Speaking about pretty decent vampire guys, is there any chance of some Strigoi managing to keep their sanity and dreams of peaceful coexistence? I feel really bad about what happened to those guys.
Much as I like stories where vampires live alongside humans peacefully, and will always argue against the idea that vampires are not intrisically evil, and as much as the Strigoi may have been screwed over by the other vampires. Their idea of coxistance was, at best, on par with Bretonnian social equality and at worst was the kind of coexistance we have with cows.
Man, the more I learn about Warhammer Fantasy lore, the more I appreciate Penetrator Quest (link in my signature). It actually featured a city/bastion of vampires on the edge of the Badlands that was a highly successful example of peaceful coexistence between vampires and humans. The leadership was a couple of more reasonable and responsible members of the Von Carstein line for the political/logistical side, a Wallach-tier Blood Dragon that led an order of Blood Dragon knights that, while they aren't exactly
good guys in most senses, are at least
not the kind of pointlessly destructive evil that the vampires are known for (and, indeed, were able to be bribed into being "good"), and on the magical side, a brilliant Necrarch (but not really) that's every bit a mad scientist that
loves the notion of innovation and surpassing limitations--but is not delusional or self-destructive and actually constructed a wizard tower to
absorb the ambient dhar from the necromancy and his experiments and thus prevent the landscape from turning into a poisoned wasteland. There were even some sane Strigoi (sane because, when this society was founded many centuries ago, the leadership found and recruited any relatively sane Strigoi vampire they found, gave them companionship and respect, and thus prevented any further sanity slippage)!
I love it even more, now, seeing vampires
not being totally evil douchebags, but seeing their best aspects while not ignoring their flaws and unsavory elements. The main character is horrified when he learns about the true nature of wights, for example, and he only joins them on the condition that they never start a fight with the forces of Order/Good while he's a member. But we also get to see how
sane Blood Dragon vampires would function in a society of their making--they abhor killing anything that can't fight back, seek out good fights while still enjoying some downtime, devote a bunch of time and resources towards scouring the region of any significant concentration of orcs so that their city remains safe, and any mortal human that distinguishes him- or herself in battle gets offered the Blood Kiss as an honor and gets to join the Fellhanded as a full-fledged knight.
We also get to see how vampiric mages would work in a functional manner--while necromancy is taught and used, necromancy on the population of their society or on civilians is forbidden, and any human mortal who is found to have potential with magic is offered the Blood Kiss and trained to be a mage, with a focus on
non dark magic. As a result of being immortal and having fantastic mages to learn from, they become exceptionally skilled and powerful, but by using dhar as a crutch, but through sheer experience, training, and plenty of preparation (such as making advanced staffs, power stones, etc). Of course, their leader is still more than a bit reckless and cares little for ethics (but is
not cruel, for he sees being cruel as a pointless waste of time), so he's infamous for the times when his crazy-ass experiments actually get loose and have to be put down, but he is 100% trustworthy when it comes to sticking to agreements, repaying favors owed, and not hurting/betraying his allies. He's generally regarded as creepy as hell (and actually puts effort into maintaining such a reputation, like deliberately speaking in a creepy manner even though he can totally speak normally), and if you visit his wizard tower, you can expect to hear screams from some poor orc or beastman that's part of his latest experiments, but he's nothing like Zacharias the Everliving, who's insane, monstrous for no reason, and uses dhar like he's addicted to it.
It's a society where the land is tough, but you're much safer there than you would be in the Border Princes, and while your leaders and elite warriors are definitely people to be a bit wary around in general, there are plenty of cases of vampires and humans coexisting happily and productively.
Militarily, they're absolutely
fearsome. A large army of skeletons and wights is bad enough. Back that a whole bunch of vampiric knights? That's terrifying. Back
that with a cadre of very old, very powerful mages that don't rely on just flinging around dark magic, and have experience in working together?
And a whole bunch of high-tier hero units that either have undead dragon mounts or use power stone-laden master-crafted magic staffs? You get a force that can bring down nations if it
really gets serious and launches a full crusade. This is a faction that reacts to the presence of a Great Daemon not with "oh
shit" but instead "Awesome! I wanna fight
that!"
