The People's Republic of Transylvania is unlike any other nation in the world. For almost century, it has been ruled by an elite of vampires. Known simply as "the people", these vampires see themselves as the rightful masters of Transylvania and view normal humans as inferior subjects.
Under vampire rule, Transylvania is a tightly controlled police state. Vampires live openly in the major cities, holding all positions of power in government and industry. Humans are second-class citizens with few rights. They are heavily taxed and subject to compulsory service supplying blood to their undead overlords.
While presenting itself as a paradise ruled by the people, the Vampire Republic is in reality a twisted feudal system. Different vampire factions and bloodlines jockey for influence, engaging in shadowy intrigues and power struggles behind closed doors. Regular purges and disappearances keep the human population in line through fear.
As agents of change, the player characters are members of a resistance movement fighting for equality and liberation.
Life is perilous in the Vampire Republic, where you are never sure who might be a secret informant for the dreaded vampire secret police. Intrigue, suspicion and danger are around every shadowed corner in this dark totalitarian state ruled over by the undead.
- The capital city is Târgoviște, where the sprawling Grand Palace houses the ruling aristocracy. Vampire lords live lavish lifestyles while humans toil below.
- All aspects of society are controlled from Târgoviște. Strict laws mandate tributes of blood and regulate every movement to maintain order.
- In the countryside, human peasants subsist in squalor while toiling on vast vampire-owned estates. Malnutrition and disease are rampant as blood tithes take their toll.
- A class of "servitors" consists of humans trained from birth to aid their vampire masters. They enforce domination over ordinary peasants in exchange for special privileges.
- Vampire families compete to influence the Regent and expand their power through politics and cunning. Rivalries sometimes erupt into open but brief conflicts.
- The Regent heads the secretive Council of Elders, an unelected body that has ruled for decades. Internal dissent and unrest are kept hidden from foreign observation.
- As enemies of the state, revolutionaries encounter informants and infiltrators everywhere. They must rely on safehouses, codes, and sympathetic servitors (or even vampires) to build underground networks of resistance in the cities and countryside.
- Rumor tells of forbidden medical experiments in remote castles, testing new ways to create and control servitors or even more powerful vampires through dark science.
Wild regions like the Carpathian Mountains harbour communities that have resisted vampire rule for generations. Guerilla fighters and bandits hide out in forests.
Local vampire lords rule estates and fiefdoms with an iron fist. From time to time they hunt humans for sport under the bright full moon.
In cities, secretive Thieves' Guilds dominated by servitors provide services to humans & wealthier vampires alike, gathering information and contraband.
Revolutionary cells take different approaches - some advocate strategic attacks, others nonviolent protest. But all work to expose atrocities and rally sympathy abroad.
Vampire politics involve complex alliances and rival houses vying for status. Those who rise too high sometimes mysteriously disappear.
The Western nations cautiously maintain diplomatic relations but will not confront the vampires militarily for fear of igniting open war and damaging the profits of businesses from their own countries.
Scholars debate the vampires' true origins, with theories including curses, medieval plagues, and ancient blood magic.
Isolated monasteries in remote mountains are rare havens where fragments of banned religious traditions survive away from vampire domination.
Plot hooks/story seeds for a Vampire Republic campaign:
- Peasants in a remote village go missing, last seen being "hunted" by a local vampire lord's sadistic offspring. The PCs must investigate.
- Propaganda portraits of the immortal Regent begin appearing across the land, a sign he seeks to consolidate power ahead of a succession crisis.
- A revolutionary cell is betrayed and wiped out - the PCs must uncover who infiltrated their network before trust unravels the resistance entirely.
- Rumours of a hidden witch coven preserving ancestral magic draw the PCs into a trap laid by the vampires' occult experts seeking new blood sorcery.
- Protests break out in Târgoviște after a high-profile dissident is tortured to death by the secret police. The PCs are caught up in the clashes.
- An abandoned mountain monastery yields clues to religious artifacts with mystic properties threatening to vampire rule. A powerful family seeks to possess them.
- Promising young servitors are recruited into a new paramilitary force the Regent uses to "disappear" rivals - but its commander harbours his own agenda.
- A peasant village is orchestrating mass escapes over the border, with help from woodsman guerillas. The vampires hire the PCs to infiltrate and destroy this smuggling network.
- A human scholar has possibly uncovered evidence that contradicts the vampires' narrative about being the true natives of Transylvania. The secret police scramble to find them before their findings spread.
- Peasants in a remote valley have begun developing resistance to vampire abilities like mesmerism and blood sorcery.
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