THE BLOOD-DRINKERS WHO STALK the World of Darkness mostly call themselves Kindred, licks, or Cainites. The term “vampire” seems déclassé to the habitués of Elysium and the theorists of Anarch utopia, reminiscent of cheesy Hammer sequals and tourist-friendly reactionary folklore. However, those Embraced in recent decades increasingly use the term among themselves (”taking the v-word back”), establishing their claim to this status, despite the thinness of their Blood. When challenged, they respond: “Who has a better right to the name? Those of us actually out in the night, or the mythical monsters from the movies?”
VAMPIRES CANNOT AFFORD TOO many illusions; as predators, their existence depends on fooling their prey, not themselves. Whether they call themselves Kindred, licks, or vampires, they face certain immutable truths. To be a vampire is to be driven by an insensate Hunger for human blood and by the immortal legacy of your vampire Blood. Hunger drives you to murderous frenzy, impels you to slake your thirst in mortal veins. The human blood you drink alchemises and resonates, granting not just ecstasy but also immortality; not just strange powers, but also slavery. More than most of us, vampires are what they eat. More than most of us, vampires must retain their Humanity if they want to be more than that.
VAMPIRES ARE IMMORTAL — true
Vampires can die from decapitation or burning by fire or sunlight, but they do not age or die of natural causes. They require no food save blood, and they never need to breathe. Enough trauma can reduce a vampire to a deep, trance-like sleep called torpor – but they can revive again with sufficient time and blood.
VAMPIRES ARE THE LIVING DEAD — true
A vampire’s body has no heartbeat or pulse, holds no heat, and generates no sweat or hormones. A vampire’s body does not age or rot. It regrows lost flesh and even whole limbs, given time enough. And yet it thinks, walks, plans, and speaks – and hunts, and kills.
VAMPIRES DRINK THE BLOOD OF THE LIVING — true
Vampires crave human blood, and they can only slake their thirst and power their inhuman abilities with the life’s blood of their victims. Some penitent vampires eke out an existence from animal blood, and some ancient vampires must hunt and kill others of their kind to nourish themselves, but most vampires indeed consume the blood of their former species.
VAMPIRES LEAVE THE MARKS OF THEIR FANGS IN THEIR VICTIM’S BODY — mostly false
When first Embraced as a vampire, the undead grow extendable fangs for feeding. However, vampire saliva can close the wounds made by their fangs, thus concealing the evidence of the feeding.
THOSE WHO DIE FROM A VAMPIRE’S BITE RISE TO BECOME A VAMPIRE — false
When vampires do kill their prey, the victim simply perishes. Otherwise, vampires would overrun the world. To Embrace a human, allowing them to return as undead, the vampire must feed the drained victim their own undying Blood, called vitae by older vampires.
SUNLIGHT BURNS VAMPIRES — true
Although some thin-blooded vampires can bear the sun briefly and some vampiric powers allow a few minutes’ survival, sunlight fatally burns a Kindred’s undead flesh if exposed long enough. Vampires are nocturnal creatures, and most find it extremely difficult to remain awake during the day, even within sheltered areas.
GARLIC OR RUNNING WATER REPELS VAMPIRES — mostly false
Mortals desperate to find any protection from the undead invented these comforting fables. A few vampires still labour under these shackles, but they are rare. This means that most vampires can just take a bath or a shower. Don’t be filthy.
VAMPIRES FLEE FROM CROSSES — generally false
This myth is another comforting pious fabrication from the medieval era. However some wielders of holy symbols (not just crucifixes) drive vampires back or damage them with the power of their True Faith (a capitalist’s holy symbol can even be their credit card if they truly believe in the power of money). True Faith, however, is so exceedingly rare and sometimes even situational that one doesn’t usually come across it.
A STAKE THROUGH THE HEART KILL VAMPIRES — false
However, a wooden stake – or arrow, crossbow bolt, etc – through the heart paralyses the monster into a state of torpor until removed.
VAMPIRES HAVE THE STRENGTH OF 10 MEN; THEY COMMAND WOLVES AND BATS; THEY CAN HYPNOTISE THE LIVING; ETC. — true and false
Vampire Blood grants Kindred supernatural powers called Disciplines, which encompass all these abilities and more. Vampires in crease their power as they age, from newly created vampires little more powerful than humans to mighty elders who can rival fiction’s Lestat or Dracula. The methuselahs and Antediluvians, who have stalked the night for millennia, often possess literally godlike power.
VAMPIRES ARE MONSTERS – DEMONIC SPIRITS EMBODIED IN CORPSES — false – and true
If anything, the tragedy of vampires outweighs that of demons. Instead of one fall and a clear eternity of evil, vampires feel an inexorable pull toward damnation, often for centuries. Vampires seldom begin as sadistic monsters, unless they began that way as humans. However, overpowering hunger for human blood and an existence dependant on regular feeding drive vampires toward sociopathy and predation. The vampire’s psychology changes as their solitary, predatory existence corrodes attitudes learned as a communal omnivore.
Circumstance or need eventually forces even the most reluctant vampire to kill – and the joy and ease of murder turns such force to inclination, and finally to desire. Realising their betrayal, vampires cease to trust. Realising their differences, vampires isolate themselves from the mortal world. Realising their existence depends on secrecy and control, vampires become secretive and manipulative.
As the years turn to decades and then to centuries, and the vampire kills over and over – or refrains from killing and watches their loved ones die anyway – such feelings ossify. Human life, always brief, becomes cheap, and then valueless compared to immortality. The mortal herd means nothing, only the vampire’s house of cruelty, shadows, and lies holds significance. Jaded, unfeeling, paranoid – in a word, monstrous – vampire elders may not in fact be demons, but at that point, who can tell the difference?
