Vampire

[ava]

I need information about vampires.

In Buffy Vampireslayer, vampire is a demon but what is a vampire in Avernum? Or what is vampire in our world all I know that it is blood-sucking undead which hates garlic and can be destroyed by piercing it's heart, burning it or pushing it to sunlight. Crucifixes and holy water annoys them.

 

My own idea would be that vampire is a cursed soul which is not willing to leave it's body. To keep it's body alive it must suck blood.

But in that case it would be rather hard to explain why people biten by a vampire are turned to vampires and why sunlight is deadly to them.

 

Any ideas?

[Morgan]

In Avernum, a distinction is made between undead and demons. Vampires fall firmly into the undead category - meaning they can be damaged with undead slaying weapons and Repel Spirit, regardless of the level that spell is at.

 

Apart from that, there's not much clearly defined biography about vampires - they're fairly generic mid-level creatures in Avernum. If you want to give them a story and a history, go you.

[ava]

Well... ok. Just wanted to make sure that the story I will make is not in contradiction between something else.

[Cho Dan]

There is indeed, great wisdom in asking.

[Linthar]

Vampires have never gotten much detail in the series. Looking at Dwtd it does confirm that vampires drink blood in the world of Avernum but that is hardly a surprise. Also looking at the dialog scripts there is one instance were whatever the head vampire is called, turns into a green mist and slips away through cracks in the floor.

[Fort]

Vampires aren't affected by sunlight in Avernum as far as I can tell. They do drink blood and are the second most active undead reanimators, next to Liches. I guess they like more undead friends to be with them. There are always sarcophagi around them; I guess they sleep in there so they don't die from lack of blood.

[Dahak]

The "classic rpg" vampire is able to turn into a mist, wolf, bat, or rat. They are vulnerable to fire, holy symbols (including holy water) created by truly holy people. To kill a vampire, the common methods are: drive a stake through the heart, chop off of the head, expose it to sunlight.

 

A vampire can be warded off (but not killed) by garlic.

 

They are NOT vulnerable to silver.

 

A vampire must drink blood to survive, and if a vampire mixes its blood with another, that one will become a vampire enslaved to the one who made it a vampire. An enslvaeed vampire is free when the master releases it (yeah right), or the master dies.

 

Vampires can any creature with mixed blood (even cats and dogs, but not common)

 

Any damage caused by anything except holy symbols, sunlight, and fire will regenerate over time.

 

A dead vampire turns to dust. Should blood be mixed into that dust, the vampire will ressurect.

 

The coffin of the vampire contains its burial dirt, and is where the vampire rests during the day.

[demonslay3r]

Where do you people get this information? Camp movies?

 

Here's a quick lesson on vampires:

 

Driving a stake into the heart does NOT kill a vampire! It only paralyzes them so you can kill them by other means. To kill one, you'll have to down right destroy it's body. It is a fact that vampires are undead, meaning they have died once, and only fear Final Death. Final Death will happen by, as I said earlier, destroying it's body to the point of no return.

 

To be embraced (turned into a vampire), you must first have some of your blood drinken by the sire (turner). Then the child/embraced/other various names must then drink of the sire's blood. There is debate on how long it takes to be turned. I like to think about a night's sleep.

 

Vampires are vulnerable to fire and silver. Those two elements leave unrepairable "mortal" wounds. Otherwise, wounds are regenerated at high rates (not seconds... days). To vampires, blood is a source of energy, not life. Many vampires have even been able to ignore their hunger, but those vampires don't operate too well with their unnatural powers. Vampires do eat food, as it fills their stomachs and makes them feel good, just as us. Vampires CAN reproduce sexually, which is how those half-man/half-vampire things come about (kindred (vamps) and kine (humans) can reproduce between eachother).

 

The sunlight deal: it all depends on the vampire. Certain clans are most vulnerable to it than others. But one thing is in common: They don't just poof, die. Sunlight is fire, and it burns their flesh as if it was fire. For some clans, it does nothing more than tingle (how we get daywalkers). For others, it burns like you sticking your hand in an oven that has been on 500 degrees for 20 minutes.

 

Holy symbols don't bother vampires. Unless, of course, they happen to be atheist, in which case they'd be offended.

 

Buffy is a bad place to look. Pure camp.

 

It has been accepted that vampires came from Cane (Caine, Kane... however YOU might spell it), brother of Able. Cane killed his brother in the classic biblical tale, and was punished by God to live (or die) forever and be forced to take the blood of fellow humans to survive.

 

Most of this info is from White Wolf, which I personally agree with almost entirely. Just remember vampire lore is considered folk, therefore quite maleable by who tells you. Believe what you want.

[Fort]

Almost every culture has had stories of creatures that drink blood to survive. Many of them describe those creatures as undead. I assume that if they existed, there would be as much variety between vampires as there is among the people who think of them.

[Imban]

Holy symbols wielded by the right person are what typically blow vampires to heck, though. (D&D has Turn Undead, Avernum has Repel Spirit, etc.)

[demonslay3r]

To Keep:

 

There are. I don't think anyone knows exactly how many clans there are, but there a many. Since I'm talking about WW vampire lore, I'll use those clans...

 

The clans range from the charming, artistic Toreador to the insane, but insightful Malkavian, to the hideous Nosferatu. Others include the strong, but stupid Brujah and the animalistic Gangrel. At least I think those are the right names matched with the right description. Those are not all though... such as the political Venture, the assassin Assamite, the mercantile Giovanni, the magical Tremere, and the fleshcrafting Tzimisce.

 

Those are just clans. They group themselves into larger tribes, but that's all based on location.

 

As you can see the differences, they also all of unique, supernatural "abilites" inherent in their damnation. This is stuff like strength, speed, agility, mind-based stuff... all pretty useful for keeping the Masquerade.

[Kahless25]

If you are interested in the origin of the literary vampire, Bram Stoker's Dracula is the novel to look in. Clearly this was not the origin of the concept of a vampire, but it was to my knowledge the first novel about them.

 

According to Stoker, vampires are harmed by contact with any blessed object closely affiliated with Christianity. Holy water burns them, and blessed communion wafers sear their flesh. The crucifix repels them, also. A person bitten by the vampire can have vampirism staved off by the presence of garlic and the blessing of a priest.

 

Contact with sunlight is lethal, as is a stake through the heart. I believe cutting off its head and filling the mouth with garlic will kill him as well.

 

Also, a vampire must sleep in a coffin buried in his native soil. Dracula, being from Transylvania, required soil dug from Transylvania to surround his coffin in London.

 

Unless you wish to make a religious scenario, you probably do not want to use this model of a vampire. But I thought people may be interested.

[bobleblob]

According to some researchs, reports of "vampires"-like individuals actually happened in the Middle-Age. In fact they were people with biochemical disorder called porphyria.

 

(more info on this disease: check www.uq.edu.au/porphyria/)

[Djur Revolutions]

White Wolf is for relentless wankers. I take them just about as seriously as Poppy Z. Brite, which is to say not at all.

 

I rather prefer Daggerfall's vampirism-as-a-disease concept.

[demonslay3r]

Although I do have my own theories of the legends, I do agree with Andrea in liking the Elder Scrolls way of having it as a disease. While I don't find it fits THIS particular subject, I think it would indeed make an interesting twist in a scenario.

 

ie... give it to the player. They have to hunt and feed. Fun? I'd like to think so.

 

I also particularly hate the idea of having to sleep in a cofin and stuff. And the shape shifting to a bat? Entirely too camp for my tastes, all of it.

[*i]

It's your scenario, it's your universe, so long as you stay within some parameters, do anything you want with the mythology.

[Nicothodes]

There's a very interesting book on what sort of things started the stories of vampires, like diseases that made you very pale and why people would drink blood etc. I forget the author, but the title is The Science(spelling?) of Vampires.

[Fyora Toast With Roamer Butter]

There are two historical figures where most of the vampire legends come from They are Vlad Dracul, a real person, and Countess Bathory. Vlad was a transylvanian count and crusader known for his incredible cruelty and fiercesomeness in battle. He was supposed to have impaled people on stakes. One incident has him nailing a diplomats hat to his head because he refused to take it off his head.

 

Countess Bathory was rumored to believe that bathing in the blood of Virgins would make her immortal. Some vampires do not drink blood. They decapitate their victims then drain the blood into pools so they can bathe in it.

 

There are vampires in other cultures. Chinese vampires drain the ki or life force from their victims not blood. The only way to kill them is to destroy their burial urns. They are supposed to be attracted to degenerate behavior. It would be interesting to have a vampire that drained both spell points and hit points.

[Pachat]

The old folk-tale vampires were quite different from their more modern counterparts. Originally vampires were said to feed on life energy alone. They would visit their victims at night and slowly drain them. The symptoms on the victim were weird behaviour and, of course, fatique. Vampires were rumoured to be hairy, smelly man-creatures, much like werewolves.

 

Then someone somewhere came to the conclusion that because the Bible says "blood is life", vampires must feed on blood. Vampire-lore adapted to that. Now, vampires had pale, leathery skin suitable for someone exceedingly anemic. If a buried corpse had bloated, crimson lips, hair- or beard-growth or no apparent signs of decay, it was easy to declare it as a vampire.

 

To seal a vampire's powers you had to quickly drain it of its blood - by decapitation or a stake through the heart. Many means were invented to keep the undead at bay. For example, garlic was introduced as repellant because vampires were believed to have enhanced senses, thus making them vulnerable to strong smells and sounds. The only real way to kill a vampire permanently was to burn its body.

 

Then along came Bram Stoker who made vampires seek for suave passion, not horny lust.

 

By the way, African vampires ate whole cows, Indian vampires children. One Indian vampire was like a leech as it sucked blood from a man's toe.

 

What this comes down to: don't make vampires just stupid old monsters who drink blood and don't die easily; Everybody I know hated Blade I & II

[ava]

But why sunlight burns vampires? Sunlight is natural element. It has nothing to do with gods.

Or why piercing a vampire's heart would kill it?

Maybe damaging vampire's spine would paralyze it for long time and then it would be easy to kill (burn it to ashes, chop it to pieces).

If vampire bites a creature, why the creature becomes vampire? Does the vampire's fangs exude someking of liquid which prevents blood not to coagulate and if this liquid goes to human's system, he'll die and wake up as a vampire.

There is a blood-sucking bat which exudes liquid which prevents blood not to coagulate. In same time this bat may bear rabies which can infect those animals who are biten by the bat.

 

Vampires do not have great role in my scenario, but there is just a guy who is interested about vampires. He is studying vampires and has information about them.

[Aran]

Quote:

But why sunlight burns vampires? Sunlight is natural element. It has nothing to do with gods.

I think it's justified by undead being 'night creatures'. Ancient viking mythology had trolls turn to stone in sunlight. Maybe that's where it's derived from.

There's also some belief that undead can't cross flowing water. I wonder where that originates.

[Lilith]

Apparently scattering millet seeds over a vampire's grave every night is supposed to keep them inactive, as vampires are all obsessive-compulsive and have to count the seeds before they can do anything else. Similarly, throwing a handful of millet seeds on the ground behind you is an effective way to escape if a vampire is pursuing you.

[demonslay3r]

Again, that generated from the "camp culture". I also remember reading that the stories of slowing a vampire were to keep the children from being completely terrified of the dark. It's been said that the stories started to scare the children from doing bad things in bad places, but that ultimatly scared them too much.

 

Ava, no one has answers. Mythology is purely in the eye (mind?) of the beholder. Believe what you want, these are just ideas. No one can justify anything.

[Pachat]

Quote:

Originally written by ava:
But why sunlight burns vampires? Sunlight is natural element. It has nothing to do with gods.

That is most likely derived from people who were suffering from porphyria and who were accused of being vampires. Here's a direct cut from :
http://www.uoflhealthcare.com/digestivehealth/PORPHYRIA.htm
"The symptoms of porphyria fall into two major groups. Some patients have attacks in which the nerves of the body do not function properly. Abdominal pain and weakness result. Other patients have problems with the parts of the skin that are exposed to the sun and can cause pain and swelling of the skin or the formation of blisters."

Quote:

Originally written by Taron Gregor Merallion:
There's also some belief that undead can't cross flowing water. I wonder where that originates.

That most likely comes from the belief that vampires are bound to the soil of their death-place. With no soil underneath, they are powerless. Without any power, a vampire is dead. This is why vampires can regenerate themselves while resting in a casket with the suitable soil in it. Their afterlife is normally limited to a small area. But vampires can travel even cross moving water in their caskets.

The old lore also said that vampires cannot come inside a house unless they were invited. So the victim must have had some kind of a death-wish or the vampire must have been a terrifying charmer.

[StD]

I like the Anne Rice version best really...

 

Once there was a king and a queen of egypt, Akasha and Enkil. The land thrived under them, and everyone was happy, but then Enkil decided to check out some old chamber, he didn't come back, so Akasha decided to check on him, as she entered the chamber, she was imbued with the soul of the vampires, and she made Enkil a vampire. A vampire is made by another vampire, or by a VERY powerfull witch, the way a vampire make another vampire is by first sucking the victims blood and then replacing it with some of their own blood. This is called the dark gift. Most vampires are at least over 400-500 years old, and thus very wise, and fluent in many languages. If a vampire is exposed to sunlight, it will burn to death, but the time it takes for them to burn depends on the age and power of a vampire. A vampire made by a strong vampire is naturaly strong. Not all vampires are evil by nature, many wish not to be, and one vampire lived on rats and other animals for years.

The legend of dracula and other vampire stories are frowned upon and despised by real vampires.

Vampires can not reproduce, but that don't mean they have no sexuall contact, they have a lot of it in fact.

 

Names to remember is:

Akasha aka. Queen of the Damned

Lestat

Enkil

Marius

Pandora

Makare

Maharet

 

Most of this I collected from stuff my cousin told me, she has read a damn amount of Anne Rice books, and I have only read one, so the info might not be 100% accurate, theres a lot of important stuff that I have not added too...

[Mortimer]

From the few things I can tell from Avernum is that several Vampires enjoy the challenge of a hunt, the more powerful they are the more powerful their prey needs to be (richer blood in Heroes or something?). I think that just goes along with the typical vampiric arrogance of being better the mortals.

 

But yeah theres tonnes of fiction you could use, Warhammer had it that vampires where originally from an ancient human culture that degraded into necromancy and death worship, certain individuals began drinking elixirs of blood that prolonged life, as time went on they became addicted and yeah, turned into vampires.

 

They also had it that as vampires grew in power they became more resilent to the common weaknesses (garlic and stuff) and where able to summon up dark storm heads or darkness to protect them from sunlight during the day. So yeah, just whatever you like basicly...

[vahnatai_hell_fyre]

MAN there are a lot of intellects here!!!

here is some news about vamps....

 

--they are widely believed to be creatures of the night.(actually it was supposed to mean MOONLIGHT but was morphed. thus the hatered of son light.

 

--they ARE related to WERE creatures!!!!BUT.... the are always at battel with them.they are in controll of all creature of the night...wolves,rats,snakes...

 

--they have many supernatural powers,of course. they can change to a beam of moonlight,dust and fog. the can even control the weather to a minor extent.(note...J R R Tolkien has used that for the witchking Angmar)

 

-- they multiply...well most of that has been already spoken about.

 

--there is a lot more.but will write more lata.

[Aran]

Quote:

The old lore also said that vampires cannot come inside a house unless they were invited. So the victim must have had some kind of a death-wish or the vampire must have been a terrifying charmer.

Or the vampire was disguised. I've seen that myth in use in many fantasy stories, the most notable currently one by Rick Cook and one by Robin Jarvis.

Note that the bit about undead not crossing rivers went partly into Tolkien's Nazgul... even if it has a very natural reason (ie. drowning in a flood). I've seen it in use also in Robert Jordan's Eye of the World and Garth Nix's Sabriel. It only concerns flowing water for some reason, however, and in the latter it doesn't even have to be a river...

[StD]

Another important thing about Anne Rice vampires, holy symbols doesn’t matter, in fact, a vampire (Lestat) ventured to heaven and brought with him back the holy veil of Veronica.

 

And Rice's vampires are not the typical evil villain. They are powerful, beautiful (in a twisted, twisted way) creatures that mortal humans minds cannot comprehend.