Infecting Vampires

Mutated HIV. The darn thing's continually mutating IRL, so why couldn't it do so in vamps, when they nosh on an HIV+ victim?

Or take the overuse of antibacterials one step further: humans use antibacterial soap, cleansers, tissues... everything. The bugs are already mutating into super-bugs IRL, so you could take one of them and have it attack vamps. Again, when the vamp takes a drink.

The vampire's essentially a reanimated corpse with demonic or Satan-endowed superhuman powers and abilities plus it's original intelligence and a hunger for blood. Those are the things that drive the creature.

Now, it's still dead. It may be dead with a phenomenal healing ability which protects it against most of the stuff that touches normal humans, but it's still a walking corpse.

It has allergies (garlic, onions, the scent of new mown grass, etc.). It has fears. Most especially of all, it has susceptibilities because it's DEAD.

There's no calcium replacement in those bones unless it pulls it from the blood of a victim (a good explanation for why vampires need blood). That skin? Well, it's allergic to bright light from an artificial source kf any kind (even normal incandescent lights give off luminescence outside of normal human viewing range in the UV spectrum).

That skin, again? It's DEAD and thus susceptible to any number of bacterial flora already present on human skin. Superhuman or not, that body's DEAD and it ain't going to get any better. The meat underneath the skin might be maintained by some supernatural force, but the meat itself is swarming with putrefying bacteria that are just aching to get at anything it can.

basically, the vampire is as much a swarming sea of bacterial contagion as any zombie ever conceived. In fact, the longer the vampire lives the more likely it has come into contact with humans carrying one or more virulent bacilli or virii that make it a superhuman Typhoid Mary.

I hate V:tM, can you tell? It was basically the start of the "vampire romance" atrocity we now find ourselves inundated in.

Responding to FOTSGreg said, how about a bug that consumes dead flesh so fast an infected vampire can't stave it off with that superhuman regenerative power that stops them rotting under normal circumstances? So they'd be going around with these horrible, spreading blotches, bloating innards, and sloughing skin before the sad, terrible end.

And yeah, don't float new ideas to fandoms. Some are practically fundamentalists.

muravyets said:

Responding to FOTSGreg said, how about a bug that consumes dead flesh so fast an infected vampire can't stave it off with that superhuman regenerative power that stops them rotting under normal circumstances? .

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Necrotising Fasciitis...The infection can literally spread before your eyes with air bubbles and black splotches. If you poke the bubbles they sound like Rice Crispies in milk.

I think it's a great idea.

I love how a group of people will take a mythical creature that descends from dozens of cultures, choose one idea for it, and suddenly say there's canon. Especially creatures, like vampires, that defy any form of logic or reason.

White Wolf didn't invent vampires...and neither did Anne Rice (who White Wolf clearly "borrowed" from) or Bram Stoker. And since none of them seemed to give a rip if they pooped on the chest of those that came before them, what gives anyone the right to hold you accountable to those three?

Establish your rules--whatever rules you want--and then go for broke.

Julie, NF is a side effect of some of the HIV drugs already on the market. Total believability FTW!

If you want to take a real different swing with vamps.....

Why not have a 'new' vaccine come about that instead of 'killing' a germ/bug, it restores a vamp? Kind of a reverse 'death' type thing. A medical team gets lost, the vamp drinks/uses the serum and zap...they start to come back to being alive. Then they have to deal with whatever deal the devil has with them.

Okay, I know that is left field thinking. Sorry about that.

Wendy, how DARE you think of something original?! What are you, a writer or something?!

GeorgeK said:

Necrotising Fasciitis...The infection can literally spread before your eyes with air bubbles and black splotches. If you poke the bubbles they sound like Rice Crispies in milk.

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Yeah, thanks. I couldn't remember the name of it (my brain was corrupted by a friend calling it Pac-man Disease) -- but if I recall correctly, NF kills and eats living flesh. If we assume vampires are dead but in a kind of suspended state in which decomp doesn't set in, then this might be more like a super strong version of the normally benign bacteria in our bodies that don't start eating us until after we're dead -- or aren't strong enough to overcome our own protections until we're dead. In all other respects, I guess it would be just like NF. The only real difference is that it isn't the strain that attacks living flesh.

Also, thanks so much for the sound effect. My life wasn't complete without that in my head.

SouthernFriedJulie said:

I'm trying to work out the kinks in a 'SH** HAS HIT THE FAN' scenario and hopefully do something no one else has - create a breed of walking dead straight from every other monster's nightmares. Hell, where their nightmares are afraid to go.

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WIN.

The notion of festering, rotting vampires could so easily be spun as an origin for zombies, so while you're at it you might as well throw in werewolves - there is some justification in traditional depictions for having them linked. I'm thinking the green hair is mold (just like sloths). Some descriptions may as well state that they are zombies for all the difference in there...

SouthernFriedJulie said:

I was just wondering how plausible it would be to infect everything, even so called immortals. The disease will affect the circulatory system first, then the nervous system.

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Well, let's face it: vampires aren't exactly plausible to begin with So decide what makes them tick. What makes them immortal or nearly so? How do their bodies resist aging and disease? Come up with an answer to that question, plant a chink in the armor, and that's where the disease attacks.