Vampiric Draining

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(Redirected from Blood Sucking)
If she'd simply eaten the garlic, she wouldn't be in this mess.

Vampiric Draining is a characteristic of certain supernatural creatures. These creatures nourish themselves by draining some vital element from living beings. It may be blood or other bodily fluids, mental or emotional energy, Life Energy, or magical or spiritual power.

The effects of being the victim of Vampiric Draining depend on how much vitality the Vampiric Drainer took from you, and range from temporary tiredness to chronic exhaustion, to either shortening of lifespan or Rapid Aging (thus overlapping with Liquid Assets), to death. The victim may also transform into the same type creature that fed upon him.

Draining Life Energy is a bit more common for "vampiric" creatures that are closer to the sci-fi end of the Magic Versus Science spectrum. The trope can also include "vampiric" weapons - that is, Evil Weapons that perform Vampiric Draining upon either their wielder or felled enemies/victims.

There are many motivations for draining others. Some of them include:

Super-Trope to Kiss of the Vampire (where the vampiric feeding is either tolerable or pleasurable to the "victim") and Vampire Bites Suck (where the feeding is not a nice experience for the victim). Often overlaps with Blood Lust, Our Vampires Are Different, Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious, Horror Hunger and Your Soul Is Mine, and sometimes with Emotion Eater and The Power of Blood (particularly Blood Magic).

Not to be confused with Life Drain and Mana Drain which are stealing Hit Points and Mana Points from an opponent for yourself respectively.

Examples of Vampiric Draining include:

Anime and Manga

  • Bleach. Hollows feed on spiritual energy as a secondary source of nourishment (the primary being the "hearts" of both living and dead Humans). Sources include humans, Soul Reapers and other hollows.
  • Evangeline A.K. McDowell.
  • Several Youkai in Inuyasha, as is, occasionally, the title character's sword.
  • Okoi from Basilisk can suck the blood of her enemies by touching their skin with hers. She vomits the blood out afterwards though, so it's basically just a way to attack and nothing more.

Comic Books

  • In the Marvel Universe, Selene is a "psychic vampire" who can drain the Life Energy of human beings into herself. If she drains the victim's entire life force their bodies crumble into dust. She must drain life force on a regular basis to renew her vitality and youthful appearance. She can use absorbed life force to enhance her physical strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, and durability to superhuman levels.
  • Non-villainous example: Rogue of the X-Men has this due to her mutation, enabling her to drains Life Energy and get someone else's powers temporarily.

Fan Works

  • The wraiths on the Plains of Death in With Strings Attached feed off Paul's life energy—except he has so much that they explode from overeating.

Film

  • Life Force. The three space vampires drain Life Energy from humans to sustain themselves (and to store in their ship for future use during their long hibernations). The humans they drain become zombies who must drain Life Energy from other humans every two hours or be turned to dust.

Literature

  • The Others in the Night Watch can collect the emotional energy of the Muggles and convert it into mana. In a twist, the nominally-good Light Others can only "feed" on positive emotions, whereas the "bad" Dark Others take away painful and unpleasant feelings.
    • Should be noted though that in order to have emotions to feed upon, the Light Others foster positive emotions in their environment, whereas Dark Others foster negative emotions.
    • This is expanded in later novels, when Anton finally figures out that the Others are parasites, and magic proficiency is determined by a person's own ratio of magic production vs. absorption. Humans produce more magic than they absorb, while the Others absorb more than they produce, allowing them to use it. The higher the absorption/production ratio, the more powerful the Other. Zero-level Others only absorb and can do anything they want with ease. This also means that being far away from humans (say, in orbit or on another planet) would render an Other powerless.
      • In one book, a disillusioned Other wishes to turn every human into an Other using an ancient magical text. While the obvious problem with this is mentioned (i.e. absolute chaos), it is not mentioned that it would also drastically reduce the supply of magic in the world, making it almost impossible to cast spells.
  • In the novels of Deverry, several of Rhodry's prior incarnations are unintentionally killed by their lover, a former air elemental who was transformed into something akin to a succubus by a Guardian. She used the drained energy to gradually make her manifestation form more human.
  • Vardalek in Eric, Count Stenbock's True Story of a Vampire appears to be what we'd recognize as a psychic vampire, gradually draining the life from his prepubescent thrall.
  • The weaponized variant of Vampiric Draining shows up in the Kull The Conqueror story "Riders Beyond the Sunrise," where Kull confronts his Arch Enemy, Thulsa Doom. The sorcerer wields a sword that slowly saps Kull's strength and transfers it to Doom, allowing him to fight without tiring while Kull gets weaker and weaker. Disarming Doom and swapping his normal sword for the magical blade allows Kull to defeat the sorcerer.
  • The dementors from the Harry Potter series.

Live-Action TV

  • The Fangire, and indeed most of the Demon Races seen in Kamen Rider Kiva.
  • The Wraith from Stargate Atlantis feed on the life force of humans. Being fed upon by a wraith shortens the victim's lifespan, and produces Rapid Aging. It provides the Wraith with both bodily nourishment, and fuel for their Healing Factor. Notably, Wraith can also work this ability backwards, de-aging someone.
    • They usually use both to "train" captive humans, eventually getting them addicted to the Wraith. This is how they control Wraith-worshipers, whenever it's necessary to use humans (e.g. infiltration).

Oral Tradition, Folklore, Myths and Legends

  • Succubi, in some presentations, drain the life-force of their victims through sexual contact. White Court vampires in The Dresden Files are one example. In some cases, the life-force is carried in the victim's semen, which the succubus has to, um, ingest.

Tabletop Games

  • Dungeons and Dragons
    • The Cerebral Parasite and Brain Mole fed on psionic energy, which could kill their victim.
    • Not to mention actual vampires, who feed on both blood (Constitution points) and life force (negative levels), and Wights (weaker undead who drain life through slam attacks).
    • The 3rd Edition spell Death Knell drains the Life Energy from a dying creature, killing it. Doing so increases your strength, your Hit Points and adds 1 to your Character Level for the purposes of spellcasting.
  • Shadowrun. Many Awakened creatures have the Essence Drain ability, which allows them to drain Essence (life/magical energy) in order to restore the Essence they lose due to their Essence Loss weakness.
  • The Vampiric Bite and more generic Leech powers from GURPS.
  • All Elohim in Demon: The Fallen require Divine Faith to live and cast magic, and the only way the Fallen can obtain it is from humans, the image of God. For this, they can either reveal themselves to certain humans and let their Faith trickle to them constantly, or reap them for all their Faith in a one-time boost. Unlike vampires, demons don't actually expend Faith by merely existing.
  • Space Gamer Fantasy Gamer magazine #7, article "Villains Finish First!". The super villain Vampire Prince of Darkness can use his power Drain Life Force on an opponent to weaken their soul.
  • Mongoose Publishing's Strontium Dog RPG. The alien criminal Xen the Brainwraith can enter a victim's skull, settles around the brain and exerts Mind Control over the victim. Each day it remains in the victim's head it drains a point from one of the victim's four physical characteristics (Intelligence, Strength, Endurance and Dexterity, in that order). When the victim's Intelligence is reduced to zero the victim becomes a zombie. When all four reach zero the victim dies. It has killed hundreds, if not thousands of people.

Toys

  • Gorast, after exposure to Pit Mutagen. Not surprisingly, given her mosquito-like appearance.

Video Games

  • Metroids, from the series of the same name, feed on life energy and leave their victims as dessicated husks.
  • Nasuverse:
    • The True Ancestors, who go insane if they completely abstain for too long, but don't actually require it for sustaining their themselves; the addiction is a purely psychological.
    • The Dead Apostles, however, require blood for physical sustenance, making them closer to the classical vampires in this regard.
    • Rider from Fate/stay night, who is decidedly not a vampire, but rather a Gorgon (namely, Medusa).
  • World of Warcraft's Blood Elves, who can suck the magic out of anything and often do so to sate their addiction to mana. The Darkfallen, corrupted elves in the service of the Lich King, take this further by actually consuming blood.
  • Venom needs to absorb his victim's energies in Ultimate Spider Man.
  • Darth Nihilus from the second Knights of the Old Republic game, feeds on the life energy of others through The Force to sate his endless hunger (since he has no connection of his own to The Force). He has done this to entire planets.
  • The Dark Hand in Dark Souls uses the Dark Soul of the Undead to drain humanity in its grab attack. Can be used a limited number of times on NPCs, too.

Web Comics

Web Original

  • In the Whateley Universe, this is one of Vamp's powers. If she draws too much energy from the victim (say, a mutant with Energizer powers) she tends to go bananas until it wears off.

Western Animation

Real Life

  • Vampire bats.
  • Ticks, lice, fleas, mosquitoes, and leeches all drink blood, but they are so small that they don't do any significant harm—but they can transmit diseases.
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