Daydreamer

How to survive a 9 AM remote stand-up when your body is currently demanding the sleep of the dead. 💻🦇

We know a lot of our members transitioned to remote work over the last decade. It seems like the perfect setup: no deadly morning commutes, no fluorescent office lighting, and you can theoretically work from your crypt.

However, the "9 AM mandatory video sync" is an act of extreme hostility against creatures of the night. If you haven't mastered the art of the daytime illusion, you are going to look less like a "dedicated employee" and more like a reanimated Victorian corpse.

UdA Approved Remote Work Tactics:

The "Glare" Excuse: Buy the thickest, most aggressive blackout curtains on the market. When your manager asks why your home office looks like a subterranean cavern, complain loudly about the "terrible screen glare" from your windows. Mortals love talking about ergonomics; they will instantly sympathize.

Camera Filter Magic: Never, under any circumstances, buy a standard influencer ring light. The UV output will literally give you a sunburn during a quarterly review. Instead, rely on your webcam's "touch up my appearance" software to give your pallid, bloodless skin a rosy, corporate-acceptable blur.

The Undead Coffee Shop Order Guide:

O-Negative: The "Matcha Oat Milk Latte." Everyone wants it, it’s expensive, and it makes you feel instantly superior.

A-Positive: Black drip coffee. Gets the job done. Reliable.

AB-Negative: The seasonal Frappuccino with six modifications. Rare, annoying to source, but sweet as hell.

Animal Blood: Decaf. What is the point?

Certified Vegan: The next best thing to a kale smoothie.

Art by LilithielGames at DeviantArt

Vampire: dramatically corners target in a dark alley "I am the night. I have walked this earth for centuries. I have seen empires fall and oceans dry."

Being a dhampir assassin in 2026 means 10% of Alysia's job is actual hand-to-hand combat, and 90% is trying to get TSA to believe that her custom titanium stakes are just "really aggressive tent pegs."

You literally cannot talk about vampires without bowing to Eastern Europe. Romania and the Balkans didn’t just give us the aesthetic; they gave us the corporeal revenants known as strigoi and moroi (Johnson, 2001), as well as their ultimate predators: the dhampir.

What I appreciate about Eastern European lore is how decisively unglamorous it is. You didn't become a strigoi by being bitten by a sexy aristocrat. Historically, legends of the undead returning to terrorize their families were often born out of mass hysteria surrounding tuberculosis (consumption) epidemics, where the unexplained spread of the disease was blamed on the restless dead (Buzea, n.d.). Death is a bureaucratic nightmare, and if society doesn't process it correctly, boom! You're a bloodsucker.

But the folklore also provided a hyper-specific cure: the dhampir. Born from the union of a vampire father and a human mother, the dhampir was historically considered the only being capable of seeing and destroying invisible vampires, turning the monster's own cursed bloodline into a community's greatest weapon (McClelland, 2006).

To combat the undead, villagers would hire these dhampir for chaotic, desperate rituals, wrestling unseen forces, exhuming bodies, and burning hearts. There is something tragic about the living making as much noise as possible just to drown out the quiet creeping of death. It’s the original goth impulse: responding to the horror of mortality with dramatic, ritualistic theater, guided by someone who walks between both worlds. Dhampir have made it into popular culture with Blade (Marvel), Alucard (Castlevania), D (Vampire Hunter D), and the Dungeons and Dragons and Pathfinder roleplaying games. And yes, this body of folklore and pop culture is why Alysia, our favorite fictional UdA assassin, is a dhampir: you need someone born of the dark to effectively fight it.

Strigoi Folklore (Wikipedia)

Moroi - Living Vampires (Wikipedia)

Dhampir (Wikipedia)

Schneider, F. Wesley, Beltrán, Whitney, et al. (2021) Van Richten's Guide to Ravenloft.

Johnson, P. (2001). Count Dracula and the Folkloric Vampire.

Buzea, T. (n.d.). How a Book Changed a Nation.

McClelland, B. A. (2006). Slayers and Their Vampires: A Cultural History of Killing the Dead.

Even creatures of the night need to go touch grass sometimes.

If our recent releases were the soundtrack for wandering through neon streets or misty dreams at 3 AM, our new EP, Twilight in the Valley, is what happens when we stumble out of the crypt, discover the Shire, and decide to stay for second breakfast.

For this project, we stepped away from the heavy darkwave synths and driving basslines. Think rich acoustic strings, gentle earthy melodies, and the kind of pastoral, fantasy-inspired warmth that makes you want to live in a house with a round green door. It’s a peaceful acoustic journey through lush, green valleys right as the sun dips below the horizon. A deliberate transition from tension to sleep.

Sometimes, immortality is about resting in a quiet meadow before the hunt begins again.

Pour yourself a cup of tea, light a beeswax candle, and let us take you somewhere beautiful.

Stream Twilight in the Valley everywhere now.

A formal complaint against modern automotive engineering. 🚗☀️

Who decided that every new SUV needed headlights powered by the raw, unfiltered energy of a dying star?

For centuries, the night belonged to us. Now, you can be enjoying a peaceful midnight stroll through the cemetery, only to be absolutely flash-banged by a 2024 Honda Civic turning the corner. To our photosensitive members (vampires, deep-dweller ghouls, and certain fae): these LED high-beams can cause mild to moderate smoldering.

How to cope:

Polarized sunglasses at night are no longer just an aesthetic choice; they are PPE. Wear them.

Invest in SPF 100 and wear protective clothing.

Before we started making darkwave ethereal music, and way before we were indulging in mythology deep-dives, The Undead Association had a different, fanciful and rather ... pixelated life.

The Undead Association was born in the mid-90s, amid the screech of dial-up internet, and the absolute cultural reset that was reading Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire for the first time.

You might know the feeling. You read about Louis and Lestat wandering through New Orleans, draped in velvet and existential dread, and suddenly your brain chemistry is permanently altered. We looked at that dramatic, tragic (toxic?), deeply codependent immortal lifestyle, shivered, and thought, "Yes. We need to organize these people."

(Thanks to our sister-in-law Anne for introducing us to Louis and Lestat.)

Thus, The Undead Association was born. But not as a band. As a roleplaying guild.

If you are an internet elder of a certain age, please bow your head in respect for the AOL Free Form Gaming Forum (FFGF). The freeform, text-based roleplaying in Red Dragon Inn is where UdA took its first breaths. We were out there typing paragraphs of gothic prose in chat rooms and rolling 2d20 in deathmatches while someone's mom yelled to get off the computer so they could use the landline. It was a chaotic time to explore edgy creativity.

Over the decades, as the internet evolved, so did the Undead Association. UdA packed up its metaphorical coffins and migrated through the digital ether, setting up shop in basically every major MMORPG that would tolerate antiheroes.

And honestly? We never really stopped.

If you happen to wander the roads of Azeroth in World of Warcraft today—specifically on the Wyrmrest Accord server—keep an eye out. The Undead Association guild is still active, still heavily invested in the lore, and still wearing too much transmog black.

Let’s talk origins. The concept of the "vampire" didn't just pop out of nowhere in Victorian England. The fear of nocturnal, life-draining entities goes back to the dawn of written text, rooted deeply in ancient Babylonian and Assyrian mythology before being incorporated into early Jewish folklore (Goldblum, 2021).

The Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28) suggests that necromancy and speaking to the dead has been a taboo obsession for millennia. Death was never meant to be the end of the conversation.

In Isaiah 34:14, we get a reference to Lilith, depicted as a night demon who dwells in the desolate desert (Goldblum, 2021). Over centuries of Jewish legend, Lilith transitioned into a fiercely independent spirit, often characterized as a beautiful but deadly nocturnal entity or succubus who preyed upon the unprotected (Jacoby, 1987). Death and the night were never meant to be empty. They were populated by entities that explained the unexplainable tragedies of the ancient world.

It is no coincidence that the name Lilith has been reclaimed by modern gothic and witchy culture as a symbol of dark, unapologetic feminine power. When society tells you to fear the dark, sometimes the most empowering thing you can do is become the creature waiting in it. It’s a name that carries immense weight.

Personally, it was a hell of a name for Lillith to grow up with. We're twins. She was born first so she got branded with that name and endured being called the devil's child by an in-law's mother, and was called the Antichrist in high school. But she owns it very well now.

Let’s talk origins. The concept of the "vampire" didn't just pop out of nowhere in Victorian England. The fear of nocturnal, life-draining entities goes back to the dawn of written text, rooted deeply in ancient Babylonian and Assyrian mythology before being incorporated into early Jewish folklore (Goldblum, 2021).

The Witch of Endor (1 Samuel 28) suggests that necromancy and speaking to the dead has been a taboo obsession for millennia. Death was never meant to be the end of the conversation.

In Isaiah 34:14, we get a reference to Lilith, depicted as a night demon who dwells in the desolate desert (Goldblum, 2021). Over centuries of Jewish legend, Lilith transitioned into a fiercely independent spirit, often characterized as a beautiful but deadly nocturnal entity or succubus who preyed upon the unprotected (Jacoby, 1987). Death and the night were never meant to be empty. They were populated by entities that explained the unexplainable tragedies of the ancient world.

It is no coincidence that the name Lilith has been reclaimed by modern gothic and witchy culture as a symbol of dark, unapologetic feminine power. When society tells you to fear the dark, sometimes the most empowering thing you can do is become the creature waiting in it. It’s a name that carries immense weight.

Personally, it was a hell of a name for Lillith to grow up with. We're twins. She was born first so she got branded with that name and endured being called the devil's child by an in-law's mother, and was called the Antichrist in high school. But she owns it very well now.

Bram Stoker was Irish, and frankly, it shows. Long before Dracula, pre-Christian Celtic Ireland gave us the unnerving legend of the Abhartach (Game, n.d.).

Folklore from the fifth and sixth centuries describes the Abhartach as a tyrannical dwarf king and dark sorcerer who repeatedly rose from his grave at night to feast on the blood of his subjects (Game, n.d.). The only way to stop him? Slain with a wooden sword, buried upside down, and trapped beneath a massive stone. Vampirism in these early stories was closely linked to visceral, prehistoric fears surrounding blood as the ultimate source of human vitality (Buzea, n.d.). The veil between life and death has always been terrifyingly thin, especially around Samhain.

There is a deeply auditory element to Celtic horror that gets overlooked. The ancient Celts were oral storytellers, meaning these monsters lived in the breath and the voice. When we pluck the strings of a Celtic lap harp or weave sweeping ambient layers into our tracks, we are trying to capture that exact, ancient chill—the feeling of cold wind tickling a burial mound.

The Abhartach (Wikipedia)

Samhain and the Celtic Underworld (Wikipedia)

Game, P. B. (n.d.). The History of Vampire Folklore.

Buzea, T. (n.d.). How a Book Changed a Nation.

Modern Vampires - Short #1

Okay, so maybe the "HR for Vampires" thing is just our aesthetic (for legal reasons, we cannot confirm nor deny our own mortality).

Allow us to reintroduce ourselves. We are The Undead Association: a dark, ethereal musical duo comprised of Eve and Lillith. Yes, those are our real names.

Think driving basslines, haunting harmonies, and synths that sound like they were recorded in an abandoned gothic cathedral at 3 AM. If you like music that makes you want to wander through rainy neon-lit streets or a foggy graveyard in a velvet cloak while contemplating the fleeting nature of existence... you're in the right place. Stream our music now. Let us haunt your playlists.

PSA for our immortal members regarding modern banking. 🏦🦇

We at The Undead Association cannot stress this enough: you cannot keep the same checking account open for 150 years. The IRS has algorithms now. They will notice if your savings account has been compounding interest since the Hoover administration.

Gone are the days when you could just bury a chest of gold in the woods. Modern survival requires administrative agility. Every 30 to 40 years, you must execute the "Eccentric Recluse" maneuver: fake your own demise and legally bequeath your entire estate to your completely fabricated, out-of-state "nephew" (who is also you, wearing a different haircut and contact lenses).

Let’s address the elephant in the crypt. Yes, we know you’re out there. Yes, we know modern society wasn't built for those of us who perceive time in centuries rather than fiscal quarters.

The Undead Association is your premier support network for post-mortal integration. Think of us as HR, but for vampires, ghouls, and the occasionally resurrected. Whether you need help setting up a nocturnal bank account, or simply finding a roommate who won't ask why you keep bags of O-negative in the crisper drawer, we are here.