"How do you make vampires?" Topic

There seems to be to schools of thought here.

In Stephen King's Salem's Lot, and in Matheson's I am Legend, when you die from a vampire bite, you turn.
This leads to the geometric progression problem.

In Kim Newman's Dracula series, you must be "turned" by allowing your chosen victim to drink of your (the vampire's) blood. This keeps the population relatively under control.

Bram Stoker's Dracula seems to want it both ways.

I haven't seen enough of True Blood yet to determine its methodology.

I suppose I have to hear from Twilight fans, but would rather not. I am not familiar with Ann Rice's version either.

The causes of vampiric generation were many and varied in original folklore. In Slavic and Chinese traditions, any corpse that was jumped over by an animal, particularly a dog or a cat, was feared to become one of the undead. A body with a wound that had not been treated with boiling water was also at risk. In Russian folklore, vampires were said to have once been witches or people who had rebelled against the Russian Orthodox Church while they were alive.

Cultural practices often arose that were intended to prevent a recently deceased loved one from turning into an undead revenant. Burying a corpse upside-down was widespread, as was placing earthly objects, such as scythes or sickles, near the grave to satisfy any demons entering the body or to appease the dead so that it would not wish to arise from its coffin. This method resembles the Ancient Greek practice of placing an obolus in the corpse's mouth to pay the toll to cross the River Styx in the underworld; it has been argued that instead, the coin was intended to ward off any evil spirits from entering the body, and this may have influenced later vampire folklore. This tradition persisted in modern Greek folklore about the vrykolakas, in which a wax cross and piece of pottery with the inscription "Jesus Christ conquers" were placed on the corpse to prevent the body from becoming a vampire.Other methods commonly practised in Europe included severing the tendons at the knees or placing poppy seeds, millet, or sand on the ground at the grave site of a presumed vampire; this was intended to keep the vampire occupied all night by counting the fallen grains, indicating an association of vampires with arithmomania. Similar Chinese narratives state that if a vampire-like being came across a sack of rice, it would have to count every grain; this is a theme encountered in myths from the Indian subcontinent, as well as in South American tales of witches and other sorts of evil or mischievous spirits or beings. In Albanian folklore, the dhampir is the son of the karkanxholl or the lugat. If the karkanxholl sleeps with his wife, and she is impregnated with a child, the offspring is called dhampir and has the unique ability to discern the karkanxholl; from this derives the expression the dhampir knows the lugat. The lugat cannot be seen, he can only be killed by the dhampir, who himself is usually the son of a lugat. In different regions, animals can be revenants as lugats; also, living people during their sleep. Dhampiraj is also an Albanian surname.

Pat

Well, when mommy and daddy vampires love each other *verrry* much…

Sauron was a vampire for a while. I think for him it just involved going to the local fancy dress shop and hiring an outfit. It was just his emo teen phase. I guess all the kids were doing it. He grew out of it.

I kind of wish Tolkien hadn't used that word, as whenever I read The Silmarillion I get this vision of a guy dressed like Bela Lugosi running around Middle-earth holding a cape over half his face.

Sort of detracts from all the mythic grandeur a little.

Anne Rice's version is pretty much the Kim Newman explanation. I'm not familiar with Kim Newman so I'm not sure who did it first.
My preference? I love the way Salem's Lot unfolds(the book). How we are introduced to a whole town and then get to watch it slowly die. Creepy to me.

Mongo

In Anne Rice's mythology, the victim has to be almost completely drained of blood, and then drink the vampire's blood in order to turn.

I'll go with the old Love at First Bite concept— it takes three bites, on different nights, in which only a portion of the blood is removed. If a victim is sucked dry in one go, the victim is just dead. (This tends to imply a willingness on the part of the three-bite victim to become a vampire; they seem to take no precautions to prevent the subsequent bites.)

I like the idea that the vampire drinks and puts some fluid in at the same time, sort of like a mosquito. When either balance of blood to ichor reaches some level or all the blood is gone the person becomes a vampire.

This would allow a variety of victims to be drained over a period of time without creating new vampires. I also like the idea that vampires have to control themselves to not just drain a victim to that point. So it takes discipline to not make a new vampire.

Of course for the original vampire I kind of like a curse for most fantasy RPGs but for pulp things the whole 7th son of a 7th son works too.

bury a murderer at a crossroads (and outside consecrated ground) IIRC

A precaution against the 'coming back' of the beloved and lamented one, still widely practiced, is to have the corpse leaving home 'feet first', so that he / she cannot retrace his / her steps back.

In Hellsing, the victim, if not virgin, turns only into a ghoul; thus a vampire who wants to avoid competition knows what to do before biting (ghouls are 'contagious', but turns humans only into other ghouls, all mentally controlled by the vampire). Also to become a 'true' vampire the 'draculin[a]' has to drink some vampire blood. While the vampire can always choose to kill his victim, granting no form of extended life at all (I suspect some form of decapitation / neck breaking).

Well, when mommy and daddy vampires love each other *verrry* much…

A possibility rarely alluded to: do vampires breed true?
Unlikely: given their quasi-immortality (or at least very long life) it would lead to overcrowding, exhaustion of resources… Same problem with Elves / Eldars, btw (my own interpretation is that so many 'male' Elves / Eldars look androgynous because they are actually female one blocked before puberty by pheromones from 'sexually mature' female Elves; such 'birth control' would be lifted if mortality is high: re. the 'normal' sex ratio of Dark Elves / Eldars populations); also has interesting ethical and social consequences, but *¨really* off-topic here! Even worse for 'immortals', (to be beheaded), quite logical they are totally sterile.

Don't remember if the origin and renewal of the vampire pack is explained in '30 days of night'? The social structure was specially well-studied and likely.

Is not the 7th son of a 7th son a *magician*? And… does not works for daughters? Sexism!

The original Transylvanian vampires did not leave *materially* their grave, but 'sucked the life force' of people when haunting their dreams. An interesting variant for an assassination team ready to carry a coffin in the vicinity of the 'target', specially if the later unknowingly ingests dream-inducing drugs…

I like the 'Matheson Model' (King's novel appeared some 20 years later) of 'microbial disease' -almost a symbiosis, would be one if, precisely, the 'vampires' could breed true.
Carries vampirism from Fantasy to Science Fiction. Actual examples are known of parasites drastically changing it's host's behavior (what is called 'losing the soul' in traditional description of vampires). Of course the 'model' implies that most of other features of vampirism -motionless heart and lungs, cold body, and of course lack of mirror images- are mere superstitions.
The 'Original Dracula – Hellsing' mode of contamination, requiring a form of 'confirmation', can be seen as an extension of the Matheson model (ingestion of a 'geneseeed / germseed' necessary for the full implementation of symbiosis; yes, GW 40K Space Marines fashion).

On a assembly line.

I haven't seen enough of True Blood yet to determine its methodology.

Kind of embarassed I know this, but….

A vampire drains a human of their blood, effectively killing that human, and replace it with some of their own blood. The vampire and drained human will then sleep in the ground for two to three nights until the drained human rises as a vampire.

Personally, I prefer this to, as the OFM put it, the "geometric progression problem." If one bite turns you, then vampires are too much like zombies.

fail your saving throw.

Several times if you're high level – vampire drains 2 (or is it 3 ?) levels per bite.

Alternatively, just pick one up from the de Havilland factory at Hatfield.

I like the must drink the blood of a vamp before death.

I generally flash fry them before chucking them in the oven for a bit. I guess it depends how well done you like your camps. I like mine rare…

"How do you make vampires?"

1 Part High School Angst & Drama
1 Part Dark Wardrobe
1 Part Dark Music
Add
Resin Fangs
Black Hair Dye
Acquire co-dependent emo friend to psychically drain

Rather than look at how the mythology has evolved, consider how and why it started.

For example, another myth/monster, if a person was to be found dead clutched in tight hardened rigor without any reasonable point of death well then he must have seen a cockatrice or baskelisk and their heart was turned to stone…daddy died when his heart was turned to stone…grandpa saw a cockatrice and was stone dead the next second…great grandpa saw a cockatrice and was turned to stone…

Vampires represent the waning of life and in particular the loss of healthy blood.

The draining of blood goes back to when we first learned to process/butcher meat…blood is life.

So if one were to walk the potential of the mythology as far back as possible I suspect there were those who had to eat every part of the animal including the blood. Sausage making, black sausage, is a time honored process in most countries, especially the ones that have ancient vampire myths…coincidence?

Several of the wasting diseases present the pale skin, grey/yellow/or even blackened eyes, etc.

So it would be a simple stretch to see the healthy blood being borne away in the night as the loved one faded without a reason that was easy to grasp.

The extra guilt laid upon the common people by religion and cultural stigma certainly added some weight to the potential…lack of faith, your sins, married your sister, you live in the haunted forest, planted your fields on a graveyard, etc.

*****

On topic I suspect the most reasonable answer would be somewhere around the bullseye of what all the vampire myths have in common…

the bite
draining of some blood
contact with the vampire (saliva, blood, and euwe…whatever else)

So I see a blood borne infectious condition that acts like a cancer (which is certainly one of those wasting issues that could have started the whole thing :)

If the vampire cancer can take over before the body gives out then you get a new vampire.

Bite + drain too much = victim dies

Bite + drains some + exchanges some fluids = victim is infected

A) infected + time = death
or
B) infected + time = undeath

Think of the vampire cancer as an anti chemotherapy of sorts…it bombards the body on a cellular level, replacing healthy cells with vampire cancer cells, and either the body can handle the exchange or not…survive and you are a vampire…survive but your brain is damaged and you are a ghoul…survive but your brain ends up with more holes than a sponge then you are a zombie.

Tada

:)

I prefer the Saberhagen "Act of Will"

Don't they have to pass the bar exams first?

Matheson's I am Legend : In the original book, you didn't have to die to become a vampire. Vampirism was a parasitic/symbiotic virus, that changed it's host. It orignally was spread only via a "bite" but before the book begins has mutated to a airborn version that has infected 100% of the population except for the hero. Matheson actually discribes the difference between "living" vampires and "dead" vampires. The "dead" vampires are more like simi-thinking zombies then real vampires.

Here at OG we get the mold out marked "vampires" and then we pour really hot metal into the molds as they spin really fast in a big machine.
Regards
Russ Dunaway

In my homebrew setting vampirism is a form of possession… often sought after by villainous sorcerors (Dracula) who make pacts with disembodied spirits.
The possessing entity has the ability to spread its influence to other folks as it feeds on them and weakens them to the point where their spirit cannot combat the presence. Since this requires that the possessing entity put a bit of itself into the new host the number of vampires it can make are limited.
Some vampires try to create lots of offspring, some prefer a single host.

Yep.

What always gets me is how killing the original vampire could make all the other ones die or (depending on the writers) turn back to human.

Dan

That's just a convenient plot device to make a happy ending possible. I've heard that about werewolves, too.

Killing the original guy would make sense with voodoo zombies :)

'Killing the original vampire could make all the other ones die or (depending on the writers) turn back to human.'
'I've heard that about werewolves, too.'

Also about people 'turned to stone' by a sorcerer / gorgon…

Highly unlikely: requires a *heavy* additional hypothesis: that the change is purely illusory / psychosomatic at most and maintained by permanent telepathic control. Thus, according to Occam's razor…

Killing the original guy would make sense with voodoo zombies

Or ghouls sensu Hellsing, or classical zombies, but I suspect the brain damage / washing of 'zombification' is irreversible, thus I'd suggest each one dices, 1-3 catatonia 4-6 goes berserk?
On the other hand, would work perfectly on 'animated scarecrows' and the like, if -'rationalist' mechanism- they are animated by a captive imp / spirit / angel sensu Keyes (fantasy) or immaterial psychic entity (possibly E.T.) / 'Viton'-like link being (science-fiction): the death of the 'captor' would free it, and for sure it would not linger in its 'jail'.

Green stuff

Another variation from anime, the genetic blood suckers of Karin/Chibi Vampire, use blood only to feed and power their magic. They breed normally, and function as normal humans until puberty, at which point they become sensitive to sunlight. They are unique (that I've seen) in that they are very picky about their blood sources. Still supernatural, they each develop a taste for the blood of someone under the influence of a particular strong emotion, and can drain that emotion when they drain blood. While it is possible to kill someone by draining them, most vampires of this type see no benefit to murder.

There are also the three types seen in the Dresden Files, all categorized as "vampires". Black Court are Dracula's "kin", as Bram Stoker was tricked into writing the book by the other courts so the world would know all the tricks needed to take down Black Court vamps. It worked…

Red Court are closer to the True Blood/Rice/From Dusk 'til Dawn types. Sunlight still burns them, but the allergies the Black Court is known for do not apply. They create new vampires by draining beyond a certain point. Did I mention their saliva is narcotic?

White Court are genetic, and are closer to Succubi/Incubi in nature, being emotion feeders. They are not infectious at all.