How to Make Yourself a Lair in V Rising

We once again return to the land of Vardoran, to stalk the night once more. And yet, what of the day, when Vampires must skulk in the shadows or burn to a crisp? Many an enterprising undead might wonder what they can do about this confounding daylight, as hunting, fighting and even gathering resources become far more perilous. The simple answer of hiding in shadow to wait for night to return, while effective in keeping you alive to see another moon, is simply lacking. If one must spend those daylight hours somewhere, it would be far better to spend them in a lush castle rather than hiding in the shadows of the forest. But, knowing what you want is just half the battle, the other half is figuring out how to get there.

The first step in constructing your lair is unlocking the ability to build. Thankfully, this comes quickly, at level 10. Before you reach that point, make sure to stock up on Lumber, Stone, and Blood Essences. These are the three primary materials you’ll be using to construct your lair.

The construction proper begins once you have accepted the Lord of Shadow quest. At this point, you will be instructed to place your Castle’s heart. As mentioned in a previous overview of the game, the heart requires blood essence to live, keep your castle intact, and defend you from intruders. A castle without a sufficient amount of blood essence can shrivel up and die, leaving the spot it occupied open for any other aspiring vampire lord to take.

As the castle’s heart is so important, you should make sure that it is in a safe location. And this is true not only of the heart itself, but of the castle. Make sure to give yourself every advantage while building your castle. As you’ll eventually be able to teleport, being near points of interest is less of a boon and more of a bane, as putting yourself in the path of foot traffic means easy access to your castle for any invaders. And as for your heart, the more walls and servants that an enemy needs to make their way past, the better.

When you initially start to build, you’ll notice your walls seem somewhat, crude. This is because the materials used have not been refined. This is a problem easily rectified, as your lair is not only a place to sleep, but a place to progress your undead agenda. So not only can you place your coffin and chests, but you can construct sawmills, workbenches, furnaces, and other stations that will allow you to improve not only your castle, but improve your gear, help you track down enemies, protect your land from the sun, and much more.

And while you could just build one large room and stick all of your stations in there, that’s not particularly suited to the vampiric style, and the game rewards you for following that style. The stronger walls (which also come with roofs) are pure gothic, and each station gets a bonus for being in its own defined room, and for having matching flooring, which will give you bonuses to speed and a reduction in production costs.

The building of your vampiric lair is a task suitably towering for one with an undead lifetime, but the rewards are great, and we’ve only scratched the surface of what is possible in a Vampiric Lair. Until we meet again under the cover of darkness my undead brethren, may the sun never grace your skin.