Vampires in your story

How are they like?

I've noticed that there are a lot of fantasy authors here and I assumed that there are at least some of you guys who have vampires in your story.

So, what are they like? Are you sticking with mythologies (if you are, which version?) or are you making your own version?

The only time I did a setting with something remotely vampire-like, they were more akin to zombies and had a tendency to eat your soul... and your flesh... and, well, you. They were also what happens when you try to raise somebody from the dead, which was partially why dead-raising spells in the setting were worth an execution: they spread like zombies...

Nope, no vampires here.

Well, there are two kinds of vampire in my fantasy 'verse: the vampires that we knew and loved before Tw*****t came along, and their protenitors, the Voidstalkers. The latter are originally from another plane of existence, and are essentially bloodlust and hunger made manifest. Imagine Alucard from Hellsing, only completely insane.

Insaner Alucard?

That may be the most horrifying thing I've ever heard. I suppose your other characters are equally superpowered or have means to stand against him?

I have no vampires, but I do have Liches that somewhat resemble typical vampires. I actually considered calling them vampyres but I decided that was too cliche and now they're called leithes.

Cool, I really like that idea.

So, in my little fantasy world, I have three types of vampires. There's the first kind, which are created by demons, and therefore stronger and faster than other vampires. Unlike the other vampires, they are capable of having children, who would age at a very slow rate. They are also capable of turning other people into vampires, though the process can take weeks to finish. They can be killed by drowning (and therefore most have an inherent fear of water) and most other ways of killing people. Because they were created by demons, they have a rather high pain tolerance and a Nigh-Invulnerability when it comes to fire. Also, they are alive, but with much slower heartbeats than a normal human. Oh, and they, along with the second kind, have fangs that can be hidden at will.

The second kind would be the children of the first kind or the ones who were bitten by a vampire. Quite similar to the first, the main difference between them is that they are unable to have children.

The third kind is the only one that don't have to feed off blood. Instead, they are emotional vampires, and simply feed off of the (positive or negative) emotions of a human being. By fair the rarest, with a grand total of zero actually showing up in my work. At least, so far.

I only wrote like 2 vampire stories in my time as a writer. In both of them, they were either incredibly hedonistic, or they were trying to one up one another on how fucked up their exploits could be.

I've never liked vampires—demons are scarier, revenants are cooler, zombies make better mooks, and werewolves make better antiheroes. The only advantage vampires have is that they're sexy, and that's only because being into werewolves gets you called a furry. (So yeah, I haven't written a vampire story since third grade.)

I have an undead who's kind of a energy vampire, I guess. If that counts?

I have them and I'd say they're pretty close to the original myths. ...I just tend to think of mine less as vampires and more group of people with various levels of insanity and issues?

They also were at war with leprechauns awhile ago. Because I didn't want to go the cliche route of vampires versus werewolves.

edited 22nd Dec '11 9:53:22 PM by Hermiethefrog

I wasn't very interested in vampires even before... recent events. The only one I can ever remember writing was in my comics from a brief story arc where one of the characters was (sorta) Trapped in TV Land - he was very much the classical movie vampire, and was the antagonist of his Show Within a Show, but was pretty apathetic towards everything and played little role in the arc. I'm honestly not even sure why I wrote him in, though he had a few funny lines.

Oh yeah, and my parody Harry Potter fanfiction had a vampire quasi-OC, but since Rowling never detailed them much, she was basically just a walk-on part.

So I've never been much for vampires.

The Voidstalkers are extinct. The original one was the last to be put down, and only his essence (i.e. his powers and knowledge) live on as the protagonist's Superpowered Evil Side.

The only hemophages I have in my story double as mermaids, causing them to resemble mosquitoes because the males don't have eggs to nourish. Both sexes eat souls, so they're kind of like vampires all around.

I've only used vampires a couple of times, and they had the following:

• Upon conversion, they've got enhanced strength and agility, enhanced senses, and accelerated healing. Not Vamp's "get up from a bullet to the skull in 2 minutes" style, but about 3-4 times faster than regular folk. Drinking blood, however, will cause this healing to speed up a little more.
• Other vampiric abilities (shapeshifting, flight, hypnosis, etc.) have to be learned kinda like magic spells from another more "experienced" vampire.
• Sunlight doesn't make 'em detonate like Proinsias Cassidy; it's just a bit painful (essentially, they feel like they've got a nasty sunburn).
• The longer an individual's been a vampire, the longer they can go without blood. For instance, one character who's been a vampire for nearly 4 centuries can survive roughly 2 weeks without blood.
• If they don't drink, they don't crumble to dust or stuff like that; they demonstrate drug-withdrawal symptoms (sweating, dizziness, etc). Some also demonstrate signs of accelerated aging, similar to Werner Syndrome.
• A random ability that some have are similar to an immortal from Highlander's ability to "sense" other vampires. This skill, however, is extremely rare (about 10-15%).

edited 23rd Dec '11 6:08:04 PM by RedneckRocker

I have blood-sucking night fiends, winter faeries who must drink blood in order to stay warm enough to move, and soul-sucking witches.

There are diamond-skinned vampires with crystalline horns, amorphous clay-elementals with blood-sucking mouths in their palms, and bat-people who drink the blood of livestock.

Vampirism is never genetic.

I have vampires of the "modern" variety in one work—although their powers turn off in presence of UV light. Oh, and fire burns them up rather quickly.

Huh, guess I should elaborate too.

Voidstalkers are extraplanar beings who adopt vampiric habits when they possess living creatures. Maintaining a link to the material plane is extremely taxing, and although any source of magic can sustain them there, the inherent sparks of mana in every living creature are the most filling and delicious. As embodiments of hunger and rage, they prefer tearing foes to shreds and magically absorbing their blood or latching onto a victim and sucking them dry from the throat. They also have the ability to absorb a victim's knowledge by absorbing their blood, and the most powerful can steal the power of mages. Voidstalkers can walk openly in the sunlight without batting an eyelid and are usually indistinguishable from their host's own species.

Normal vampires are Dracula-esque. They are little different from how they were as mortals, save for their bloodthirst and dislike of sunlight. Some try to blend into human society and live out their slightly extended lifespans, but just as many either devolve into insane beasts or commit suicide.

My vampires are drawn from sources roughly Dracula-era and beforehand. Each one is an individual, not just in personality, but in their more arcane properities. They might have any combination of the powers and weaknesses commonly associated with vampires. One of the biggest obstacles when slaying them is finding which weakness is greatest.

Cutting off a vampire's head and burning the body works almost all of the time, although this could be said of most organisms.

I have vampires. They are the ruling family of a monster-mash monarchal society and they base themselves on the Round Table and want to kill everything.

Yes, it is a superhero story.

Fucking incredible.

Vampires and superheroes... this is definitely different.

There's a small posse of secret vampires. The leader is something of a teenage Dracula (think Bela Lugosi) and the rest are moronic ditzes. Gonna stick mainly to stereotypical vamprism, weak to sunlight, garlic, holy water, ect.

edited 23rd Dec '11 9:02:24 PM by DrFurball

While not written into it yet (like most of it, as of this writing...), Vampires in my series are one of the many (many, many), forms of undead, but not the strongest by a longshot. They are regularly taken out by psychopomps sent by the Celestial Bureaucracy of the world, just as most undead are, but they don't have any advantage; their natural abilities are on par with that of a psychopomp- that is, slightly above the average human, with better instincts and sense. However, psychopomps have magical talking weapons and are generally much more well-trained, and tend to dispatch of 80% of vampires towards the beginning of their undead-life.

I'm toying with the idea of having a vampire as a main character (not THE main character, mind you), albeit a vampire who was made that way against his will, and who has proper paperwork for his undead existence. (Not easy to come by, but I did say 80%...) Would certainly make the best friend of my psychopomp main character make a little sense... And now that I think about it, they would make a cool third faction, against the underworld and necromancers... /end rambling

Vampiric weakness in my series are just steaking the heart and fire, but then, fire kills most thing. Sunlight isn't a huge problem, but they become less alert than a normal human, as a normal human would at night. They also lose any above-average strength, agility, or speed that they once had.

Yeah I was just about to point out that vampires in superhero stories aren't particularly special. Dracula's fought everyone from Superman to Dr. Strange, and Baron Blood himself is one such.