Rules for Vampires!

You could ask a hundred people and get a hundred different answers.

Vampires have existed in multiple cultures throughout the world for millenia. It depends on what kind of vamp you want.

Some eat, some don't.
Some require coffins and their native soil, others sleep in beds.
Some can handle sunlight, others can't.
Some are immortal, some age slowly.
Some are "alive", some are "undead".
Some are repelled by religious artifacts, some aren't.
Some are allergic to silver, some aren't.
Some steal "life essence", others drink blood.
Some kill their victims, others take a drink and wipe the memory.
Some can affect human mental process, others can't.
Some look forever young, others slowly rot.
Some are ethereally beautiful and enticing, others are covered in green fur. (yes, I'm serious)

No one can design your vampires except you. The only "rule" is not to make them sparkle - that one's pretty much S.Meyer's domain, and I've seen agents lament the influx of "sparklepires" (their word) since Twilight.

My vampires follow the very strict rules laid out by that guy who invented the pink unicorn. No offence, but if you give a shit about staying true to anything, then why bother writing about something everybody knows doesn't exist? The whole point of writing about stuff like it is so that you don't have to worry about any rules. Not following assumed vampire rules is exploited time and time again in vampire stories.

Something that annoys me about a lot of vampire fiction is that it ignores the base metaphor of the vampire. A vampire is a leech and a parasite. It cannot survive unless it ignores the suffering of others and exploits them. The genre has an inbuilt great conflict ready to be milked for all its worth, and that can comment on tonnes of things in society. Vampires who are not simply parasites....why vampires?

I've seen it over and over. Writers just dropping the ball and getting stuck on effect, looking cool and sex appeal, without once reflecting on why the vampire is attractive. Maybe I'm just too deep or something. But this stuff isn't hard.

Gets off soap box.

There haven't been rules about vampires for quite a while. You can have them do anything. If you wanted to use the original vampire type, then it would be different.

Your world, your rules ... maybe they breathe only when moving or talking? Don't breathe when sleeping?

I think one of your first concerns is to decide exactly WHAT the vampires are; What it is that makes them what they are. The rules you set for them must be related to that

*Are they, like in some recent movies, victims of some weird super-virus that changes their bodies, and are therefore not supernatural beings? If so, they would breathe and be immune to religious items. A vampire that isn't unholy in some way would logically be unaffected by holy objects and places.
*Are they living people struck with a terrible curse?
*Are they DEAD people struck with a terrible curse that requires them to drink blood to survive?
*Are they soulless corpses animated by some demonic power?
*Are they living souls bound to a dead corpse by some demonic power?
*Are they mutants?

You need to make your rules fit two criteria: What you want to do, and what you can make internally consistent.

One thing to keep in mind is that they need something to balance them with humans. Especially if your MC is a human. That is why I think I disliked Twilight; there was no downside of being a vamp.

Of course this is a guideline and not a rule.

Here is a resource that looks good. I haven't got it yet.

Actual Factual: Dracula - A Compendium of Vampires
http://www.rpgnow.com/product_info.php?products_id=65023&filters=940_0_0_0

Kenny said:

One thing to keep in mind is that they need something to balance them with humans. Especially if your MC is a human. That is why I think I disliked Twilight; there was no downside of being a vamp.

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Yes. One thing I hate about the recent cutie-fication of vampires is that vampirism is made to seem FUN. Like everyone should be lining up to get bitten.
In my mind, being a vampire has to be a curse, either to the vampire, or the people it encounters, or both.

DrZoidberg said:

My vampires follow the very strict rules laid out by that guy who invented the pink unicorn.

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Bram Stoker invented the pink unicorn, too?

D.C. McLaughlin said:

I guess what I SHOULD have said ( Lesson to me to never type before work! ) was that I enjoy seeing other people's translation of what it is to be a vampire. Whether or not I AGREE with it and am going to use it as a rule in my world is irrelevant. Sometimes even the bad ideas give me ideas. I personally can't stand when I see someone stake a vampire and they explode into dust in an instant. Too easy! Or when they disintegrate to ashes at the first touch of dawn. Again, too easy! ( Although its great for the movie makers who are working with a time limitation! )

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Ah. Well, I'm planning to feature vampires in my fantasy world at some point. I haven't worked out all the small details, but I have two different kinds of vamps: The most common ones are straight out of folklore. Feral, undead, corpse-like monsters, who come into being when an evil spirit enters into a fresh corpse. They have none of the personality traits of the living person, can't pass for human except in the dark, and most have only animal intelligence. The more powerful ones are smarter, and can even talk, but remain savage and evil and only interact with humans by sneaking out of the wilderness to attack people. They don't pass their vampirism on to victims; If you're drained, you just die.

The other kind is the result of a group of sorcerers achieving immortality by stealing the traits of the ferals. They are closer to vampires as we know them now; Intelligent, hidden in human society, and can pass their condition on with bites. They basically have human thought, but the passage of time and the need to prey on the living gradually turns them into cold sociopaths, who don't take pleasure in much of anything beside finding interesting prey to pursue.

Both types are hard to kill, and stakes just piss them off. Chopping of the head and/or cutting out the heart and burning it are the only guaranteed ways of killing them for good.
Both are also unharmed by sunlight; Just severely weakened by it. The ferals dig themselves into the ground during the day, and the sorcerers stay indoors or go out with hoods or sunhats.
I haven't worked out their exact powers, but the ferals are stronger and tougher, and the sorcerers have more varied and fancy abilities due to their magic.

Shadow_Ferret said:

Bram Stoker invented the pink unicorn, too?

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Bram Stoker didn't invent vampires as we know them. Check out "Carmilla". It's available for free online.

efreysson said:

Bram Stoker didn't invent vampires as we know them. Check out "Carmilla". It's available for free online.

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Carmilla was almost a century behind the curve, too. Lord Ruthvyn was the first "Gothic" vampire.