Vampires

[Pafoo]

And here I have to come, ruining everything with my sarcasm and mispaced and offensive wit. *nod*

7. A stake through the heart paralyzes until it's removal.

It doesn't kill. This theory is disputed and accepted in just about equal measures throughout vampire literature.

Like Claire Bennet and the stick-in-the-brain? Interesting, I always heard that it just killed.

Also, I just wanted to say that I always imagined that vampires would take human kids from villages and the like, raise them till they're about 20, and then turn them into vampires.

[FullofLife]

Good note about Vampires only going out at night. That would be a plot point as well as something likely canon-ish. Maybe they can take a potion that allows them to go out during the day? Who knows.

Now, here's my last silver lining! >_< Incidentally, there is a such things as Wolfsbane. Why for werewolfs and not vampires? So we haven't heard much about vampires in Harry Potter, but considering the hype against werewolves and vampires, I'm guessing vampires would at least have some sort of protection, something like wolfsbane that allows them to live partially normal lives.

Yes, I can hear you shouting - vampires are vampires all the time... they don't get "breaks" like werewolfs, transforming into vampires only during a specific event or time - but could there be a potion to, not cure, but decrease the vampire-ish-ness of my character?

Vampirism is at best a disease, at worst a curse. The lifestyle of a vampire is a horrible one, and one that is filled with fear, loneliness and doubt. A vampire is a slave to her thirst, and lives under the ever present threat of daylight. If either (or worse, both) of these characteristics are removed, then the disease tends to have more plus-points than negatives. I would strongly argue that if a vampire character gains from her condition overall, then they had either be pretty bloody evil or the point has been lost. For all vampires, the sun is both the most obvious threat to their immortality, and a glaring reminder of what is was to be human. In short, the death by sunlight is - to me - one of the defining factors of what makes a vampire, along with the need for blood and fangs.

I love how you've denoted "she" to your vampire. My vampire is a female, which is beginning to look like a problem now...

Well, if we first accept that the vampiric condition is passed on through vampire blood, and then accept that the condition stops the aging process (hence the wonderful condition of the old man vampire who turns out to be 121, and his apparent granddaughter who is 2500, but I digress), then we have a problem. Even if a female vampire could still ovulate, and an egg becomes fertilized, and if the egg was based around her original dna rather than any changes that might have occured, then eventually the embryo is going to settle into the womb wall, and become a foetus.
And how does a foetus get it's necessary nutrients? Through it's mothers blood. (Three billion women scream "That's a gross oversimplification!" - well, yeah. The point stands though) So the foetus is fed vampire blood, and - there and then - becomes a vampire. Equally, while it doesn't have to worry about sunlight too much, and doesn't have to go far to feed, it also means the aging process stops. The foetus does not grow any further whatsoever, and remains in its present state. What is more, because this state would occur very early on in the pregnancy, the mother would never go into labour. The foetus would then spend the rest of it's mother's unlife parasitically taking her blood, while never maturing - unless it was removed. Or, of course, unless it chews its own way out. What a lovely thought that is!

Last time I checked, fetus's didn't have teeth, so there's not going to be much chewing going on. Okay, so the fetus receives it's nutrients from it's mother's blood - but technically, the blood of the child and mother do not mix at all. Nutrients move from the mother's blood to the child's blood through diffusion, but the blood itself does not mix. So I see no reason why the child should become a vampire, unless the placenta ruptures or something - but then the fetus would be dead anyway. This should also mean that the fetus would go on aging.

Also, lets say that the fetus did become a vampire and did need blood. Don't vampires suck blood? That means the blood would need to enter their stomachs but no way does anything enter the fetus's "stomach" which is hardly developed and couldn't digest anything anyway. There's no way the fetus could parasitically take a mother's blood... of course... if Vampire Jr. needed the blood to live it would mean the fetus would die, as there is no way for it to get blood while still developing. If I'm not wrong about all of this.

2. How does one become a Vampire.

Another In-My-Humble-Opinion, if you wouldn't mind. This depends upon which books you are reading. My opinion is one that seems to be shared to a certain degree within most vampiric books, which is different to the bite of a werewolf, say.
In this train of thought, a vampire is made by first taking a victim (wizard or muggle), and draining them of their blood. Once their blood is drained, and they lie dying, a vampire pours (by methods left to your thought process) it's own blood into them to replenish them. In as such, the vampire's bite causes someone to be a vampire, but is fatal. Only with the addition of the vampires own blood does the victim survive to become a vampire. (Victims fed human blood, or unbitten humans fed Vampire blood, will become White Wolf's version of Ghouls, but I digress)

If you become a vampire in this way, you are prone to certain life changing factors.

"If you become a vampire in this way" you said. So what other way is there, besides being bitten and replenished with the vampire's blood?

Sadly, if this doesn't work out, I'm just going to have to give Vampire Jr. the boot. The story has got an AU warning in store for it already - because it happens to be a canon character who will become a vampire - but now it'll be double AU, because we know this person's had children. >_<

[AurorKeefy]

I can only disagree with following what White Wolf says (I'm not sure exactly what this is a reference to, a game? a novel? My interest has been piqued

White Wolf is role playing game manufacturer, who created a series of books and scenarios involving vampires - the one I am familiar with being Vampire: The Masquerade (recently discontinued). Rather than boards or pieces, the game is dependent upon the improvisation of characters and storytellers, and upon (you guessed it ) dice rolls. The sheer volume of material written for the VtM game, detailing the Vampiric condition and world, combined with the wonderful presentation and logic of it, means that for me, it is the definitive source. Vampire literature often seems very contradictory even within each piece's set boundaries, and I think White Wolf's version is the best explanation.

Though this world and it's rules might well be a secondary source, finding a primary one on the matter seems like a rather impossible job. Stories of Vampires go back thousands of years, and have been changed with every telling. A story taken from Sumeria two thousand years ago is just as secondary and me making up something now - presuming we take the assumption that vampires are fantasy creatures that do not exist.

Like Claire Bennet and the stick-in-the-brain? Interesting, I always heard that it just killed.

Also, I just wanted to say that I always imagined that vampires would take human kids from villages and the like, raise them till they're about 20, and then turn them into vampires.

It changes from story to story. How many books and films can you think of where some idiot explorer finds a tomb, opens one of the coffins (where do they get these people?!?) and finds a skeletal corpse with a stake through the ribcage. They pull out the stake, turn away, and turn back to find a fully fleshed out vampire, end explorer's life.
To me, this is one of those things I would be entirely happy to be flexible with. As long as a stake to the heart does something, then you're alright either way.
As for taking human kids from villages, that is a superb idea. I could draw parallels with the practices of the clan Geovanni from VtM here. I'd rather not go into too much detail there though, or the boundaries of Harry Potter fanfiction and Vampire the Masquerade fiction will end up well and truly crossed.

"If you become a vampire in this way" you said. So what other way is there, besides being bitten and replenished with the vampire's blood?

Things like; Simply being bitten (much in the same way as werewolves), being born into Vampirism - if you want to treat it as a race, denouncing god, that sort of thing. Personally, none of those methods hold much sway with me, but that's just my preference.

Sadly, if this doesn't work out, I'm just going to have to give Vampire Jr. the boot. The story has got an AU warning in store for it already - because it happens to be a canon character who will become a vampire - but now it'll be double AU, because we know this person's had children.

Woah! Let's be clear here, my ideas and theories are just that, and are certainly NOT any indication of canon, no matter how logical or well presented they might be. With the lack of information J.K. Rowling gives us, you could suggest that Vampires are created when the Hogwarts Astronomy teacher farts, and it would still be within canon.

All my ideas, and think I can speak for everyone here when I say this, are just ideas to help you flesh out your character and story, not rules to hold you back. It is perfectly acceptable to have a vampire who goes sunbathing, hates blood, and has a perfect set of teeth. Personally, I'd be inclined to go against that, because I see Vampirism as being something very different.

There is a saying, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story". I need hardly point out that you should not allow someone else's ideas do the same.

[Stubbornly_appeared]

I'd say that, in the realm of HP, anything goes. As long as you stick to whatever canon we've got, and try to avoid general stupidity, you should create a plausable vampiric situation.

Oh, and I agree with Keefy & Co. - once you get rid of any downsides to vampires, you've basically got an immortal Mary-Sue.

I would treat vampires like 24/7 werewolves. That also gives them a little more practice at controlling themselves, but they still have to be careful about pouncing on someone and sucking their blood.

A random thought- remember that line, from DH?

Lupin sprang to his feet: His chair toppled over backward, and he glared at them so fiercely that Harry saw, for the first time ever, the shadow of the wolf upon his human face.

Don't know how that's related; it just seemed to make a point in my mind. Maybe I'm just mental.

Have you read Twilight, New Moon, and Eclipse by Stephanie Meyer?

-Stubby