Post by Veronique Poulain on Jan 4, 2010 23:12:39 GMT -5
It seems this question, more than any other, has been posed to me. What makes a person a vampire? Well, it seems simple enough -- you are either born one, or you are made. But there is more to it than that. What qualities make a vampire distinct from anything else in this world?
I have been steadily compiling information throughout my many years, and I will continue to add to it as more comes to light. However, this is what I can tell you thus far about vampires, and what makes us so very interesting.
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What is a Vampire?
I have been steadily compiling information throughout my many years, and I will continue to add to it as more comes to light. However, this is what I can tell you thus far about vampires, and what makes us so very interesting.
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What is a Vampire?
Vampires are a rare breed of creature often mistaken for dead; they have unparalleled control over entropy and the metaphysical concepts of life and death, control that grants them immortality and impressive control over their own bodies at the cost of a deep hunger for the lifeblood of other creatures. Like everything else, vampires have to feed; human blood is the most natural form of sustenance, but with training, they can learn to utilize other methods.
Powers and Weakness of the Vampire
Vampires, while not quite as susceptible to sunlight as some legends suggest, are unable to use any of their powers during daylight hours, both the special powers of individuals and those inherent to all vampires. They also have a great vulnerability to fire, and while it is not usually physically painful for them to be around an open fire, vampires burn much more easily than humans, and thus are instinctively afraid of fire, sometimes to an extreme degree.
Vampires have an unnaturally predatory feel to them, which causes normal mortals to instinctually fear them. They also look inhuman, a trait which magnifies as they age. There is no one definite trait, but more of an air about them. The skin seems more sallow, more pale; the eyes more hollow; there seems to be something wrong with them on a basic level. Vampires have a sort of weak illusion effect, which allows them to look more human, though this only works during the night.
Vampire flesh is structured much different than normal human flesh. While it is much harder to harm a vampire, they have very little ability to heal naturally and many mages find them nearly impossible to heal magically without significant experience working with vampires.
How Vampires are Made
While vampires can be born, the fertility rate of vampires is very low, particularly when both parents are vampires. It is much more common for vampires to "adopt" family members, and their solitary nature may drive them to bring new members into their families.
Vampires who are made rather than born often have more trouble with the weaknesses of vampires, however. They find themselves thirsting more for blood, they have a harder time controlling their base impulses, and they find themselves emotionally and physically trapped at the age they were turned.
The change from mortal to vampire requires somewhat complicated process which is quite painful for both the vampire and the human. First, the human must be brought to the brink of death by the vampire drinking their blood; then, the vampire must give a significant quantity of their own blood to the human. Usually, this process renders the vampire very weak for a period anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. The human, however, gets the worse end of the deal: the change is physically painful, as their metabolic system crashes and is replaced with a nearly insatiable hunger for blood, and are often taken over by an animalistic desire to destroy everything around them. This induces most vampires to plan the change in advance, and often requires them to find a second, since the parent in their weakened state is likely to be incapable of controling the newborn vampire once they awaken.
Malkov's Disease
Unfortunately, vampires who are born, rather than turned, often experience the unfortunate side-effect of a form of dementia unique to vampires known as Malkov's disease. The onset age varies from vampire to vampire, anywhere from the hundreth or so year of life to the thousandth, and the more "pure" a vampire's blood is, the more likely it is that they will suffer from it. Dunehelden's own Sir William Clark succumbed to Malkov's Disease at some point during early Victorian England, which he seems to be stuck in indefinitely. The symptoms may include a variety of things, usually beginning with delusions, though it may include anything from hallucinations, multiple personalities, extreme paranoia, and often eventual catatonia. It seems to be, on a physical level, the vampire's brain gradually malfunctioning in a variety of ways, from synapses in the brain misfiring to certain chemicals ceasing to work. Not all vampires succumb to this, however; vampires that have a human parent or several humans within their lineage often live relatively normal lives.
Vampires at Dunehelden
The primary issue with vampires at Dunehelden is the need to feed; for whatever reason, the twilight realm has the properties of lessening this need and often calming the instincts of new vampires to an extent (though the full effects have not been studied), but eventually, if a vampire has not already been taught another method of feeding they will need to be. Ambient-energy feeding is the most popular, though a tricky and relatively new process: through this, a vampire can feed on the naturally-expended energy of their mortal brethren, or of the natural flora and fauna of the vast courtyard grounds.
(Feeding on the fae creatures by any method is both highly not recommended and entirely forbidden on penalty of being penned up in a hospital ward for at least a week and being poked at.)