Crimson Mist

A thick crimson haze floats lazily through the air. Every few seconds, some of the mist coalesces into a drop of liquid that spatters beneath it, leaving a thin trail of blood in its wake.

All vampires die horribly when exposed to the sun’s golden rays. Yet when a vampire is killed by sunlight while feeding upon a living victim, its blood-fattened body explodes into a fine, crimson mist. The vampire’s mind and personality are destroyed by the light of the sun, but its unholy lust for blood and hatred of the living persist in the form of a cloud of sanguine mist.

Bloody Thoughts
A crimson mist begins its existence as an unthinking creature of animalistic instincts. However, as it feeds on the blood of the living, it also feeds on their thoughts. Over years of feeding, fragmented memories from hundreds of victims—and sometimes even memories from the vampire that spawned it—congeal into a patchwork consciousness. The unending torment of fractured thoughts and incoherent schemes only drives the mist deeper into homicidal madness.

Reclaimed Memories
Some mists overcome the chaos of their thoughts and are able to create a cogent personality from the disparate snapshots of hundreds of lives. These mists gain the ability to speak any language their victims knew and can draw upon dozens of personas as they toy with their victims.

They occasionally form into humanoid silhouettes, as if trying to regain their lost humanity. A mist that has reformed a personality has an Intelligence score of 17 (+3), a Wisdom score of 15 (+2), and a Charisma score of 18 (+4). Its Wisdom and Charisma saving throws increase to Wisdom +4 and Charisma +6. It also gains the ability to speak all languages it knew in life.

Undead Nature
The crimson mist doesn’t require air, food, drink, or sleep.