Let's Make... Alucard Hellsing! — Vault Of The Sages

For today’s Let’s Make… we are crafting Alucard Hellsing, as seen in the Hellsing Manga/Anime. There are many “Alucard’s” in fiction, with this one being fairly unique, with several difficult to adapt abilities. So without any further delay, let’s make…

Alucard Hellsing

D&D Beyond
https://ddb.ac/characters/44781281/u5FVlU

So for those not familiar with the source material, Alucard, in this series, is Dracula himself, not his son, or a half-vampire of any kind. While possessing's the usual strength and speed of vampires in fiction, he has a set of abilities that are fairly unique, and require a bit of homebrew to get right.

First, let’s discuss his race. Clearly Alucard is a Dhampir, as it gives him all his base vampire kit. So we now have cool features like a health restoring bite and the ability to walk on walls. For the abilities he carried over from his former life, I went with stealth and persuasion, as both are a big part of the Alucard of today.

For class, I went with 18 Shadow Sorcerer, 2 Fiend Warlock. The Sorcerer spells give Alucard access to many of the core abilities we see in the manga/show, and more importantly it gives him access to the shadow abilities of the subclass, which represent his ability to control darkness, as well as form it into a dog, represented here by the Sorcerer ability “Hound of Ill Omen”. But overall, the Shadow subclass abilities are what makes this “Let’s Make” work. From surviving death with “Strength of the Grave” to teleporting and becoming darkness with “Shadow Walk and “Umbral Form”, for Alucard it’s all about the shadow.

The Warlock levels are a small dip, but I believe they add flavor to the build. By having a Fiend Patron, we have something that represents his original pact with the Devil, while also gaining the ability to regenerate (temporary) health with his kills via “Dark One’s Blessing”. Equally important, his invocations allow him to see through magical darkness (considered a cheesy combo when paired with the darkness spell, I know, but in the show/books it’s core to how he fights). Plus, the cantrips he gains allow him to fire what is technically his eldritch blasts.

I say technically, as this is when a bit of homebrewed flavor shows up. In my Alucard build, he does carry pistols, and he shoots them all the time, as they are one of his primary means of dealing damage. But what he is actually shooting are… eldritch blasts. This allows him to have all the gun toting flavor of the original character, while still giving him an in-game way to deal out heavy damage every round. In my version of Alucard, every offensive cantrip he has is just a type of ammunition for his twin firearms. Technically, this actually makes him slightly weaker, as if anything were to disarm him completely, I would rule that he wouldn’t be able to cast the cantrips.

Now on to Heroforge!

Alucard Hellsing

By Heroforge
https://www.heroforge.com/load_config%3D19954076/

Not every character is easy to recreate in Heroforge, but Alucard went quite well. Their trench coat, suit, and tie gave me most of his look, and they had a floppy brimmed hat that came pretty close to the original. I chose modern looking guns, which would be a bit out of place in D&D, but given they are eldritch in nature (and given the fact that Alucard is best suited to an Eberron-style setting), I still think it works. And although Heroforge’s familiar options are limited, a see-through shadow fox at least gives some representation of his shadow magic. Perhaps I should have thrown in some black tentacles as well.

Well that’s it for today’s Let’s Make… hopefully you enjoyed my version of Alucard.

Happy roleplaying, and may the dice be ever in your favor.