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--- lb:wnotes:vampires [2025-10-07 12:40:31] – [Ethnic Conflict] ninjasr
+++ lb:wnotes:vampires [2026-02-04 16:35:39] (current) – [Writing Notes for Vampires] ninjasr
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 This article collects a number of notes on writing/worldbuilding [[lb:vampires]] (focused primarily on a contemporary fantasy setting). I spun it off from the original article due to how complicated it ended up getting.
-Seeing how this is one of the first such articles, I figure I should explain the purpose. It's mostly me thinking about the //most reasonable results// of a few //conditions//, serving as ‘guides’ or inspiration/notes for...whatever it is I'm writing about.\\
+<div passage>
-In the case of vampires, the baseline would be something like: immortal, hates the sun, drinks blood. Despite how little information that appears to be, we can speculate //a lot// about what they'd actually be like in reality.\\
+Seeing how this is one of the first such articles, I figure I should explain the purpose. It's mostly me thinking about the //most reasonable results// of a few //conditions//, serving as ‘guides’ or inspiration/notes for...whatever it is I'm writing about.
+In the case of vampires, the baseline would be something like: immortal, hates the sun, drinks blood. Despite how little information that appears to be, we can speculate //a lot// about what they'd actually be like in reality.
 On top of that, I'm also thinking about other conditions (like where it's most likely vampires originated).
+</div>
+<div passage>
+What should be kept in mind is that these notes are a suggestion and not a rule. Vampires not resembling exactly what I'm speculating about doesn't mean the vampires are bad. Buuuut...that doesn't mean that you can just do whatever you want.
+To give a very simple example: vampires need to drink human blood to survive. Thus, it can be logically assumed that vampires would prefer to live in cities, or near cities. But if, instead, it's suggested vampires prefer to live in isolated communities in the countryside...then that just doesn't make sense. Some additional justification //must// be given for why the situation is like this.
-What should be kept in mind is that these notes are a suggestion and not a rule. Vampires not resembling exactly what I'm speculating about doesn't mean the vampires are bad. Buuuut...that doesn't mean that you can just do whatever you want.\\
-To give a very simple example: vampires need to drink human blood to survive. Thus, it can be logically assumed that vampires would prefer to live in cities, or near cities. But if, instead, it's suggested vampires prefer to live in isolated communities in the countryside...then that just doesn't make sense. Some additional justification //must// be given for why the situation is like this.\\
 So that's kind of what my notes are about. Assuming a generic vampire...well, what //would// generic vampires //actually// look like in real life?
+</div>
 {{tag>worldbuilding}}
 ===== General Worldbuilding =====
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 So this section exists to weigh whether or not vampires would want to maintain secrecy or not.
+<div passage>
 I think the following conditions dictate whether or not they want to stay hidden from humanity:
   * What abilities they possess and how powerful they are.
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   * How much blood they need to survive.
   * Their weaknesses.
+But I think that, in general, vampires would lean towards hiding from humans unless the conditions are especially favorable to them. Whether it's our world or not (though if it's based in our world, they should remain secret if you want things to still line up).
-But I think that, in general, vampires would lean towards hiding from humans unless the conditions are especially favorable to them. Whether it's our world or not (though if it's based in our world, they should remain secret if you want things to still line up).\\
 Let's go down the list one by one.
+</div>
 ==== Abilities ====
 What abilities vampires have is something that I generally consider to be unimportant. I say this because the abilities of the average vampire make them exceptionally weak compared to the entirety of humanity. But if vampiric abilities are downright god-like...yeah, the situation changes a bit. Though in that situation I find it most likely for vampires to go extinct together with the rest of humanity (assuming they start out early). I'm defining “god-like” as having no serious drawbacks.\\
 It also depends on what those abilities are. Turning invisible is beneficial, but is it more beneficial than mind-control? What about blood magic? And so on and so forth.\\
 I generally assume that vampires are immortal and possibly stronger than humans, but otherwise leave abilities out because there are too many to possibly speculate about.\\
-However, if you consider god-like mind-control (for example), where a single vampire can control the minds of thousands at once...then secrecy has no reason to be maintained at all and the world is just a chess board where millions of humans are constantly fighting millions of other humans because two vampires don't like each-other. But assuming any reasonable limitations (like the more you control the greater strain you're under, so you can only realistically control like 5)...then the situations shifts very much in humanity's favor. Thus, vampires maintain secrecy.\\
+However, if you consider god-like mind-control (for example), where a single vampire can control the minds of thousands at once...then secrecy has no reason to be maintained at all and the world is just a chess board where millions of humans are constantly fighting millions of other humans because two vampires don't like each-other. But assuming any reasonable limitations (like the more you control the greater strain you're under, so you can only realistically control like 5)...then the situation shifts very much in humanity's favor. Thus, vampires maintain secrecy.\\
 Even god-like abilities don't guarantee vampire supremacy, since all it takes is one person getting lucky to kill a god.
 ==== When ====
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 The obvious solution is that vampires need to drink human blood or only a small subset can drink non-human blood. //[[lb:cod|Requiem]]// and //Masquerade// actually do this as well (kinda), where the more powerful of a vampire you are, the more you'll need to drink human (or later, vampire) blood. At a certain level in //Requiem//, you can //only// drink from other vampires.\\
 I think this is the most reasonable one.
+==== Human Juices ====
+Before I //finally// go thru //Medusa's Gaze and Vampire's Bite// again to double-check, I just need to put this here.
+Vampires – **originally** – didn't just drink blood. I believe that was explicitly established by Dracula. **Originally**, vampires drank/ate many other types of liquids that came from humans.\\
+The only condition seemed to be that it carry some kind of ‘life force’ from humanity.
+You know where this is going, **I** know where this is going...so let's just say it: <fs xx-large>**semen**</fs>.
+Vampires could originally not only drink blood, but semen and sweat and anything else that possibly comes out of a human. Does that include urine? That one is //possible// but I would actually say ‘no’ because it doesn't carry life force. Vaginal lubrication? Probably.
+So, yes, in order to feed herself a sexy vampire waifu could bite you, lick your face and then suck you o– **yeah**.
+Now that I've handled that topic, how does this fit into worldbuilding as a whole? Does it? Well, if vampires can drink more than blood, the situation regarding them changes quite a bit. To the point that it's quite complicated and difficult to theorize about.\\
+Thus, I think it's smarter to just stick to blood. If other ‘human juice’ is considered, it should not be nearly as filling. This is because sweat and...//sexual juices// are a lot easier to come by than blood.
 ===== Contemporary Fantasy Worldbuilding =====
 These aren't sorted alphabetically...but, I //hope// in an order where later entries are dependent on earlier ones.
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 If you're a little lazy, maybe you'd like to refer to this table instead of reading the sections.
-<WRAP centeralign>
 ^  Origin Point                                                                                                   |^  Oldest Vampire                                                                             ^ Likely?  ^
 ^  Time Period        ^  Geographic Location                                                                       | :::                                                                                         | :::      |
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 | :::                 | Eastern Europe (Romania)                                                                   | :::                                                                                         | ≈        |
 ^  Modern Era         | N/A                                                                                        | At most 200 years old.                                                                      | ✓        |
-</WRAP>
 === Start of Humanity ===
 Vampires started around the same time homo sapiens appeared as well, making the oldest living vampire (assuming they're still alive) over or around 100,000 years old.
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 You probably wouldn't even see modern democracies as true democracies.
-Now remember that there are hundreds of perspectives on things that you could have, and you can quickly see how a vampire might become uber-conservative after hundreds of years of life.((:fn:>For a potentially funny example...would 19th Century Suffragettes still support the position that women should vote if they saw it lead to the Sexual Revolution?\\ These are the kinds of questions that you'd have to ask when considering what vampires believe.))
+Now remember that there are hundreds of perspectives on things that you could have, and you can quickly see how a vampire might become uber-conservative after hundreds of years of life.((:fn:>For a potentially funny example...would 19th Century Suffragettes still support the position that women should vote if they saw it led to the Sexual Revolution?\\ These are the kinds of questions that you'd have to ask when considering what vampires believe.))
 Arguing with an old vampire would be annoying at best and frustrating at worst, because they could pull out literally every historical counter-example that exists. They can point out that for most of history, most states were monarchies and monarchies, on average, last longer than democracies and so on...and so forth...
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 I think there's a very high chance that vampires are racist. Though probably not in the way that you'd expect.
-For historical reasons, they wouldn't like black Africans. Most vampires would (probably) be concentrated around North Africa, the Mediterranean and Europe...and these regions historically didn't really like black Africans.((:fn:>They //did// enslave them after all.)) Every other group – besides maybe Native Americans like Lindias – is more ambiguous.\\
+For historical reasons, they wouldn't like black Africans. Most vampires would (probably) be concentrated around North Africa, the Mediterranean and Europe...and these regions historically didn't really like black Africans.((:fn:>They //did// enslave them after all.)) Every other group – besides maybe Native Americans like Indians – is more ambiguous.\\
 Whether they're racist towards a particular group or not is highly dependent on where the vampires are from. So, for example, European vampires are likely to be racist towards Arabs, Indians, blacks and Asians (that last one is an if)...they're unlikely to be racist towards Middle-Eastern Vampires or other European groups.
 I thought about this a lot more than I'm willing to admit and what I concluded was the above: besides them being racist against blacks, basically nothing else is guaranteed.
-And if we consider historical context...it's likely vampires would get gradually //more// racist over time, instead of //less//. Remember how they've witnessed a lot thruout history? Well, imagine witnessed every barbarian invasion thruout history, then the effects of colonialism, then the effects of mass migration (in more modern times) alongside anything else I can’t immediately think of.\\
+And if we consider historical context...it's likely vampires would get gradually //more// racist over time, instead of //less//. Remember how they've witnessed a lot thruout history? Well, imagine witnessing every barbarian invasion thruout history, then the effects of colonialism, then the effects of mass migration (in more modern times) alongside anything else I can’t immediately think of.\\
 It would be very difficult to convince an old sexy vampress that being racist is wrong when she witnessed the Islamic Invasions, Mongol Invasions, the Haitian Revolution, the decolonization of Mozambique, the rise of Zimbabwe, the fall of Apartheid, both Congo Wars and the Rwandan Genocide.
 </WRAP>
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 </WRAP>
 ===== Miscellaneous Worldbuilding =====
+==== Affection & Intimacy ====
+While it's difficult to speculate exactly how vampires would express affection and be intimate, there are a few things I'd like to mention.
+Drinking each-other's blood is fairly obvious, but I don't think that would apply in 100% of situations.
+What I //do// think would apply is...//nibbling//. Specifically, the act of a vampire gently nibbling on another person's neck. Or wrist. Mainly the neck. This would apply for vampires and humans.\\
+I think this is a fairly obvious (and universal) way that vampires would show affection, because it signals that they //could// bite but are explicitly choosing //not to//.
 ==== Bats ====
 Vampire bats only live in the New World, so tying their origins to vampires makes no sense if they originate in the Old World.
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 I'm sure I can write something else about this if it comes to mind.
+==== Dracula ====
+I was gonna write something here, but then I realized it would fit better on a [[lb:Dracula|dedicated article]].
+Once I get the motivation to do so, I'll add how Dracula might fit into the picture.
+Oh, right, I remember what it was. I was discussing Dracula just the other day and it was suggested (not by me) that the canine teeth might have come from the //werewolf// side of Dracula, rather than the //vampire// side. That is kinda interesting to think about, though it probably doesn't matter that much.
 ==== Moonbathing ====
 Since the Moon reflects the Sun, it's possible that vampires might feel some kind of warmth (or get a tan) from the Moon. In that case, Moonbathing is totally a thing that could happen.
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 I think it's likely that, assuming the contemporary fantasy worldbuilding stuff holds...that cities would run support networks outside of cities within their 'territory' where they'd make sure that any new vampires (or vampires who don't want to live in a city) are taken care of.
-This could involve regular supplies of blood, pamphlets, bureaucratic nonsense and who knows what. I think it's possible for a mild-mannered vampire bureaucrat to just appear at your doorstep the day after you became a vampire with a "Hello! You must be new to this, but I'm here to help you get used to all of it."
+This could involve regular supplies of blood, pamphlets, bureaucratic nonsense and who knows what. I think it's possible for a mild-mannered vampire bureaucrat to just appear at your doorstep the day after you became a vampire with a <q>"Hello! You must be new to this, but I'm here to help you get used to all of it."</q>
 ==== Temporal Hours ====
 Vampires have an interest in using unequal (temporal) hours. Why?\\
 Because temporal hours are defined as 12 day hours and 12 night hours. Normally, the times when night ends vary by day because the positions of the Sun and Moon vary day-to-day and depending on the Season. On the other hand, temporal hours are always based around when the day/night ends. This makes them //extremely useful// for vampires. Though the only real issue is that the length of an hour varies, at least you can keep track of exactly when the sun comes up.