Let's say I present a vampire with a religious symbol that is not a cross. Will it be repelled?

Let's say I present a vampire with a religious symbol that is not a cross. Will it be repelled?

Similarly, let's say the sun is replaced with any other star of any other size or color. Will the vampire burn with that light?

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It depends on the setting

Depends on the setting. After all, the "burns in the sunlight" meme only started with Nosferatu and much of the original core pillars of vampire fiction have no mention of sunlight harming them.

Depends on the setting, motherfucker.

/thread

While depends on the setting is the real answer, I'll throw out some random facts to help you.

Some vampire lore dictates that it's not the cross, but a symbol of faith in a higher power that wards the vampires off.

As for the star thing, it's half and half, some lore dictates the sun is holy and a symbol of faith and governance over humanity, which is why vampires can not be in its presence, another theory is that it's high amount of UV radiation that burns them to ash, like a photosensitive bitch.

Do with this as you wish.

I wouldn't mind a setting where different religious symbols have different effects on vamps and other monsters. could be fun, not a bad idea if your run a setting with a full pantheon

It depends on the setting.
In Vampire the Masquerade, if a person holds "True Faith" in something, it will repel the vampire. True Faith can be christian but also in something that doesn't have anything to do with religions. A simple cross doesn't do anything to a vampire, if he doesn't take that specific flaw to be vulnerable to crosses and other holy symbols.
I really like it as a concept.

Crosses don't actually do anything to vampires.

That myth started as a combination of church officials using superheated metal crucifixes to "burn the holy spirit into them", and Bram stoker using it as a plot device with no backing that vampires were repelled by crosses.

>this thing actually doesn't do anything to this fictional creature

>Vampires are all repelled by Crosses because they've all heard stories of Vampires who tried to ambush people in the dark and ended up getting tortured to death by crazy ass priests, and bare a deep generations fear of them
That's pretty metal.

Here you go. Just undead, but plenty of variety.

>Similarly, let's say the sun is replaced with any other star of any other size or color. Will the vampire burn with that light?

Bram Stoker's Dracula wasn't affected by sunlight so much as he was affected by it being daytime. He doesn't have any powers in daytime because his power comes from his lessons at the Scholomance.

I liked pic related's idea.

It's something you have faith in - there are myths were vampire was scared away with a wallet and when cross didn't work because faithless used it

>Let's say the sun is replaced with any other star of any other size or color. Will the vampire burn with that light?
Hm, If I recall, in Buffy the Vampire slayer,'s Angel series, which are the go-to characterization examples for Vampires past 3.5 per author direction and suggestion different Suns may have different effects on Vampires. Angel once went to a demon world where the sunlight did not affect him, but instead forced his 'beast' out for all to see, loosing himself in blood frenzy.

Vampires in D&D can be repelled with all a manner of holy symbol and turn attempts, but to note, Ravenloft modules detail a table of how they are turned, which is anything from them fleeing in terror to them putting their capes up to their face and slowly backing off, or having difficulty moving.

Effectively speaking a less shit D&D turning system involves different degrees of how hard you turn an undead, each with their own unique reactions.

Dracula 2000 is an awful movie, but it's got an interesting premise. Judas is Dracula. Hence the issue with silver and the cross.

I have true faith in myself.

>Crosses don't actually do anything to vampires.
>That myth started as a combination of church officials using superheated metal crucifixes to "burn the holy spirit into them", and Bram stoker using it as a plot device with no backing that vampires were repelled by crosses.

From what I've been able to collect, it started from the old Christian Demon Hunter legends, that had the Demon Hunters using a weapon called 'Croix de la Mort', which supposedly was basically an AOE Holy Fire attack that didn't do anything to 'those walking in the light of the one true God'.
THAT was started by the superheated metal crucifixes.

Thus, there actually are vampire (or nocti, if you go back to the origin) legends that have the Crucifix doing damage to vampires - simply because the Crucifixes in question do damage to ANYTHING 'unclean'. It had nothing directly to do with vampires.

youtube.com/watch?v=WrJzZ21hLKo

CLASSIC

You're all wrong. Originally their weakness was the same as that of werewolves and numerous other monsters; heirloom silver. Coincidentally, the most common silver heirlooms around after cutlery were crosses.

Myths about silver are also the source of vampire's reflections in mirrors, because at the time all mirrors were silver backed.

Would that mean that Vampires can't enter hospitals ?

...

It's why they only visit the shitty ones.

In the game I play, it's not the Sun specifically that harms them, but ultraviolet light. While weaker vampires will be burnt by sunlight, the strongest ones are at most inconvenienced by it.

As for faith, religious symbols of any religion affect them if: a) backed by faith of the user b) the vampire in question isn't mentally at peace with said religion. Generally silver is a better idea, as it's equally effective on every vampire.

What do you mean by "mentally at peace with said religion"?

Just curious.

Probably something like this:
youtube.com/watch?v=onbiOVpX0_w

I hold true faith that there isn't a creature on God's green earth that can survive multiple 12ga slugs to the cranium

That's the same idea I have too.

And that never made sense to me. In Old World of Darkness, the Abrahamic god is the real one-and-only supreme being. Genesis happened literally. There's no question. It's not just a matter of opinion or interpretation. And yet religions that have some basis in fact are treated the same as those that don't.

skipping over DotS
I stipulate it's more the faith of the owner that a higher power would / is protecting them, and how much they hand to ever there life to the church. Comes off as vaguely Church propaganda.

The metaphysics of the oWoD are terminally stupid. The Abrahamic God is real along with Lucifer and Cain and the other guys and most pagan gods were just vampires, but the Chinese still have their own afterlife for some reason.

Chinese aren't humans, obviously

Actual humans are just a myth in the WoD.

Depends.
Is the vampire empowered by forces that fight against the forces who are symbolized by that religious symbol?
If yes, then yes.

If sun (or star in general) is seen as a representation of the holy body of the deity that fights against the power/deity that empowers the vampire, then yes.
If no then any other thing can work too, be it a moon, a tree, a stream or whatever else symbolizes a god in that setting of yours.

Because True Faith is a personal thing and not a bestowed blessing that a superior entity grants you user.
You can have True Faith in Capitalism, for example. There isn't any high patron for that.

About the paganism, there are actually two big metaplots, the God one and the Gaia and Triats one, but they can be connected if you want to and fans all did their own theories about it because there are little hints all over the place despite all the anons in wodg say otherwise.

My family worships Maha-Deva. His portfolio actually includes control over the undead. Hopefully my Nataraja pendant works on non-hindu vamps.

Was The Abrahamic God worshiped by the chinese as August Personage of Jade?

What business is your family in, exactly?

Not really, some vampires took names that stood for generations and very powerful vampires have godlike powers anyway. But gods and other super Natural beings can be from other splats, mostly Ancient heretical/pagan gods are said to be Earthbounds (a type of Demon in the oWoD) but you got mages with their mythical beast stories and werewolf for all spiritual shamanic components. Then there is Mummy and Wraith. And Hunter connects the chinese afterlife spirits for some reason.

Real Estate mostly. My uncle owns a convenience store though.

I think the point is that when they're confronted by someone with that level of belief in something they find righteous, the vampire becomes disgusted with itself and goes babbling apologies in the fetal position.

Exactly, True Faith and dedication, fervor that a person holds for that thing scare the vampire, then the vampire will proceed to run away.

>Let's say I present a vampire with a religious symbol that is not a cross. Will it be repelled?
Depends. Is it the power of faith that's repelling the vampire, or is it the power of God being channeled through it? In the former case you get into a "true faith" scenario like in WoD, but in the latter case no amount of faith can empower the holy symbol of a false religion.

>Similarly, let's say the sun is replaced with any other star of any other size or color. Will the vampire burn with that light?
Clearly the answer is no, because otherwise a starry night would turn a vampire into smoldering swiss cheese.

How racist

We tease him for it too whenever he leaves our house.

>Thank you, come again

>Let's say I present a vampire with a religious symbol that is not a cross. Will it be repelled?
No. Religion has little to do with faith.

Why? It doesn't make sense.

Can a vampire ward off another vampire through his belief in death and predation?

>Similarly, let's say the sun is replaced with any other star of any other size or color. Will the vampire burn with that light?
Consider the following:
It takes about 8 minutes for the sunlight to reach the Earth.
It also takes a few minutes to kill a vampire by exposing it to sunlight.
Coincidence? I don't think so!

>"Dave, stop being a shitter. True Faith specifically means a belief in a higher power"
>"My character genuinely believes that he is a god, look I even took the Delusion flaw"
>"If he's a god then why is he a homeless hobo hunted by vampires?"
>"I work in mysterious ways"

...

>Even vampires know your socio-economical system is bullshit

DAME LA SALSA

sounds like it's time to throw Dave a little party

There is actually a book series that stars vampires (of a kind) fighting for the Reds in Russian Civil War

Really? I had an idea for vampires fighting for the Whites.

The sun harms vampires because it's the main symbol of faith for most religions.

Well, the vampire in question explains that he was 'opressed by church' and staff, and in the end he is just a servant to the super-duper-misterious poorly-written badly-contriven true power behind the revolution and bolshevik party. (In the book, there is essentially that vampire that commands his ghouls as "immortal regiment" that performs psychological attacks by as marching into machine guns until bayonet range)

The pot of hte book is also a race to the last rocket of secret Imperial Russia alternate-reality space program (that is - a rocket that flies into alternate reality), which was greatly amusing

Depends on the lore
>In I am Legend (novel) it depended on the vampire's beliefs before death. A Muslim vampire would not be repelled by a cross, etc.
>In Stephen King's universe it doesn't matter what the symbol is, only the person's faith. You can use a sterling silver turtle as long as your conviction in the truest definition of good is strong and you'll be able to repell a vampire

What's the title?

...

Depends on the setting. In mine, vampires lose all powers during the day even if they're inside. Holy stuff is just mildly irritating, looking at it is like staring directly into an LED bulb and touching it burns slightly.

And this, folks, is why overly speculative approach to world-building and mythological concepts and narratives don't go very well together. People completely forget that the point of the fiction is not to simulate or abstract some kinds of physics-like causality in fantastic stories.

Vampires fear crosses in classic European folklore, because those stories were told among Christians, who viewed faith as their strongest protection from evil. It was a symbol: believe in God, and he shall help you get through the hardship of life.

Similarly, vampires were imagined to be harmed by night because they fed on ancient fear of the dark and related mystical qualities that were attributed to it.

That actually makes perfect sense.
Start asking stupid questions in which you treat those rules as some kinds of natural laws, rather than expression of concrete, culture-and-history-based symbolism, and you'll end up with stupid fiction and completely pointless questions like this one.

Folks: treat mythology like a symbolic language, not like a scientific encyclopedias. Not only that it will prevent you from wasting time pondering stupid questions like this. It will actually allow you to keep the mythology still powerful and interesting.

This is why I always said the the obsession making bloated systems of internal laws in fantasy world-building is a bad fucking habit.

I'm with the whole "depends on the setting" people. Set down the rules for vampirism in your setting.

And now for more crucifix rejection, a favourite from The Fearless Vampire Killers:

youtu.be/goqj9oWFhMw

Bon apetit, user!
imdb.com/title/tt0359123/

Traditional vampire lore usually assumes traditional christian cosmology, in which God is a real dude whose holy symbols are actively repellent to evil creatures, and where the sun is a special heavenly body with its own unique spiritual significance.

I'd allow it. A huge ego/willpower giving you powers never fails to excite me.

I bet people who post this a repelled by interesting discussion like vampires.

No, vampires are pussies who believe in nothing.

That is not what centrist means. This shit could maybe make sense if were talking about agnostics, but not centrism in term of political stances.

>you will never be a bad enough dude to stab a church and make it bleed.

>Vampire coming after you
>No cross on hand
>Remember your sword was forged by a buddhist monk, and is full of religious iconography
>Vampire is unaffected unless you explain this to him

Some scrubs just burn them.

See the following posts.
My personal take on vampires is that weaker ones will feel some sort of general unease around religious paraphernalia the only way it will repel them is if the person wielding or otherwise implementing it is truly faithful.

As far as the effectiveness of stars other than our sun goes haven't really thought about it. The NWOD book Mirrors The Infinite Macabre does a brief overview on their take which is interesting: only Earth's sun burns them (due to their affliction being supernatural) and in the vacuum they will slowly be damaged but can otherwise do okay on the outside of an airlock. The book even goes into more nuanced takes on the previous two ideas (ie. any star orbited by habitable planets or just the primary star of their home planet will hurt them). Worth a read even if you don't usually care for White Wolf's work.

Gee, who would've tought!

PERSONALLY I tend to prefer vampires that aren't really fucked up by the sun. Perhaps slowed, but not even that is really necessary, Carmilla woke ad midday like your usual bratty teen and Dracula went in full morning with his bitches in the streets of London

>to be fair, english climate and all

The fatih symbol to me it's kinda bullshit all around. Problem is, I'm not really sure in many cases how to represent a true believer that weilds it -that kinda make sense but I feel pretty cheap to just say "you have that power, pay the points/get the class, you're good".Especially with NPCs.

Lots of posts about the Sun being holy, which I get, but never occurred to me. I had just assumed a night-dwelling monster was spooky, and being physically unable to go out into the light was a wretched curse.

Well as long as you have faith in God you are okay. Odin or Budda doesn't have shit against vampires & its not like other gods exist anyway. As long as its God, you are protected, the sun is His light that the vampire has to flee. It has nothing to do with UV or a particular radiation signature. So in short, if you are a faithful christian & present a cross you are good. If you are a heathen with a Koran then the vampire doesnt care.

its not the cross, but the faith one has, a large cross will only inconvenience a vampire in the hands of the weak willed, but a small cross in the hands of an adamant believer may even burn a vampire

jews can use david stars, celts can use celtic crosses, dwarves can use images of moradin etc. as long as you hold faith that you will not be harmed
this actually what turn undead is inspired by, faith being the ultimate shield against evil

No, the abrahamic god in oWoD is just a very powerful spirit.

But that strawman is so convenient!

Everyone knows that the world is black and white!

Setting aside "Depends on your setting" here are a couple of thoughts.

If your vamps are based on Cain being forced to wander the earth eternally, hiding his face from the sun, and they are thus repelled by symbols of the abrahamic god you can probably get away with crosses, stars of david, maybe those stylised fishes and some of the muslim symbols, although those are trickier since the crescent and star is a symbol of the religion not a symbol of god himself.

If your vamps are repelled by the purity of faith because they are creatures of the dark who feed on impure desire, then the symbol doesn't matter as long as it represents something you truly believe in.

If you have a bram stoker style vamp then nothing short of something that brings with it the actual presence of god, at least via dogmatic standards, is going to work, so you will need an actual blessed communion wafer granted to you by a priest of the mother church as an indulgence, or holy water (which via vatican standards only has a shelf life of like a week before it stops being holy); anything else might by you time but won't physically repel or pain your vamp.

As for sunlight, again tricky issue. If your vampire has a deficiency that makes them weak to UV radiation then any star light will effect them, but so will moon light given that it is reflected sun light.

If your vampire has been cursed that he cannot walk in the light of the sun (again like Cain is in the apocrypha) then probably depends on how magic works in your system, but I'd guess that the curse specifies a specific star to count as "The Sun" for the purposes of the curse.

If you have a bram stoker vamp, then sunlight won't hurt them it will just effect they're shape shifting ability, because this is a power based on shadow, and shadows are more fluid at night and more defined at noon.

If you have a JoJo vamp then pretty much everything goes out the window because that series changes how it's own rules work all the fucking time.

>look, don't use this fictional sky man, use my fictional sky man, it's the only way

>Koran then the vampire doesnt care.
The Lord and "Allah" are the same God, you imbecile. I suppose that something as uneducated as that is to be expected of protestant heretics, though.

Scum like you are the reason why so many people have a dim view on Christianity.

So what is the way Allah says to kill a vampire?

Lots of vampire lore relates to Christian beliefs not all Abrahamic faiths you imbecile. Silver kills because of the 30 pieces of silver & etc.
I am not a Protestant btw, & thats prejudiced to say anyway.
Well, what does your fictional sky man say kills fictional vampires?
& by the way it is ignorant & bigoted to call the Christian God a "sky man" either treat all religions the same or admit your prejudiced. I'm not talking down other religions. I'm talking about vampire myth, if that triggers you i dont care.

silver has a long history, in hindi, chinese, Greek, and so on, of having evil warding powers

vampires indeed had a weakness to silver long before werewolves did, so rather than vampires weakness to silver coming from the bible, it's more like bible and folklore drew from the same well, the idea that silver protects from evil

Believe in the you who believes in yourself!

Which should work. One of the examples is a person with True Faith in money, and it protects him, so True Faith regarding firearms should make them lethal.

>Silver kills because of the 30 pieces of silver
You're fucking dumb, dude. Why would Judas' price of betrayal be in any way related to vampires lol. Silver has a history of being associated with magic across cultures.

Silver hasn't really ever been associated with any monster until very recently. Typically it's iron, oak, wolfsbane, crosses of any kind or even mercury for various monsters. Silver didn't enter in until the Wolfman film and it just permeated from there. There is no real reason for silver having any effect; it's just there because one popular story did it. In folklore it's overwhelming the list of weird shit that lingers just because of that logic.

I love you. Thank you, you're the only person in hundreds of shitty threads like this who fucking gets that.

The worst, and there is one right now, is idiots arguing over nomenclature for dragons with different arrangements of limbs. They're all dragons, they all have the same symbolic meanings in mythology, your distinctions are modern, arbitrary, and pointless, and only serve to make you feel like you know more about dragons than other people.

well I'd say that any faith-based symbol would work against a vamp if you believe in the god that it represents.
The sun is wayyy more iffy. I'd say no, at first.

>the same as that of werewolves
It's worth noting that originally, werewolves (loups garous specifically) were noted for their terrifying lack of any weaknesses whatsoever.
Heirloom silver was a ward for witches, who could transform into wolves but gave themselves away by lacking a tail.
Werewolves were also sometimes distinguished by their lack of a tail, and so later they were given the witch's weaknesses.

Well, there is the fucking idea that Judas was the first vampire asshole. Do some research

Only modern Western hospitals where they actually do resuscitate people sometimes.

you should just make up your mind about which deities are real in your world

Vampires rely on mysticism and faith, not science and hard rules, so as long as we're talking about modern or historical/fantasy setting I would say that the answers are yes if the symbol has a religious meaning to you and no.

Vampires cant enter shit, Not unless they are invited in.

For a good (for first novel) pseudo Islamic daemon/vampire hunter try Throne of the Crescent Moon and the few short stories set in it

It's usually Cain. In a rare few Jesus is a vamp, but I've never heard Judas as one.