Topic: General VAMPIRE Discussion

[KaZudra]

this will be divoted to the lore and more importatly, the weird things about general Vampires.
how is this relevant to Castlevania? only that the entire series is mostly based around killing 1 or 2 if your lucky, LoS made a huge leap by giving a good number of vampires to kill.

Through looking em up and to the mythos, there are breeds of different vampires

OLD Breed - Bat People that take human disguise, example: LoS Vampires, Old Breeds on Infamous 2 Festival of Blood

Old-school Breed, older, more menacing Vampires where all teeth are sharp and physical appearance is always Creepy, example Count Orlock, London after midnight.
This breed Tends to have blood act as youth.

Normal Vampires, typical creatures of the night with fangs, Powers range from super-human abilities to transformation, summon familiars and so much more, no example needed, go watch some movies!
This breed Varies with power, usually stronger gets more abilities.

Dhampir - Basic Half-human born vampires having all the power of a vampire whilst having none of thier weaknesses, examples, D, Alucard, Blade

Sparkly Pricks - Lowest of all breeds, having only basic abilities but use Appearance to track prey, sunlight causes skin to emit small soundless sparks on the skin causing the skin to sparkle. example, AAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!

other lores and breeds and more Castlevania Specific stuff is a group effort.


Flaw with Vampire Control- Vampires have the ability to turn humans into vampires by various ways, BUT if the master vampire is killed within set time of transformation, the human will revert into human form.

LoI "your basically fucked"
using the Conrtol Flaw Leon could have saved Sarah, BUT without the Vampire Killer, Walter could have not been killed, so, sorry leon, it's lose lose for your first wife.

[Mystic Myotis]

Thread is awesome, but you left something out...

There are 'vampires' that do not feed on blood.  For example, some feed on the abstract 'life force.'  As such, there should be a "Freaking Weird Vampires" classification. Like the Japanese Jiang Shi. O_o

[KaZudra]

Thread is awesome, but you left something out...

There are 'vampires' that do not feed on blood.  For example, some feed on the abstract 'life force.'  As such, there should be a "Freaking Weird Vampires" classification. Like the Japanese Jiang Shi. O_o

thx for adding that and kicking this thread off in the right direction

[Mystic Myotis]

thx for adding that and kicking this thread off in the right direction

Sure thing.
Jiang shi are hopping (I'm not kidding.  They hop.) corpses that feed on life force.  They aren't originally 'turned' like typical vampires (as in they didn't originate that way) but they can turn others, and they have the obsessive compulsive behaviors that many vampire types are said to have.
They kind of remind me of those Resident Evil monsters with the long tongues... What are those things called?

[KaZudra]

Sure thing.
Jiang shi are hopping (I'm not kidding.  They hop.) corpses that feed on life force.  They aren't 'turned' like typical vampires but they have the obsessive compulsive behaviors that many vampire types are said to have.

For Exapmles, Jiang Shi (OoE), Munak, Bon-Gon, and hwe-gon (Ragnrok Online)

[Mystic Myotis]

For Exapmles, Jiang Shi (OoE), Munak, Bon-Gon, and hwe-gon (Ragnrok Online)

Pretty much everyone here should be familiar with the OoE Jiang Shi. XD

Some people argue that they can't be classified as vampires- that they're zombies- but the life force sucking thing is a dead giveaway.  I think that western vampires originally were life force suckers rather than blood suckers but I can't quite recall... guess I could google it.

One could argue that vampires are a sub-set of zombies, or, if there is a great difference between a vampire and a lich, that the Jiang Shi is a lich due to the fact that a Jiang Shi will rot like any other corpse, hence the stiffness that results in the weird hopping.

Edit: Come to think of it... the Jiang Shi is kind of like a weird hybrid of a classic vampire and a DnD wight.

[Koutei]

Jiang Shi is not Japanese lore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Shi

Chinese.

[Mystic Myotis]

Jiang Shi is not Japanese lore.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jiang_Shi

Chinese.

Japanese have him, too.  Kyonshi, they're called.  But they're originally Chinese.  My bad. I blame my American-ness.

[Koutei]

Kyonshī was very popular in Japan formerly. I was nostalgic when the Jiang Shi of OoE was seen.

[Mooning Freddy]

One could argue that vampires are a sub-set of zombies

There's a great difference between Vampire and zombies, or ghouls. Although both of them are seen as "Nosferatu" (unholy creatures), while vampires are seen as people who were "resurrected" through a dark power,  usually intelligent, zombies are simply brain-dead animated corpses, which are either animated by magic (classic interpretation) or some sort of disease (modern, Resident Evil interpretation). Both of them are driven by a basic hunger for blood (or living flesh), but in the Vampires the thirst is terrible and uncontrollable, and causes them great suffering, possibly death if the thirst is not quenched. 
I don't know if the same can be said about zombies.

[Nagumo]

Western vampires were originally just revenants who killed people by strangeling them or sitting on their chest. I'm not sure if they fed on people's life force, though.

The two oldest precursors to vampires:

- Lamia
- Edimmu     

[X]

You forgot about another type of vampire known simply as the 'Psychic vampire' which is a person (human) who willingly or unknowingly saps a person's spiritual energy for their own benefit. It does sound similar to Jiang Shi except they are fully human and not the undead in any way. You also forgot to mention about how CV64/LoD was the game to feature multiple vampire slaying before LoS came on the scene FYI 

[Flame]

Succubi and Incubi can also be considered lesser vampires- They also feed on Human's life force, but not nessecarily through blood, and they dont quite work the way Vampires do.

[Mooning Freddy]

You forgot about another type of vampire known simply as the 'Psychic vampire' which is a person (human) who willingly or unknowingly saps a person's spiritual energy for their own benefit.

This is a fascinating concept which belongs to the sphere of paranormal activity, along with theories about "indigo children". Some people believe in the existence of "energy vampires", and I remember reading about a study of this by parapsychologists. They have placed a regular person and an "energy vampire" into a room and allowed them to communicate. meanwhile, they measured their "auras" (another paranormal phenomenon, the existence of which was neither proven nor disproved). During the time they spent in the room, the regular person's aura was growing weaker, while the other one's became stronger.

[darkwzrd4]

This is a fascinating concept which belongs to the sphere of paranormal activity, along with theories about "indigo children". Some people believe in the existence of "energy vampires", and I remember reading about a study of this by parapsychologists. They have placed a regular person and an "energy vampire" into a room and allowed them to communicate. meanwhile, they measured their "auras" (another paranormal phenomenon, the existence of which was neither proven nor disproved). During the time they spent in the room, the regular person's aura was growing weaker, while the other one's became stronger.

Yes, I've heard of the same study.  From what I remember, the "psychic vampire" would actually provoke an emotional response from the target and feed off the energy the target gives off while in that emotional state.  This somehow weakens the targets "aura".  Apparently, some people believe this is why they feel drained after someone deliberately upsets them.  These "psychic vampires" seem to feed off the negative energy we give off when we are really pissed off.  At least this is my understanding of it.