Every month, my Patreon supporters post questions that I answer in my live Q&A sessions. However, sometimes a question demands a longer answer. This month, someone asked… 

Who is the most dominant vampire in Sharn, and what can you tell us about them?

Something to keep in mind is that Eberron is a world where people KNOW vampires exist. Champions of Dol Arrah, templars of the Silver Flame, and the Aereni Deathguard—not to mention, say, the bold adventurers of Clifftop—all actively hunt vampires. Given this, I think that there’s been a few powerful vampires over the centuries that have spread their influence through Sharn only to be uprooted and destroyed; the city isn’t teeming with vampires. Canonically, the Sharn: City of Towers sourcebook mentions two vampires currently in residence in Sharn. One is an undercover operative of the Emerald Claw who keeps a low profile, supporting visiting EC forces rather than leading operations herself. The other is Calderus. Sharn: City of Towers tells us this. 

Far beneath the towers of Sharn, in the lost regions of the Depths, lies the ancient psionic vampire Calderus. From within her hidden crypt, Calderus wields significant power in the City of Towers. Though she rarely leaves her sanctuary, she rules the Servants, a network of enslaved vampires and dominated pawns of various races. This network of spies and agents operates as her eyes, ears, and hands in the city, advancing her plots and gathering intelligence that adds to the vampire lord’s significant storehouse of information.

That’s ALL that the sourcebook says. We don’t know how old Calderus is, how powerful she is, what “psionic” means here or how she came to be a psionic vampire, how long the Servants have been active, or even what ancestry Calderus is. She’s an idea, but a vague one. Given that, there’s lots of different things you could do with Calderus. Here’s a few possibilities. 

Heir of Dhakaan

Calderus is a hobgoblin vampire. She was sired by the Dirge Singer Iraala and tasked to help with the internal security of the Empire. She watched over the great city of Ja’Shaarat, and during the Xoriat Incursion she personally faced the daelkyr Dyrrn the Corruptor. Calderus survived the battle but was left comatose, and was interred in a fortified crypt. What no one knew was that Dyrrn had cast Calderus’s mind into Xoriat. For thousands of years she fought her way through the horrors Dyrrn had set in her path. Her spirit finally forced its way through the horrors and returned to her body a few centuries ago, only to find that the city had risen and fallen many times while she slept. Calderus’ travails left deep scars on their mind, but the experience unlocked vast telepathic power. As a vampire, Calderus has no connection to the Uul Dhakaan and it was obvious to her that the Empire has fallen. So she’s built her own new network of power, watching the Chaat’oor and contemplating what to do with her. In the last few decades she’s encountered the Shaarat’khesh and learned of the Heirs of Dhakaan. But again, Calderus’s time in Xoriat twisted her. She is paranoid and distrusts the Kech Dhakaan. The laws of Dhakaan maintained that no vampire could be Marhu, and it was in service to Dhakaan that she suffered incalculable torments at the hands of Dyrrn. Besides which, Dyrrn defeated her; if any Dhakaan survived, they might be in league with the Daelkyr, or even unwitting tools of them. The upshot of this is that Calderus has no desire to aid the Kech Dhakaan or to restore the empire. Calderus serves only Calderus. She may in fact act against the Shaarat’khesh, exposing their plans. At the same time, she hates Dyrrn and the daeelkyr; she could point adventurers toward Cults of the Dragon Below. But Calderus serves only herself and her own interests. She has no peers, and all other creatures are cattle to her. Perhaps the Kech Nasaar could regain her trust, if it served the story… or perhaps she would seek to slay her sire and seize control of the Nasaar. 

The First Mind Seed

When the Dreaming Dark first engaged with the material plane, it recognized the potential in Sarlona—seeing the dominos it could trigger to set off the Sundering. But it took generations to set the Sundering in motion, and in that time agents of the Dark explored other options. Calderus was an influential priest in the first iteration of Sharn, and the first human of Khorvaire to be infected with a mind seed by the quori Tirashana. When the Sundering went into effect, Calderus was forgotten. Left on her own, she developed her own ambitions. But she knew that she would never be free as long as Tirashana could reach her in her dreams. And so she arranged to become a vampire—murdering her elf sire soon after her transformation. Her victory was short-lived; she was caught in the collapse of Sharn during the War of the Mark and buried in the depths. But she survived, and when the city rose again, Calderus was part of it. If you embrace this vision of Calderus, the idea is that the Servants are a powerful force within Sharn and that Calderus has been active throughout its history—but her only interest is maintaining that influence. Sharn is her kingdom, even if no one realizes the power she wields. She has pulled strings, bringing families together, causing and ending feuds, all without anyone knowing. The Boromar Clan prospered because Calderus wished it; now Calderus is deciding whether to intervene in its conflict with Daask, or whether she’s tired of the halflings. But she has a new concern: The Dreaming Dark is now active in Khorvaire, and Tirashana herself has interests in Sharn. To some degree, Calderus IS Tirashana. She knows how the quori thinks and can anticipate her actions, and this has allowed the vampire to evade her notice. But Calderus is terrified of drawing the attention of il-Lashtavar. She won’t fight the Dreaming Dark directly; but she could provide subtle assistance to a group that’s dealing with Tirashana and her agents. 

These are both fine ideas. Both provide an explanation for why they’re psionic vampires, and how they could have been around for a long time without attracting too much attention. You could certainly use one of these options in your campaign. But neither of these are the option *I’d* use for Calderus. Let’s look behind door number three. 

Lady Calderus

Sharn: City of Towers says that Calderus has a hidden crypt in a lost region of the Depths—the forgotten ruins of past incarnations of Sharn. She was buried there, it’s true, but not in a crypt. A few years ago, a group of adventurers sponsored by Morgrave University explored a new path leading to ruins of Breggor’s Sharn, the city that collapsed in the War of the Mark. One of the explorers had an aberrant dragonmark, and an accident involving shifting rubble shed some of his blood… and few drops were sufficient to wake Calderus. 

Calderus was there when the city was destroyed. In life, she bore a dragonmark with a strong connection to Mabar. In the final moments of her life, Calderus drew on the full power and potential of her dragonmark, something she’d always been afraid to do. She fueled that act with her own life force, and even as she died she unwittingly bound her soul to the Eternal Night—siring herself as a new form of vampire. Although she survived, she was completely drained and slumbered amidst the rubble… until those drops of aberrant blood woke her. She woke hungry, consuming the man who’d unwittingly restored her. She turned the other adventurers into her thralls, the first of her servants. She had them address her by her name, Calderus, for she was certain no one would recognize it. In her first life, she had abandoned the name early on, and taken another; allies and enemies alike knew her as the Lady of the Plague. 

As a vampire, Calderus essentially possesses an Apex Aberrant Mark. In the same way that Erandis Vol’s Mark of Death connects her to Dolurrh, Calderus’s mark of plague and vermin lets her draw on the power of Mabar. But as Erandis discovered, dragonmarks don’t work for the undead. Calderus died when she unleashed her death curse upon Sharn. A few powers of her mark remain. She still retains the ability to summon and control vermin, and this has expanded to allow her to control her humanoid victims in the same way she controls rats. This is what’s interpreted as her “psionic” power: Calderus can see through the eyes of her victims and even dominate them completely if she chooses. But she has lost her power over plagues, the power that could level cities. And she faces a challenge: the only blood that fully sustains her is the blood of people who bear aberrant dragonmarks. 

This version of Calderus only awoke a few years ago, and she is still gathering her servants. She is still new to the modern age, and has much to learn… and she is still sorting out her own goals. The first thing she did was to have her servants comb the rubble-choked area of her “tomb”. One thing was missing: the body of her beloved Halas Tarkanan. It’s possible they were separated in the collapse, but Calderus is convinced her lover somehow survived the destruction of Sharn and is desperate to find more as to what became of him. She despises the Dragonmarked Houses and yearns for vengeance against them, but she wants to be VERY careful not to reveal her existence to them. And she’s torn in that she has sympathy for those who carry aberrant dragonmarks, but she has to consume them to survive. She’s watching House Tarkanan, and may be helping it in subtle ways… but she’s also picking off its weaker members one by one to feed her endless appetite. The halfling girl Zae has an aberrant dragonmark that lets her communicate with rats, an echo of Calderus’s own power. It’s possible that Zae has become the Renfield to Calderus’s Dracula, that Zae serves as the mortal eyes and ears of the vampire within House Tarkanan. Alternately, Zae could in fact be connected to the SAME mark as Calderus—and under the right circumstances, she could steal the power completely and become the new Lady of the Plague. If this is possible, it could mean that someone else in the world has the earthshaking power of Halas Tarkanan. Regardless of this, Lady Calderus is spreading her network of servants, seeking to gain information and influence, and particularly trying to find information about the fate of Halas Tarkanan and to find ways to take vengeance on the Twelve… while also struggling with her own hunger for aberrant blood. Unlike Erandis Vol, Calderus doesn’t particularly want to restore her dragonmark; spreading plagues was more of a nightmare than a gift. 

If I had more time, I’d create a full, unique stat block for Calderus. But I don’t have that time for that right now. So as a placeholder I’d say that Calderus has the power of a Vampire Umbral Lord with a few modifications, reflecting the fact that she is the founder of her own strain of Vampirism…

• Calderus and her spawn aren’t harmed by running water, but they’re vulnerable to fire. 
• Calderus and her spawn can’t assume mist form or perform a Shadow Escape, but they can take the form of a swarm of rats or insects. Such a swarm can break up and flee in multiple directions, and as long as a single component of the swarm returns to the vampire’s tomb, the vampire can reform. In the case of Calderus herself, if she’s fully slain she might still return as a disease and be reborn in the body of the first person to die from this disease. 
• Calderus and her spawn exert influence over rats, insects, and other forms of vermin. If you’re using Sharn: City of Towers, Calderus could command Rancid Beetle Swarms and Roach Thralls. 
• Calderus is psychically connected to all of her spawn and to anyone affected by her Sanguine Drain. She can communicate with any of these victims telepathically, and can cast Detect Thoughts or Beast Sense on them at will at any range. She can fully possess and control any of her spawn, though this doesn’t change the stat block of the victim in any way. This provides an opportunity for adventurers to interact with Calderus at a relatively low level; they can encounter servants working for one of her spawn, who serves as a host for Calderus despite being much weaker. 

Overall, the point of this Calderus is that she has no ties to any of the major power groups in Eberron and is still quite unfamiliar with the modern age. She is actively spreading her network of servants, and adventurers can conflict with her as she does this. But at the end of the day, Calderus isn’t trying to take over the world. She hates and fears the Dragonmarked Houses, and wants a strong enough power base to protect herself against them; this is the primary purpose of the Servants. Calderus wants to know what became of Halas Tarkanan. She wants to assist House Tarkanan but isn’t willing to risk revealing herself to them—all the more so because she needs to consume aberrants to survive. She doesn’t yet KNOW what her end game is—though she would love to see the Twelve burn. 

So: who’s the most powerful vampire in Sharn? It’s one of these three… but only the DM knows which one! Thanks as always to my Patreon supporters for asking interesting questions and making these articles possible.