracked, and something climbed out that wore humanity like a poorly fitted garment. The High Prelate tried to command it with scripture. Varkhulos listened politely…then tore the man’s throat out with surgical calm and used the pulpit as a feeding trough.

The survivors fled into the streets, but the horror followed. Not as a predator hunting prey—more like a collector assembling an archive.

Varkhulos does not see blood as food. It sees it as truth.

It believes every creature carries a “hidden scripture” written in the bloodstream: ancestry, sin, courage, fear, love. To drink is to read. To drain is to edit. It keeps those it finds “interesting” alive—pale, obedient donors—while it harvests the rest into vats beneath the ruins, creating a living reservoir it calls the Reliquary Vein.

Now the cathedral is a butchered monument. The cistern has become a labyrinth of canals and ossuaries, where blood runs in careful channels like sacred water. Candles burn without heat. Shadows move out of step. And in the deepest chamber sits Varkhulos, motionless as a statue, listening to the pulse of the city through the earth—deciding who deserves to remain a person, and who will become inventory.