Timewaster's Guide Archive
Local Authors => Writing Group => Topic started by: Sigyn on May 16, 2007, 04:17:14 PM
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I'm hoping this is the right section for this. I'm coming up with a vampire story and I need a way for vampires to be made that isn't from being fed on by a vampire. I don't like the idea of vampires being born as vampires either. Does anyone have any ideas?
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Depending on your setting and everything, it could be some sort of rare disease/virus, in which case it could be contracted by the normal virus ways--getting it in your blood stream somehow. Depending on how prevalent vampires are in your world, the disease could be anywhere from easy to hard to contract.
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Yeah, that's how "I am Legend" took care of it. Some disease that was dormant when spread in the wind that became active once it got into your bloodstream. Mabey it could be a parasite that the vamps implant into you. The parasite could wrap around the victim's heart and grow to maturity. So, a budding vampire could be "un-vampirized" if caught early enough. Wodden stakes would have to be made of a special type of wood. Has a special sap in it that is an anticoagulant for the parasite's blood. Eh, I'm rambling now...
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I guess there are a couple of ways that you can look at this. I think it depends on what sort of vampire mythos you want to follow.
There is the virus/bacteria theory of becoming a vampire--where vamparism is more like a disease.
There is being fed on by a vampire--which makes vampires what? Leftovers.
There is being born a vampire--the whole children of Lilith, Satan, etc...
There's also the pact with the Devil version--making vampirism a cult.
The alien or ancient parasite/creature method with humans serving as the host race.
There's marrying a vampire--not very commong but fortunately vampires can be both polygamous and androgynous.
There is also the curse of vamparism--malicious beings turn people into vampires through sorcery.
Then there is the ecclectic approach where you use multiple methods and leave it vague which method is the true or original method.
I think it matters as to what kind of story you are going to write, since some of the methods are more scientific and other more mythical.
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I'm going to sound like the pooh-pooher, but my vote is don't do a vampire story. I'm so very tired of them.
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I'm probably not going to actually write this story for a long, long time, but it's stuck in my head right now and it really bothers me that I can't figure out how these vampires are made. I want it where any one vampire can only feed on certain people that have the right "blood type" and vampires are always looking for the a closer blood match, something along the line of how close organ donors have to be.
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SE may be sick of them, but lots of other people like them.
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The Palladium system was always cool, where it's a parasite that transforms the afflicted and then a true vampire is a Cathuluu-esk creature that creates the parasites and controls the vampires psychically.
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Depending on your setting and everything, it could be some sort of rare disease/virus, in which case it could be contracted by the normal virus ways--getting it in your blood stream somehow. Depending on how prevalent vampires are in your world, the disease could be anywhere from easy to hard to contract.
Would you consider the things in The Cave to be vampires? Were they created by a virus or a parasite passed by violent contact?
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What are the rules of your vampires? Can they go out in sunlight? Do they have fangs that come and go? Can they shape shift? What are rules of the vampires of your universe. I think that would help us be able to help you a bit more.
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ive always had a view of vampires of my own.
in my mind if i wrote somethign on vampires, why couldnt they have evolved ? they could be the missing link or something. evolution... just my thoughts though.
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What if Vampire's come from accidents, like a fall from a high place bumps something in their brains that triggers it.
or blood transfusions turn out to have a rather nasty side effect that no one fore saw (that looks wrong... foresaw, hmm well anyway) ... except Jehovah's Witnesses ;)
hmm, yeah that's all I can come up with off the top of my head, but wait I'll be up all night thinking about this now. Maybe tommorrow I'll have something good.
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So I think I came up with how I'm going to do this. There are squishy beings that use dead human bodies as hosts because they themselves don't have skeletons for protection so they use human ones. They are able to put dead bodies into a sort of stasis to keep them from decaying but they're sensitive to sunlight because of the damage it does to skin cells which they have a hard time healing. They drink blood in order to maintain the body they inhabit. Does that sound workable to people? It would mean they can't shape-shift but they can develop telepathic abilities as they learn to utilize the entire human brain instead of just the usual 10% or whatever humans use.
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that is much more original than your typical vampire, but5 it also makes sense.
It also sounds a little like my zombie ideas for my current spewings, but not a lot.
DO they have fangs? If so, where do they come from?
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It kinda sounds a little like something I read from Anne McCaffery, but, you know... not :). interesting.
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This is going to sound ridiculous in a thread about vampires, but the whole 10% of your brain deal is an urban legend. That's not to say you can't use it, but I would try to address it differently, like saying that they rearrange the brain so that one part takes on more functions than normal, leaving another part free to develop psychic abilities. When people lose part of their brain, this type of compensation often occurs, so it would seem more plausible. Just an idea.
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Hm, okay, thanks for the heads up. Yes, rearranging the brain would make more sense.
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Here's how I thought vampires came to be:
When your sock disappears in the dryer, the sock has actually been possessed by a grumpy laundry spirit who decided long ago that it wasn't cut out for cleaning peoples' clothes. So the laundry spirit dresses up in your "missing" sock and flies to the moon, where it works at a strip joint to pay for vampire college.
But the laundry spirit (Melvin) experiments with drugs and sex until it loses its original dream of being a vampire. It splits hairs, keeps all its eggs in one basket, says never, and generally indulges in unwholesome behavior. Finally, Melvin discovers religion and decides to study Catholic Vampirism, which I'm sure is in one of Anne Rice's novels. He graduates fifteenth in his class (Professor Skywalker always picked on him) and ventures back to earth, where he bites people in the neck and avoids garlic because the college cafeteria served cloves every day.
But I might be wrong...
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while vaguely amusing, posts like that in threads asking for serious help that were concluded a month and a half ago are singularly unhelpful.