In D&D Vampires are presented as a form of undead. In modern folklore, Vampirism is often presented as a disease or they are presented simply as a different species. Are Vampires of historical legend in any way related with death/undeath? How and where did the myth of the vampire arise anyway? Are vampires undead in your campaign, or do you deal with vampirism differently?
Vampires & Undead
- Thread starter Roman
- Start date
painandgreed
First Post
I think just about every culture has some sort of life sucking folklore in it. You can still find it in today's society by people who believe (e.g. google: psychic vampires).
I like the WW game so in my D&D I created another type that is very similar. A result of predatory spirits that corrupt the soul as it ties in with the mythology of my campaign world. I'm even making up feats similar to the WW disciplines for them to take.
I like the WW game so in my D&D I created another type that is very similar. A result of predatory spirits that corrupt the soul as it ties in with the mythology of my campaign world. I'm even making up feats similar to the WW disciplines for them to take.
Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
Most vampire folklore is pretty clear that the bloodsuckers the evil dead.
Vampire myth became very popular during times of plague (hence the disease association) probably because before 'germ theory' people needed an explanation as to why so many people were dying (and obviously it was the work of evil spirits who drained life). I think the modern phenomena of conceiving of Vampires as disease infected people (or even a different species of humanity) is interesting from a sociological point of view as it probably links directly to the rise of HIV, Genetic Sciences and other 'blood based' medicine - a new spectre giving rise to a new myth (cool)
Anyway
I don't much use Vamps IMC, I prefer ghouls who IMC aren't actually dead - instead they are without Souls beings neither living nor dead.
Vampire myth became very popular during times of plague (hence the disease association) probably because before 'germ theory' people needed an explanation as to why so many people were dying (and obviously it was the work of evil spirits who drained life). I think the modern phenomena of conceiving of Vampires as disease infected people (or even a different species of humanity) is interesting from a sociological point of view as it probably links directly to the rise of HIV, Genetic Sciences and other 'blood based' medicine - a new spectre giving rise to a new myth (cool)
Anyway
I don't much use Vamps IMC, I prefer ghouls who IMC aren't actually dead - instead they are without Souls beings neither living nor dead.
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GreyWanderer
First Post
Vampires In Folklore
In European and Russian legends, they are dead bodies that are animated by an evil spirit, so it's basically a form of demonic possesion. In one Russian tale, the Vampire spirit will flee the body (if it's destroyed) in the form of vermin, to infect another corpse elsewhere.
Other legends portrayed them as people who were evil - or tainted by an evil curse - in life and were thus doomed to perform more evil after death by arising as a vampire. This included witches, werewolves, and gouls (from Arabian folklore, humans who ate the flesh of other humans for power in life).
With the rise of Christianity, those who were excumunicated by the Church (supposedly for commiting an evil act, but in reality it could have been politics) could not be buried in hallowed ground, and were doomed to arrise as a vampire.
All three views are compatible, and count as a form of Undeath. It's only Victorian literature that added romantic elements to something that was essentially hideous and repulsive - an animated corpse, that stank of death and spread disease by it's breath alone.
The seperate race thing came much latter, with modern literature.
That's a quick overview; there are plenty of good books on myths and legends that you can consult if curious, and others on the list more schooled in the subject than I.
Grey.
In European and Russian legends, they are dead bodies that are animated by an evil spirit, so it's basically a form of demonic possesion. In one Russian tale, the Vampire spirit will flee the body (if it's destroyed) in the form of vermin, to infect another corpse elsewhere.
Other legends portrayed them as people who were evil - or tainted by an evil curse - in life and were thus doomed to perform more evil after death by arising as a vampire. This included witches, werewolves, and gouls (from Arabian folklore, humans who ate the flesh of other humans for power in life).
With the rise of Christianity, those who were excumunicated by the Church (supposedly for commiting an evil act, but in reality it could have been politics) could not be buried in hallowed ground, and were doomed to arrise as a vampire.
All three views are compatible, and count as a form of Undeath. It's only Victorian literature that added romantic elements to something that was essentially hideous and repulsive - an animated corpse, that stank of death and spread disease by it's breath alone.
The seperate race thing came much latter, with modern literature.
That's a quick overview; there are plenty of good books on myths and legends that you can consult if curious, and others on the list more schooled in the subject than I.
Grey.
glass
(he, him)
GreyWanderer said:
I am sure I recall reading somewhere that the original Vampire of northern European mythology (the Vampyr or Wampyr) was a seperate type of blood drinking monster, that only came to be viewed as what we would call undead later.
Interestingly, most of the world's cultures have vampire type creatures, and most of them have always been recognizably undead.
glass.
John Q. Mayhem
Explorer
Tonguez said:
In other words, undead, yes?
In Arcana Unearthed, vampires aren't undead. I think they are still considered undead, but they are healed by positive/harmed by negative, are vulnerable to crits and poison, and IIRC retain their Con score.
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Tonguez
A suffusion of yellow
John Q. Mayhem said:
Well sort of - my cosmology says a living being is comprised of Body, Soul, Mind and Spirit. A creature is dead when the spirit is no longer bound to the body. The Soul is like the Ba of Egyptian thought (or perhaps the Aristotles view of the Soul -though not entirely) Ghouls IMC have no souls, and don't actually die.
as for Dracula
Bram Stoker was used the name Dracula in his novel about a vampire, the vampire myth is much much older than the Dracula association
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GreyWanderer said:
Actually, it's only the 20th century interpretation of the Victorian literature that added the romantic element. As written, the vampires in Victorian literature were not about romance--they were allegorical treatments of disease...specifically venerial disease, and mixed with good old-fashioned "Ferriners Is Comin' Fer Our Wimmin-folk" paranoia. Because everybody back then KNEW that Foreigners were wanton sexual creatures rife with diseases.
If you take a look at F.N. Murnau's 1922 film Nosferatu, the vermin-like vampire in that film is pretty much a perfect example of the way Vampires were viewed up until the 30s or so, when the venerial aspects started to give way to the "seduction of the innocent" aspects (which were present, otherwise they would'n't have been able to be emphasized).
(Heh. I knew that college paper would end up being good for something!)
The_Gneech
Explorer
Roman said:
The historical Dracula (i.e., Vlad Tepes) didn't have any association with vampires until Bram Stoker's book. (And Vlad, for all his impaling habits, was not really any more horrific than his contemporaries.)
Stoker certainly made the vampire the prominent cultural icon it is now, but the undead-bringing-death vampire existed in folklore from way back. It didn't have the blood-drinking association always, that was another Stoker innovation ... generally, vampires were believed to simply cause people (generally members of their family) to wither and die.
The vampire-as-romantic-figure pretty much started with Varney the Vampire, IIRC, which was a novel written about a thinly-disguised Lord Byron ... who was in many ways something of a psychic vampire, rather than a literal bloodsucker.
-The Gneech
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