What's your favorite take on vampires? Any particular setting? Science fiction, fantasy, modern day - it's all the same...

Personally, since I read the Necroscope a long time ago, none of the ttrpg vampires really please me.

They were 100% evil. Not loldumb evil. But true evil.

My problem with nWoD is the lack of fluff.

Requiem is built up to be more open-ended and vague on the details.

I'm not saying the metaplot wasn't a tad stifling at times, but honestly, you could do whatever you wanted with it in your game, you didn't have to bring up Caine or the overall Jyhad or the Antediluvians or anything. But in Requiem you don't really have anything. Other than the Strix.

Carthian Movement is pretty much Anarchs 2.0, Ordo Dracul is Tzimisce-lite, Lancea Sanctum is Lasombra-lite, Invictus is Camarilla, and I can't honestly remember what the Circle of the Crone is like, other than it's focused on some mother/female-figure (Lilith-type?).

Yeah, I definitely didn't make that one. Don't actually venture all that much out of the /wodg/ thread when I'm on Veeky Forums. Also, that's not a thread from a week ago, it's from 2 months ago.

Please, do go on. I made this thread because I wanted to expand my horizons, on stuff I haven't read or come across yet.

>Also, that's not a thread from a week ago, it's from 2 months ago
You mean 2007 wasn't just, like, a year or two ago?

Manananggal, hands down.

WoD are obviously the best and most influential.

Other than that I like Sci-Fi vampires, like those from the novel Blindsight or the Shadowrun vampires that are essentially a virus.

>Blindsight

What a coincidence, I just got the Firefall omnibus. Haven't read anything new in a bit, this came heavily recommended.

What are these Blindsight vamps like?

After Dawnguard TES has the distinction of both having some of the most interesting vampires in fiction, and some of the blandest most derivative ones.

The OG dracula. Nightmares, sickness and invitations to his dope castle to chill with his concubines.

>Please, do go on. I made this thread because I wanted to expand my horizons, on stuff I haven't read or come across yet.

I'll give you the very abridged version m8.

>vampires aren't native to earth
>they came here through 1 of 2 "portals", that led to a notEarth, that was very savage
>The vampires HERE, are exiled from their home world
>They can (with time), shapeshift somewhat, dominate mentally people and animals, gain strength/speed, have nightvision, summon mists, heal wounds quickly, live forever (unless killed),
>Once in their life, they can produce an "egg", due to the creature that lives inside of them
>the egg will create another "true" vamp
>Other vamps (caused by blood contact), are weaker and much more limited than true vamps
>sunlight will burn them badly, and kill them if they're exposed too long
>silver burns them like acid
>and they're 100% evil. Self-serving, brutal, and twisted as fuck
>They have human 'desires', multiplied 10fold
>gluttony, sex drive, jealousy, and anger will all be powerful in them
>They may get mad because a group of nuns trespassed on their land, and go rape/torture/eat them all, till they were gorged
>They were also very ego driven
>A challenge to them was something they couldn't ignore
>And they were CLEVER as fuck

Those vamps, were a challenge

Jojo's vampire are created by wearing a stone mask that rams stone spikes into your brain, then you become super regenerative and strong, able to survive even as just a head. There's also silly amounts of bodily control, the type of which often changes from vampire to vampire, like strangling with your hair or shooting highly pressurized bodily liquids through your eyes. The sun is still a weakness

I like Warhammer Fantasy's Vampire Counts, Requiem Vampire Knight's depiction of most vampires, and Ravenloft's Count Strahd von Zarovich.

Vampires should be aristocratic, lawful evil villains trying to take over the fucking world as an aristocracy of the night. They should not be shallow, edgy, angsty faggots who try to show how cool they are through meaningless violence and sex like in your pic.

Vampires should be sophisticated yet horrifying and powerful, and symbolize the dangers of a powerful, parasitic ruling class embedding itself in our society. They should be the ultimate tyrants, using intelligence, power, immortality, and ruthless ambition to force their will upon the herds of humanity as they rule from their dark, gothic castles.

JoJo and Legacy of Kain I guess.

I'm not very keen on vampires at all though, but what triggers me most is vampire LARPing and playing RPGs where vampires are just regular people but called vampires and do regular stuff but it's cool cause they're vampires. Mostly liked by fujos and the like.

Not every vampire can have his own kingdom. There's a definite place for the hustling lowlife bloodsucker who has to survive as a club slut or sewer lurker.

>Vampires should be sophisticated yet horrifying and powerful, and symbolize the dangers of a powerful, parasitic ruling class embedding itself in our society. They should be the ultimate tyrants, using intelligence, power, immortality, and ruthless ambition to force their will upon the herds of humanity as they rule from their dark, gothic castles.

You're talking about the Tzimisce and Lasombra basically. Old Clan/Koldun Tzimisce, mind you.

You took the words out of my mouth, and saved me the time of posting it. If I can add anything, I especially like the aspects of Dhampires. That particular inclusion of death and life, being the diplomats and warriors between the world of the vampire and living.
I guess me and him would play those Vampires if given a chance.

Sorry, deleted the post as it is a bit inaccurate, when concerning modern times. You'd probably enjoy playing Vampire: Dark Ages. There's the /wodg/ thread over here: Check out its pastebins, it should have links to archives with Dark Ages stuff. Plenty of material in there.

The Lost Boys vampires.
Although you need to be careful to not turn them into gay emos.
Keep them punk rock style.

No. Go away. You're one of those people I talked about in

>Carthian Movement is pretty much Anarchs 2.0, Ordo Dracul is Tzimisce-lite, Lancea Sanctum is Lasombra-lite, Invictus is Camarilla, and I can't honestly remember what the Circle of the Crone is like, other than it's focused on some mother/female-figure (Lilith-type?).

Broadly accurate but misses the major advantage of nwod vamps to me, which is that there's no relation between the clans and the covenants - if you like the Lasombra then you might want to make a Mekhet who's a member of the Lancea, or just go with one or the other depending on what you like about the lasombra, and have a lot more clan/covenant options available to you.

And Requiem really built up quite a lot of fluff over the years. Never as much PLOT as Masquerade, but plenty of detailed characters and obscure bloodlines and conspiracies if oyu wanted to use them.

The problem is that what I love best about the Lasombra, Obtenebration, is simply not there. From what I understand, the Abyss is some kind of destructive force in nWoD, and not just some kind of realm of darkness.

I'm not the vampire fanboy you might think I am, so settle down. I think they're a solid but overplayed monster archetype.

But surely the core of the vampire concept is that they're monsters that look human and take on normal human roles to get close to people so they can prey on them. The aristocratic overlord is one reliable one, but so is the mugger, the seducer, the casual hookup.

I certainly wouldn't want to humanise them too far though. The other core pillar of the concept is that the vampire spends half its existence dead in a coffin somewhere, so the human guise they affect can never be very convincing or allow for close relationships.

Warhammer vampire counts, because they're the badass gothic super OP vampires who control vast undead armies

Prehistoric hominid super-predators that are autistic psychopaths, brought back into the future through bio-technology/cloning.

Who the fuck that was a good idea?

Let me guess: they exterminate/enslave humanity?

This,
We see very little of lord aspects of the vampires and they are generally presented as a coven at most that infests places.

Vampire counts of sylvania actually lord over some places and has troops to enforce their will. Not only through subterfuge and control but through sheer will.

Isnt that the plot of jojo except for bio-tech ?

The Witcher universe vampires are pretty cool. I haven't really delved into different vampire lores that much so what do you guys recommend to read/watch/play?

Anything that incorporates them willing fully becoming vampires and leaving humanity behind in greed for power
and only to set them up for protags killing them because slaying unclean pieces of shits is great

I agree.

I -like- human vampires. They were originally humans, they can pass for humans, and they are directly dependant on a close human presence. No other monster has this particular setup, why not exploit it by having them be mostly humans, only with monstrous needs?

If you want soulless predators, use body-snatchers or something. And evil overlord types are best used with parcimony.

Actually there was some biotech in part 2 because the nazis were researching the pillar men for nazi science reasons.

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I've popped my role-playing cherry to DnD mate. I don't think I could transition to WoD (which I hear is more narrative focus), I like fighting monsters and the odd dragon.

Is this dark ages you talk about similar?

Yes, well, we all know Skyrim's pretty bad all around. But the Morrowind and Oblivion vampires are still pretty neat, albeit to different reasons.

The first thing that comes to mind of a favorite vampire type is the Legacy of Kain series. But they're not exactly traditional vampires.

>Is this dark ages you talk about similar?

Not really. Sure, the clashes with werewolves are more common than they're in modern nights, but overall, you're not gonna be going up against other supernatural beasties in the World of Darkness, unless they're other vampires.

Dresden Files, full stop. Vampire is a classification of parasite, not a singular race or breed. So you have White, Black and Red vampires who are all different.

That's not exactly true is it? I mean, if you read the ingame book Immortal Blood, there are a ton of different vampire species mentioned. Sure the game doesn't have them, but the setting does.

Mah brethren. Jojo and especially LoK are among my favorites, along with Vampire Hunter D.

>no Vorador in the picture

0/10 calling your dogs, they can feast on your corpses

Vorador isn't part of the family.

Vorador is older than them.

What does that have to do with anything?

Requiem Vampire Knight is a pretty good comic about a fantasy afterlife world ruled by vampires. It's only got like 10 issues or so, but the art and setting are really interesting.

If you're into D&D, Curse of Strahd is the perfect place to start. It's a big campaign about being trapped in magic Transylvania after being lured there by the Count Strahd, the top vamp.

If you like Warhammer Fantasy, the Vampire Counts are the most obvious place to look. Those guys use necromancy to raise entire undead armies of zombies, skeletons, ghoulish monsters, and ghosts, and then they rampage through the Empire in an overt effort to conquer territory.

Physically immortal, but not mentally and they literally are what they eat.

Remaining a thinking being relies on feeding on other thinking beings, and even that doesn't fully work, as the predator has no choice but to take on mental traits from their prey. If a vampire doesn't feed, it stops being able to 'focus' on properly mimicking any specific former victim as opposed to all of them. This means a mashup of traits from creatures the vampire had once fed on (the number of creatures whose anatomy is involved in the combination increasing the longer the vampire goes before feeding again), and an equally confused mind. It's hard to think effectively when you don't just have human schizophrenia, but also obsolete instincts insisting you get your gills back underwater before you suffocate.

If a vampire catches ethics from feeding on ethical victims and it stops attacking people, it'll go insane, lose its newly formed personality and sense of ethics, rampage around in monstrous form, then eventually it'll end up feeding on people again, leading it to regain human form and develop a new personality. If it tries to only feed on people who deserve it, it'll find their lack of ethics contagious and stop bothering with such restrictions.

Vampires are old. They don't reproduce, but they're impossible to permanently kill and they predate life leaving the ocean.

Apex predators capable of adapting to any environment by assimilating useful traits from their victims. In that, they did just fine. Adding intelligence to the mix just screwed up everything.

For land, a quadruped mammalian form. Paws with talons made from ingrown hooves, overgrown antlers made from the mixed horns of various species, approximately all of the teeth, etc. For an ocean, something like a distorted parody of a whale, covered in fish scales and crustacean exoskeleton, with mismatched fins and flippers and tentacles making up the tail.

Only after eating a few of those bald apes do they thinking.

I like the Helsing way of doing it

The high-up classy vampires as you describe, but also scummy lowlife thinblood vampires scrabbling in the streets and causing a mess. The nobles have to deal with them to stop them from giving the game away and ruining their plans

That aside, I love the Warhammer Fantasy vampires. The whole story of Nehekhara and how they were made, the legacy of Nagash and Neferata, the various other brilliant characters like Ushoran, Abhorash, Vlad, Mannfred, etc.

I like the vampire in Let the Roght One In that manipulates people into getting what she needs to survive, but is a horrible blood-sucking monster when it gets right down to it. Not a lot of lore, but the presentation adds a lot of gravitas to the concept.

In general, I like strong but not ultimately strong vampires that rely on immortality to be crafty assholes. I also have a thing for vampires that discover strange fantastic abilities as they get older, but are not especially unique to vampires. Like the years of hunting and caution has made them strong and not just being a vampire is enough.

I really like Witcher vampires, especially how they're pretty much aliens and can't create more vampires from regular people.

>Witcher
>Jojo
>Nasuverse

Also elder scrolls lore vampires are fucking cool, the book immortal blood gives some great ideas for vampires, too bad they suck ass in the games I've played through (Oblivion/Skyrim, didn't finish morrowind)

I don't have a particular favorite vampire type from any setting. I like a lot of different types.

However, I do have a very favorite _twist_ on vampire lore. It comes from (of all places) "Abe Lincoln, Vampire Hunter". Only the living may kill the dead; vampires couldn't harm other vampires, God wouldn't let them.

Did you read his post and understand it?

How were they born then in the first place? Do they reproduce with each other? I can't recall there ever being mention of children vampires.

No on the last part I guess, can you explain?

What We Do in the Shadows did vampires really well I feel.

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Read it, was eh. weak ass vampires, that's what happens when you don't drink blood

>Fuck this new shit

Fuck you too brainlet. Requiem is leagues better than heinrech Himmler the literal Nosferatu vampire being out-nazi'd by a sabbat trannie who 'diablerized a few princes' as a throwaway line. Your precious shit isn't even close to cool and what's worse, it isn't even interesting.

Not him, but the thing about oWoD is that while it may have some hilariously bad shit, you can just ignore that, you don't need to bring it up in your game or whatever, whereas Requiem - well, there's nothing to ignore about it, because there's no substance in it whatsoever. I don't really understand the weird transition from too much fluff to barely any fluff. Sure, trim the metaplot, excise the fat that's not needed, but don't try to turn it into an empty sandbox.

Honestly, i quite liked Department 13's vampires. Lots of classic vampires, in the modern day, and they were acting like an actual group of people. Their leaders were the three generals of Dracula, and were stupidly powerful. The second generation vamps could do stuff like move through UV light barriers thanks to their speed, and regenerate from having their heads destroyed. Included a weapon which fired solid bolts of metal from molded Plastique to launch iron stakes, and a Stake launcher called the T-bone. Also, magnesium grenades to make weaker vamps suffer a placebo effect due to false sunlight

I liked it because it took the twilight vampire craze and inverted it.

>Vampires that don't drink blood from people, only animals! They're vegetarian! Okay. Then they get frail and weak, and throw up a lot since it's not their natural diet. They even need to take pills to digest the stuff.

>Vampires can infect other vampires by biting them!!!one
>Infect them? That sounds horrid! Last time I was sick, I was nauseous for days, and I smelled rightly ripe, if I do say so. Didn't want to take the energy to take a proper shower, see. Too sick. Can't imagine feeling that way for the rest of time.

>But there's a hidden monster in the vampire, because they have a urge to drink bloood! O-0
>So like a cocaine addict, then? Is there an anonymous group where vampires get over their blood addictions?

>AND THEY FIGHT WHEREWOLVES!
>Werewolves, honey. And I do imagine they do; I mean, if I was an addict that was permanently sick and couldn't go outside during the day, and I had to fang gerbils or whatnot all the time while they were still alive (the poor things), why, I'd be awful jealous of a werewolf too! Being a furry is a small price to pay for not being a skinny twat, after all!

I mean the book is just damn funny.

A person who died with some dire sin or evil in their hearts, who comes back from death the ultimate symbol of Satanic (or just evil) corruption on Earth, who was risen from death as a corpse by evil, not by God (or just benevolence), who drinks the blood of mortal men, not the divine communion of Christ (no idea what an areligious version would be, I suppose cannibalism), who is weakened and driven from the warm light of God's sun (light and sun = good, dark and night = bad, always has been, always will be). Devil-wrought leeches who pretty much exist to spread suffering. Physical demons, almost. They are reviled by salt, silver, any and all holy symbols for they are manifestations of evil.

My favourite vampire is just straight up Count Dracula, an evil aristocrat in dark medieval times and who learned sorcery from the Devil, died at some point and returned as a powerful undead to just continue his evil, creeping around a rotten castle filled with treasures and other undead. That, or as an awful wretched corpse monster, is how I like my vampires.

Might be funny, but not really a decent take on vampires, IMO.

They're from another dimension. They arrived during the Conjunction of the Spheres, when a bunch of alien creatures and magic as a whole arrived in the world. Higher Vampires don't appear to be able to breed, but they're also totally immortal unless killed by another vampire. They can be incapacitated for centuries by particularly determined humans, but they will inevitably reform. Every single Higher Vampire arrived in the same place and the same time, so they all have at least cursory knowledge of each other.

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Shit wrong pic

Fall from Heaven Calabim.

Hell yeah.
Although oWoD still does them best.

I'm a huge Jojofag but let's be real. Vampires in Jojo really aren't compelling at all; Dio is.

Elder Scrolls is very hit-or-miss with them. There are a couple interesting NPCs but most are of the stand around in a cave waiting for someone to come kill me variety.

Dio's really the only vampire we get to know, the rest are offed pretty fast. They're just mini Pillar Men anyway.

Elder Scrolls vampires are great in lore, gameplay-wise they're severely limited. Skyrim's vampires are supposed to be ice-dwelling creatures that lie in wait under frozen lakes and can reach through the ice to grab you. In the game they're pretty much exactly the same as other games. Read in the in-game book Immortal Blood, that tells you about some cool stuff.

I like Carmilla (Mircalla, Countess Karnstein), or Geraldine from Coleridge's "Christabel". Vampires are weak, half-alive, prone to languid dreamy states but also vital passions. Half their power is in secrecy; once known for what they are they usually retreat.

>/pol/ visits /u/.jpg

The explanation is that you're fucking retarded and need to work on your reading comprehension.

To put that in not rude as shit terms, the user you replied to already implied in his post that there were still interesting ones in skyrim, just that Dawnguard added very derivative ones as well. Your post was not at all inflammatory though, so I have no idea why that other guy flipped out.

Thanks for the laugh.

Vampires are dead, vampires are cursed, vampires are monsters. Vampirism should be more like a punishment rather than just being immortal and powerful with some minor weaknesses.

It highly depends on what clan he's playing. If he takes a warrior Salubri chances are he's gonna face some nasty stuff.

Also "other vampires" is a pretty broad category. There's Gangrel who can literally transform themselves into Dragons.

>What's your favorite take on vampires?

You sure about? Because I'm looking at the Protean stuff and it says nothing about dragons.

IIRC, Vicissitude has something like that, but that's a Tzimisce-exclusive Discipline.