Lynching a vampire?

How would you do it? Assuming that the vampire in question is Mook tier, but has the usual vampire regeneration (i.e. at least enough to repeatedly survive fatal wounds and loss of vital organs and limbs, possibly even gross but not total destruction of the brain). Could you do it the traditional way with enough time and effort, or would extreme methods be required? What about lynching them so hard their head pops off, decapitating them (a common method for killing vampires)?

Why even bother? Just wrap the damn thing in silver chains and decapitate or burn it.

Silver is werewolves, m8. The police all use silver bullets with crosses engraved in them so they can take care of vampires and werewolves all at once

Anyway, this is supposed to be street justice. Although I suppose you could lynch someone while they're on fire. Would certainly speed up the process...

It depends entirely on how vampires work in your universe. Traditionally, lynching of any kind wouldn't work at all.

The way vampires work in my universe is that they can regenerate from any physical damage regardless of its severity, but the more damage they accumulate the more it taxes their ability to regenerate, causing it to slow down and become less effective until the vampire effectively becomes an eviscerated sack of meat that won't heal or regain consciousness until its given fresh blood.

Silver has been traditionally thought to ward-off due to its "purity". Especially in eastern Europe.

Okay, for this call I am going to assume a few things,
1. This is a traditional vampire, enhanced strength, no need for oxygen, said regeneration, and as a mook, no transformation, mind control, ability to feed at a distance, or able to call upon familiars or other vampires for assistance.
2. That a "classic" lynching is one that was performed post civil war, i.e. an angry mob overpowers a victim and hangs them until dead.

In this case the difficult part is overpowering a vampire as they are quite fast and strong. Theoretically if they were able to get it into a noose I can imagine three scenarios.
A. The vampires natural regeneration acts faster than the damage caused by a hanging. Thus the vampire will struggle but be unable to make meaningful sounds until it's "energy" depletes and it reverts to the "dead" state you described.
B. The regeneration works slower. Thus the vampire will "die" and constantly revive until it runs out of energy and "die" like vampire A.
C. The vampires natural strength is strong enough to resist damage to the throat which will result in a conscious, likely struggling, but disabled vampire. Though this does nothing to restrict their voice and if they yell enough someone is likely to notice, but if not they will also "die" of energy drain after long enough since they aren't feeding.

So theoretically it could be a cheap way to subdue a vampire if A or B is the case since the whole silver chains spiel is costly and difficult to create. Even in C it could hold them long enough for a more permanent solution. But once again the difficult part is actually getting the vampire to the noose as mentioned before.

edited 20th Sep '14 9:08:02 PM by Slysheen

Based on what you described, maybe instead of hanging him, they tie him down and chop peices off untill they stop growing back.

Considering what you have described, it seems the best method of "crowd killing" here would be to chain them to a car/carriage and drag them face-down at high speed, completely obliterating their face and body until their regeneration is fully overwhelmed, and then tossing the barely alive vampire into the ocean, never to be seen again.

... I'd considered dragging them along chained to a car but sweet fucking jesus that's perfect! Bonus points, it emulates the method of execution used by Claire Stanfield in a Depression-era piece. Thanks!

You're welcome. You know you can always count on me for cruel, unnecessary brutality!

Why not just lash them to a stake and wait for sunrise?

Oooooh, so many options.

Burning (whether at the stake or on a pyre) might also be an option, and one that's appropriate, I believe, to both folklore (being one traditional way of killing vampires) and your particular vampires (as burning is essentially damage over time: as long as you keep the fire going and the subject keeps regenerating, damage should continue to be done).

Burning also seems to me to work with lynching—although it might call for strong stomachs on the part of your mob, given how long it might take and how horrible it might be...

edited 22nd Sep '14 9:28:57 AM by ArsThaumaturgis

Is holy water a common thing in this setting? if you had a large enough crowd to chain him up so he couldn't escape you could burn and drown him at the same time. He'd certainly be in a lot of sustained pain (if they feel pain) as both would take a while to kill him.

I'd steer clear of the "typical" view that all lynchings involve hangings, simply to avoid the unfortunate implications, looking like you haven't done the research and probably because it wouldn't work. I could easily see a hanging going wrong as the vampire might have the enhanced lower body strength required to pull himself up the rope into the tree and free himself.

Lynching is simply a large cohesive civilian group exacting vigilante justice to a minority perpetrator without allowing them to be judged or sentenced by the authorities, often to "send a message" to others of that minority. for example in early twentieth century America Black criminals would be kidnapped from prison to be lynched, the method of hanging serving as a very visual symbol of their racist views.

Also i'd like to see that thing about needing a strong stomach brought up, maybe some people see the vampire as too close to human, others as just a monster.

edited 22nd Sep '14 9:45:59 AM by Gilliam414

Provided that it doens;t chew through the rope or otherwise escape, I think a hanging would be enough. Just wait till sunrise...

Hanging is a VERY exact art—there are cases where the hanging subject was internally or fully decapitated (the former just has internal neck separation, but it doesn't completely separate the flesh) instead of just having their neck snapped. If your way of killing a vampire is decapitation, you COULD have an intentional-overkill hanging so that the vampire would be beheaded right there.

Seems like it'd just be easier to cut the head off with an ax at that point. The OP does know that lynching refers rather specifically to hanging, right? If you're going with the traditional view of a vampire, they're dead and don't actually need to breathe. Meaning that the ways we've seen it done thousands of times already are the actual effective methods rather than hanging.

You could pin down the nosferatu with pitchforks and hack it to bits with axes. Rinse and repeat until the mob either looses interest, gets tired, or is satisfied that the vampire is "dead". After that, leave the peaces out in the sun to cook.

Beheading is generally reserved for the rich. It requires a strong executioner and a large and freshly sharpened ax. Said ax also needs to be sharpened regularly or it'll just crush the neck rather than sever it. This actually became an issue during the french revolution.

Hanging kills by snapping the neck, though. You could just say that that's enough to kill a vampire in this setting, not like anyone can contradict you.

Why even lynch the poor thing?

Yes, but by that logic we could end a vampire just by thinking happy thoughts.

Because it's a bloodsucking monster that preys on humanity?

AND BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING FUN!

Well, that and it makes sense. I think some of the less powerful vampires in fiction can be killed via neck snapping (as it's kind of like decapitation lite) I know Buffy has killed a lot this way.

@Logo P: Because racism.