Our Vampires Are Different/Tabletop Games: Difference between revisions

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* Vampires in White Wolf's ''[[Vampire: The Masquerade (Tabletop Game)|Vampire: The Masquerade]]'' are vulnerable to sunlight and fire as a whole, and various factors have led to the species diverging into a number of different "clans", each having its own additional weakness, some of which also come from the "traditional" list. (The Lasombra don't have reflections, the Ventrue have very specific feeding requirements, etc.) Vampiric powers are represented by "disciplines", with each clan specializing in certain ones. Stakes to the heart merely paralyze vampires in this setting instead of killing them.
** In addition to the one standard with the clan of choice, additional flaws (including other clans' weaknesses and classic ones like being repelled by garlic) can also be selected at character creation.
** The Kuei-jin of ''[[Kindred of the East]]'' are a completely different type of creature altogether. Where Western vampires make more of their kind by transforming mortals, the Kuei-jin are damned souls who managed to fight their way out of the Thousand Hells and back into their bodies. They're still vulnerable to fire and sunlight. They have no clans, instead pursuing "dharmas", paths to enlightenment; the further they progress, the stronger and more potent they become. Rather than feeding on blood per se, they feed on the Chi, life-force, within it, and as they become more enlightened can learn to draw it from breath, then from the very world around them. They possess their own set of disciplines. Wooden stakes will paralyze vampires aspected to Yin, and metal ones vampires aspected to Yang, but vampires whose Yin and Yang are balanced will be hurt, but not paralyzed.
* Masquerade's [[Spiritual Successor]] ''[[Vampire: The Requiem (Tabletop Game)|Vampire: The Requiem]]'' goes a step further, and rather than the different clans being subspecies of the main vampire race, they're entirely different creatures who have just enough in common to coexist, making it Our Vampires Are Different... From Each Other.
** It also has vampiric creatures with little resemblance to the clans, things outside their framework - the Mnemovores (memory vampires), the Ghuls (corpse-eating immortals), ''Cymothoa Sanguinaria'' (a particularly nasty human parasite), and more besides.
** Incidentally, both games take the rib cage into account -- staking a vampire through the heart in combat (in other words, when they're awake and your time is limited) requires a miraculous degree of luck on one's dice rolls.
** The ''Vampire'' games also have an example of complicating the matter of propagation. A human who is to be turned must be drained of blood until dead, then the vampire must immediately feed the empowered blood from its ''own'' system to the victim. ''Vampire: the Requiem'' additionally added the requirement that the sire expend a permanent point of Willpower on the process, to impart the necessary vital spark and stop the blood going intert as it does shortly after leaving the vampire's body (as well as to prevent players from "embracing" hordes of vampires willy-nilly).
* [[Mortasheen|Mortasheen's]] [[Mons|non-humanoid]] vampires tend to be mostly based on aquatic life ([[Word of God]] has it that the virus originated from the sea), and the human ones are said to [[Lookslike Orlock|look like]] [[Nosferatu (Film)|Count Orlock]]. They're considered really powerful monsters, mainly due to their incredibly powerful [[Mind Control]] abilities.
** Also, they've created quite a few servitor races for themselves, mostly different varieties of [[Fish People]], and hunting bats, and some may become a bacteriophage-looking creature called a [http://www.bogleech.com/mortasheen/viviphage.htm Viviphage] with [[Bloody Murder|total control over the blood of others]], and which eventually turns into an organic rocket to spread the vampire plague to other world.
* Vampires in Palladium Games' ''[[Rifts]]'' and other games are the spawn of huge, multi-tentacled [[Eldritch Abomination|Eldritch Abominations]] called Vampire Intelligences. They come in three levels: The Master Vampire, who makes a pact with the Intelligence to become a Vampire, the Secondary, who is created by the Master over a three-day "Slow Kill", and occasionally another Secondary when things go right, and the savage and feral Wild Vampire, which is what happens when a Secondary Vampire's attempt at transforming a human goes wrong. While they can be hurt by silver, wood, magic, or the claws of a [[Our Dragons Are Different|Dragon]], actually ''killing'' them requires sunlight, or impaling (staking) them through the heart followed by decapitation (just staking them turns them into a skeleton, but it's really a cheap form of suspended animation; remove the stake and you'll have a live (and ''hungry'') vampire in under a minute.) ''and'' burning both head and body to ash separately. Oh, or [[Weaksauce Weakness|running water]]. Not only can they not cross running water, but merely ''touching'' water in motion is dangerous, and can kill them on its own. This makes fire hoses, rain, and even ''water guns'' deadly weapons against them. They must also sleep in or near the soil of their native land; a generous layer of the stuff in their coffin will do. If they lose their soil, and can't get any more before the night is over, they can't sleep, and are easy prey for the rising sun. Finally, crosses ward them off regardless of the faith of the wielder (it's not religious but a property of the Intelligences' [[Alien Geometries|hyperdimensional geometry]]), and the touch of a cross will harm them. They are also harmed by the ''shadow'' of a cross falling on them. Many Vampire hunters have taken to taping a cross over flashlights or the headlights of their vehicles for an extra measure of protection.
** Bare-handed attacks from True Atlanteans and certain other creatures can harm vampires, as well. Whether they're terribly effective or not is another matter...
** The ''Nightbane'' game also adds the Wampyr, which isn't a [[Half-Human Hybrid]], but rather a mutation of a Secondary Vampire. They're invulnerable to water, and can stay out in the sun for periods of time, but are not as strong as a normal Vampire.
** Vampires in RIFTS can actually cross water if they are "sleeping" at the time, or restrained in some way. If they are awake, they will feel extreme discomfort or even pain, as well as an overwhelming desire to get somewhere dry.
** This may make it seem that Palladium vampires are weak, but keep in mind that in ''Rifts'' at least, they're capable of tearing tanks apart with their bare hands. Furthermore, nothing not listed above can even ''scratch'' them (no, not even a ''[[Nuke'Em|nuke]]'').
* The ''[[Warhammer Fantasy Battle]] Fantasy Roleplay'' supplement "Night's Dark Masters" gets around this problem by simply listing pages and pages of weaknesses and quirks of vampires, from the classics like weakness to sunlight to lesser-known ones like obsessive counting and fear of sawdust, and then simply says that all vampires have some of them but not others. This is neatly explained by the fact that inbreeding and crossbreeding between different vampire clans has accentuated some traits and rarified others.
** The ''Warhammer'' novel ''[[Drachenfels]]'' expands on this further, from the point of view of its heroine, the Vampire Geneviève Dieudonné. And if that name sounds familiar to fans of the ''[[Anno Dracula]]'' series, guess who ''Drachenfels'' author Jack Yeovil is a pseudonym for?
** All of the Warhammer novels with Geneviève are "abnormal" when looking at stereotypical vampires. And just one thing I'd like to add: The blood-suckers from the ''[[Twilight (Literaturenovel)|Twilight]]'' novels? Those aren't vampires; Geneviève is a '''real''' vampire. Read any of those Warhammer novels and you'll see what we mean.
** The Vampire Counts of the Strategy game, however, limit Vampires to five major bloodlines: Von Carstein (classic [[Dracula]]-style), Lahmian (classic [[Carmilla (Literature)|Carmilla]]-style), Blood Dragon (Fallen [[Blood Knight|Blood Knights]]), Strigoi (ghoulish and savage monsters in appearance and ability but descended from intelligent, benevolent rulers) and Necrarch ([[Mad Scientist]] [[Necromancer|necromancers]], to whom [[Looks Like Orlok]] would be an improvement).
** These bloodlines are also prominently figuring in "Night's Dark Masters". It's just that there is always a chance of some sort of randomness in a specific Vampire's weakness (and to keep the players guessing about a Vampiric Antagonist's weakness). To make the players never rely on the same tactic against vampires.
** The latest army book has dropped the separate bloodlines, allowing aspects of each to be combined in a single vampire, although the list of powers is still divided by the themes of the bloodlines.
** In the latest Vampire Counts armybook, there is a section about the various mythical weaknesses of vampires and explanations on why some of them might work and why others are just myths.
** And then there are the Varghulf. They are vamps who give in to their bloodlust and reverted into mindless predators that look like giant bats.
* ''[[Warhammer 4000040,000]]'' also has an entire army of [[Super Soldier]] vampires, the Blood Angels.
** In one of the [[All There in the Manual|background novels]], the vampire analogues are still subtly worked in- the newest trainees are locked in a casket for an entire year while being transformed, they have many rituals and traditions involving blood, and aren't averse to drinking blood when they get the chance. They also make the [[Methuselah Syndrome|longest lived Space Marines]] of them all, quite a feat considering that most marines can live for centuries if they survive that long.
** And in the Captain Leonatos series, one of the Blood Angels marines is afflicted with Red Thrist, a rare Blood Angel genetic flaw that makes him degenerate into a monster craving blood. When it first activated he was held captive by chaos cultists. He broke out of his cell and killed them all with bare hands before resorting to eating their flesh when their "weak blood" failed to sate him.
** In truly ancient 40k background (from the time of Rogue Trader), there is a mention of an alien race commonly known as vampires. They don't seem to have much to do with the typical vampires, being shapeshifting creatures who feed on psychic energy (their natural form is batlike though).
** In [[James Swallow]]'s ''Deus Encarmine'', {{spoiler|Arkio}}'s metamorphosis makes him vampire-like, and {{spoiler|Rafen}}, [[Combat Byby Champion|fighting him]]], explicitly thinks that they do not talk of that word: vampire. Later, in ''Red Fury'', faced with Bloodfiends derived from their gene-seed, a Blood Angel and a Flesh Tearer (a successor chapter to Blood Angels) agree that it is vampiric.
** Oddly, the Blood Angels are one of the ''nicer'' Chapters ([[Black and Grey Morality|relatively speaking]]) of Space Marines, probably because of all the self-restraint they have to go through to deal with their... issues.
** [[Space Elves|The Dark Eldar]] always had some vampiric characteristics, but their most recent codex update plays them up to a much greater degree, and in a manner similar to the angst-ridden Anne Rice/Masquerade fashion, to boot. Needless to say much of 40k's main fanbase, [[Rated "M" for Manly|paragons of over-the-top manliness they are]], balked at this development, fearing GW was using the Dark Eldar to try to cozy up to the ''[[Twilight (Literaturenovel)|Twilight]]'' crowd the way they used the Tau to reel in the weeaboo market. However, as one astute fellow pointed out, there is an [[Alternate Character Interpretation]] if you don't like seeing them as some whiny goth kid's wet dream. To wit, since the Dark Eldar are [[The Starscream|ambitious]], [[Anything That Moves|sex-crazed]], [[Glass Cannon|easily shot down]], [[Space Sailing|boat]] & [[Cool Plane|aeroplane]] loving [[Wicked Cultured|pseudo-aristocrats]] haunted by a terrible curse, they are not vampires, but in fact, [[John F. Kennedy|Kennedies]].
* All vampire PCs in [http://paizo.com/store/byCompany/m/margaretWeisProductions/otherRPGs/v5748btpy837e Demon Hunters] are of the [[Friendly Neighborhood Vampire]] variety by virtue of an artificial blood they can drink out of water bottles. However, vampires are still subject to something called The Chill: since vampires aren't technically alive, they are cold blooded, and they can feel it. The only thing which makes them feel warm (other than sitting in a sauna or something) is drinking human blood.
* In older versions of ''[[Dungeons and& Dragons]]'', vampires had the somewhat inexplicable ability to permanently drain life force (in the form of levels) by simply hitting their victim in melee, which for sufficiently low-level characters (like, say, your average peasant) would basically translate into an automatic no-save-allowed death touch; depending on the precise edition and type of vampire involved this could be in addition to or in place of drinking blood. They were also resistant to nonmagical weapons, could create a Charm Person effect on eye contact, and had the ability to turn into bat, wolf, or mist form... as well as the traditional problems with sunlight, running water, and having to sleep in a coffin.
** This was expanded further in the ''[[Ravenloft]]'' campaign setting, which included a bewildering array of vampires: Not only were the standard type given expanded weaknesses (and opportunities to NOT have those weaknesses), there were also Vampyres (living creatures that feed on blood), Nosferatu (slightly different powers than normal vampires), cerebral vampires (feed on a victim's cerebrospinal fluid instead of blood), elven vampires (who kill plants and are vulnerable to moonlight), dwarven vampires... Even the dreaded [[Dragonlance|Kender Vampire]]. ''Van Richten's Guide to Vampires'', rather than dispelling the classical vampiric weaknesses, [[Our Monsters Are Different|lists less common variations]] and spent a lot of time detailing how vampires got around them: A vampire could not cross running water for instance, but nothing prevented them from being *carried* (including in a carriage); a vampire could not enter a home uninvited, but ''Charm Person'' is a wonderful way of getting an invitation extended. Oh, and if you're thinking of hiding from Strahd Von Zarovich, remember that as the legal ruler of his domain he technically "owns" any house in Barovia...
** 4th edition vampires vary almost as much, including spirit-form vampires and the Vampire Muse, which looks like a goth [[Our Elves Are Different|eladrin]].
* In ''[[Exalted]]'', the only way the Abyssals can regain essence when not in the underworld is to grow fangs, and then either suck blood or eat people. (Or with a charm, suck out their essence by cutting them with magic swords). As a single normal person drained to death only gives you back the essence required to grow fangs in the first place, this is only effective when killing large numbers of people at once.
* In ''[[Magic the Gathering|Magic: The Gathering]]'', vampires are a staple rare flyer for black. They often have a feeding mechinic over limited use, given that they don't often get into creature combat. Recent vampires have deal with this by focusing on the bat aspects or by feeding on players. They don't have explict weakness due to creature type.
** In Ravnica, most vampires were horrific skeletal or vulturelike creatures, except for the leader of {{spoiler|House Dmir}}, but he doesn't exist and neither does the guild. Move along.
** On Zendikar, vampires are more common, and apparently alive. They do have a blood lust, though: Several vampires get more powerful when an opponent is at 10 life or less. Interestingly, the method for turning is a slight variation on the normal variety. On Zendikar, only specific Vampires (called Bloodchiefs) can create other Vampires. The rest create zombies, referred to as Nulls (and on another note, a Vampire family's status is apparently related to the number of Nulls is has)
** An interesting method of turning would be that of Crovax. His method of transmission? Glass shards that imbedded themselves ''into his skin'' resulting from a curse after killing his former [[Our Angels Are Different|Guardian Angel]].
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