How do you like your vampires, Veeky Forums? Monstrous and inhuman? Human in appearance, bestial in nature...

I like the transforming ones. The ones that can pass for mostly human, but have a "true form" more resembling pic related or nosferatu. I am also a sucker for them having many of the traditional vampire powers, like turning into wolves, bats and mist, having mind control powers over nocturnal animals etc.

Give the church a group of trained vampire hunters with a killer main theme and I'm game

Go read Ex Sanguine (a comic), I think you'll really like it.

And don't forget to make James Woods their leader.

big boobies

Smug.

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This is how I do vampires, need some opinions on it.

Vampires are not a physical entity but a spiritual entity and come to existence often on the battlefield. When a weapon of some kind is favored and bathed in numerous doses of blood, and surrounded by the malice of those spilling blood, eventually the weapon will develop a life on its own. The weapon will thirst for blood and inhabit the current wielder of the weapon, who will become obsessive and bonded to the weapon. The wielder will both desire to feed upon blood and bathe their weapon in blood. Those who hold the weapon in their possession are granted great power by the malicious entity within the blade. Often then means when a vampire is killed his wealth is taken, and the weapon's spirit will devour the new owner and control them in turn.

Vampire stretch back to time in memoria, and some of the examples of the most powerful current vampires are a single shard of a club from the ice age, the guillotine that was used for the execution of numerous nobles during the french revolution, and the Sword of Mars, wielded by Attila the Hun. This means vampires appear in all cultures as they are tied to humanity and the death of humanity. However, in recent era with the advent of firearms new vampires are not being born as bullets who are bathed in blood are not reused, and the firearm themselves are covered in blood.

One of the most famous examples is the knife of Jack the Ripper. Indeed 'Jack' was killed numerous times, his knife being picked up and inhabiting a new soul to continue the bloody murders in London. Though not a powerful vampire it is one of the youngest and most prolific in terms of violent death.

I'm a Butcher fan and like how he does it. I'm told he takes a lot of cues from WoD but he has several varieties of vampire. Psychic, Batlike, and Undead, with at least one more variety implied.

I like gothic vampires. Human-like, but intelligent, cool headed, and terrifyingly powerful. I also prefer that they rarely feed, showing self control and specific tastes.

Chaotic neutral, smug badasses.

Valek's a great example because he's good looking and very clearly a former human, but his actions define him as more monster than man. I'm a big fan of classic Stoker vamps like that

this

I'm fond of the Warhammer Fantasy and oWoD styles of vampire. Mostly the classic powerful gothic noble or bloodthirsty warrior archetype, but with an underlying beast-like nature and the ability to degenerate into something far far worse.

I like them female, powerful, beautiful, seductive, dominant, and interested in keeping me as a pet.

My vampires come in two types.

The Upyorg and the Night-walkers.

The Upyorg are 13 in number, all are around 14,000 years old, and have all the traditional powers and weaknesses of a vampire, but, when feeding or in combat they transform into a severely hideous bestial form best described as a combination of a lamprey, a gargoyle, and a human-being, not to mention growing significantly in height and strength. Upyorg both suck blood and eat hearts, some also eat flesh. If a human survives an upyorg's bite (very uncommon, but possible), they experience ebola like symptoms and are usually dead hours later. If a normal vampire survives a bite, they become an upyorg over the course of decades.

The much more common night walkers are a bit like world of darkness vampires (different bloodlines different powers/appearances), but they have their own clans and they don't use the powers used by the WoD vampires.

Night walkers are saner and easier to deal with in the sense that they think thoughts and have feelings, Upyorg flip from satanic treacherous leaders to beyond-abomination brutal monsters depending on their mood and hunger level.

I forgot to mention this, upyorg are not actually the 'first' first vampires, there is a type that is older and even more powerful, but there are only 7-10 of them in existence, and they very seldom are seen by any PC, so I keep them rather mysterious, though they are all roughly 28-27,000 years old.

Mostly human. You look at them and see a human.
Until you notice the small things being off. Pale skin with colorless veins. Constantly moving eyes. Sharp teeth. Elongated fingers.
If they have a good deal of self control they may not do much to you. Maybe drink some blood. Maybe leave you for later
But if not, you will notice in your last moments that a creature of that build should not move as fast, be as strong as or be as resilient as it is.

Vampire the Masquerade

That's actually a really cool take.

In my current setting, I went with an alien, insectoid variant.

>Alucids
The Pale Locusts. Alucids are an insectoid race native to the Shallowsea region. Their Queen, a large, cancer-like sac of organs and hatred digs itself deep into the earth before spawning its hungry Bloodflies. These flies collect blood from animals and people alike before depositing their catch into the maw of their monstrous mother. The Queen uses this blood to grow strong enough to manifest her mighty psychic powers, allowing her to silently call the weak-willed and those whose blood she’s tasted back to her lair. The weakest are devoured for more power, while most of the rest become mindless slaves in time.

Eventually, the Queen begins attracting stronger prey. People and animals of great vitality are forced to eat the Queen’s larva, becoming a symbiote with it as the parasite carves out their insides and slowly transmutes them into the Alucid’s mightiest form. Some enjoy the process, while some are made to. In time, these Chevalier become the Queen’s enforcers, and ultimately her lovers, helping her to spawn greater and greater horrors until a new Queen is needed to splinter off from the hive and begin anew somewhere else.

Holy shit found the neck beard

The vampires in the original 30 days of night were pretty good, didn't read any of the follow up books though so maybe they ruined them.

The best thing was something sadly cut from the film, in that a higher up vampire was invited to the town they planned to rampage in. He confronts the organiser of it and states he only turned up to see if the guy was that fucking stupid he would risk exposing the existence of vampires they had worked so hard to hide into myth just to get some kicks trashing a small town.

I don't. Vampires are lame.

t. furry

...

Turned to a pile of ash.

Both of these are my favorites as well.

Thematically Vampire Counts are hard to top as far as vampires go for me.

My personal take on Vampirism is another form of undeath where, unlike a Lich who keeps his soul in a phylactery that has to be recharged via a ceremony every so often vampires drawn the soul of an individual through thier blood and consume it. The act of doing so is damning and causes and addiction and physical change that basically makes your old human existence forefit.

Over time you become predatory like an animal except rather than the purity of nature simply looking for food you hunt to feed your addiction and your hunger which is now one in the same. You grow monsterous traits overtime and those who loose control become fully beastial.

Imagine the scene from the Horror in Innsmouth except you have humans that look like mishapen boars, and dogs, and horses and other such animals wearing suits as they feast on a living human being.

In pure fantasy the Warhammer vampires are fairly good.

In more "real world" based stuff I like the ancient vampire fucking disgusted with the fact that vampires have become a massive gay joke.

A Blade like character but who's motivation is simply to destroy modern vampires because they are fucking shit and don't deserve to exist would be great.

How would something truly old look? We're talking Paleolithic/Neolithic old, like, survivor from the time of conan ancient vampire?

I like the Castlevania route
>Reject humanity
>Become demon warlock, figuratively satan

Do vampires (or liches for that matter) eventually become senile?

I do my best to show my settings vampires as just humans with the training wheels off. Humans are just as bad, it just that vampires have been around long enough to stop lying about it. Being a vampire doesn't turn you into mist or a bat, but after a 1000 years you pick up some tricks. Doesn't make you an jerk either, but outliving everything you've even known sure does. It's for sure a slow burn but I like the horror of it. Everyone's awful, live long enough and you are doomed to be evil. No one NO ONE is really good on a long enough time frame.

Old and ancient (though they might not look it), pale and clammy to the touch, sclera permanently bloodshot and eyes burning with hunger, especially those who indulge in feeding when they don’t have to, since they only need to feed once weekly. Their fangs aren’t straws (where did this idea even come from?), they just hold open the arteries as the red ichor of their prey flows down their throat, usually only taking a little less than a pint from the average sized human. Their saliva has a unique healing property, speeding up the healing factor of their victim so that there is rarely any sign of being fed from, as the vampire takes care to not spill a drop. The victim’s fatigue is usually shrugged off as sudden illness. Their nails grow faster than the average man’s and make for improvised weapons perfect for severing tendons and the throat of any would-be hunter, their body is more resilient to trauma but not impervious. Inhuman strength and speed are well known traits amongst their kind, as is their inhanced night vision.

Contrary to popular belief, religious items don’t cripple them, and the sun doesn’t make them burst into flames (though it does make them break into a sweat, and weakens them). They can eat regular foods, though the taste may disgust them now, and must purge their stomach before the food begins to fully digest, or else they’re near deathly sick for days. Garlic acts like any sort of severe allergen, and will send vampires into anaphylactic shock. They’re resilient, so Death is very uncommon unless they’re severely malnourished.

Humanity is relatively easy to maintain, though the antisocial and the engorging feeders are quick to become animalistic in nature and thought, being the instrument of their own doom.

Why are you here?

Loli vampires are god's gift

Super rare and evil-as-fuck. I'd like their blood sucking to include flesh ripping with animal-abandon. 30 Days of Night (film) are my favorite vampires in a long time. Like that, but stronger.

Pretty much like Vampire: The Masquerade, with a few exceptions:
>sunlight = burning death, no exceptions, no special powers will defend against it
>no generations, age=power
>wooden stake to the heart is death
>seriously, if the vampire can endure any amount of sunlight, I want nothing to do with it, that is pretty much an immediate turnoff

We're on Veeky Forums, why act like this is something noteworthy?

I really like how he talks about Stoker's Dracula and says it was published as a manual on how to take out Black Court vampires which led to most of them being killed off. The Red Court and White Court are also cool monsters, but I don't really think of them as vampires. Still good enemies, and the end of Changes, while super depressing, was also super satisfying.

PEACE TALKS FUCKING WHEN. Been almost 3 years. I'm getting antsy. We don't need another George RR Martin.

I like pretty much all types. There is something about your more bestial vampires, or those that are only barely disguised as people, that is great. But the modern interpretation of vampires as a more monstrous ruling elite, beautiful and decadent has it's own appeal as well. If I wanted a story more about court intrigue or something like that, then that type of vampire opens up more storylines.
I kind of like the approach WoD takes. In my own setting, vampires started off as more of a uber-human type thing, but the curse being magical, was influenced by common supersitions and so you get younger generations with more/less powers, strengths or weaknesses depending on the culture they originated from.

>HOLY SHIT I FOUND THE GUY IN THE RED SHIRT

And I found the faggot autist.

Probably not in the same way, but living that long would definitely affect your memory in strange ways.

Vampirism is a choice, granting power and longevity at the expense of karma. They exist in the same circle as things like wendigo's and other cannbalistic creatures.

I liked Peter Watts' take on them in the novels Blindsight and Echopraxia.

>humanoids from the dawn of civilization, relatively few in number
>not human in mind at all though, extreme predators that kill and eat humans raw
>so territorial that getting 2 of them in the same room together is a guaranteed blood bath
>insanely intelligent and rational logic machines, to the point of incomprehensibility by normal humans
>can go into a hibernation where they sleep and shut down all bodily systems and functions and live solely off the water stored in their bodies, slowly desiccating over time
>they died out in pre-history due to what is colloquially known as the "crucifix glitch", the sight of a right angle sends them into a grand mal seizure

I guess you must really hate Dracula, then.

It depends on what I'm going for. Classic humans turned into blood sucking shapeshifters is fine. So is bat-like demons. And other stranger variants on the theme.

>It is...a travesty

Nah, they're cursed humans. Curse does its part in some way sure, but in the end they're meant to be in torment and pain from their affliction and this require humanity to relate too.

>Human in appearance, bestial in nature?
I liked the idea that vampires are just barely slaves to their instincts and put on the constant "handsome and cultured nobleman" with a suit, cane, and drinking blood out of wineglass show because they're ashamed of what they really are; that being if anything sets them off too hard they lose their shit and turn into shrieking feral animals that will charge you on all fours before clawing you apart.

Completly accursed and devoid of feeling, without any hopes of reaching redemption (wether they became vampire willingly or not is not important as their very nature is in complete opposition to human)
Their first can't be satiated, the more they drink blood the more powerful they become, they perpetually feel thirsty and hungry and become more and more bestial and brutal as their vicitms pills up.
Appearance wise there is a lot of variety, some have classics vampire teeth and are close to the cliché of bat-vampire but other develop bloodsucking abilities similar to mosquito or leech.
Once you become a vampire you can't go back and don't feel empathy for anything anymore, you are just hungry; resisting the thirst for blood for too long while turns you into an immobile and dusty husk
Its quite edgy but I tend to dislike vampires trying to keep their humanity or just being brooding hissing goth doing orgy in slow motion while wearing tight leather clothing

(OP)
The most terrifying concept of all: Not you, while you sit in the back seat having to endure your most self hate aspects take over.

All those smug fucks thinking they're hot shit because they don't care about sucking a person dry suddenly sitting, screaming in a mind prison of their own in a sealed basement because what little empathy and compassion they had crushed have gone into overdrive.

I imagine it started out as a curse against a generally good human being by a very bitter person, to make them a truly horrible beast while having said person stay aware to suffer.

My favorite depiction is in the novel Vampire$ by John Steakley. The oldest vampires are the supernaturally charismatic types that pass as humans. Newly turned ones are slow animalistic zombies, and then there's a middle ground where they get gradually faster and more human-looking as they age.

Other than the zombies they're lightning fast and nearly invulnerable to anything except sunlight, so the vampire hunters of the book mainly kill them by demolishing whatever building they're sheltering in during day or pulling them out through the entrance with a barbed crossbow bolt connected to a steel wire and a truck winch outside.

>Newly turned ones
Also by this I mean the risen corpses of drained victims

>How do you like your vampires, Veeky Forums?

Immortal beings who gave up their humanity and mortality in an effort to pursue their shallow, fetishistic desires both impulsive, sexual, and imaginative. The older they get the more powerful they become, but the more weaknesses they accrue and in turn devolve into a bored, revolting, mess.
I'm an enormous fan of Immortals having a pension for 'empire building': Dragons build entire countries, Liches found and organize schools, and Vampires are no exception to that, but instead of building them to acquire WEALTH or KNOWLEDGE they do it in an effort to fulfill all their weird, unusual, constantly degrading fantasies and perversions.

If they cant endure any amount of sunlight they would die from moon/starlight, possinly even through a thin wall.
You absolutely need effects to scale with intensity of sunlight, on/off only works in movies.

Vampires are shit, they need to be removed from most fiction

Just how much blood does a vampire need to consume per day just to retain basic metabolic functions?

>Just how much blood does a vampire need to consume per day just to retain basic metabolic functions?

I wana say, maybe, 2-3 liters.

Its a symbolic thing.
They move by sheer nothingness, its why they're UNdead

Probably has something with how much of an asshole you are or how powerful. So around a slurp or two or a guy dead per drink.

I like when the setting has all kinds for contrast, but my favorite is the rich and arrogant type that looks like a beautiful pale human and sees humans as livestock.

Bonus points if they can turn into a monstrous bestial form when cornered.

More bonus points if they have superhuman physical abilities while in "human" form, as well as shit like flight and hypnosis.

Could be it needs to be direct sunlight. Moonlight is reflected sunlight, so it wouldn't count. Neither would light reflected by a mirror according to this logic.

It's best to assume vampires work by magic (they drink blood because it's symbolic connection to life force), so the amount could be anything.
Because if you use actual biology you run into a problem with blood being 99 % water. A vampire bat has to drink roughly its own weight in blood, passing it through its body to filter out the actually nutritious part and removing the excess water along with urine. So biologically realistic vampires would have to drain multiple people nightly and pee all over the place (which probably is somebody's fetish if the vampires are also cute girls).

If they just metabolise like a normal animal/parasite would they'd basically need to drink their own weight in blood daily.

I love them old, tired from life, nihilistic, not giving a shit and cracking black humor jokes because they emotionally dead.

Out of curiosity how many calories are there in one liter of human blood roughly on average?

Edgy sadistic beasts like in 30 Days of Night.

>the older they are, the more inhuman they become in appearance

Yes or no?

Its about 700 or so.

So you'd only need 3 or 4 litres a day to get enough calories. Its pretty deficient in vitamins though so you're looking at needing to drink a lot more daily for long term survival. Which is bad because blood is actually decently salty and 3 litres a day would start causing kidney failure and other bad shit.

Vampires would have to have specialist digestive systems so we can only just speculate on their requirements.

To me vampire's should always retain a degree of humanity, I think that's what makes them unique, and makes the whole thing much more unsettling than just "bat monster"

It's a cool take tho

Inhuman maybe, but they shouldn't just be giant batmonsters.

What kind of inhuman are we talking about here then?

Why not?

Just people with some peculiar needs and some odd mannerisms.

No more likely to be evil spree killers than any other race.

Problem being that those that do become evil spree killers are phenomenally good at it.

Most of the stigma around them is due to the fact that the rampaging evil killers are the only ones that get a lot of attention from normal people because the regular, non-evil majority just quietly blends into society and there aren't that many of them.

...

How about vampires that feed on other vampires?

Personally I like stage 3 as the cutoff, but change how long it takes to shift

Organized.

It's at least good to think about. If vampires only require certain parts of the blood, (let's say calories and the water, because >purity is anathema or some shit) then knowing that they need a solid 3/4 litres seems like a good ballpark to work from there.

You don't need to go full science, but it's good to know.

Keep in mind an adult that is 150-180 lbs (68.04-81.65 kg) will have only 1.2-1.5 gal. (4.7-5.5 L) of blood, so it’s safest for them to feed off of multiple people a couple nights than to drain one person completely.

Think how easy working in a blood bank or morgue is for a vampire. They take home the “expired” blood or drain it into their own thermos or drink dispensers/coolers for meals on the go

Somewhat random question, but are there any instruments in a hospital used to warm up blood before they use it for transfusions, etc.? Is that even a thing?

Plus it ensures that they don’t get foul tasting, diseased blood. Imagine a vampire doctor swishing an extra blood sample around, only to spit it out for an “instant blood test” so that they can begin treatment before the lab gets the results back.

>okay the rapid blood test reveals that you might be an undiagnosed diabetic, so let’s go ahead and put you on insulin and I’ll give you all the resources you’ll need for a diabetic’s diet

>Active blood warming is a recent practice and arises out of conflicting needs. On the one hand, the safety and preservation of blood require refrigerated storage and delivery up to the moment of transfusion. On the other hand, modern methods of very rapid transfusion in resuscitation would cause clinically dangerous hypothermia if unmodified, ice-cold blood were to be so transfused. These needs must be reconciled in the interest of adequate patient care--hence the need for blood warming. Nevertheless, blood warming creates risks of its own and should not be used without justifying clinical indications. Within limits that extend somewhat above normal body temperature, the application of heat does no harm to stored RBC, a fact that is not reflected in current standards for blood warmers. Bearing in mind the human tendency to "stretch" standards and the fallibility of mechanical devices, caution is always wise. But perhaps the time has come for reconsideration of the present upper limit of 38 degrees C. Many varieties of blood warmers are available in the US, but none at this time is based on electromagnetic activity. The most common systems now in use are in-line warmers, most of which are not adequate for the type of rapid-transfusion systems currently available. Countercurrent in-line blood warmers and the method of rapid warm saline admixture can both be used successfully for rapid, massive transfusions. Blood warming is seldom necessary or desirable for elective transfusions at conventional rates, even for patients with cold autoagglutinins.

Probably some abomination of nature like Ludwig from Bloodborne but worse and entirely detached from humanity to the point that can't be adequately expressed in word.

On a semi related not, blood boils at 100°C (212°F) since it’s mostly water, and the 9% salt content would only raise the boiling point 1°C at most on standard

>so it’s safest for them to feed off of multiple people a couple nights than to drain one person completely.
So lets say you had a vampire who kept a single human locked up in the basement as a personal blood bank. If we assume the vampire drinks from the human twice a day (after all, a vamp who takes a prisoner isn't likely to limit themselves to one "safe" feeding per day), that is 6-8 litres of blood lost every day. With this in mind, how many days could the vamp keep the human around before it dies? Assume the vamp is providing food and water (albeit incredibly basic, i.e. a bowl of gruel and a piece of bread).

That makes them too relatable though

Diablerie is the greatest sin

>tfw shitposting on Veeky Forums for centuries

Ah, nevermind, I'm retarded. A vampire wouldn't keep a prisoner because they'd get one good feed in before the human becomes useless for a few days.

>becomes useless for a few days.
useless for weeks.
It takes a good while for your body replace all your blood cells.

There's a reason your made to wait around 12 weeks between blood donations.

if vampires need 3+ litres of blood a day its not really feasible to live off donations. a blood bank is going to notice 7 or 8 donations going missing each day.