While Vampire: The Masquerade is the obvious option when you want to play a TTRPG where you get to be a vampire, the problem is you need a full table of pretend bloodsuckers to make it work. If you’re the only wannabe vampire in your group and everyone else would rather be a more typical RPG hero, your options are limited. Rules for playing a dhampir were included in the D&D supplement Van Richten’s Guide to Ravenloft back in 2021, but being half a vampire isn’t enough for everyone.
Which is where Bound By Blood comes in. The upcoming supplement by Ghostfire Gaming in co-operation with White Wolf will include rules for a vampire class in D&D 5th edition that has blood points to spend, bloodline powers called disciplines to spend them on, and an inner beast to contend with just like they do in Vampire: The Masquerade. It’ll also include an adventure set in Vampire’s “Dark Ages” timeline, which winds the clock back to medieval Europe.
White Wolf was careful to say Bound By Blood isn’t the only thing they’ve got going on, as the publisher recently revealed it had something big to announce at the upcoming Gen Con event and a few doomers online decided this was it. “We’re very excited about sharing the love for Vampires with even more people,” White Wolf said, “but want to clarify something since we’ve seen some wires getting crossed: Bound by Blood is not the primary project we’re announcing at Gen Con. They’re two different projects.”
Now that we’ve washed the taste of Bloodlines 2 out of our mouths, things are looking up for Vampire: The Masquerade. The upcoming CRPG Eternal Whispers promises to be narrative-driven with big Disco Elysium vibes, and Dimension 20’s current actual-play series City Council of Darkness has been a fun take on what Vampire would look like if you removed it from the city and crossed it with Parks and Recreation.
Bound By Blood will be released in July, and will be available on D&D Beyond. After that, the D&D release schedule includes some Greyhawk adventures and a supplement for the Eberron setting called Frontiers of Eberron: Quickstone.
