[Ben_S]

A kind of odd question, perhaps, but I think my knowledge of vampire lore may be out of date. I used to play Undead when they were one army (4th edition) and then VC when they first split (5th edition). The 5th edition book introduced bloodlines, which I think was a first at the time, but didn't to my knowledge include Strigoi so obviously there have been some developments since then.

Anyway, in the 5th edition army book, Thralls are basically the lowest level of vampire: you have Lords, Counts, and Thralls. However, I was thinking of running a Vampire Blood Bowl team and there there is a distinction between Vampires and Thralls, where the latter seem to be basically human servants (and sometimes prey). Neither source, so far as I'm aware, is particularly explicit about what Thralls are.

Is this just a case where BB fluff differs from that of WFB? Or has what a Thrall is changed over time?

 

[Marius the Possessed]

Thralls are not currently an entry in the Vampire codex, but the traditional meaning has varied from source to source. For some, a vampire's thrall can be a person or ghoul subsumed into the master vampire's service; in Bram Stoker's Dracula, for example, the mental patient and former solicitor Renfield is a thrall, and very much human. In Warhammer, the fluff at least, thralls seem to be the weaker portions of a vampire's get, so they would be the sired Vampires that aren't strong enough to break their master's control.

So you could run them as either newly-born Vampires, or as completely devoted human servants/slaves.

 

[Ben_S]

the traditional meaning has varied from source to source. For some, a vampire's thrall can be a person or ghoul subsumed into the master vampire's service; in Bram Stoker's Dracula, for example...

Yeah, I was aware of that - and even more so after a bit of Googling. I was particularly interested in what Thralls are in the GW/Warhammer universe (assuming this includes Blood Bowl, though realising that may differ from WFB). Thanks for the reply though. Sounds as if there's no clear answer, which explains why I couldn't find one.