Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Xender]

It is herefore suggested that vampirism be product of additional processes besides (as far as I know) godly curses. 

The two that I like from popular culture are the

A) Lumley Vampires - Symbiotic Parasitism
B) Rice Vampires - Spiritual Congruence

A)  The parasite be a seperate creature or entity that must take over a suitable host, typically humanoid, but really any living creature would do.  Any creature in symbiosis with the parasite is basically now a vampire, so it has vampire behaviors and such, like farming people, eating people, etc..  These vampires gain power with age.  They transmit vampirism by giving their victims a piece of their parasite, or parasite material etc.  A vampire must be at such an age to be able to make new vampires, with limits on new vampire production as regenerating parts of ones parasite takes time, food, etc.  New vampires would be in thrall to their creator, essentially they would be their henchmen untill such time when they are old enough to branch away from their master (assuming of course their master didn't eat them, or an angry mob didn't party with them..).

B)These vampires are first made when an angry ghost, obsessed with the blood of sentient beings, attacks and obsorbs itself into the blood of an individual who somehow pissed it off.  I guess it would be like possession, except the individual isn't possessed, it's the blood that is possessed, so it's the blood that drives the vampirism behavior and traits, and the blood that, when transfered to a victim, makes them a vampire also.

Just a couple of suggestions.  Thanks.

~Xender

[Bohandas]

Personally I prefer vampirism origin stories where a person is so bloodthirsty in life that this manifests itself literally after their death.

[Xender]

What Mode is that then?

[thatkid]

Personally I prefer vampirism origin stories where a person is so bloodthirsty in life that this manifests itself literally after their death.

I very much like this as well. It will probably work better when personalities are a bit more fleshed out, but such a thing can conceivably happen in DF now.

A type of vampirism which I'm also a fan of is the kind found in Brian Stableford's Empire of Fear. It's sort of like OP's transmission 'A', however

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the vampirism is caused by a bacteria/STD which reproduces itself utilizing red blood cells. The bacteria has a side-effect of quickly healing its host, as well as providing immortality and other vampire things. Through this, conceivably, an entire family could slowly turn into vampires, with complicated blood rituals inducting outside members/'children' into the cult.

Obviously don't read the spoiler if you want to read Empire of Fear without it being spoiled. It's actually a good book though this post does not do it justice.

[Bohandas]

Personally I prefer vampirism origin stories where a person is so bloodthirsty in life that this manifests itself literally after their death.

What Mode is that then?

Magic? maybe...

[Lost_Deep]

The obvious thing, to me, would be to make vamparism start similarly to the lich and undead secrets. Someone wants to live forever, and they find a way. But instead of delving into secrets of fell powers of the undead, they delve into secrets of fell powers of blood. The profaning idea should work, too. Gods traditionally (particularly in Ovid's Metamorphoses) seem to have weird ideas about punishment and mercy.

[Megaman_zx]

it seems like toady's version is the most classic, since dracula, who is in the original myth viewed as the first vampire worshiped the devil and through a demonic ritual gained his powers and mortality. Although there are no demonic gods or rituals in DF, pissing off a god and receiving the curse is second best. Parasites seem to scifi for a fantasy world, but the spirit thing seems like it would add just another origin story to a normal vampire. (nothing wrong with that, but it seems like extra work)

[Bohandas]

Parasites seem too scifi for a fantasy world

I agree

[Xender]

Parasites seem too scifi for a fantasy world

I agree

Sorry, I disagree. 

[Lord Vetinari]

What I'd like to see is a non lethal feeding. Even Dracula in the original novel didn't kill on the first bite, it took him two or three visits to the same pray. This could lead to vampire who, if he's able to resist the urge to pray on the same person multiple times, doesn't live behind a trail of deaths.

[Funk]

the levels of blood need to feed,shoud be random.
some vampires killing the pray others only moveing them to Faint.

or even useing all the blood every come with Caravan.

[TheIcelandicManiac]

What the **** is with the talk of vampires lately?
did someone read twilight?

[harborpirate]

Toady talked about them at length in the most recent DF talk podcast. He was discussing a number of new night creature/monster types that were being added.

[Bohandas]

What the **** is with the talk of vampires lately?
did someone read twilight?

Toady talked about them at length in the most recent DF talk podcast. He was discussing a number of new night creature/monster types that were being added.

He also talked about it in the recent updates on the Bay12 Games Webpage

...ALSO, since TheIcelandicManiac mentioned Twilight in this thread, I now feel compelled to suggest that vampirism should somehow be originally caused by being metrosexual...