They’re not sensitive to sunlight, they don’t drink blood, they’re indifferent to running water, they don’t regenerate, and they can march right into your house whether you’ve invited them in or not. )Īs for Spelljammer’s vampirates, they bear only superficial similarities to the vampire and vampire spawn of the Monster Manual-and more closely resemble those of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, at least with regard to their Explode trait, which causes them to burst into clouds of ash when reduced to 0 hp. (You can read that story, retitled “Blood of Nalakia,” online at.

Schmitz’s science fiction short story “The Vampirate,” published in Science-Fiction Plus magazine in 1953. Somper claims the word just came to him, and I’d be inclined to credit him with its invention … if not for its use in 2004 in the webcomic Charby the Vampirate, in 2003 in Uncle Davver’s Really Scary Movie Show and in what I think may be the decisive winner, James H. Before that, British author Justin Somper wrote the six-book Vampirates series of novels for young readers, starting in 2005 with Demons of the Ocean. The first “vampirate” I encountered was Jessica Marcrum’s Captain Fulmini from Hit Point Press’s Big Bads series.

Whoever first coined the portmanteau “vampirate” must have felt very proud, and deservedly so-but it wasn’t Chris Perkins, or whoever else worked with him on Spelljammer.

System shock dnd 5e