text; un: sekiken

[bloodspring]

Hello. My name is Louis, and it’s been about a month since my arrival.

This is something I’ve been curious about since arriving, so I’d like to gauge the current community:

Are you, do you know, or have you ever known a vampire?

If so, I’d like to learn as much as possible about the vampires from your worlds. While one might have in mind a vampire they would call “stereotypical,” that is undeniably a relative label, and it interests me just how widely the differences can range under what may very well now be called an umbrella term.

For example: My race goes by the name “revenants.” For all intents and purposes, I would still classify us as vampires, as we are immortals sustained by drinking blood—but perhaps you might think other criteria more appropriate for determining whether or not one falls into the vampire category? I welcome any challenges or elaboration.

Some further questions for consideration:

• Do your vampires have fangs? Powers, abilities?
• What kind of blood do they drink? How often? How do they feed?
• What does a vampire’s immortality look like to you?
• Are vampires well-embedded in your world’s history, or are they more recent?
• What relationships do you or they have with non-vampires?
• How have other vampires adapted since coming to this world? Are there any particular hindrances you or they encounter?

These are just a few to prompt discussion, but don’t feel limited to these questions only. This is meant to serve as a collaborative gathering of information.

As all of this may be a sensitive or even unpleasant topic for some, I want to offer full transparency from my side of things, and welcome anonymous responses should anyone wish to protect their identity. Please share as much or as little as you’d like, and feel free to ask if there’s anything you’d want to know of me, as well.

Thank you for reading.

Comments

text | un: jasminum

[diplous]

Aren’t you a curious one?
I think I’d be interested in hearing your answers to the very same questions you posed, so maybe we can trade off.

text; un: faust

[spectralsnipe]

I've never met one personally but there are vampires where I'm from, although they're actually a sub-group of a different race. They have a pretty infamous reputation for being bloodthirsty and ruthless but I can't really confirm if they live up to any of that.

[bloodspring]

Of course. I expected to share as much as anyone might want to ask.
Where would you like to start, then?

[bloodspring]

What are they called in your world?
I can't say I'm surprised about a violent reputation. They were largely painted as monsters in my world, fictional horrors and such. Things that went bump in the night.
Until, of course, they weren't fictions anymore.

[spectralsnipe]

They're still called vampires but they're part of a race known as the Sarkaz.

Was the fiction influenced by reality or was it the other way around?

[bloodspring]

I can't rule out the possibility that there might've been vampires long ago, which could have inspired their earliest appearances in literature from centuries past. They'd become something iconic in modern media, portrayals ranging from horrid and terrifying to even glorified and alluring.

Revenants were manufactured not as an attempt to bring vampires into reality, but as superhumans born of a medical miracle. Though there are certain qualities we share to "traditional" vampires as we had known them, there are some pointed differences as well. One example is that we aren't adversely affected by sunlight.

[diplous]

Have you ever encountered a vampire with no fangs before? I’d be interested to know how they fed it they didn’t. Seems inconvenient.

[bloodspring]

My fangs are retractable, and I've personally never had to use them for feeding, so they're only out in extreme circumstances.

We used a wearable technology called "blood veils" as an extension of our fangs. They synchronized with the user to change form and drain blood from a target when attacking. However, as we'd only fight undead entities with tainted blood—not living humans—blood drained in this way could only be used to power our abilities, and not stave off any hunger.

text; un: asura

[demonicbookworm]

[Isn't this the guy he's met in the library?]

You're a vampire? I had no idea...

Ah, this is Ruca. I'm sorry, I've only ever read about vampires in novels so I don't have anything to say on this subject.

[bloodspring]

Aha. Hello again, Ruca. Forgive me for not mentioning it. I certainly wasn't trying to hide it. If it had come up, I would've told you then.

Do you have any questions for me, then? There's a fair chance I'm a bit different from those you might've read about.

[demonicbookworm]

No, it's perfectly fine!

Vampires that come up in the stories are... really scary. But you're not! Not at all!

But that makes me wonder... you need blood to stay alive, right?

[bloodspring]

Haha, thank you. I'm glad to not have scared you off. I'm of the mind that humanity is more than being human, so... it's important to me that my human heart remains intact, no matter the form I take.

I do, and it's considerably more accessible here in Lunatia than it had been on my home world. I take a daily supplement that comes in pill form. Where I came from, revenants could drink from the few humans that remained, but it was a cruel practice, and one I didn't partake in. I and many others instead relied on a plant-grown substitute for blood, strange as that may sound.

[spectralsnipe]

Was the "medical miracle" intentional? Or just a coincidence? It definitely sounds like a pretty suspicious thing to claim wasn't purposeful to recreate something from legend like that.

[demonicbookworm]

I see.

Are there any downsides to taking supplements or using substitutes? Do you find yourself struggling sometimes?

I'm sorry if I'm asking insensitive questions.

text | un: r.chambers

[herbmixing]

They're only folklore where I'm from, as far as I know. I've seen stories portraying them from vicious, mindless beasts to romantic heroes.

I'm more interested in it biologically.

[bloodspring]

There's nothing to apologize for. I offered to answer as much as I can, and I take no offense in the slightest. Thank you for being so considerate, though.

Perhaps someone with more of a preference for fresh human blood might think the supplements or substitutes inferior, but for me, I fair just fine with them.

[... Except during Sanguis, but that was a particularly recent struggle for him, and not quite one he's jumping to talk about just yet. One might even say it was what finally convinced him to start this discussion.]

Anything else you're curious about? I don't mind.

[bloodspring]

[Mm. A difficult question... Though he understands the other's suspicions, Louis' sister had been one of the researchers heading the project, so he can't help believing the best of their intents—at the start of it, at least.]

The BOR parasite was developed in the hopes of changing how humans lived and died, reviving the dead with increased regenerative ability and resistance to disease. However, it was largely controversial in scientific circles, so it was placed on the back burner for some years.

When the apocalypse hit, it was deemed a necessity to keep the earth's population from being wiped out entirely, and the parasite was implanted into countless corpses. In no time at all, revenants were produced left and right, until they eventually outnumbered humans.

[bloodspring]

Yes, that's essentially how it had been back in my world too, until the stories stopped being just stories.

It may interest you to know then that my people had been "turned" via parasite, rather than any stray vampire bite.

Can I answer any questions you might have on the biological side of things?

[herbmixing]

The parasite would be a good start, if that's okay? We had something sort of similar back home for me too. Do you know if it was something man-made or just an unknown organism?

Oh, I'm Rebecca, by the way. Sorry, I should introduce myself before grilling you.

text | un: fantasma

[teaserving]

i sucked dracula's dick
i could tell you about that

[bloodspring]

Don't worry about it. Posting this was halfway an invitation to be grilled, anyway. Once again, I'm Louis. Nice to meet you.

I believe the parasite was man-made, though I don't know the specifics of how, or whether a previous discovery had inspired its creation. It was meant to revolutionize modern medicine, though most didn't take kindly to it in concept. It was only popularized after an apocalypse halved the human population, and society decided being undead was preferable over dead, period.

[bloodspring]

[...... Okay, he'll bite.]

Alright. Go ahead, then. I'm listening.

[herbmixing]

Halved? That's awful!

I guess I can see the reasoning, though...do you get the same sort of resilience and power from vampirism? I never really understood how vampires could live just on blood anyway.

But then people usually told me I was thinking too much about fiction.

[bloodspring]

Yes... It was a tragedy that struck worldwide, all at once. Giant thorns pierced the land, and monsters that exceeded the imagination arose from the cracks. Revenants were meant to fight back against these monsters, while protecting the dwindling number of humans.

Specific abilities can vary from one revenant to another, but in general, we all have enhanced strength and endurance, as well as accelerated regeneration. Some powers lend better to agility or magic, too.

I wish I could tell you why only blood sustains us... I believe I read somewhere once that the earliest vampire mythos reasoned that blood equated life, and because vampires were born as a disruption to the natural cycle of life and death, they fed on "life" itself as an act of defiance and spite towards the gods.

But, like you said... Perhaps that's just overly focused on the fiction of it.

[diplous]

I see, how curious.
A few questions do come to mind after reading that explanation of yours though. The matter with the undead, how did you even come to fighting their sort?