#VII, October 1994
Virgil Greene, email: klyfix@aol.com
It's October, the time when a young man's fancy turns to thoughts of skeletons and vampires and others of the undead. Thus we have this month's official topic: Horror. Well, I'm going to semi-follow the theme and so I'm going to write about...
Ever wonder just where vampires came from? In a lot of the movies and books on the subject they are just sort of...there. While an individual vampire might well have a story of his or her origin we don't really have much of an indication where the whole "race" of vampires came from. I figure that it depends on just what vampires really are. I've come up with several types with varying origins though it should be kept in mind that a vampire may well fit into more than one category and there may even be more than one type of vampire in a given setting.
There have been real people who were quite convinced that they were vampires. They'd drink blood and only go out at night and all that. One of the suggested explanations for the occasional accounts of vampires in history involves the fact that in the past (and occasionally even now) people would be buried when they "were not quite dead yet", to borrow from Monty Python. They would be seemingly dead, perhaps in a catalyptic state or other condition, and would revive in the grave. When they've dug themselves out they would be in some degree of shock and if their culture had stories of vampires they'd jump to the conclusion that they had joined the ranks of the undead. And some folk didn't even need to go through all that to believe that they were vampires; Jung suggested that the vampire is a universal archetype that some people would identify with. For game purposes the insane "vampire" could be the source of apparent vampire murders or assaults. In a fantasy game where it is "known" that vampires exist it could really confuse adventurers who see signs of a vampire but don't detect the presence of undead creatures by magical investigation. Weird variant idea. How about an insane vampire who doesn't realize his true nature? A vampire with a split personality perhaps who appears to be just a human who dislikes sunlight but otherwise seems normal, but who occasionally switches to another personality that manifests when they need to feed on blood? Could be a nasty trick to play on somebody in a GURPS campaign that takes the split personality disadvantage.
[On Forever Knight they actually did this; a multiple personality woman, one of whose personalities was a vampire. The other personalities didn't have the advantages or disadvantages of a vampire.]
Blood. Mystic stuff. "The blood is the life" it says in the Bible. People who seek mystic powers or who wish to contact certain supernatural entities may feel that the sacrifice of blood or the consumption of blood will give them powers. There are people in America who do this, some say. It would be possible in some game settings for blood cultists to actually become vampires; in RuneQuest Glorantha setting there is a cult of Vivamort, a chaos deity whose Rune Lords are vampires. Or some cults could worship vampires. Most blood cults would likely just use blood in mystic rituals of some kind, however. In most campaigns, a blood cult would be some evil group seeking to perform unholy magics for foul purposes; no better than real vampires and possibly regarded as vampires. But they may well not be evil; they may never kill, but just use small amounts of blood in certain spells. Would player characters be able to understand the difference between a vampire cult and a cult using blood in fertility rituals?
One of the little known ways for a person to become a vampire is to live an evil life or commit a particularly evil act. Witches, suicides, and others supposedly might become vampires upon their death. In White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade the first vampire, Caine, becomes a vampire as a punishment for some sin. I have some problems with this. Let's see, you've committed a horrible wrong and are an evil person. For your punishment, you will be immortal and very hard to kill...huh? Even if they have to kill people to survive, that may very well not bother a truly evil person. But it could be that an eternity of not being able to live a full and normal life might be a punishment to some. But there's another sort of curse. Not on an evil person for his sins, but on a more or less righteous person cast by a malevolent person or entity. Such a person, forced to give up their old life and potentially kill to survive, will be in some degree of torment. An example would be Barnabas Collins on the old horror soap opera Dark Shadows.When he rejected the advances of the evil Angelique, she turned him into a vampire, forcing on him a "life" of misery. This could be an interesting option for a player character in a game that isn't primarily about vampires; but it would be a challenge for both player and GM as they deal with dark urges and hiding the truth from others. Improperly done you've just got a PC with super powers, however.
There's a certain amount of appeal to vampirism. "Sleep all day. Stay up all night. Live forever. It's fun being a vampire." as they said in the movie Lost Boys. Vampires are often perceived as sexy, and their feeding often has a sort of sexual connection. Plus vampires often have certain extra abilities; they're stronger and tougher than mortals usually and often they have psychic or magical powers. They are the perfect seducers. This being the case, many people would willingly become vampires. Even in our more or less real world there are many people who would jump at the opportunity to become a vampire, some even if it did involve killing others. But they may not be fully aware of what they are getting into; after all, any recruiter is going to present it in the most positive way possible. Of course often a person becomes a vampire in order to be with a lover or in order to be better able to seek revenge. In the syndicated vampire cop show Forever Knight, Nick appears to have "come across" as a result of his relationship with Jeanette but didn't really quite know just what he was getting into. He just wanted to be with her, not to become a murdering blood drinker. There's a decided downside to embracing vampirism to achieve certain ends if one doesn't recognize the full truth of vampirism.
In some views, those killed by a vampire are doomed to become vampires themselves. They have made no decision to do so, and they have committed no great evils; they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and became victims of someone's blood lust. In other views, you do not create vampires simply by killing someone. You must give them some of your own blood (or it's equivalent) or do some sort of action to make a mortal into a vampire. The "creator" or "sire" has some sort of purpose in creating a new vampire. This may just be a desire for a new companion, or a need for a servant, or an act of spite. Dracula in Stoker's original book appears to have wanted Nina Harker partly as a new companion and partly as revenge against her husband and Dr. Van Helsing. Often the new vampire is under some degree of control by the "sire". This is nice for the master, but often a great negative for the servant. While some masters may be concerned for their "child's" well being and help them to adjust, some might well use them for cannon fodder or the lowest form of slave. One interesting game idea would be the conversion of a PC into a vampire (in a non-vampire centered game); difficult to do as the player fights to retain their control while the GM asserts the power of the master. It could be a significant quest as the PC strives to free themselves and regain their full independence or perhaps seeks to reverse their transformation.
Vampirism resembles a disease in some ways. It is usually perceived as being transmitted by a bite or consumption of infected blood (or its equivalent). Now just suppose it was in fact actually a disease, not a supernatural state at all. That's the case in Richard Matheson's I Am Legend, in which the world is overrun with a plague of vampires after a major war kicks up huge amounts of dust containing the disease organisms. These are far from romantic vamps; they have very little in the way of intelligence and very little in the way of special abilities other than being hard to kill. It would be possible to have a less extreme version of a vampire disease that left some degree of intellect so that PCs would have an interesting challenge without having a whole world of mindless vampires to deal with. Of course a disease model of vampirism doesn't necessarily eliminate a magical or supernatural element in vampirism. Note that in the case of Barnabas Collins there was a disease organism that was possibly treatable despite the magical curse that caused his condition. In FASA's Shadowrun, vampirism is caused by a magically mutated virus or bacterium. The major thing to keep in mind with a disease model for vampirism is that it may well be curable by scientific or medical means even if it has a magical origin. If vampirism is curable, we get the interesting situation where the idea that "the only good vampire is a dead vampire" is unacceptable even if it was previously the accepted view. After all, we don't kill people just because they're sick. Also, a vampire may well not _want_ to be cured; why give up power and immortality just so you can go out in the day and have a more acceptable diet?
Generally, it is assumed that vampires were once normal humans. But this is not necessarily the case. It is certainly possible for vampires to in fact be a subspecies of humans, another species in the genus _homo_, another mammalian species that only looks human, or even a totally alien species. There have been a few stories in that line. George R.R. Martin postulated a subspecies of long lived regenerating vampires in his novel Fevre Dream. And in the famed British SFTV series Dr. Who there were two stories featuring vampires. In the story "State of Decay", the Doctor has to deal with a planet ruled by vampires created from humans by the Great Vampire whose race was mostly destroyed by the Time Lords. And in "The Curse of Fenric" the evil Fenric brings haemovores, blood drinking creatures evolved from humans in the far future to a secret British base during the latter part of WWII. In both stories normal humans can be converted into vampires by the alien or mutant; in most settings mutant or alien vampirism will be non-transmittable. The important thing to keep in mind if vampires are an altogether different species rather than altered humans is that a person killed by a vampire is (generally) going to remain dead. They aren't going to be able to make you into one, but they may lie and say that they can in order to seduce victims. A vampire species may also think in an entirely different way than humans do.
One more unusual notion is vampires who were created by either science or sorcery. In a magically active world some vampires may be the product of evil sorcerous attempts at immortality or reanimating the dead. In future technologically advanced societies it may be possible to create a vampire through genetic manipulation or maybe some sort of surgical alterations. These created vampires might not conform to the traditions of vampirism and their vampirism may not be contagious, particularly if they are non-magical in nature. Of course it could be possible to manufacture a "vampire germ", possibly as an unusual bio-weapon.
[Additions, 1998]
Why is it that a good person becomes evil when they become a vampire? It is almost as if they become a different person. Well, perhaps they are. There's a tradition that vampires have no souls; maybe there's a truth to that. In Buffy the Vampire Slayer vampires apparently are a form of demon possession; the original spirit is gone but the resulting vampire has a lot of the mortal's personality and knowledge. The original spirit can be brought back however through certain spells. This is where the one good vampire in Buffy comes from; Angel's soul was re-bound into his old body producing a vampire with a ton of guilt. The key question for RPG purposes is whether the players and/or the general populace know that a vampire is not the original person, but a demon in their body. If everybody knows this, you've eliminated any reason anyone would ever want to become a vampire. If this isn't generally known, the player characters may be hesitant to kill their old buddy just because he's a vampire and may try to cure him. Most likely, it would not be generally known but would be known to appropriate party members. This leads to a vampire being defended by the family or friends of its mortal form; they don't know any better. Under this model it is a bit difficult to have a vampire PC unless we're going to assume that these demons can be "good" or the vampire has the original soul bound into it. Well, I suppose one could play a regular demon vamp in a party of evil, but I'm no fan of playing evil characters.
I don't believe that vampires, other than crazies and/or cultists, are real. But if they were, what would they be like? They'd not need to kill to live, after all we don't see a lot of stories about desanquinated bodies being discovered. Blood would probably be a necessary supplement to an otherwise normal diet. Becoming a vampire would not be easy; most likely you'd have to be born with that potential. They might have mind control powers; a "donor" would not remember being bitten or cut by a feeding vampire and the vampire could use the power to attract "donors". This would also be useful for other purposes; vampires probably would still have a sex drive. They'd likely be immune to human diseases; with all that blood drinking they wouldn't live very long without immunity. And they wouldn't be able to change their physical form, but they might be able to use their mind control to create the illusion of changing their form. They might be immortal and hard to kill, but mundane means could still kill them if you try hard enough. They'd not need to sleep in a coffin, or in their native soil; after all, they aren't dead. They'd be just like your neighbors. Maybe they are your neighbors.
The variety of vampire in a given game will vary according to tech and magic levels and the overall significance of vampires in society. Player character vampires are not likely to be insane or just cultists. Disease vampires may well be like a plague that has to actively be fought lest they leave no living humans. Cultists or crazies might well appear to be vampires to player characters in a fantasy/magical world, and real vampires might appear to be insane to characters in a modern setting. At the very least, vampires should be more than just "claw, claw, bite" monsters but beings with reason and motivations and a logic behind their existence.
Look for this book! You should be able to find it on the discount tables at your local B. Dalton store or possibly other stores owned by the Barnes and Noble company, as it is published by Barnes and Noble. It has Lovecraft's classic essay, "Supernatural Horror in Literature" which gives a nice overview of "weird fiction" up to the twenties and also gives an insight into the influences on Lovecraft's fiction. There's also several stories mentioned in the essay in the volume, though it isn't quite like what the cover blurb says, "21 classics of the literature chosen by the Master of Horror himself". That makes it sound like Lovecraft was the editor when in fact they just picked a selection of works that he mentioned particularly favorably [in one case, a different work than HPL mentions, by the same writer]. Anyway, it'll cost you about $6 and should be worth it. Oh, and this isn't in the review section 'cause I haven't read the whole thing, yet; I have read some of the stories before though and the essay is quoted in almost any discussion of Lovecraft.
[I've read the whole work since originally writing this, and I think one should definitely buy it if one is interested in the inspirations for the Mythos. The problem is finding it now, unless the Barnes and Noble people elect to reprint it.]