SunnyD wrote:
I know it's been a while, but I thought I'd revive the thread briefly because I'm in a spooky mood and want to make my first obligatory vampire character to scratch that itch.
My question is: what other methods are there to create vampires besides the character being bitten by one?
I have some vague ideas I'd like to use, it's not much, but this character would be recently turned in their adult life. I'm not sure how supernatural/mythical I want it to feel vs an undeathly disease but I'll prefer anything over being randomly turned in a thoughtless attack, mostly because I don't want to spread myself thin by coming up with a poor excuse for a sire who left them for dead (which somehow feels cheap). They're definitely no ancient creature of the night from a grand lineage, just a poor soul suddenly playing on a different set of rules to the rest of humanity.
My question is: what other methods are there to create vampires besides the character being bitten by one?
I have some vague ideas I'd like to use, it's not much, but this character would be recently turned in their adult life. I'm not sure how supernatural/mythical I want it to feel vs an undeathly disease but I'll prefer anything over being randomly turned in a thoughtless attack, mostly because I don't want to spread myself thin by coming up with a poor excuse for a sire who left them for dead (which somehow feels cheap). They're definitely no ancient creature of the night from a grand lineage, just a poor soul suddenly playing on a different set of rules to the rest of humanity.
Could come up with you're own method? Come up with some general new lore to how vampires function in your setting. Maybe draw inspiration from other mythologies.
For example, one idea that just occurred to me is that vampires in this character's setting aren't very common because of vamprie hunters, so even though they're functionally immortal so long as they have access to blood, they can still be killed by a person, so Vampries have begun transferring their souls from one person to another to avoid vampire hunters, and that's been going on for so long it's more or less the main means of transmitting vampirism. So your character could've been chosen by some powerful vampire to become their new body, but the transfer process was effed up somehow. Maybe there's some aspect of your character that causes issues with soul transfer, or the process was interrupted or poorly planned, and the vampire ends up sharing the body with your character, or the vampire themselves just doesn't transfer into your character's body, thus just making them a vampire.
To me when it comes to vampires it's more of what I don't like. I don't like twilight vampires, the whole sparkle thing is just out of character for vampires. When I think "vampire" I think either ones that have a weakness to sunlight or the more rare daywalker. I don't frickin think of sparkling vampires, like instead of tarring and feathering one, they glued and glittered one. However, if people want to rp twilight vampires, then they can go right ahead and I hope they enjoy themselves. Just let it be known that I will never create or rp with a twilight vampire.
Then obviously I don't like mary sue daywalking vampires that have no weaknesses because they are the perfect epitome of their kind, or they are a hybrid who species/race cancel out each other's weaknesses blah blah blah. Basically I hate OP Mary Sue vampires. Nuff said.
Vegetarian vampires? Eh I'm fairly ambivalent towards it. Don't hate them, but don't love them either. If I find them interesting, I'll play with them. Have a preference towards non vegetarian though. However I think it would be interesting to see some more middle of the road vampires as I tend to see people often go towards the two extremes. They drain humans dry or they drink animal blood. Would be nice to see some that drink human blood, but not to the point of killing their victims.
Now with all that out of the way, I enjoy vampires who embrace their true bloody nature, but also keep some refinement towards them. The kind who would have no problem hosting an ball and then later murdering one or more of the guests on their way home. A dracula sort of vampire if you will. I also like the dark, sexy and dangerous ones, they are far more interesting to me for a vampire romance then your "romantic" twilight vegetarian vampire.
Then obviously I don't like mary sue daywalking vampires that have no weaknesses because they are the perfect epitome of their kind, or they are a hybrid who species/race cancel out each other's weaknesses blah blah blah. Basically I hate OP Mary Sue vampires. Nuff said.
Vegetarian vampires? Eh I'm fairly ambivalent towards it. Don't hate them, but don't love them either. If I find them interesting, I'll play with them. Have a preference towards non vegetarian though. However I think it would be interesting to see some more middle of the road vampires as I tend to see people often go towards the two extremes. They drain humans dry or they drink animal blood. Would be nice to see some that drink human blood, but not to the point of killing their victims.
Now with all that out of the way, I enjoy vampires who embrace their true bloody nature, but also keep some refinement towards them. The kind who would have no problem hosting an ball and then later murdering one or more of the guests on their way home. A dracula sort of vampire if you will. I also like the dark, sexy and dangerous ones, they are far more interesting to me for a vampire romance then your "romantic" twilight vegetarian vampire.
okay it's an old thread but vampires man!
they're my JAM.
Personally I like vampires with a well thought out lore, with clear rules and limitations. I really enjoy playing with limitations and vampires get some really quite interesting ones above and beyond the sunlight allergy everyone thinks of lol.
I love vampire lore and playing around with it, which is precisely why all my vampires have slightly different rules, they're all slightly different "subspecies".
Vampires are interesting because of their limitations. The need to consume blood is an interesting thing to explore, the immortality and the loss of connection with humanity. I think vampires are interesting not because they're superpowered humans but because they're losing their humanity and sort of sitting on the sidelines as "other" while still having a human past.
Imagine becoming immortal, watching those you cared about grow old and die. Imagine having to leave them well before then for fear of the danger you might be to them or they to you? Imagine how you'd handle bloodlust and if your vampire is the sort who NEEDS to feed off humans how you'd handle that.
There's a great deal of really interesting stuff to be explored with vampirism and I think that's why I like them so much.
Now that said, i'm not too keen on the angst angst woe is me style of vampire you often get with say, Anne Rice (MAN they're whiny) or indeed the "basically a superhero" sort you get in a lot of more modern media.
But I do feel like the struggle between monster and humanity is part of the whole POINT of a vampire character isn't it?
they're my JAM.
Personally I like vampires with a well thought out lore, with clear rules and limitations. I really enjoy playing with limitations and vampires get some really quite interesting ones above and beyond the sunlight allergy everyone thinks of lol.
I love vampire lore and playing around with it, which is precisely why all my vampires have slightly different rules, they're all slightly different "subspecies".
Vampires are interesting because of their limitations. The need to consume blood is an interesting thing to explore, the immortality and the loss of connection with humanity. I think vampires are interesting not because they're superpowered humans but because they're losing their humanity and sort of sitting on the sidelines as "other" while still having a human past.
Imagine becoming immortal, watching those you cared about grow old and die. Imagine having to leave them well before then for fear of the danger you might be to them or they to you? Imagine how you'd handle bloodlust and if your vampire is the sort who NEEDS to feed off humans how you'd handle that.
There's a great deal of really interesting stuff to be explored with vampirism and I think that's why I like them so much.
Now that said, i'm not too keen on the angst angst woe is me style of vampire you often get with say, Anne Rice (MAN they're whiny) or indeed the "basically a superhero" sort you get in a lot of more modern media.
But I do feel like the struggle between monster and humanity is part of the whole POINT of a vampire character isn't it?
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