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Was this all written out prior to the PC bringing it up in game? If not then you of course have editorial power. Collaborate with the player. Take them aside and say you have some cool story plots in your backstory and I would like to incorporate them into MY world. Remember it is your world and you can edit as you see fit but if you include the player you can get their buy in and they will be excited to contribute.
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Your best bet would be to talk to the dhampirs player and ask if they are ok with the backstory and parents being brought into play, and if they'd be ok with the parents possibly dying if things come to that. If they don't feel comfortable with the idea, they will say so.
But it could be they've been tossing you plot hooks on purpose!
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Your players may not be like me in this regard, but I quite enjoy having my characters back story involved in the campaign.
You may want to talk to your players and, with out going into specifics, ask if anything is off limits in their back story for you to play with.
If you allow alterations to back story as the game goes on you will find new advantages coming into play. I mean basically the PC just gave himself nobility, wealth, and lots of extras that are just being brought in willy nilly....
My character died well that's OK uncle Bob is a 10th level cleric and I already gave him enough diamond dust for both the raise dead and the restoration of negative levels..
Bah, humbug.
The player hasn't given her player character anything other than backstory. That's fine. No, that's great! Sure, the characters in the PCs backstory might have resources - but giving them to the party is still up to the GM. Does it seem contrived that the PC aren't given free stuff? Well, ask the player why. The player came up with the resources in the first place and can be the one to explain them away. If necessary.
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On a side note, I love that the player comes up with backstory as the play goes along. Sure, it can get weird, but I'd take it any day over reading four pages someone wrote before the game even started. Talking about your characters past during game really bring them alive, for everyone around the table.
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I'm not quite sure I see your problem Master Codex. The player as developed a backstory. You think it's a bit much, a bit ill contrived. Right?
Talk to the player! Maybe he's fine with it staying backstory. Maybe you can work out the quirks in the story, get it to fit better with your vision of the world. Maybe you can work together and come up with a cool story for an adventure that really puts the player in the spotlight.
I once had a player play a samurai elf in an otherwise rather european-ish gameworld. I'm no fan of samurais or Japanese culture really, but this player was. So when the samurai entered play, I kind of ignored it. The player wasn't the type who came up with alot of backstory nor took the spotlight often.
It dawned on me that this was rather bad GMing of me, here I had a player playing an unusual character who might need some help fleshing her out and at the same time shine at the table. I didn't know if this was true, but I talk to the player about it. It was rather obvious that the PC came from some sort of pseudo- feudal Japan, but we talked about what was important in this concept. Clans and feuds between them, a strict class society and some xenophobia turned out to be what made the characters homeland according to the player. So I placed this far-away land in the south, gave it some jungles and an oread underclass serving the elf-samuaris. Then party went there, with the samurai player really shining around the table - bring the rest of the players up to speed on important details and persons that I and the player had created beforehand.
The player should decide whether his backstory becomes involved in the campaign or not. If he agrees with it, then all bets are off. If he'd prefer to keep it as backstory, then just leave it in the background as story fluff.
I have a player that came up with a backstory of finding his long lost brother. He said he wanted it to be an end goal for his player, so I worked it into the story. I modified one part of Second Darkness to serve as the adventure backbone for that story line when the time comes.
I appreciate the players having a backstory, because it means they're investing in the GM's world. If they want it involved in the adventure, then I am more than happy to oblige.
If you have players who want their backstories to tie into the campaign, in all seriousness *USE THAT*. Your players are doing your work as the GM for you, and this is pretty much the best thing that players can do for their GM.
Not only does this require much less work for the GM, players almost always appreciate it when their ideas get worked into the campaign setting and the plot. You might want to clear it with the player first a la "would you be okay if your mother turned into an NPC and potentially an antagonist (If you decide to oppose her)"? There are players who will absolutely eat this stuff up, and if you happen to have one of them run with it.
FWIW, something my group has done for the last couple years is to write out detailed character backstories before we actually stat up our characters, then submit them to the GM and the GM works as many of the details in said backstories in the campaign or in general world-building as possible (usually the seeds of "what the campaign is about" are seeded in these.) For my last character, I submitted 23 pages (10 point font, single spaced) in which I created/outlined the history of two empires, five ethnic groups, a prestigious fencing academy, a religious order, an organized crime syndicate, and a taxonomy of local wines. Obviously the GM has veto or edit power, but it would be silly to turn down material that your players are just giving to you (and before you say "23 pages is too much", the guy who's GMing now once gave me 41 pages of background information, so I'm going light on him.)
It's a bit weird near the end, but like I said, it's not unheard of and he's a player, the characters the players take control of aren't just some random joe, their future heroes and legends, so it's fine if he has some odd background, but my question was if I involved a story with them, how could I handle it without upsetting the player. I also didn't want to spoil anything, but fortunately Neils gave me a good way to ask EVERYONE without having to ruin anything nor step on anyones toes.
Okey. Niels is right, it's great to talk to your players about backstories - why do they create backstories in the first place, how much should be brought into play, what is the GM allowed to do with what the players create and what steps on their toes.
But, as I sort of tried to illustrate with my example was that you can go into specifics with a single player, talk to him or her in detail about the characters backstory and your plans. This isn't necessarily spoiling the fun for anyone. First, it might be a way of giving the which usually contributes little to the game world knowledge an edge over the wizard who's player have read every fluff there is. Having one player in advance knowing stuff about NPCs they're going to meet is not a problem.
Second, you can ask rather specific questions to the player without giving away your entire plot of an adventure.
Say »Hey, I see you've given us quite the backstory on your character. I'd like to use it, centre an adventure around your characters family, but I'm not sure if you'd be comfortable with me doing that. Say, what if your vampire mother where to die? Okey, that's allright with you? Now, can you come up with some allies and enemies to this noble mother of yours. Great, I'll build something with this.«
Sure, you tell your player that his mother is probably going to die in an upcoming adventure. And the player can even name one or three who might have something to do with it. But if you're planing a sort of muder-plot, the murder is going to take place early or before hand anyway so knowing that gives the player nothing. Then you twist and turn, making allies traitors and an enemy of the mother an unexpected friend. And the player will be even more surprised than the rest of the party, because he (thought) he knew these guys!