How do you feel about "good" or "not-evil" Vampires?

Purge regardless

>Not creating your own vampiric order of knights

Y

The only thing that makes them evil is that they can and often do feed on humans. I find it utterly retarded that they default to evil just because humans can't deal with not being the apex predators. You can't kill plants and animals and still claim to be above the food chain, bitch. I don't make them inherently good any more than humans are though, that's just another kind of retardation.

I prefer vampires to be monsters first and foremost. I think that vampires who aren't total dicks should be exceedingly rare and exceptional if they exist at all.

Also
>vampire
>has superpowers associated with vampires
>has no problems with sunlight, crosses, garlic, or any other traditional vampire weaknesses
>has normal skin tones (not pale as death)
>doesn't have fangs
>doesn't need to eat blood
>can survive just fine on normal food alone
>commands bad-boy cred because vampire
>most of them are actually pretty decent people

Get this trash out of my fiction. If you want a superhero who's being persecuted for no reason, just do that. Don't slap the word vampire on things when it doesn't apply.

It's the fact that they regularly dine on sapient people, including your family, friends, loved ones, and everyone you know. This includes you. The utter disregard for human life is also a big permenent stamp on vampires as "permanently evil". If you cannot conceive the idea that maybe their is a legitimate reason vampires are labelled evil then you need a psychological evaluation followed by therapy because you have anti-social personality disorder.

WoD had the right idea, even though the whole deal with the Beast and the grimdarkness of the setting get a bit out of hand: Vampires are human monsters, so they should still be people to some extent, but there should also be good reasons for them to be so feared - so their nature create a fucked up society where predatory behavior is how you survive.

Like vegetarians, they are annoying as fuck.

I love this meme.

Except that they don't tell anyone about it, unless they're currently eating their favorite food with friends.

Speaking of Vamps anybody looking forward to Vampyr?

>The plot revolves around vampire doctor Jonathan Reid who is coming to terms with his undead condition. He must deal with being torn between the Hippocratic Oath and his newfound bloodthirsty nature. The player is under no obligation to kill to finish the game. Dialogue options can be used for hunting prey to feed on, which replenishes strength and levels up the lead character.

>Vampyr is based on the 1918 London Spanish flu pandemic. The setting was researched by travelling to London and the visuals were made with fictional and factual reference points in mind.

>neutral vampires
I have no strong feelings either way.

>Humans die and waste away if they don't eat lesser lifeforms.
Compare to.
>Vampires die and waste away if they don't eat lesser lifeforms.

I mean yeah I'm aware there is degree of difference. Specifically the rate in which a vampire must feed.

I'm personally fine having "good" aligned vampires. As long as they're not seen as "good" by your local human nation. The vampire, and others like it, are free to be altruistic and friendly, even lawful.

But to ignore that inherent atagonism they have towards humans ruins a great part of what vampires are. Parasites.

So I'M agreeing with you, half and half there.

I prefer having vampires as a seperate species altogether. Also 'good' and 'evil' aren't metaphysical laws, just because they kill humans for nourishment doesn't somehow make you more/less inherently evil than humans that eat other things.

Nah I mean it's kind of evil for them to eat people, dude.

From the perspective of people, yes. Doesn't make them inherently so from the perspective of the world outside humans. Vampires gain the lifeforce from blood, similar to how humans and many animals gain it from flesh. They could get it from animals, or elves or whatever. Most others have learned to live with the concept of other races that eat them to survive, humans should be able to as well.

In many, many interpretations of vampires they can easily done on raw animal flesh and survive on animal blood just as easily as human blood. So any vampire that willingly ignores the cheaper and more ethical alternative food source is an evil person by all human standards. Don't respond with "Humans don't control morality" or some shit because human morality is all you've got.

>lesser lifeforms
Even if we all agreed with this, we consider animals to be a lesser lifeform only because they don't think. They act on survival, don't create bonds as deep as humans and are ruled by their instincts. We humans wouldn't be eating lambs if they could talk and have intelligence.

So yeah, vampires are by definition monsters. You may add that guy who's weird I guess, but you need a good explanation, not Fucking hate that shit.

I had this idea for a setting that had somewhat not-evil vampires.

This setting is a shithole of a world to live in and there was once something really fucking terrifying and destructive threatening all humans. The vampires protected them, simply because they were their favored food source and they could turn humans into vampires to strengthen their numbers.

I don't know what it should be that was so terrifying, but the humans started to feel save as the subjects of the vampires, as long as the vampires didn't feed on too many of them. So the vampires became rulers and knights, the humans peasants, workers and citizens. They made deals with each other, and deals turned into laws, countries into principalities. The vampires now are the aristiocracy. Some of them are assholes and will stalk the knight to hunt humans, despite laws inhibit it. Some of them hunt and punish those vampires, because they are interested in a functional and stable society. Some of them just act like they punish them and let them get away scot-free, because at the end of the day humans are just cattle, aren't they?

I'm really interested in how such a society could work. Obviously there would be a lot of conflict. Maybe peasant revolts are a common thing in this country, because its ruler is a malevolent madman. But I heard the one over the hills has a really nice ruler, that only feeds on criminals, slaves or when you give him your hot daughter for favors

Overall I'm fascinated about how they both, human and vampires, would try to get along each other, how they would try to use each other for their own benefit. Or if they would work together.

The problem is that I barely know anything about vampires and was not sure if the idea for such a setting would be worth its own thread. I also don't know what you can do with this setting, but at least I could use it for some writefaggotry. Thanks if you made it through my rambling.

>From the perspective of people, yes.
That also means your perspective, since you are a human. Besides, you cannot know what the implications of two sapient species eating each other would have on society. Hell, when one sapient race eats another member of their own race it is considered a crime against nature itself.

> more ethical alternative food

No. It's not 'more' ethical. Every living creature is entitled to their survival, equally. Vampires are not the only creatures to consume others to survive, the ones that don't need to can be counted on one hand. It's tough to swallow but there it is.

> it is considered a crime against nature itself.
By humans because they're eating other humans. Vampires are not human and thus are not subject to human social mores. They have their own to deal with.

Fine with them personally.

If feeding on humans is required for them to survive, then I don't see it as an evil act. (Though I prefer vampires that can non-lethally feed in general.)

Obviously people can still want to kill them for being "monsters" but whatever.

It depends on the genre and mood of the game, really. I happen to like friendly vampires personally, but know that they're definitely not a good fit for every setting.

Vampire should be chaotic evil.

>Every living creature is entitled to their survival, equally.
So you would kill your dog because you don't want to kill a sheep for food?
>Vampires are not subject to human social norms.
They fucking are since they live exclusively in human societies and must keep up a face of a normal person. Any vampire that feeds regularly on humans would eventually get caught and killed by authorities and angry mobs. So, it's not only more ethical to feed on animals, it's more practical as well for the vampire's survival. Same reason why humans eat animals and not poor people.

>>Obviously people can still want to kill them for being "monsters" but whatever.
>Oh he just murdered and ate my friend's sister in cold blood for lunch and feels no remorse whatsoever.
>Not a monster.
Nigga you retarded.

>lions are monsters too

>They fucking are since they live exclusively in human societies

>it's not only more ethical to feed on animals

You only explained why it's more pragmatic to do so, not why it's morally superior. They're still not beholden to human mores since they can just leave to a different world and feed on those inhabitants, which I imagine, you see nothing wrong with. Some live among humans because their mind-control powers are particularly effective on the population.

>So you would kill your dog because you don't want to kill a sheep for food?

Why not? They're equally entitled to their existence. The only reason why I might hesitate is because I liked one more. One is not fundamentally more...better(?) because /I/ happen to like it.

Can you just kill your entire neighborhood then since there's nothing morally wrong about an animal killing another animal?

It'd be in the same vein that you'd call an animal a monster.

Would like to compose a setting where Vampires are very much a military aristocracy, they need the human populace to survive and have many parasitic elements to their nature but in the end serve a necessary purpose as without them there would be no effective defence to the Vampire aristocracy next door.

If a state has too many Vampires all these power players tend naturally to thinning the herd of weaker but potentially dangerous elements as having too many vampires in one place increases the bloodlust of the others it's magic. Too few vampires however leaves the kingdom vulnerable to the predations of other kingdoms.

Even better, play in that setting for a while then take it into the future where modernity is rendering the armed aristocracy obsolete and have some good old insurgency gameplay as the aristocracy try to find a place in the new world or make it fit them.

An animal is not sapient. Once an animal reaches salience it is no longer an animal, a species, but a race of people. You cannot seriously claim that the death and butchering of a sheep and a human are completely identical.

Humans aren't animals though.

>Can you just kill your entire neighborhood then since there's nothing morally wrong about an animal killing another animal?

There isn't anything wrong with animals killing animals. Why would I want to kill my neighbors? Just because there's nothing wrong with one act doesn't necessarily mean I have to automatically want or need to do another.

If that's true how does
>nothing morally wrong about an animal killing another animal?

lead to
> Can you just kill your entire neighborhood then since
?

Didn't read the thread but a little like this.

Uh, I said you'd call an animal a monster for murdering you family, and that a vampire would be in the same vein.

Because you believe humans are animals and nothing can be ethically immoral since all human actions are the actions of animals.

I think Vlad von Carstein-style would be the closest you could get. The dude is a man-eating monster for sure, but he is also a very competent leader and inspires loyalty born of gratitude or just duty in his human subjects, who generally are pretty well off under him even if it is only out of pragmatism and not any genuine feelings of altruism.

I believe that all creatures are fundamentally equally entitled to pursue paths that continue on their existence. For vampires this can mean drinking human blood. It is no more ethical to drink human blood over animal because all creatures are equally entitled to continue their existence by any means. The reason, I contend, that you're ok with vampires killing animals and other sapient races is because they're not humans. There's nothing wrong with prioritizing the survival of your species but acting like it's inherently better to kill others just because they're not you is weird.

>Hell, when one sapient race eats another member of their own race it is considered a crime against nature itself.
In some cultures, it's an act of communion with the death. Or something you do to defile your enemies or make you a stronger warrior. Or just something you do from desperation.

Your humanistic/Judeo-Christian values don't account for the full scope of ethical systems.

If they are loners, it makes sense for them to be total psychopaths.

If they actually have courts, clubs and stuff, then no. They aren't really evil, they are just our natural enemies. It's not their fault that they want to live and have to kill us for that, and it's not our fault that we want to live and would rather hunt or starve vampires to accomplish that.

How many vampires-per-human are there? I imagine that once the main threat was over there were a lot of young vampires around who were unneeded but a burden on the populace, so I expect population control and some pretty brutal social maneuvering to be considered worth keeping around to be a thing.

Humanistic Judeo/Christian allows us to enter the 20th century pretty well desu.

If there can be any proof of Objective Morality, then let it be the science and innovation of Western society being the dominant culture of the world.

Yes, this would be a problem. I'm not good at such math things and I also think it will depend on how hungry those vampires are for human blood. A lot of young vampires would probably fight each other for land, which means that they can command more human cattle. If this society works like that, if you have land that means that the people on it are kinda your property. To some degree. This will lead to a lot of infighting. You could say that by infighting the problems kinda solves itself.

But on the other hand I could ask how much nobility was there in your regular middle age kingdom compared to all the people of a lower social class? Of course we could also go the easy route and say that there is always a threat.

Something else, could someone dump some vampire art, please? I try to build a folder and am interested in vampires from the medieval times.

>humans are worth more than animals
>all creatures deserve life equally
This line of argument boils down to opinion vs opinion.

I find them boring as a concept, absolutely cringeworthy when given to players. I've seen enough of them when VtM was still a thing, and they all sucked (pun intended). I blame Anne Rice.

It can be done very well, it just rarely ever is.

While we're here do you know of any books/papers/articles that touch on both sides? My side, the second quote, is mostly based on my gut feeling.

I've a question, related to this thread topic and to something I'm working on for Muh Settan.

What, exactly, is a vampire? As in, what defines something as 'this is a Type [X] Vampire' and something else as 'this is not a vampire'?

Example: Zombies feed on human meat and blood-rich organs, but are not (traditionally) vampires. Werewolves will tear out people's throats and lap up the blood, but are not vampires (normally). A soul-drinking abomination drains the very literal life-essence from a person, but not via blood - are they vampires?

In short, what makes one thing a vampire? Serious question, because I'd like to know if my homebrew 'vampires' are actually vampires, or just monsters-that-feed-on-blood.

>good
It's harder to justify and depends on the setting and type of vampire if it's even possible to justify it.

For example in Pathfinder, Dhampirs don't need to suck on blood to survive. While they do have an unnatural lust for blood and have the sharp fangs to help draw blood from their victims, they're not going to die if they go without blood for a while.

It's entirely possible for a Dhampir to have learned to either control their lust for blood, only partake in the blood of their fallen enemies, or with a person who has consented to help satisfy their cravings.

It also depends on whether a vampire feeding on you has to be "lethal" for them to get what they need or desire. It is possible for a vampire to only need a relatively small amount of blood each day to thrive, which can be taken from a consenting person as said before, or even from a non-sentient being if the setting allows for it.

To be quite frank though, "good" vampires are rare due to their nature. I mean by all means make one if you want to play one, but I'd advise you don't overdo it. The concept of a "good" vampire can become quite stale after a while.

Make them like Silas from The Graveyard Book and it's gonna be fine.

Vampires are a name for one kind of creature that takes the lifeforce that they need to survive from blood, and blood only. You can start defining them by culture + powers here but maybe you could use 'vampire' as an umbrella term for what I described.

Vampires are undead. Undead exist because of the power of evil deities or because they're powered by destructive anti-life energy. Therefore vampire are evil because its in their very fabric to be so. Get the fuck out with the revisionist bullshit, good drow are bad enough, no need for vampires to join that club.

>Vampires are undead. Undead exist because of the power of evil deities or because they're powered by destructive anti-life energy.

What if not undead
or what if death/life god not evil but allows necromancy

Vampire for me is an intelligent being that was dead, but has risen from the tomb with its wits intact. Feeds on blood, scared of water, all the classic. Body not rotting. Generally victim of a curse, or some of the old slavic hullabaloo (son of a warlock? son born from incestous relations?).

Zombie: rotting, beast-minded braineater

Soul-drinking abomination: it's just that, no more vampire than an IRS agent.

Psychic vampires, emotion vampires, everything but blood-drinkers: no vampire.

That's a helpful place to start, thank you both.

Are vampires required to be undead? Or could a living monster be classified under the 'vampire' type?

honestly, that sounds like that one world in Stargate: Atlantis that cut a deal with the wraith and just fed them criminals

...

See
They could just also be a completely different species, loved as much as any other races by their god(s). Last but not least: if you can count the number of differences between them and humans on one hand, and/or they can interbreed, seriously consider omitting vampires. Just substitute them for a clan of special secretive albino blood magi or whatever.

>What if not undead
Then its not a vampire.

>or what if death/life god not evil but allows necromancy
If there are two gods, one for life and one for death then I asume the life god would not allow or like a creature thats basically a mockery of life (like any undead). If its one god with both portfolios then he wouldnt allow necromancy either, since it subverts the order behind life and death.

I don't know, sorry. Maybe something about ethics. The problem is "what is good?". Is it better to have more people? less people? would a world without people be better? A world without life? What makes life good? I'm pretty sure we are biased due to anthropo-ego-biocentrism.

Maybe more intelligence is more better. i'm reminded of the xkcd comic where optimal feedstock turns out to be baby seals or some such.

Depends how good were talking.

Noblebright vampire saviour? I mean maybe but i dont like it.

Shady vampire governor that dominated and enthralled his way to his position, runs his town well and uses the populace for food?

Sure. Why not.

> life god

He wants everything to be alive. Thus he brings things back from the dead at every opportunity. Sometimes they come out as vampires but that's all good as long as they're alive.

>Then its not a vampire

what if different species but just drinks blood and only blood

Why are you separating "Judeo" from "Christian", but not "Humanistic". I arranged them the way I had because I wanted to distinguish the secular and the religious currents.

Anyway, Science makes no value judgements on morality. It isn't scientific.

The catch for being a vampire is being undead. Leave the undead part out, you are calling "vampire" something that's not, like calling "sword" a sling. Wouldn't then be better to call them something other than "vampire", so as not to void a word of its meaning?

You know, you can be vegan. Not saying it's a good thing, just, it's possible and you won't die ; you can make a moral choice.
Unless it wants to die, that is, unless it doesn't exist for more than five secondes, you cannot be a vampire and make this moral choice.
(again, not saying you should be vegan, that's not my point)

>what if different species but just drinks blood and only blood

While I understand your idea I dont agree with it, I see no point in taking away something that has defined the vampire mythos from the very beginning. If you're so hell bent on it I see no point in calling this creature a "vampire", it would be like like creating a new creature called "dog" that doesnt resemble a dog at all, might as well give it a new name.

Does that life god creates vampire versions of animals eaten by other animals and humans? Is your setting ready for bloodthirsty vampire bunnies? Or chickens?

Different species: call them another way then.

I can see your point but I far prefer adding my own spin to things instead of just copying and pasting from old legends and genre fictions desu.

Why not? I figure it's better actually to make the mutations random. The thing about this god is just wants thing /alive/. It doesn't matter how fucked up, as long as it's alive.

If they're not undead, I'd just call them "bloodsuckers".

Truth is, this is all semantics. Words do not have set, concrete meanings, especially names for fictional creatures. If someone calls a non-undead creature that they just made up a "vampire", then it's a vampire, no matter what the prescriptivist pedants of the world may claim.

Unless the vegan food I'm eating is artificial and has never been "alive", than its still a
>Lesser lifeform.

Just because my bacon was once a pig doesn't mean the celery was never alive in the garden.

I imagined a half-digested bunny reanimated in its entirety (via divine magic shenanigans) in a poor guy's stomach bursting out of his belly like an Alien screaming for blood, and moments later the poor motherfucker rises too as a vampire, and suddenly I'm all for it.

This is one of those "depends on the setting" kind of questions, honestly. But assuming you're talking about the standard, it can be done and it can be done well. It's just a very hard thing to do without it becoming cliché or shit.

also, somewhat related, what other interpretations of vampires do you like or find interesting? Pic related.

Sure, why not. Pic related.

There were good aligned undead powered by positive energy and there are non-evil vampires in OD&D though.

I think they were referenced in OoTS.

I do remember something about good/neutral elf liches, but I can't for the life of me remember their name.

Yes but it's (probably, unless you're panpsychic) not counscious ; it has no subjective experience. Therefore, it cannot "prefer" to live. So it's indifferent to it that you eat it. It was design to survive by evolution, but itself it has no will and doesn't want anything in particular, especially not survive.

Lampreys by default subsist on blood so what's the point of turning one into a vampire?

Meh at best. Feels like the euphemism treadmill:
> New scary monster is introduced
> horny guys write monstergirl books and horny girls write Twilight books about monster
> scary monster turns into badboy sextoy monster
> dark and edgy writers write a Drizzt Clone Good Monster
> badboy monster race turns into race of chaotic good humanoids who are oh so misunderstood
> tasteless paid-by-the-word writers give us half-monsters like Dhampir
> misunderstood monster race now just another rubber forehead humanoid interfertile with humans
> monster race now needs to be reinvented with unique culture as an excuse for why they are still a distinct thing

It happened to succubi, it happened to elves, it mostly happened to dragons (they managed to retain a bit more rubber forehead), it happened to umpteen minor creatures, it's happening to vampires, and it sucks all the flavor out of them. I really have no use for Magical Humanoid Variation #58.

that;'s a vampire squid.

the setting comes with more "creative' vampires at least, like this barnacle vampire right here.

its like a vagina, ballsack, and anus had a baby

And it's still not the worst looking one.
it's spoilered for a reason.

How do you feel about Regis?

Qui?

I would say that the curse/condition/whatever of being a Vampire means a person must indulge in evil behaviours, such as feeding on the blood of humans. If a Vampire lets this dominate their mentality and morality then whatever, but a Vampire doesn't have to be a monster. They're just people who have to do a bad thing.

It's okay, I didn't want to sleep anyway.

You forgot one step:
> Paizo shits out a "blood of" supplement with the new and improved whatever-kin, feats and traits.

That's generally why if you do make a monster, you don't automatically call their species as a whole "good" or "evil" and you leave just enough detail to explain what they are without actually giving details as to who they are.

Part of the reason why Lovecraftian monsters worked so well was because at the time, there wasn't really much detail as to what they were aside from "creature beyond the expanse of creation whose form cannot be comprehended by the mortal psyche."

It's only after the old ones and their ilk gained a defined form and names that the concept went through romanticism and we ended up with shit like pic related.

Sad thing is, pic related is also one of the more accurate retelling of lovecraft's work, it's just that the crawling chaos is a girl...japan is weird.

depends entirely on the genre.

in fantasy with gods and sharply defined alignments, vampires should be elementally evil.

In deconstructionist settings or genre-bending ones, good or neutral vampires are cool. It's not Veeky Forums and I know it's all social commentary metaphor but the Ina in Octavia Butler's book Fledgling reimagined vampires as biological rather than supernatural (before Guillermo made that cool) and as no more good or evil than human beings, in an alternate history in which humans and Ina have always been symbiotic.

I had a setting were a group of vampire (or at least vampire like) formed a cult to keep a demon pacified. Basicly the demon would awaken if it was not feed vampire blood, it was also a supply of blood that turned people into vampires(a vampire could not turn anyone on his own). The cult walked around at night and offered the sick or badly wounded to join them. It was still considered a curse by most of the population due to them worshipping the sun.

>How do you feel about "good" or "not-evil" Vampires?

I like doing it when they're Young and haven't "truly" become Undead yet, I.E: they haven't outlived their actual lifespan and were turned in their 20's or 30's or something.

They still feel all those feelings, those aspirations, those phobias, sympathies and so forth. Young Vampires can be down right charitable.
The problem only begins when they just get old, they get old and they lose track of time, their moral compass and they become less sympathetic and more bored with humanity each coming year.

Vampires often like to build small nations because they think with their enhanced vitality, intelligence and charm they can run it better than Humans and they can.. For a time.
You get a Vampire older than 150 years and each coming decade there's a 15% chance he'll just lose his touch with the public and become a weird, fetishistic, shut-in.

I don't do "asshole evil", but Vampires just get BORED, they get BOOORED, so they come up with weird, eccentric, expensive and drawn-out things to pass their time.