Early Vampires [Horror]

[AlexanderHowl]

In the earliest vampire literature (The Vampyre, Carmilla, Dracula, etc) vampires lack many of the 'traditional' weaknesses, especially a weakness to sunlight, a need to sleep in a coffin, etc.. In effect, they end up being very, very powerful compared to 'traditional' vampires. How would you go about using such vampires in horror campaigns?

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In the earliest vampire literature (The Vampyre, Carmilla, Dracula, etc) vampires lack many of the 'traditional' weaknesses, especially a weakness to sunlight, a need to sleep in a coffin, etc.. In effect, they end up being very, very powerful compared to 'traditional' vampires. How would you go about using such vampires in horror campaigns?

Vampires don't need a whole bunch of weaknesses. All they need is one exploitable one. Carmilla for example may not burn in sunlight but she has access to none of her supernatural strengths in the day time beyond being hard to kill. In fact she's weaker than a normal human woman in the day, dangerous only in that her pitiable helplessness allows her to take advantage of people's protective impulses. Once she is exposed as a monster all that is necessary is to find her daytime resting place and she's easily overpowered and killed by decapitation. Ruthven betrays no particular supernatural powers beyond a certain unnatural charisma and being Unkillable.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In the earliest vampire literature (The Vampyre, Carmilla, Dracula, etc) vampires lack many of the 'traditional' weaknesses, especially a weakness to sunlight, a need to sleep in a coffin, etc.. In effect, they end up being very, very powerful compared to 'traditional' vampires. How would you go about using such vampires in horror campaigns?

To answer that, you have to ask yourself, "what is a vampire, exactly?" and "why are there vampires at all"? That is, you want vampires to be just another encounter monster, or something unsettling and unusual, more specifically unnerving and horrific? That in turn tells you how to use the vampire in a story or game.

[Flyndaran]

And at least pay lip service to the question of why, if they're so powerful with few weaknesses, aren't they in complete control of the world.

I admit that many settings like wainscot fantasy straight up ignore that issue. But as a player, I would still want at least a "half-butted" justification.

[Alden Loveshade]

GURPS Bloodtypes is an excellent source for gameable vampires. It's Third Edition, but still quite useful for Fourth Edition.

Back in the 1990s, when people including me were discovering the Internet, a friend and I used it as a source to tell people online what type of vampire they were. We had a lot of fun doing it.

[Polydamas]

I am sorry, I can't be creative right now.

I think Night's Black Agents (Ken Hite/Pelgraine Press) and GURPS Undead have their authors' take on variant vampires. There are also the Chinese hopping vampires.

[Apollonian]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In the earliest vampire literature (The Vampyre, Carmilla, Dracula, etc) vampires lack many of the 'traditional' weaknesses, especially a weakness to sunlight, a need to sleep in a coffin, etc.. In effect, they end up being very, very powerful compared to 'traditional' vampires. How would you go about using such vampires in horror campaigns?

Older vampires tended to have other weaknesses - sometimes absolutely crippling ones. Dracula required... consecrated soil? Homeland soil? It's not entirely clear in the novel. He also couldn't enter a private dwelling without an invitation. He couldn't cross running water - or at least, tidal water, including rivers up to the tidehead. He appears to have been weakened somewhat in sunlight, though he was certainly able to move around in full daylight. And of course, he had no reflection, and had a very faint shadow.

Folklore vampires, of course, get really weird.

[Michele]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

In effect, they end up being very, very powerful compared to 'traditional' vampires. How would you go about using such vampires in horror campaigns?

Huh, as major threats. Once the PCs have finished Vampire Killing 101, have put paid to some standard vampires, and have spent earned CPs to become, themselves, more formidable, more powerful opponents are needed. And they might be these "early" - or, maybe, older - vampires.

Personally, while I see why enemies that replicate themselves biologically should not differ very much from each other, I think that with vampires, one is justified to have significant differences. The Masquerade, IIRC, also proposed a rather reasonable explanation to that. Older vampires - not just in age, but in generation - were simply more powerful, probably because their (whatever: blood? original evil? black magic?) was less diluted.

[Flyndaran]

That's also something that may get overlooked in the Buffy franchise. Gaining power and losing human traits over time is obvious. But there's also quite a bit of reference to sheer beginning and potential power through closeness to "old gods" and their blood.
(I've been on a Buffy kick lately, so have been learning things I never noticed when watching the first time.)
Mind controlled or fledgling monsters work great as generic mooks, but I also prefer some variation in named enemy vampires.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

And at least pay lip service to the question of why, if they're so powerful with few weaknesses, aren't they in complete control of the world.

I admit that many settings like wainscot fantasy straight up ignore that issue. But as a player, I would still want at least a "half-butted" justification.

It varies with the myth or the story.

One restriction that the concept really needs is that it's not necessarily easy to make a new vampire. This is necessary because otherwise you'd tend to get the classic 'penny a day doubling every day' effect. One vampire would become millions in a very short time if the transformation is as easy as it's sometimes portrayed. If you assume that easy transformation, you need to assume a limiting factor.

(Some writers have used the fast transform to good effect: Stephen King, back in his glory days, had a nightmarishly effective sequence in his novel Salem's Lot in which the whole town gets turned that way in the course of a night or so, except for one guy who escapes by virtue of a completely natural heart attack before he even realizes anything is happening. But King doesn't explain why this sort of thing appears to be rare, either.)

I tend to prefer versions where it's really difficult to successfully make a new vampire. Most of the time the blood-drained corpse just dies. Either it takes special conditions or real effort on the part of the first vampire to make a new one, or some degree of consent (not necessarily informed consent, of course) is required, or only the oldest and most powerful vampires can do it, something like that.