Strigoi

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Strigoi is an old Romanian word derived from Latin referring to a supernatural creature, usually a vampire. In tabletop gaming context it refers the Strigoi Bloodline of Vampire Counts from Warhammer Fantasy.

If the Von Carsteins are the Warhammer version of Bela Legosi, the Strigois are the Nosferatus, at least after Count Orlok hit the gym. They're hulking, bald (baring the occasional quill), taloned jagged fanged feral predators. Despite this they still retain considerable intelligence.

History

The Strigoi are mutant vampires descended from Ushoran, the younger brother of bitch Queen Neferata. Old lore had it that she would bully him and deliberately didn't make him a vampire so she had someone to look down on, he in turn stole the partial recipe of her elixir of immortality and the result made him the bestial mutant vampire we know. New lore has it that she willingly made him a vampire and he served as a diplomat prior to being cursed as a more monstrous type of vampire. However, in both versions it ended with Ushoran leaving his sister to realize his ambitions and carve out his own kingdom.

After many years of wandering, Ushoran found Mourkain, a small vampire kingdom created by a barbarian shaman Kadon, who wore the Crown of Nagash and worshipped the Great Necromancer as a god. He easily couped Kadon and changed some of his laws, such as removing the worship of Nagash and restoring Abhorash's principle to feed only on a criminals. Those reforms were pretty successful, and even non-vampires started to respect Ushoran as their leader. Meanwhile, his newly acquired fame insulted Neferata, and she became jealous. Extremely jealous.

She waged a war against Mourkain, and while Ushoran managed to eventually defeat her armies, the Greenskins knocked on the door and turned the unprepared kingdom into a literal wasteland. With the death of their King and the total annihilation of their country, most of the Strigoi degenerated, turned into a wild predators that prey in a dark and secret places, hunting on the hermits and Ghouls. But they still have memories about Mourkain, and they are slowly preparing to rise again and restore the empire....

Strigany

If you're wandering what happened to the non-dead population of Mourkain, it fled to the north, in the lands of the future Empire, which proved to be a great mistake. Most of the human tribes already hated them as a Vampire slaves, and the hate only strengthened when they arrive to their land. Having nowhere to run (seriously, other choices are Nehekhara and Dark Lands), they stayed there.

Several thousand years have passed, and nothing really changed. Everyone hates them (with some exceptions like the northern kislevites), and especially the Witch Hunters, who have little to no mercy to those people. They travel in caravans or small barges and call themselves Strigany (Warhammer Gypsies, huh...), have a little knowledge of fortune telling, and overall are pretty good guys, even if some of them are extremely necrofiliac and still worship VampiresBLAM! THEY'RE STILL VAMPIRE SLAVES YOU IDIOT!

Relations

• Neferata's Fanclub: Sir Witchunter the recent deaths in the province are due to freakish wildlife attacks theyre causing quite a ruckus i urge you to endeavor to rid civilized society of these beasts.

• Blood Dragons: They hate the Strigoi and hunt them like an animals, calling them a dishonorable fucks "Ironically Abhorash himself grew to hate the schemes of Neferata & fought to defend Strygos"

• Most Humans : Strigoi whats that? all i heard of were bout them giant ugly monsters who ate Hans's cattle farm we had a famine that winter.

• Strigany : Strygos will rise again!! milord why are you chewing on that animal carcass?

Named Characters

NOTE: Characters unique to the Age Of Sigmar Flesh-eater Courts are not counted as Strigoi, and will not be listed since the term “Abhorrant” has replaced Strigoi as a signifier of Ghoul King allegiance.

• Ushoran

Progenitor of the Bloodline. Canon splits into what happened to him at Mourkain, some sources saying he simply died and others that he survived. It was generally thought the former was canon since it was in army books and the latter in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay supplements until his own book Ancient Blood was released, showing him saving some Strigany from a Nazi-like Gypsy purge and leading them to rebuild their empire. Although he was one of the dropped plots for End Times, Josh Reynolds attempted to give fans closure on many things (before GW ordered him to stop and declare them fanfiction) with Ushoran actually gathering the loyalist Strigoi, before it all vanishes into the dark of the final battle. Despite that, Games Workshop made Josh’s story canon with Ushoran confirmed alive and surviving into Age Of Sigmar where the madness of the Bloodline finally claimed him as he delusionally believes himself to be ruling the rebuilt Mourkain when in reality he’s a wandering monster that infects everything around him with madness turning men into similarly-deluded Ghouls faster than if they had participated in cannibalism. Meanwhile, in Total War: WARHAMMER Ushoran simply rules some of his Bloodline who have returned to Nehekhara; although not present in the game, he is still the faction leader.

• Vorag Bloodytooth

Ushoran was the first Strigoi, but Vorag was the first Strigoi Ghoul King since Ushoran prefers mostly to live with the Strigany. He encountered Ghouls while fleeing the fall of Mourkain and a Von Carstein hunting party pursuing him for sport. His newfound friends slaughtered the Vampires before he set out to return to Mourkain. He destroyed every Greenskin in his path until finally being killed. Somehow all other Strigoi heard of him and seek to follow his example...or just luck into it like he did.

• Urzen The Unrelenting

Took Vorag’s basic idea, only with vengeance on his mind. As Mourkain’s top military advisor he learned not only how to conduct war, but also Ushoran’s spymaster ways. Urzen wants to destroy the Lahmians and does so in a manner far more befitting one than a Strigoi. Urzen is responsible for humanity’s effectiveness in fighting Vampires as he uses agents to teach them Vampire secrets, lead gifted warriors to magical items, and baits Witch Hunters to Lahmian covens. He’s stated to hate Lahmians exclusively, steering mankind away from other Bloodlines. He also still a little nuts, since he tries to instill military discipline into both Ghouls and Zombies in his fucking massive army via drills and parades.

• Gashnag The Black Prince

One of the offspring of Vorag, Gashnag is the single most successful post-Mourkain Strigoi. Ruling an unnamed kingdom in the Border Princes, Gashnag paid bards and spread rumors that he’s simply an amazing genius heroic nobleman that was cursed to look like a monster. His trusted human advisors know his true nature, and help keep the illusion. Whenever something threatens his kingdom he rides out under cover of darkness as well as the more literal cover of a black cloak to butcher the unsuspecting foes, returning to plant their heads on spikes in the town square then return to his castle.

• Mad Orlock

One of the big players of The Thousand Thrones supplement for WFRP. Strigoi interpreted prophesies about of a young boy named Karl who was supposedly Sigmar reborn to have involved Nagash turning Sigmar into a Vampire before he became a god. Orlock believes the Bloodlines have become too weak and mixed for any true Vampire hero to be born of being turned, so he decided to kidnap Karl and have all the Bloodlines infect him. He simply assumes each Bloodline will be present on (un)holy ground aside from the Blood Dragons who he figured would ignore the call , leading him to kidnap one. Soon he intends to turn Karl into the God Emperor Of Vampkind...or rather he would, if it weren’t for the truth of it. The Black Witch, an Undivided Chaos Champion who became a ghost, sent out a fake prophesy to all the Bloodlines. In reality she needs Karl, a Chaos mutant with a nonstop natural Jedi Mind Trick, to be brought to Kislev where she can possess him then feed on one of each of the Bloodlines to take over his body and bring about a Charisma-based End Times. The final layer of intrigue is that its all a plan by Nagash for his fourth resurrection. Ignoring the idea that the disconnect between the wargame and RPG canons is too vast, then we have several options for Orlock’s ultimate fate; either he was killed, one of the other Vampires was killed, or Karl died or was convinced to banish the Black Witch to the void; its an option to have one of the Vampire prophesies true and given we know (or do we?) Sigmar wasn’t a Vampire then Orlock was for sure wrong. The ending options suggests successful parties may have one of the Vampires take an interest in them, possibly allow/force them to join that Bloodline.

• Nanosh

A Strigoi Ghoul King pirate. Secretly taken aboard the ship Unternehmung when the captain hired Strigany crewmen. When the ship rations “mysteriously” went rotten the Strigany lead a mutiny. The captain and those loyal to him were cooked and fed to the traitors until they became Ghouls, whereupon Nanosh went above deck and assumed captainship. They’ve become one of the most feared crews of pirates, raiding ships and towns at night for living meat instead of treasure or slaves.

• Karkanoth

A Nosantra, more specifically a Ghoul King who betrayed the Strigoi to become one of the few lieutenants of Mannfred von Carstein to survive his first defeat. Introduced in End Times.

• Druthor

Another Strigoi expatriate, this time in service to Krell in End Times. Formerly “ruled” the “kingdom” of Grimbarrow, a forgotten charnel pit for a forgotten dead populace. Has a Terrorgheist. The Bloodbeasts are three Varghulf who began following him as he raided sites to sate his thirst, and he kept them as pets on chain leashes until needed. The Graveclaws are his Ghouls, who were the residents of Grimbarrow before Druthor came that began worshiping him as a god.

• Anhurit

A female Strigoi from a WFRP supplement blurb intended to show how Vampires see the world. She waits for a grave robber to dig up a serial killer’s body while she sits hidden in the shadows and watches the Death magic interact with the environment as well as the invisible ghosts, those who know they’re dead and those that don’t (like said murderer trying to stab him over and over). Once the corpse is exhumed and the robber claims the corpse’s ring Anhurit jumps into the grave and cuts off the hands of the corpse with her claws. After the grave robber shits himself she tells him he is spared bevause he’s a good digger and leaves. We don’t know what she needed the hands for.

• Yudas The Shadow King

Terrorized Wissenland, butchering women because in his madness he thought they were his cheating wife.

Gallery

This article contains PROMOTIONS! Don't say we didn't warn you.

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  The blood runs cold, if you know what we mean...

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  We’re torn between “meat on her bones” and “coccyx” jokes.

D&D Strigoi

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Strigoi were added to Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition in Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft. They used to be common stirges, but were transformed by magic into humanoid stirges. With the increased size came formidable new strength and a monstrously augmented appetite; a strigoi doesn't simply suck blood like its lesser kin, but instead liquifies the entirety of the bodily contents - blood, bones, tissue, organs, everything - and then sucks it out like a giant tick, leaving behind nothing but a hollow, deflated skin. Which might rise as a boneless.