Slightly Different Vampires

So I have a short story that involves two vampire hunters and wanted to mix up the blood suckers a bit but not too much.

I was thinking about 'at-will' vampires. Simply put in order to be a vampire you need to want to be one in addition to the 'affliction' of being undead creature dependent on blood .

Obviously the easy way for a vampire to turn someone into one is wound them mortally and say: "Whelp, if you don't want to die. Better agree to being a vampire." However, because of this imposed rule any sustained personal resentment will cause them to lose their power and die.

I think doing this will also diffuse the 'I'm a dark and moody vampire woe is me~ My existence is so unfair~' and put more motivated individuals at the helm of being blood suckers.

Thoughts?

Just remember the thematic importance of vampires, and be creative. As in, don't just make them vamps in name and blood only, and don't just do a tired rehash. So you seem fine. Although vampires being romantic byronic folks has been a thing since Anne Rice, so good luck with that.

Ha. Good point. Focused goal oriented vampires without clear alignment is my aim. I'm not changing much / any of the vampire lore otherwise. Shadow based magic is pretty standard fare for them.

If you're not changing much vamp lore, I advise you do some research on them, then. There are books that you don't have to read, but at least read the plot and theme stuff on wikipedia. I mean, you have Dracula, but you also have The Vampyre which predates Drac, I believe. Nosferatu is a more monstrous vampire, but still linked to sexuality so he should also be looked at.

Also you should probably decide if your vamps have a form change or not. I don't mean batform or anything, but frequently in visual mediums there will be obvious changes (Supernatural had retractable fangs, Buffy had "game faces"). Obviously books are not a visual medium, but it is part of vampireness world building, so it's something to consider.

edited 16th Jan '13 9:29:42 AM by MrAHR

Mr AHR, you say "don't just make them vamps in name and blood only". I think there's also a case for trying to make the creatures as original as possible. The word "vampire" has various connotations in real life, but if a type of person were really discovered that has come back from the dead and drinks blood, you would call them a vampire no matter what other traits they had, and that leeway is what writers should take advantage of.

If you want to be creative, that's one thing. If you want to make vampires, then there needs to be a damn good reason you're calling them that, and not something else.

Given that a lot of what is deemed "Vampire Lore" is modern - the fatal effects of daylight are entirely due to a plagiarist trying to make the ending of his movie different from the story he pinched, the presence of fangs is also fairly modern - if you wrote them as they were originally believed to be (not dissimilar to Revenants of Western European folklore), modern audiences would scream that "they're too different from "real" vampires!"

I guess the bullet points I'm aiming at is as follows:

• They're undead humans.

• They drink Blood.

• Direct sunlight burns like fire, covered they survive with discomfort.

• Vampirism is voluntary. As their desire to remain a vampire diminishes the closer they become to being a corpse. (I'm thinking there's a zombie stage in here, or they just revert to a mindless zombie rather than just dying.)

• They have the ability to control lesser undead in direct relation to their mental capacity.

• They have the ability to entrance the weak willed. But they cannot use this to convince humans to vampirism.

• They can drink a victims blood without converting them. If they die from blood loss they will rise as a zombie.

Edit: The reason I wanted to diffuse the lamenting was to make them a bit more short story friendly. Read: Motivated. Manipulative. Driven.

edited 17th Jan '13 2:03:01 PM by Dimanagul

Mr AHR, I believe I already gave a good reason. Wolf makes a good point too.

And I already gave my point. There is no "right" answer to this, just opinions. If you disagree with me, that's fine, but if you're gonna slap a label on something, there needs to be a reason, and this post indicates that it does indeed take vampire concepts and myths in mind. So everything's hunky dory.

Speaking of , it looks quite fine. The vampirism-voluntary thing is an interesting concept.

edited 18th Jan '13 5:05:40 PM by MrAHR