A New Vampire for Eternity

[septembervirgin]

Souls come back. Sometimes souls stay in (or are brought into) corpses. We cannot assume that vampires would refresh the cadaver. Blood is not to be a strong factor in magic, otherwise we're Thedas. Vampires cannot use the blood for magic, cannot use the blood for constant feeding, otherwise we have rivers or lakes of blood and hence Kirkwall. What else drinks of blood? How about internal substance made fluid, like the way spiders eat?

 

Vampires are hominid cadavers that sting with their tongue and inject a venom that invades the host body. The body is swiftly bloated as organic walls are dissolved and the organs liquefy. The vampire then drinks from the bloated corpse.

 

I just read this is like the Viesczy monster told of by the Kashubes, a Slavic folk who traveled along the Baltic Sea. To add to this horror, we might draw it away from a recognizable being, like spiders, and make it not so much a Viesczy lest the Kashubes sue due to copyright infringement.

 

These vampires can teleport and can command the weather to a degree. This is because they are beings of a season, let's call it Autumn, and in that season they are most powerful. They can call in dusty blinding winds, instill heavy fog to pour out of the visual westward horizon (this fog is alive and functions as the PE equivalent of an intelligent and large elemental of water but its damage is caused by illusionist spells as if a 9th level illusionist), cause vegetation to wilt, cause rainstorms and flood rivers or coastal regions thusly. They can cause clouds to gather over a small area or even over an entire city, dimming natural light or cause the moisture in the air to rise so that flames gutter and snap or go out entirely. Now they sound dangerous to a people dwelling in a temperate clime on coastal or river-bound region.

 

These creatures need to have vulnerabilities and symptoms that occur as they approach. When these vampires intend to leave an area, the path where they intend to tread will be infected with a coughing sickness so that those who walk on that road will cough up an orangish phlegm so long as they tread that road and three days after. This is because the vampires have as servants spirits of disease, for their master is a god of health who uses these vampires as enforcers and assassins. All who wear the symbol of that deity or who are pious will have no harm come to them from the vampires but will feel the need to leave the area immediately and be empowered to do so. These vampires are dead so only magic can undo their possession of a cadaver, but explosives do work to damage the cadaver they possess. They can leave any corpse and find another corpse, though. In Autumn, this can be done rapidly. They *can* be banished in the name of other deities but this does not assuage the offense that brought them and so more might come.

 

These vampires will nest in a sequestered spot, usually in light woodlands, and make many holes to store corpses in. These corpses their spirit will use to inhabit if their own corpse proves unsuitable or is rendered unsuitable.

[nikolokolus]

Sounds like an interesting creature and it would be nice to see the concept of a "vampire" being given a different treatment ... of course, you just know somebody is going to want to romance one of the buggers because of the name - the Twilight folks will be most displeased!

[Tauron]

Why call it vampire? Becouse it drinks insides of it victim? It does sound monstrous, demonlike, so just let us start with that. Let us not defile this vampire idea no more. At one point we just have to stop, draw the line and say YOU SHALL NOT PASS or something along those lines...it is a demon, not a vampire, ok

 

Btw, bloodmagic isnt DA invention, even if PE has some spell that involves blood as component and can be thought as bloodmagic, it should not turn out to be KirkWALL, DA!

Idea behind bloodmagic is much older and reason is becouse some cultures belive that soul, chi or whatever is heavily connected to blood, bloodstream and the heart. Great concept, but DA was terrible at explaning why bloodmagic is acually a taboo, exept the obvious gory part. Apparantly one of reasons is one was able to influnce others against their will..but than again one had an entire school of magic, entropy dedicated perverting the mind, body and lifeforce etc. Didnt really see clear destinction.

[Rajaat the Warbringer]

I'm all about including vampires, as long as they're hideous monstrosities to be rooted out and vanquished.

[Jaesun]

Please. No vampires. Thanks.

[DocDoomII]

So long as the vampire do not shine like a diamond if hit by sunlight.

Edited October 20, 2012 by DocDoomII

[stiltskin]

first, let me say that your concept seems pretty rad. it inspired an idea of my own (drawing on yours), which might stray too far from the concept of a vamp, but i spent too much time writing this, so imma post it anyway XD. if you think it ****ty/useless, then thats fine, if you find some inspiration in it, please take what you want and discard the rest.

sorry for tldr

 

my idea:

 

- servants (in a very loose sense) of disease deity, souls of people driven mad by sickness of both mind (not only schizophreniacs, maniacs and the like, but also fanatics, maybe pedos, canibals, etc) and body, possibly even souls infected by "soul sickness/mental depression, sadness". would keep the motif of season, but make it late autumn, early winter, when everything withers, but does not die yet.

 

- do not possess body per se, but they are still affected by some substances of natural world (smoldering charcoal, ashes or embers-symbol of purification, symbols of deities, particularly god of disease, copper/brass objects...), are however immune to most tools of war, thus a stab with regular sword might reduce it to fine mist, it will however reform very quickly back; cannot pass through solid objects, but may dissolve into mist and seep into cracks. may not enter a home without invitation

 

- vampiric habits: they find sustenance in drinking any vital fluids of humanoids (hence, they might drink bile too), furthermore they dont distinguish between fluids of a dead and living body, being forever hungry they happily slurp anything they come across. if attacking human, they prefer lone targets or small groups

 

- their presence in long term may produce some sort of sickness, but the effects should not be immediate, nor fast-acting. however, their direct touch (with skin, clothes offer limited protection, must be discarded or burned afterwards) is lethal. it causes fever and fits of progressively worsening convulsions (similar to malaria, develop within two days), the blood pressure rises and falls randomly (causing whatever symptoms appropriate) and bloodvessels bulge heavily. ends with sepsis. is curable in early stages, later stages progress very quickly to death and possibly require some sort of heavy-duty miracle - which only god of disease may produce - to remove. their touch also produces persistent itching sensation in touched place and small pitch-black swelling (like a medium-sized bruise)

 

- spirits themselves are capable of dispersal into fine mist, possession of large number of simple minded organisms (animals, plants, etc, possibly horribly diseased humanoid idiots-compels them to attack and spread their affliction), limited shapeshifting (to resemble appropriate race) and may pose as strangers wandering around countryside in the guise of people of wandering professions (aged, lone merchants, monks, soldiers, tinkers, musicians, especially wandering beggars, etc - however without any baggage/equipment people of such professions may carry) in evening hours (between 6 and 11 pm-at other times their location is unknown, though some may haunt a place at all times). they may compell any diseased or venomous animals/ sentient poisonous plants to sting/bite/attack in anyone so that they fall sick. any injury/poisoning acquired this way is more difficult to heal. they use their shapeshifting to appear inconspicuous and approach target(s) or lure them away from larger group, mostly using gestures (beckoning). capable of limited speech, mostly murmurs. at secluded location they tend to shapeshift into more terrifying form and sudenly turn around to scare victim and paralyze it with fear. they drink such paralyzed victim through a single wound caused by prolonged touch, which rots/burns away the skin and allows blood/possibly other fluids to flow freely. they do not kill in this way, but leave the victim so it may die of their touch-induced sickness (see above), still leaving enough blood for victim to barely survive the shortened incubation and sickness period (due to prolonged touch, the incubation period is half a day, sickness progresses faster). may return after death to drain dead body of fluids.

 

- if attacked/forced to fight, it will make use of its ability to sick venomous/diseased animals/plants on targets, will attempt to touch whatever uncovered part of body (there is always at least smal part left uncovered anyway)

 

- appearance: when in contact with unwitting victim(s) they resemble slightly odd humanoid covered in appropriate heavy, ragged/rotten, heavily concealing clothing (bandages, shrouds, cloaks, etc all appropriate, but not required), when scaring victim/fighting they assume horrid forms (half-roach half humanoid forms with spider limb appendages/numerous chelicerae, gaping jawless/torn mouths, symptoms of diseases... whatever you can find in the uncanny valley)

 

- purpose: to intimidate people (particularly faithless/offending people) into worshipping/paying respect to god of disease, so that they may stay healthy (like mafia style enforcers); do not appear excessively often

 

PS: what i did not like that much about your concept is the idea of "deity´s personal assassin". why would a god need such a person? it can kill a mortal at will, can it not?any killings can be done by its followers or by proxy...

 

also, i understand that there is sort of "traditional" （or cliche）fixation in movies, dnd and the like that vampires and vampire-like beings have to be corpses. if you are looking for inspiration, why not this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pishacha for instance? blood/flesh/human (or in this case humanoid) "energies" consumption is common to many demons/other supernatural entities. making your vampire a vampire "spirit" (the non-liquid variety ;-D) would in a sense be a little more original, no?

[nikolokolus]

I vote for the "vampyre" spelling, just to make sure the Twilight kiddies don't get the wrong idea ...

[Hertzila]

IMO, if we're going to have vampires, just use the 'classical' type or a moderate variation of it. You know, drink blood; can't stand faith, garlic and such; hates days; likes night and darkness a lot; fangs; tough as hell, tend to be smart... If we're going to start to completely re-invent vampires by making them kinda like them in a roundabout way, if you look at them the right way and it's tuesday, it starts to smell like calling a smeerp a rabbit. Just call it a smeerp and be done with it.

[Xantomas]

o-k

 

Your magic liquid sucking wind spirit divine assassin creatures aren't vampires. Creative, but there's no need to use the name of one iconic creature and give it to another completely unrelated creature.

[FlintlockJazz]

As long as they don't sparkle and stalk schoolgirls he can call them vampires as much as he wants!

[septembervirgin]

To dissolve and hence drink the internal fluids of a creature, these vampires must cut the creature with their sharp stinger tongue. This means they put their mouth to the victim. Furthermore, books on international vampire myth and legend often include the Viesczy which cuts with its tongue and drinks blood *and* eats flesh. I do not see how this vampire diverges much from the widely varying legends. There are many monsters that are considered "vampiric" in that they drain life force and internal fluids yet are not specifically vampyr. To call them vampires might be an approximation that's acceptable except to "pretty vampire" fans.

 

I always seemed to trust the hideous vampire stories more; the dashing, erotic vampire is bringing the vampire myth into a teenage love story. And that's where the "beautiful aristocratic vampire" was going all along. Forever young, forever beautiful? A teenage love story, that's where it ends. Nevermind that corpses decay and the power of evil sorcery moves the corpse to torture and kill the living people? Of course the mind rebels at a *horror* story about *scary* vampires. Egads.

 

I think it's high time to return the vampire to its roots of being a dreadful monster that slaughters and devours. And here's a potential vampire for Eternity. I hope the designers find a use for it.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

As long as they burn in the sunlight instead of sparkle, I'm good.

[kabaliero]

Vampires suck. ©

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9M6B9MI-jY

[septembervirgin]

I think someone mentioned vampire pumpkins before on a bulletin board I was on once. So I will mention it. There is a Balkan belief that some pumpkins can become vampires and furthermore are at war. Be careful come Halloween.

[Badmojo]

I actually like vampires, I just hate what twilight has done to them. Remember when vampires were cool scary monsters, now they are immortal emo kids who cry about their existence. Bah.

 

I actually do not think vampires should have a fixed type. Instead there are many different beings that would fall under the name vampire(or whatever name they want to call it). The only general requirement is that mortals get turned into another creature that must live by stealing the life/substance of others and most either live really long or is immortal. Since all vampiric beings must feed on the living, I will say that they should be rare because they are universally hunted down. Part of the fun could be reading the lore about the different types of vampire beings. I think this would allow a lot more flexibility in creating vampires and not sticking with the sterotype vampire.

 

Examples of different vampiric beings types:

Vampires created through magic

vampires created through disease

vampirism created through dark science

vamipires created through curse

vampiric entity created by symbiotic relationship with another being (like the body is infested with insects that feed on blood, the insects secrete a substance that keeps the body alive/reanimated)

Spirit vampires

A natural race of vampires that feed on the blood of other races

etc...

 

One of the most interesting and horrifying vampire types I ran across was the whamphir in the necroscope series, with their monsterous urges, powers, and fleshcrafting (shudder), white wolf created a version called the tzimisce. They were truly alien like monsters in the truest sense. I would like to see something unique like them.

[septembervirgin]

I think a few vampire concepts might be plausible if vampires are, all said, a form of magical parasite that tends to gather in magically unpleasant regions. However, the vampire I described is a "hired torpedo" for a deity of health. Despite someone's dislike of the idea, we might note that the gods in this game have been described as like the gods of myth, not always good-evil in dichotomy but self-serving. What's more self-serving than to have leg-breakers and enforcers?

[jezz555]

Jesus Christ, this has nothing to do with twilight, will you guys stop bringing it up?

[Alexjh]

As with orcs, I'm fine with vampire-ish creatures, but I'd rather not have something which is directly a vampire. With vampires particularly, they are very much a "folkloric" monster, and so tend to be fairly similar to each other. I'd much rather have something similar (bloodsucking corpse based demon) but with a different name and whole different set of details, like perhaps some of the ones the OP mentioned.

 

On a similar note, I'd rather some of the more obscure forms of undead were explores a bit more: both zombies and vampires are done to death (no pun intended), and ghouls and skeletons are fairly ubiqitous. Wights and spectral undead seem to get a short shift in games, so perhaps explore them a little more, but original takes a a bonus for any of them.

[Agelastos]

Very interesting. I'm going to have to read up on this Viesczy monster.

There's no reason not to call it Viesczy. I doubt the Kashubians would, or even could, sue for copyright infringement.

I don't think you can own the rights to a mythological being. Fantasy has always borrowed from real world mythology and folklore.

We Scandinavians didn't sue Tolkien. The Greeks didn't sue C.S. Lewis.

 

What about mylings? I've never seen one of those in a game.

For those who don't know, a myling (Scandinavian folklore) is the corporeal spirit of an unbaptized or murdered child.

It will try to persuade people to give it a proper burial.

If someone agrees to give it a burial, it will jump on that person's back, grow enormous, and ride it's benefactor to the graveyard - only most people die of exhaustion long before they make it there.

If refused... well, then it gets really ugly.

Sometimes it will ask to be breastfed or given a name instead, but I won't go into that.

There are also Slavic equivalents, like the Yugoslavian drekavac and plakavac.

Edited November 20, 2012 by Agelastos

[GhoulishVisage]

So long as the vampire do not shine like a diamond if hit by sunlight.

I vote for the "vampyre" spelling, just to make sure the Twilight kiddies don't get the wrong idea ...

As long as they don't sparkle and stalk schoolgirls he can call them vampires as much as he wants!

As long as they burn in the sunlight instead of sparkle, I'm good.

Vampires suck. ©

 

You know, I really dislike Twilight too, but these comments and lolsparkles jokes are getting pretty boring since they're basically the exact same comments word-for-word that are mentioned any time vampires are bought up in conversations at all.

[Ninjamestari]

If you're going to venture too far from the traditional concept of vampires, and make them some sort of supernatural human-spiders, I don't think they should be called vampires anymore. If you come up with something cool, I'm all for exploring the possibilities, but I don't think vampires would work without the blood thing.

 

However, there is a way that would fit the universe; maybe vampires are mortal bodies that have lost their souls, thus they need some other form of supernatural force to sustain them; that could be the blood of those who still have their souls. Blood could be something that carries traces of the individuals' souls, providing substance for the vampire. There is a whole bunch of ways one could expand on that concept to account for the extraordinary abilities wielded by vampires, perhaps their vulnerability to sunlight and whatever traditional vampire traits need to be added.

 

All in all, I don't really care whether or not there are vampires involved, but if they're called vampires, then they should *be* vampires and not some weird spiderman monsters.

[Chilloutman]

If you're going to venture too far from the traditional concept of vampires, and make them some sort of supernatural human-spiders, I don't think they should be called vampires anymore. If you come up with something cool, I'm all for exploring the possibilities, but I don't think vampires would work without the blood thing.

 

However, there is a way that would fit the universe; maybe vampires are mortal bodies that have lost their souls, thus they need some other form of supernatural force to sustain them; that could be the blood of those who still have their souls. Blood could be something that carries traces of the individuals' souls, providing substance for the vampire. There is a whole bunch of ways one could expand on that concept to account for the extraordinary abilities wielded by vampires, perhaps their vulnerability to sunlight and whatever traditional vampire traits need to be added.

 

All in all, I don't really care whether or not there are vampires involved, but if they're called vampires, then they should *be* vampires and not some weird spiderman monsters.

 

These are my feelings too. Dont get me wrong I would maybe welcome new category of monsters called Vampiric but it doesnt mean that I would like to have completly different beings called vampires.As I would like to see vampires in PE it would be humans who sacrifice their soul for endless life or were cursed by gods or other powerfull beings. But price for it that they live forever is that they becoming more monstrous so no normal people would ever talk to them and that they are driven by thirst for bood because their dead body is unnable to produce new one or they can be possed by some kind of thirst deamon. Perhaps blood can be connected to soul of victim as well so if they feed on victim they absorb part of their souls which grant them supernatural powers. Hence if they want they can dominate their victims and make them their servant if they 'hold' part of victims soul or if victim is wicked as well he can become Vampire himself. As far as look goes I would like them to look more or less like humas with long claws, pale skin, hollow/white eye fillet and sharp teeth. As powers goes it depends on how many souls that particular Vampire swallowed. From greater strenght and dexterity, nightvision, polymorph to giant bat or dread wolf to maybe some kind of batmonster, also like mist form idea if they are 'destroyed' by weaponst which are not lethal to them. They can have psychic powers if powerfull enough as well. Vampire have still same inteligence as he got in normal form. So you can enounter evil peasant vampire who is hiding in woods near village where someone done him something wrong in past or vapire beggar hiding in sewers because he killed his friend for few cooper coins but also powerfull lord who done wrong to his people and now haunting whole country from his castle. They still should be sensible for sunlight, silver, garlic and holy symbols and maybe fire. There are often diseases spreading around country when vampire is present as his body is constantly rooting and regenerating. Truly powerfull ones can even shorten day/night cycle or amend weather to rainy so they can get out from their hideout during the day.

[Diagoras]

You guys realize that there are more kinds of vampires than the ones from Dracula, right? And that the myth has taken many forms throughout history?

 

As just an example: Eastern European vampires start as shadows, use the blood they drain to turn into boneless masses, and eventually congeal into a human form. They also take wives and mistresses, and, IIRC, their children's part vampire nature makes them excellent vampire hunters.

 

It just seems like any vampire myth that's not straight out of Victorian England is being shot down.

[Agelastos]

You guys realize that there are more kinds of vampires than the ones from Dracula, right? And that the myth has taken many forms throughout history?

 

As just an example: Eastern European vampires start as shadows, use the blood they drain to turn into boneless masses, and eventually congeal into a human form. They also take wives and mistresses, and, IIRC, their children's part vampire nature makes them excellent vampire hunters.

 

It just seems like any vampire myth that's not straight out of Victorian England is being shot down.

 

I think the problem is that the pre-Gothic vampires weren't romantic enough for most people. They were usually peasants in life, not nobles, and their vampiric forms were twisted and frightening rather than "sexy".