GURPS Blood Types explained

GURPS Blood Types
Designer:	Grate Lane
Publisher:	Steve Jackson Games
Date:	1995
Genre:	Horror
System:	GURPS 3rd edition

GURPS Blood Types is a 128-page soft-bound book compiled by Lane Grate and published in 1995 by Steve Jackson Games as a supplement for the third edition GURPS role-playing game system. It contains biographies and gaming statistics for 23 vampires, vampire-like beings, and guidelines on creating more for various campaign settings.

Contents

The three broad types

GURPS Blood Types breaks vampires and vampire-like beings into three broad types:

Mortal Vampires--Living beings who have become vampires through some pact or deal. Generally they are not undead.

Undead--Once living beings who have come back from the dead to feed on the living

Spirit and otherworldly beings--Otherworldly parasitic beings that masquerade as a member of a mortal race.

Vampire Types

Those with a ^ can be active in daylight

• Adze^, supernatural entity vampire from central Africa mainly Ghana and Togo.
• Alien^, otherworldly vampire—may or may not be supernatural in nature.
• Astral^, mortal vampire (sorcerer) found around the world. Some examples are Bebarlang of Southeast Asia and Philippines and the Chordewa of Bangal hill tribes.
• Baital^, supernatural entity vampire from India.
• Ch'iang Shich, undead vampire from China.
• Civateteo^, an undead vampire of Mesoamerica. Another variant of this from the same region is the Langsoir.
• Gaki^, supernatural vampire-like being from Japan—may either be animated corpse or otherworldly spirit
• Ghul^, Mortal vampire (flesh eater) from Arabian folktales
• Gothic, undead vampire made famous by Dracula and most of the movie variants inspired by it
• Half-Vampire^, Mortal vampire that is usually a servant or slave to the Gothic type
• High-Tech^, Mortal vampire created via super science
• Human^, Mortal Vampire who feels the need to drink another's blood
• Incubus (Demon)/Succubus^, supernatural vampire-like entity that drains life via sexual contact rather than blood
• Lamia^, undead/supernatural entity from ancient Greece.
• Lilitu^, supernatural entity vampire from ancient Mesopotamia. Given their name and nature they may have connection to Adam's first wife (Lilith).
• Loogaroo^, Mortal vampire (soul pact) of Haiti
• Modern, Updated version of Gothic vampire type
• Nosferatu, In the context of GURPS Blood Types it is the vampire seen in the film Nosferatu
• Penanggalen^, Female mortal vampire (soul pact) of Malay Peninsula. Male counterpart in Berma is the Kephn Can only feed at night
• Strix, Mortal vampire (witch) of ancient Rome
• Usrel, Undead child vampire of Poland. If not properly destroyed can rise again as another type.
• Vampir, Traditional undead European vampire of the Slavic nations. Usually attacks in astral form and is more likely to be a peasant than nobel
• Vyrolakos^, Traditional undead European vampire of the Balkan nations. Usually attacks physically and in the legend would often take human mates and have families. Tympanios is a precursor variant that was less insane and did not depend on blood

Publication history

Blood Types is a GURPS game supplement, published as a 128-page softcover book by Steve Jackson Games and designed by Lane Grate. Editing was by Jeff Koke and Scott Haring, with illustrations by Dan Smith and a cover by Tim Bradstreet.

Reception

Rick Swan reviewed GURPS Blood Types for Dragon magazine #227 (March 1996), and rated it a 5 out of 6.^[1] According to Swan, Blood Types "belongs on the shelf of every horror aficionado who's had his fill of recycled Bela Lugosis".^[1]

Reviews

• Rollespilsmagasinet Fønix (Danish) (Issue 12 - Mar/Apr 1996)^[2]
• Australian Realms #28^[3]

Scholarly Bibliography

Among the sources used to make this book are some scholarly ones:

• Barber, Paul (1988) Vampires, Burial and Death (Yale University Press)
• Bunson, Matthew (1993) The Vampire Encyclopedia (Crown Publications)
• Frayling, Christopher (1991) Vampyres: Lord Byron to Count Dracula (Faber and Faber, Ltd)
• Haining, Peter (1977) The Dracula Scrapbook (Bramhall House)
• McNally, Raymond T. and Florescu, Radu (1972) In Search of Dracula (N.Y. Graphic Society)
• Melton, J. Gordon (1994) The Vampire Book (Visible Ink Press)
• Summers, Montague (1928) The Vampire, His Kith and Kin (Routledge and Keegan Paul)
• Summers, Montague (1929) The Vampire in Europe (Routledge and Keegan Paul)
• Twitchell, James B, (1975) The Living Dead: The Vampire in Romantic Literature (Duke University Press)
• Wolf, Leonard (ed.) (1995) The Essential Dracula (Plume)

Notes and References

1. Swan. Rick. Rick Swan. Role-playing Reviews. Dragon.
   1. 227
   . 113–114. TSR. Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. March 1996.
2. Web site: Anmeldelser | Article | RPGGeek .
3. https://archive.org/details/australian-realms-magazine/Australian%20Realms%20%2328%20MayJune%201996/page/8/mode/2up