"Are Vampires In Games As Messy As Those In Film?" Topic

(Note: This could also apply to Aliens who feed on humans)

Seriously, what is up with the messy eating habits, specially if you're trying to be discreet about your number of kills? Wouldn't you want to avoid wasting any of it?

Do your vampires leave such a mess on purpose, for others to find and track them down and get caught? Or do they bring along their own cleaning kits?

Dan

This seems to be more for shock value in film. As I recall Dracula in the book left only small puncture wounds.

Their mothers never taught them proper manners.

Mr. Johnson never left a mess.

It's nice of the top vampire to bring along paper towels

Despite their slovenly manners, I prefer the brutal feral vampires of 30 Days of Night and Stake Land to the more sissified vamps that have been popular over the last two decades or so.

One of the ATZ supplements has rules for "stage one" and "stage two" vampires. Stage one being feral vamps and stage two being more intelligent vampire lord types. The stage two can control the stage one and so on.

In the game The Fury of Dracula, where ever Dracula was last located there is local rumor of strange things that occurred while he was there. It is how the hunters can track him down.

The top image is from the hilarious "What We Do in the Shadows".

If you haven't seen it yet, stop reading this and go watch it now. 😀

It sounds like a riot.

Dan

Biting veins for a slurpy drink seems like it ought to be a messy affair.

Hammer's 1958 Dracula film was controversial for being the first vampire film to include any blood! (and was censored for being too racy with the seduction of Mina). Here's a pre-release comment from Audrey Field the BBFC:

"The uncouth, uneducated, disgusting and vulgar style of Mr Jimmy Sangster cannot quite obscure the remnants of a good horror story, though they do give one the gravest misgivings about treatment. […] The curse of this thing is the Technicolor blood: why need vampires be messier eaters than anyone else? Certainly strong cautions will be necessary on shots of blood. And of course, some of the stake-work is prohibitive."
link

I would think that a vampire would want to open the carotid artery and get a few nice big jolts of oxygenated blood, rather than having to suck hard at the jugular vein and get used-up venous blood.

Opening a large artery is going to be a very messy business, of course.

The other end of the scale would be those civilized vampires who buy whole blood from blood banks and use it to make real bloody Marys.

To the original question, I don't think that I've ever run a game with vampires, but I do recall a D&D game in which we burglarized a vampire's castle and had to fight our way out through hordes of wolves and werewolves. If I recall correctly, our mage destroyed the vampire's sarcophagus with a fireball, so he never actually appeared in the game.

Not all vampires are OCD clean freaks like Felix Unger… ;-)

"What We Do In The Shadows" …

Was at a friend's house one night for a social gathering of a dozen or more of us. We were desperately trying to remember the name of this film, to recommend it to those who hadn't seen it yet. My friend wanted to show off his high-tech rig for his television, so he picked up the remote and clearly stated into the pick-up mike end:

"Show us what we do in the dark".

I tried to interrupt, or mess up the text string by shouting "No! no! no!"

But in the end, technology saw it through and actually listed this movie as the first intended choice. Go figure.

Making a big mess ensures that the vampire's minions don't have too much free time on their hands. Vampires don't clean up after themselves.

Dracula: Dead and Loving It