Reinventing the Vampire

[Flyndaran]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

A Swedish game supplement suggest three fears that vampires embody:

1. Life without Hope
2. Lust without Love
3. Dead without Peace

Hunger without satiation.
I never knew true hunger until I suffered hyperthyroidism and was too poor to get the vast quantities of palatable food I wanted. Going a couple of days without food now is nothing compared to the sheer anger I felt then that food was not already in my mouth.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Irish Wolf

To avoid the "blood bank" thing, you could always invoke something hinted at, but never really well-enforced, by White Wolf's Vampire games:

What the vampire feeds on isn't literally blood, but the life-force of the victim - their vitality, their "spark of life", that ineluctable something that separates the living from the dead. It seems logical that this "spark" wouldn't be present in bagged blood - no matter how good a healer you are, you can't make a bag of blood get up and walk around under its own power. Instead, the sustenance must be supped from a living human being (assume that the "life energy" of other life-forms is the wrong frequency or something - no, you can't "retain your humanity" by feeding on rats or dogs. You must sap human beings of their energy in order to survive - and you like it).

There may even be other ways to drain this energy - but for one reason or another, blood is easiest.

While my vampires were more materalistic, I got around blood bags by having stored blood be impossible to stomach due the anti-coagulant that has to be added to it to make it keep. I never had a problem with vampires decimating the pet population. Honestly players tend to find that more horrifying than attacks on humans.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

The one I am tired of is vampires who are dumbed down. A vampire that desires the PC to go on a heroic quest to free him from his unnatural state is fine. A vampire that acts as a private detective is just plain annoying.

As far as "romantic" vampires go, I think the word is "seductive". The idea of subtle siren type traps may have been less stressed in modern fantastic taste but is a nice alternative to ghosts.

Good choice of words. The thing about 'seductive' is that it is in origin a negative descriptor, to be 'seduced' was seen as a bad thing. It implies lies, deception, betrayal, illicitness.

The modern 'romantic' vampire is simply that same concept, only spun as 'let's pretend the illusion was reality' and make the vampire a convenient prop for immortality/eternal youth fantasies. The romance-novel vampire draws on the same current cultural tropes as transhumanist fantasy.

(Note that that the romance-novel vampire usually doesn't fear sacred symbols, garlic, etc. Sometimes sunlight is feared (but also note that this is Hollywood, Dracula originally did not fear the sun, it merely reduced his power, it didn't harm him). The key is to make the vampire an alternative lifestyle for use in formula romance.

Which isn't to say that this concept can't be respun for horroric resonance. A naive youth who grew up on goth and vampire romances might well be usefully vulnerable to a monster than knew how to prey on that naivete.

[Johnny1A.2]

Originally Posted by Irish Wolf

To avoid the "blood bank" thing, you could always invoke something hinted at, but never really well-enforced, by White Wolf's Vampire games:

What the vampire feeds on isn't literally blood, but the life-force of the victim - their vitality, their "spark of life", that ineluctable something that separates the living from the dead. It seems logical that this "spark" wouldn't be present in bagged blood - no matter how good a healer you are, you can't make a bag of blood get up and walk around under its own power. Instead, the sustenance must be supped from a living human being (assume that the "life energy" of other life-forms is the wrong frequency or something - no, you can't "retain your humanity" by feeding on rats or dogs. You must sap human beings of their energy in order to survive - and you like it).

There may even be other ways to drain this energy - but for one reason or another, blood is easiest.

This^^^^.

Letting the vampire feed on the life-essence of the victim, with the blood as a carrier, is almost certainly the best way to go for horror vampire stories and games. It fits and solves several problems in one stroke.

The victim is thus suffering from a double-blow, weakened by blood loss and loss of something more fundamental at the same time. Thus, blood transfusions will help a victim of a vampire predation, up to a point, it helps with the physical loss, but by themselves only stave off the inevitable, since they don't restore the Life stolen by the monster.

This fits with my idea that a vampire feeds a little on everyone around them, all the time, but this process is slow and subtle without blood as a carrier. It weakens people over time and makes them vulnerable to disease and other problems, but it won't usually kill them unless they're around the vampire all the time for a long time, and even then it might take a long time unless they were already weak.

Note that this might also fit into the 'Renfield' character type. It might well be the madness follows naturally with long-term exposure to the presence of a vampire.

The blood loss, though, drains Life fast and adds the physical, natural damage of blood loss to the effect. It also gives the vampire a channel to the victim along the lines of 'sympathetic magic'. If a sorcerer needs a personal itme of the victim to throw a spell at him, what item is more personal than one's own blood? It gives the vampire a hold on the target, lets it affect him or her easily at a distance (at least for a while, it probably wears off).

That might also explain why some victims rise as vampires, and some don't. Maybe if the victim dies of the physical effects of blood loss, then he or she is just dead. If the victim dies from the draining of Life, though, that might produce a new vampire. Thus some victims just die and some rise again as new monsters, and if the locals don't know why it's just one more mystery.

That would also put paid to the 'romantic' idea of the willing victim who lets the vampire feed a little to survive every so often, but not enough to kill him or her. If every feeding drains some Life, probably there are going to be nasty effects over time even if only modest amounts of blood are taken per instance. The GM can decide what the effects are, maybe a lot of small feedings eventually kills you anyway from Life loss, even if you can regenerate the blood taken...and then you have a new vampire.

So no romantic long-term feeding relationships, it's just a slow suicide and a way to make a new monster. It also puts the 'it's my own choice' argument in the trash can, because making that choice inflicts a new vampire on the world, so no, dude/babe, it's not 'your life, your choice'.

Probably it makes the most horror sense if the vampire can only feed on humans (or maybe its own species, if there are more than one species in play). Probably also, to get the Life essence, the vampire needs to feed directly on the living being. Maybe it gets some physical use from the blood too, it might be able to survive on animal blood for a little while in an emergency, but not long if it needs that human life essence. I'd say probably though that it needs human blood from a living human, or it rapidly assumes it's natural form, i.e. a corpse.

Blood in a blood bank would probably be useless to a vampire, no Life essence and possibly not 'digestible' even for physical uses.

Another suggestion: vampires give people nightmares. Literally. A side-effect of being around a vampire long (say a few days) might be that nightmares begin to plague you. It could be a natural thing, your subconscious senses recognze something Bad is around, and it's getting to you. It could be a side-effect of the draining effect, making sleep harder and less restful, it could be both. Especially sensitive people would be affected sooner or faster (children seem likely, ditto madmen and espers and the like...)

The GM could plant clues in such nightmares, of course...

This could also give the GM a reason for the vampire to go after someone who otherwise it wouldn't necessarily target, if it recognizes that that person is the sort of person who might be able to learn from his or her dreams, or to take clues in thems seriously, or tell the difference between a normal dream and a supernatural one.

[Johnny1A.2]

Another thing to consider about the vampire and the blood lust, if the vampire is actually undead. Suppose that the only time a vampire 'feels alive' is when it's feeding on a living person, and maybe a little after. Most of the time, the vampire lacks the 'sense' of being alive, it's something literally indescribale and incomprehensible to the living, and it's a motive stronger than any drug addiction or compulsive behavior in the living, the need to 'feel as if s/he was alive'.

[Tuk the Weekah]

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

So... next in my "Reinventing monsters" series - I am very tired of the romantic vampire. He is no longer scary. In fact, he's boring. Stake him and go on.

Originally Posted by Asta Kask

A Swedish game supplement suggest three fears that vampires embody:

1. Life without Hope
2. Lust without Love
3. Dead without Peace

I have a problem squaring this circle. The second quote describes the Romantic/Seductive vampire exactly, and no other vampiric myth whatsoever. (You can usually tell when someone is describing the Romantic/Seductive vampire by a penchant for describing things from the viewpoint of the vampire and ignoring the point-of-view of the victims--the vampire as a PC, in other words.)

In my opinion, the typical vampiric creature embodies these fears:

1. Fear of Damnation or Exclusion
2. Fear of Contagion (including both xenophobia and poisoning)
3. Fear of Predation

The vampire myths of any region usually tie in closely to that region's religious background, and incorporate concepts of holiness or what it means to be part of that culture. The vampire is other, cast out of both humanity and heaven (however that culture defines heaven). Whatever defeats/weakens the vampire is something that is core to the culture--proper religion, an ubiquitous herb, etc. It's not for nothing that the youth-worshipping sun-loving Western European culture of the 20th century "discovered" that daylight destroys vampires.

Vampires are also walking embodiments of plague and death. That is clear enough in every culture. They are also an embodiment of the outsider, and how that outsider is a threat to the tribe.

Vampires also emphasize the prey nature of humanity; in a world with vampires, we are not the apex predator. Like any successful solo predator, the vampire hunts by stalking his prey and striking only the weak, who are already separated from the herd (aka: the tribal outsider, tying back into the first point). If a group is able to confront the vampire, then the vampire abandons the field for easier prey elsewhere. The challenge for the adventurer is to turn the tables on the vampire, to make it the prey.

In a modern world, you might consider having the vampire surrender to the heroes, and even allow himself to be imprisoned. What would be significant punishment to a human being would be an all-you-can-eat buffet for the vampire (assuming that the explodes-in-sunlight thing isn't in force). When the heroes figure out what is going on, how many mind-slaves will the vampire have in the prison population (including guards and, possibly, the warden as well).

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by Tuk the Weekah

Whatever defeats/weakens the vampire is something that is core to the culture--proper religion, an ubiquitous herb, etc. It's not for nothing that the youth-worshipping sun-loving Western European culture of the 20th century "discovered" that daylight destroys vampires.

I liked you analysis, and found this observation particularly impressive.

When considering the walking dead in general I consider much of their effectiveness to come from the fear of vengeance from those whom we have wronged, especially by killing them. We kill, usually, those whom we fear or at least hate, and often feel very strongly about doing so or at least about having done so. Afterwards, we comfort ourselves against that fear, and the reflex to apprehend retribution after doing someone wrong, by reassuring ourselves that our enemies are dead and done with, and cannot trouble us any longer. If our enemies (and perhaps worse, our victims) should come back and seek our blood for all their old wrongs and their murder too, what could we do? What could make us feel safe again? Killing them didn't work last time.

But perhaps this is an approach that is more suitable for personal enemies returned and the guardian of the burgled tomb. The vampire might be as you say best as the dangerous foreigner or malignant outcast, the corpse as a source of contagion, or the predator.

[Anders]

Originally Posted by Tuk the Weekah

I have a problem squaring this circle. The second quote describes the Romantic/Seductive vampire exactly, and no other vampiric myth whatsoever.

I agree and I should have added that this was the book's opinion, not mine. Or at least clarified it. Although "Lust without Love" would describe a sexual predator - a serial rapist - equally well.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by jason taylor

It is a good idea though I never quite "got" what he was saying about the shadow thing.

The shadow is the rejected aspects of the self. All impluses and desires the conscious mind rejects as unworthy, vile, and/or other. Everthing about the self that the ego either denies, rejects, or fears will be discovered.

[Astromancer]

Originally Posted by Flyndaran

No two mythological vampires are alike. Christianity added demons to every already existing non natural mythological creature. And some real ones.

As no two demons are alike, this fits. Vampirism would just be a demonic skill set for preserving dead bodies and remaining manifest in this reality.