I was reading Bastion Press' Out for Blood recently and contemplating rebuilding the vampire variants with Pathfinder Unchained's simple monster creation, not that I could ever run a game between my job and my dislike of PF's verbose mechanics, which got me thinking about vampire hunting and how to keep a Captain Kronos-style vampire hunting campaign fresh after the first dozen hunts.

What sorts of plots and vampire variants have you used in vampire hunter campaigns? When did things get stale? What did you do to preserve freshness?

By mixing it up. Either amongst the vampires or by introducing new threats.

example: Say the towns plagued by a vampire. But turns out there are actually two present but they are working together such to make it appear as if only one is around. That way if one gets staked the other may have a chance to recover them long as they too arent discovered.

Or what looks like a vampire problem is really a mad scientist type building a blood golem or working on an eternal life formula. Or even a blood mage whos amassing a huge pool of blood for some really big spell.

Or its a variant of giant spider or giant mosquito, bat, leech etc.

Or instead the next towns plagued by zombies under the command of a voodoo master.

Or a vengefull specter of a vampires victem. Friend or foe?

Or good ol natural human greed and murder placing the blame on someone else claiming they are a vampire to cover the dirty deed.

and so on.

Simple: in today's interconnected world, there's more room than ever for some horrible bloodsucking monster disguised as a human(or not) to ship themselves by FedEx and disappear into the urban wilderness. A creature like a bunyip, mananganal, yakshi or sasabonsam, used to slim pickings in villages, would find LA or NYC a buffet.
PCs tired of staking Gothboiz? Send a flying head with a bundle of entangling intestines after any NPCs they care about - see what they think then!

If all you do is hunt vampires that gets dull pretty quick.  It's vampires' and worlds response and the political interconnections that will make it interesting and a "story arc" will emerge.   There just need to be effects and consequences on the world, and a reaction by same thereto and all is good.

Quote from: Xanther;953138If all you do is hunt vampires that gets dull pretty quick.  It's vampires' and worlds response and the political interconnections that will make it interesting and a "story arc" will emerge.   There just need to be effects and consequences on the world, and a reaction by same thereto and all is good.

That's true (to an extent). One can make a campaign about the hunt for a single individual, if there's enough variety of obstacles in getting to be in the same room as that individual.
Likewise "vampire" is not a monster, it's a whole category/monster archetype: "the thing shaped like a man that hunts man".
You can even have false vampires - creatures with similar exsanguinary habits, but no curse or undead was, or even nocturnal habits.
I once introduced "Twilight" vampires into a game as a degenerate faery lineage - the sparkling was a the last, pathetic holdover of their glamour.
And the players hated them as much as any Drac.

Quote from: dsivis;953222Likewise "vampire" is not a monster, it's a whole category/monster archetype: "the thing shaped like a man that hunts man".

Yeah, it's not like all vampires need to be the same carbon-copy Transylvanian in a cape. They could be as varied as regular human are... with varied powers and resources. Rich, poor, young, old... insane, stupid, brilliant, creative. Some might find ways to enlist the aid of humans... might have a small army of well-equipped soldiers willing to defend it (or whatever the vampire has convinced them they're defending). Some might be part of elaborate networks or cults or gangs... others could be lone serial killers.
Seems like plenty of variety before you even get around to adding in other sorts of creatures and weird magics.

Never ran a vampire-hunting campaign.