This article collects a number of notes on writing/worldbuilding Vampires (focused primarily on an urban 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.
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).

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?

These aren’t sorted alphabetically…but, I hope in an order where later entries are dependent on earlier ones.

In general, I’m working from the following assumptions: they need to drink human blood to survive; avoiding the sun is a must;^A) they prefer to remain secret from humanity as a whole.^B)

This is concerned with the possible origin points of vampires. I tend to favor one over all the others, but I’m mentioning the others because it would affect a lot.

This is, of course, assuming all vampires are related to each-other as one ‘species’…or at least ‘evolved’ from the same species. You could totally pick multiple origin points at the same time. As in, vampires are actually not all the same creature and are just very similar. I’m actually realizing that I’m favoring that possibility, kinda.
Basically, all of the stuff written in this section assumes that vampires are one species, rather than multiple. But, assuming that they are multiple species…the only thing that matters is deciding where each species started and, generally, it’s better to favor earlier origin points (to a reasonable extent) because vampires need time to establish themselves.

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.

This origin means that humans either started in Africa or the Middle-East.^C) And, of course, vampires then followed humans around the globe.

This also means that vampires might be ‘native’ to every continent, rather than European or Middle-Eastern in origin. Of course, that depends on whether they actually follow people everywhere.

I find this origin unlikely due to the fact vampires need to drink blood from humans. Prior to civilization, humans tended to live in nomadic and semi-nomadic tribes which weren’t particularly large…meaning the number of vampires that could run around is somewhat limited.
Note that Vampire: the Masquerade assumes a ratio of 1 vampire per 100k humans.^1)D) Assuming the global population was 1-10 million prior to civilization,^E) the total vampire population would have been 10 or 100. And the other consideration is population density. Vampires would have to wander around to hunt for tiny tribes in a vast area of land.
All of this suggests that actually surviving is unlikely, though I think it could be justified by elaborating on how vampires actually work. For example, maybe vampires don’t actually need to drink blood regularly, or only need to drink it in specific circumstances.

I think this period of time is the most reasonable origin point for vampires, as it’s around the time civilization started.
That means there’s a population of tasty humans to sustain populations of vampires concentrated in a small area.

I think there are four possible origin places for the vampires, but favor two over the others.
These are Mesopotamia, Egypt, the Indus Valley and China.

I find Mesopotamia and Egypt to be the most likely origin points as these are two of the oldest civilizations in the world.

While I think Mesopotamia is the better origin point, Egypt is a close second. This is because neither is the clear ‘winner’ here.
Mesopotamia is much older than Egypt (and the earliest civilizations were reportedly quite fragile²⁾ meaning you could tie them to vampires). But Mesopotamia was a bunch of rival city-states while Egypt was centralized. Egypt also had a higher population density.
Centralization makes it easier to move around without being spotted.

Though I’m not sure if it matters whether they start in Mesopotamia or Egypt, because I find it likely that they’d quickly spread to the other one anyway. And, in either case, they’d probably thrive in Egypt (in secret), while maybe ruling openly in some Mesopotamian cities.

You can also tie some mythological beliefs to vampires. In Egypt, it was believed that gods weren’t mortal, but they did age. If your vampires age – for example, they’d have to enter ‘torpor’ or whatever to look younger again – that would instantly tie it to Egyptian culture. Though this can also be ignored.

From what I can tell, Mesopotamia seems to be the most likely origin-point for vampires in Vampire: the Requiem, which is kinda interesting.^F)

Assuming vampires do start here, it can be assumed that they’d carry things from Mesopotamia and Egypt into the modern day. Maybe a preference for Egyptian aesthetics, or the use of odd terms descended from Akkadian. It could be anything, really. Though religious beliefs are the most likely – like how the Egyptians thought of the soul, for example.

The Indus Valley Civilization was one of the other early civilizations, so I think they should be mentioned. I find this origin less likely because I generally get the impression that it was more isolated than Mesopotamia and Egypt were. This makes the spread outward less likely to me.

China is probably in the same ballpark. I think that the population would have been high enough to support vampires, but it was isolated enough that they wouldn’t have spread much afterwards.

Other possibilities include Crete, Cyprus, Mycenaean Greece and the Americas. I think you could justify vampires appearing in all these locations, though the Mediterranean civilizations would be functionally quite similar to Egypt or Mesopotamia…as I think vampires would then quickly spread to those anyway, where they’d become dominant.

The Americas are the ultra exception here in that you could justify vampires (or a vampire-like species) appearing, but you would have difficulty justifying a spread from the Americas to the rest of the world.

This refers to a post Bronze Age origin of the vampires. This one is favored by…Vampire: the Requiem, again. Requiem puts a lot of emphasis on Rome and ties the origin of the Masquerade to Rome. Though outside of that, I won’t mention it further.

And here I find it more likely that vampires could appear outside of Mesopotamia or Egypt, though I’d still place those as likely origin points. This is because, past the Classical Era, vampires may end up being “too young” if that makes sense, though that might just be a concern nobody else has.
Here I’ll be a bit more broad.

This refers to all the Mediterranean civilizations: Greece, Rome, Egypt, Cyprus, Crete, Carthage, Phoenicia and so on.

It’s easy to justify vampiric origins with a lot of these. The gladiatorial games and sacrifices in Rome could be tied to vampires. The child sacrifice in Carthage can be tied to vampires. Etc.

All of these are likely due to population density and centralization. But if you assume (like me) that vampires would prefer to exist in centralized societies, then it’s less likely they’d appear in places like Greece.

Persia being one of the first big empires grants it a special mention, though that’s all I’m granting it.

China actually had the first states appear around this time, which is why I find this origin point a bit more likely compared to the Bronze Age China.

India is an obligatory mention.

I may expand on this later when I think about it, but I think that at this point a European origin for vampires should be prioritized over some other origin as, otherwise, you can’t realistically have vampires with a European aesthetic.

A consequence of a medieval origin would also mean vampires are guaranteed to follow a Christian or Christian-derived^G) faith.

The most likely one would be the Carolingian Empire due to being one of the last major empires to control a big chunk of Europe and for being centralized.

I imagine if vampires started here, they’d maintain a lot of terminology, traditions and aesthetics from the early Middle-Ages.

Also, the Medieval Period is really long (around 800 years or more by my estimate) so it could also depend on when during the medieval period they originate.

I’d consider this the latest realistic origin point for vampires and, again, I’d place their origins in Europe. You could tie their origins to the increase in vampire sightings during this time as well as Dracula!

The religious views of vampires would largely depend on location and how old the vampires in charge are, though I think they’d broadly look like this:

• European Vampires: split roughly equally between Christians and pre-Christian pagan continuations.
• American Vampires: primarily Christian.
• Middle-Eastern Vampires: split roughly equally between Christians and pre-Christian pagan continuations.
• African Vampires: unclear. Possibly primarily Christian.
• Indian Vampires: derived from pre-Buddhist Hinduism. Or Pre-First/Second Council Buddhism.
• East Asian Vampires: Confucian/Daoist/folk beliefs.

This also depends on just how stubborn vampires are. If vampires are extremely stubborn, it’s entirely possible (and potentially hilarious) that they’d continue following the Ancient Egyptian religion in the modern day.
But assuming a more moderate position – where vampires are willing to adopt other religions, I think the above would generally stick.

Regardless of the underlying beliefs, more emphasis is bound to be placed on blood and definitely around what role vampires play in existence.

Something else of note is that vampires are more likely to be religious than not…because they are walking proof of the supernatural. Though that depends on just how supernatural they are. If they’re walking corpses like in Masquerade, then denial is delusion…if they’re kinda in-between like in Requiem then it’s still delusional. If they’re fully biological (like in Underworld) then it makes a bit more sense.
Though putting that aside, they’d also be old and live forever. If they come from a religious society, they’re likely to remain religious (and influence others in turn). Even if they started as an atheist, they might end up just becoming religious due to old age.
Another factor – which will be emphasized in politics – is that vampires are very likely to prioritize stability. And, when it comes to stability, religion is a very effective stabilizing force. So even if a leader doesn’t believe in a god, they’d still probably encourage religiosity (and unintentionally become religious in-turn).

Before we move on to the individual religions, I think it’s best to address the question of religious warfare…namely, would there be?
I think the answer is yes with an asterisk.

The vampire population is likely to be small and isolated (which I’ll get into more detail later), so interactions between groups of vampires might actually be fairly limited. That said…individual faiths would probably be more aggressive than others.
However, that’s vampire-vampire conflict and not vampire-human conflict. So what about those?
Vampires would probably ignore whatever the Hell humans are doing to maintain secrecy, though they’d almost certainly disapprove of whatever they are doing. If a human who follows a displeasing faith wanders among vampires, they might choose to kill her on sight, but that’s a big might.

I’ll be including Christian-derived faiths here as well. That means Satanism is included.

It was said by my Catholic friend that he thinks that many vampires would become Satanists, but conceded that it’s possible vampires could be regular Catholics/Christians assuming their feeding off of people is non-lethal and/or non-painful.
I’m inclined to agree with him, though I’m assuming a non-lethal and “not too painful” or non-painful bite.

I think that vampires who adopt Christianity are going to adopt a faith derived from Catholicism, rather than Satanism. Possibly pre-Schism Christianity though what that would realistically look like I have no idea.

Going along with the blood thing, I think some more fringe/niche Abrahamic beliefs might end up dominant among Christian vampires – like the belief that life is tied directly to blood and that the soul is possibly a sphere of blood.

Whether vampires see themselves as good or bad is something that can’t be concretely speculated about, though I’m leaning towards them viewing themselves as requiring salvation…so, they’d think of themselves as not evil but not great either. Probably lower (morally) than humans.
I’d place “we are angels” as among the more popular fringe theories – under which I’m also placing the belief that vampires are meant to protect humanity.
The less popular beliefs would be tied to Satanism and whatever Vampire: the Requiem came up with for the Lancea et Sanctum.

Christianity would be dominant in the Americas due to most colonists being Christian, so there’s a lot more pressure to adopt Christianity than in the Old World.
They also probably wouldn’t be Catholic-derived, but possibly derived from Puritanism. Though it would be hilarious if vampires derived from Quakers. How would they even reconcile their existence?
Christians would also be dominant in Africa due to colonialism, which is when I think vampires are likely to enter Africa. Though that’s also a big question mark and requires answering the question of…a-are vampires racist? And the answer I settled on was “probably”. So whether they’d even be there is another question entirely.

In terms of aggression towards other faiths…Christianity is a monotheistic faith (in theology, in practice it’s henotheist) so it’s likely to try to expand outwards aggressively. However, they’d probably tolerate pagans in Europe (in the sense that they’d avoid attacking pagan settlements for no reason) due to the 50/50 split.
I think that, in the Middle-East, Christianity and paganism would end up drifting together and much friendlier with each-other. Though that I’ll get into in Islam.
American/African/Australian vampires would probably be the most aggressive towards non-Christian faiths.

I’m including other non-Abrahamic faiths under this umbrella because…why not?

In Europe, I think that pagan vampires would be Wicca. Wait, that’s not right…
Ah, of course. Sorry, I got confused. I meant to say that they definitely wouldn’t be Wicca.
Pagan vampires in Europe would base their faith around the Cult of Isis. The reason I’m picking this as the likely dominant religion is…well, there are a few:

1. It was one of Christianity’s biggest early rivals.
2. Unlike the Cult of Dionysus or Mithras, it was a bit friendlier towards women.

That second point won’t make a lot of sense until I get to politics, but it would be a concern for vampires.

That isn’t to say that all European pagans would be worshipers of Isis…just that most of them would be following it or a derivative faith. Derivatives could look any which way…like, Irish vampires might follow the Cult of Isis, but call her Brigid instead, or inject more Celtic aesthetics. Same with the Norse.
The point is more that the Cult of Isis provides a solid structure to build upon. So even if pagan vampires don’t adopt the worship of Isis specifically, they’re likely to borrow the structure – a structure that’s more malleable than Christianity.

There may also be a lot of cross-pollination between Christianity and Paganism in Europe. Considering that paganism is more open to syncretism than Christianity is, this would likely involve paganism adopting more Christian elements: maybe the cross or fish become aesthetically relevant; the monastic system would be borrowed; an emphasis on purity/morality; similar language.

Outside of Europe, paganism would also likely survive in North Africa and the Middle-East. And, of course, in Asia.
In the Middle-East we’d see continuations of Mesopotamian/Egyptian religion – though they’d almost certainly look radically different from what we know of them…think more Greco-Roman and Christian influence.
As stated before, I think that Middle-Eastern vampires would start mixing Christianity and paganism together.

Among East-Asians, I think the dominant faith would be built around Confucianism and Daoism. Confucianism because it emphasizes hierarchy and stability and Daoism because it doesn’t inherently conflict with vampirism.
Buddhism is a big question-mark, where I lean towards “vampires probably wouldn’t adopt Buddhism” due to the Cycle of Reincarnation and other beliefs. Vampires might be open to individual beliefs, but not to Buddhism as a whole. Though I might need to think about this more.
Also, in Japan they’d probably adopt Shintoism without issue.

In India, I find it most likely that vampires follow unorthodox versions of Hinduism. So…pre-Buddhist Hinduism. Or derived from some of the earliest forms of Buddhism. What that would look like is a big question mark though. Maybe a lower emphasis on escaping the Cycle of Reincarnation?

You can tell that this is significant because it has its own section.

I think it should be kept in mind that most vampires will probably be anti-Islamic to the point that Islamic vampires would be rare. And, just to be clear, most Muslims would also be anti-vampire, even if they became them.
This is because Islam is a uniquely anti-syncretic faith where almost anything supernatural is opposed. A Muslim who became a vampire would immediately think of himself as an affront to Allah.^H)
Islam is also not very pleasant towards women, so that might be a factor to consider too.

Though those are just the theological issues relevant to Islam and isn’t considering history or culture.
Assuming a Bronze Age Mesopotamian origin for vampires…a big chunk of the vampires living in the Middle-East during the Rise of Islam will either be Christian or still following pre-Christian Mesopotamian beliefs…so how do you think they’d feel if they saw the world that they were a part of effectively erased in a few short years by some desert barbarians? They probably wouldn’t be happy.
So the vampires in the Middle-East would feel solidarity amongst themselves (regardless of pagan/Christian) and the remaining Christians in the Middle-East…leading to the religions blending and to very very anti-Islamic (and, by extension, anti-Arabic) perspectives.
The actual worldbuilding potential here is potentially quite deep.

Though if you want Islamic vampires, the most logical choice for them would probably be the Order of the Assassins. You could probably even reconcile their existence with the above. Like a vampire turned a particularly zealous andor insane Muslim into a vampire, who went on to found the Assassins as a way of fighting back against the infidel monsters.
Alternatively, the Order of Assassins started out as a non-Islamic group of vampires who later became Islamic or became dominated by Islam. Or it was purely mortal before becoming vampiric thru conflict with the vampires.
Though what should be made clear is that in order for “Muslim Vampires” to exist in any significant number, you have to be very liberal with your interpretation of Islam and Islamic beliefs…to the point you’d have difficulty calling them Islamic at all. The Assassins are an easy choice for the simple fact that they were already fanatics, so you’d just be turning it up to 11.

Considering how bloody the Aztecs were, I think it’s reasonable that some connections can be made with vampires.

Though how connected they are really depends on what origin point (or multiple) you pick and on how imaginative you are.
Assuming an Old World origin, vampires are unlikely to exist in the New World until Europeans begin exploring and colonizing. Assuming multiple origins, vampires might be concentrated in Mesoamerica until Europeans arrive.
But even assuming just Old World origins, you can justify the appearance of vampires in America before 1492.

You could argue that vampires made it to America before Columbus in one of two possible ways: either they followed the vikings into North America or they wandered off-course from North Africa. There’s some evidence to suggest that a Muslim accidentally ended up in Central America around the year 1000, so this isn’t outside the realm of possibility.
The issue with both of these is that, in the first case, we’re assuming vampires were able to go from Newfoundland all the way to Central America. That’s an issue due to the lack of civilization between all that land, making it unsuitable for vampiric existence. In the second case, we’re assuming vampires sail. That isn’t outside the realm of possibility, but it’s unlikely because they’d be far from civilization (their food) and in very close quarters, meaning they might be caught.

So you could tie Aztec practices to vampire ones, but I find it unlikely that they’re related at all.
But what would vampires coming in think of them? They’d probably find it disturbing, like everyone else. Might even create a buzz in the world of vampires.
It’s possible that some particularly rebellious vampires in Central America might adopt Aztec practices…but probably not, because they’d go very much against secrecy (which the vampires would care about).

Now we move onto the social structure and whatnot and…to be clear, this is only concerned with the societies that they form.

So…what would they be like?

I think that vampires would generally fall into one of two ‘configurations’: wanderers and cities.
Wanderers are vampires that live in tiny groups of up to 3 people but who are mostly alone. Cities are the ‘civilized’ vampires who live in organized city-states (or just states) who contain much larger numbers of vampires.
Most vampires would live in cities and there would be no in-between: you’re either in the city, or you’re a loner. No small vampire villages or larger groups. Though that doesn’t mean these wouldn’t exist at all, just that they’d be so rare and last such short periods of time that they may as well not exist.
These two ‘configurations’ would be dominant because of the need to maintain secrecy as well as natural tendencies of vampires stemming from what they are.

Wanderers can maintain secrecy no problem by just paying attention to themselves. All they have to worry about is not being caught doing anything suspicious but, otherwise, they can do almost whatever they want.

I imagine that wanderers will be the most diverse among vampires, in that no two wanderers will believe the same things or act the same. This is also where the atheists, party-girls, socialists and way more will be concentrated. Though keep in mind that the wanderers would comprise a small percentage of the total vampire population anyway, so it’s not like there is a significant number of any of those.

It can be assumed that the life of a wanderer is pretty miserable, unless they’re exceptionally good at existing. Most wanderers will die fast or eventually assimilate into a city. Assuming cities accept them. Wanderers would also live in a near-constant state of paranoia – scared of being discovered as vampires and killed, or being killed by the cities.

Now for the cities (the exciting ones). Most vampires would be located in these cities, which would be concentrated in or around human cities (or former cities, which has worldbuilding potential).

Cities would exist if you factor in what vampires are. The average vampire might not be open to the life of a wanderer with all the paranoia and, like most humans, would rather delegate that work to someone else: thus come in the cities.

The cities would be organized by vampires for the specific purpose of helping them all survive long-term. Vampires in charge of the city would make sure it remains hidden and safe, while also providing the rest of the city with the supplies needed to keep them functioning. Meanwhile, the average vampire inside the city would provide labor for the ones in charge – servants, producing goods, providing entertainment and so on.
This arrangement would be seriously appealing to most vampires, since you can walk around in a city openly without worrying about being discovered (because everyone else is also a vampire) and without having to worry about the Sun or not getting enough blood.
Think Diagon Alley or Hogsmeade from Harry Potter. Places that are isolated from the outside world (but still accessible) where you can just walk around as yourself – in Harry Potter’s case, as a wizard…but in this case as a bloodthirsty walking corpse.
The population density in these cities would probably be quite high, though I’m thinking it would be closer to Japan or China rather than Macau or the Kowloon walled city. So, unfortunately, rich vampires probably just live in a large suburban house instead of a massive sprawling manor…or castle.

Something I came to conclude is that vampires would have an interesting approach to gender.
First of all, I think it’s likely that the ratio of female to male will be higher among vampires than among humans. This is due to the priority of stability and men tend to be more rebellious, meaning they’re more likely to end up on the bad side of the people in charge. Though how big the disparity is, I wouldn’t be able to predict.
Second and more importantly, females would dominate internal city politics, while males would dominate external politics. That is to say, men will be in the army, while women will control the government.
This is due to the simple fact that women are better at navigating social situations…so assuming a society that is mostly insular and isolated, it is logical to assume women would begin to dominate internal politics…even if men were the ones who established the system.
Also, if female vampires can get pregnant, they’d be considered even more valuable internally.
More stuff on male/female vampire relations is in Sexism.

Within the cities, vampires would prioritize political systems that promote stability and, as a result…vampires would be ultra-conservative.
What this means is that republics, democracies and other modern(ish) political systems will be virtually non-existent, while very hierarchical systems like monarchies, aristocracies and theocracies would be dominant.
Now, to be clear, ‘stability’ isn’t the only deciding factor here. The others are age, influence from the old, historical awareness and burn-out. So let’s go at them one by one.

The long ages of vampires would be the biggest reason they’d prioritize these systems: they are very old. And what was considered progressive in the past would probably be considered conservative or reactionary in the present.
And, instead of assuming they’d become more progressive over time, it’s more likely they’d become less progressive and more conservative. This is down to the fact they would literally see the world they grew up in disappear as time goes on, which would make them very nostalgic for the “good old days”…at best. At worst, they’d think that the world ended.

Now that I’ve established that old vampires are likely to be very conservative (and become more so as time goes on)…well, now comes their influence thruout society.

Older vampires would have more influence in vampire cities due to the fact they have the most experience, which makes them very useful in positions of power (or to help teach new vampires).

Since these older vampires have most of the influence in societies…it’s likely that most of the other vampires would gradually adopt their views.

Also, if you suddenly became a vampire…I feel it’s unlikely you’ll be worried about how racist the vampires in charge are as long as those vampires take care of you. Plus, as you age and interact with other vampires…you’ll gradually adopt their views anyway. There isn’t even really a need to punish you if you don’t follow along.

Besides passive influence, there could be (and probably would be) active influence in the form of education. I don’t see why vampire cities wouldn’t have teacher dedicated to helping new vampires, so they’d probably have them.
And…well…just have these teachers spread the dominant political views among the new ones. Though this could still be unintentional, assuming that the most qualified vampire for the position is simply old.

This is the biggest reason that I believe vampires would be politically conservative.

Imagine being so old that you witness the rise and fall of empires over and over again…now, what conclusions would you come to?
Well, you have a benefit that most historians don’t have: you have personally witnessed (and often experienced) major historical events.^I) You could look back thru history and figure out whether ideas work or not. Or…more amusingly, you’d live thru all the consequences of your bad decisions, so you’d know what not to do.

Let’s use a fun example. Let’s imagine that our vampire became a vampire during Athenian democracy and they started out very pro-democracy.
Would they remain pro-democracy into the modern day? Well, I don’t think they would. So why?
Because, first of all, they witnessed the downfall of Athenian democracy…and then witnessed Macedon rising to heights that Athens had never been in.
After that, you witness the rise of the Roman Republic…and then see it descend into political violence and instability…before reaching the rise of the Roman Empire…which immediately brought stability and prosperity.
If the fall of Athens and rise of Macedon didn’t convince you, Rome would have. Now consider that there are still over 2000 years before you reach the modern day.
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.^J)

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…

The final important point to bring up here is the concept of burn-out. Basically, vampires that are ‘jittery’ and prone to mischief will not survive for long because they’ll end up burning out.

Imagine you’re a particularly religious zealot who found themselves as a vampire. Finally! You may think, you have the power to enact the glorious revolution that your scripture has promised! Except you’ll probably be killed very fast. Not even covertly, as the cities might just arrest and execute you. And most vampires won’t bat an eye.
The reason you’ve been arrested? For wanting to violate secrecy and bring instability to vampiric society.
Now apply this to other kinds of ‘disruptive’ thinking: if you want to bring democracy to society, you’re most likely to be ignored or exiled; if you try to frame another vampire for something with the intent of gaining power, you’re likely to lose your influence instantly; if you want to introduce AI-generated art, you’re likely to be thrown out.

This is because stability is favored among vampires, so they’d deal with any trouble-makers who burn especially bright since it could put everything else into jeopardy. And since they’re so old, they’ve likely seen every attempt that has ever been tried.

Now, it could be argued that while this may apply to existing cities, it doesn’t necessarily apply to newly-formed cities or cities where the older vampires have less influence. Couldn’t these have more cutthroat politics? Well, yes, but not for long.
This is because in a cycle of backstabbing you eventually run out of people to backstab. Because you’ve either been backstabbed yourself, or you’re the last person left.
Any unstable vampiric states that exist would eventually reach the state of equilibrium that is stability…so, even if they don’t start out as highly hierarchical, they’ll probably end up there…because “it just works™”.

The dominant economic system among vampire society would doubtless be patronage.

This is a system where a patron (a Lord for example) financially supports several artisans and businesses.
The Patron is effectively the ‘boss’ and the artisans are her ‘employees’ – though that isn’t super accurate. The relationship between the two actually looks like this:

• The artisan is supported by the Patron. If the Patron buys from the artisan, they get a discount for it.
  • This can also include a contract like “produce an x amount of stuff for me regularly”.
• The artisan is still independent though and can also produce stuff for other people, who buy it at a regular price. And a portion of the profits go to the Patron.
• If the artisan falls on hard times (in a recession or when nobody buys), the Patron continues to financially support them, to prevent complete failure.

Vampires would favor this system for a few reasons.
The big reason is that it is a very stable system as compared to other economic systems…and, as has been established, vampires would favor stability.
Capitalism is unstable because it relies on businesses failing every now and again, alongside economic crashes. Socialism is unstable because everything in the economy is concentrated into one place, which is a potential fault point.
Patronage combines the decentralized nature while having some kind of safety nets in place. It’s the best of both worlds.

The other major reason they’d favor this system is that it was the dominant economic system across history until the Industrial Revolution…so, yeah.

Though that might not apply with an Early Modern origin. Ah, well.

I almost forgot to mention an important factor to consider: the population size.
There are not as many vampires as there are people. Even if we assume vampires have humans helping them out, their numbers would still be quite small.

I’m noting it here because it’s important but, really, beyond that I don’t have much else to say.
The small population size would create a bunch of issues for vampires, but not enough issues for it to be relevant. Though they may favor technologies that help automate jobs.

I had to think about this for a while, but I eventually decided that vampires would use coins and, further, would mint their own coins…and then that they’d stick to metal money over paper money.

I think this way because, from their point of view:

• Paper money is more prone to inflation.
• Paper money is easier to counterfeit.^K)
• Aesthetic sensibilities.
• Inertia – why bother changing stuff?

However! I think that they’d maybe still rely on regular ‘mortal’ currency…though not in any significant way. This would only be done as a means of taking part in the economy of the rest of the world.
Though something I imagine that could happen is that, within cities, you can choose to buy/sell goods/services using either their internal currency or external currency. This would be fine since the cities would still want to have the currency to deal with humans.
What that means is that if you became a vampire yesterday, you could probably convert your existing wealth into vampire wealth fairly easily. Surprisingly…quite helpful for new vampires.

Due to the vampires favoring stability, being immortal and having a small population…most vampires would have a job. Shocking, I know.

Though how they define ‘profession’ and how they approach certain jobs might be different. Consider that, in real life, being a gambler was considered a respectable profession at some point.

I think that the majority of jobs would look very “Early Modern nobility”. You’ll have a lot of jobs focused around artistry (paintings, sculpting, engraving, sewing), servitude (maids, butlers, etc.), the military and entertainment. Though this also depends on whether vampires can (or need to) eat and drink.
Due to the low population, I imagine that there would be pressure on vampires to have a job even if that job doesn’t seem to contribute to society from our point of view.
One job I’d like to highlight as potentially being accepted is ‘socialite’. The socialite’s job is quite simply to arrange parties^L) and would spend a lot of time socializing. This is valuable in a very insular society dominated by women.
One thought I had related to that is that socialites might actually charge for attendance, which would make it align with the “have a job” thing. Plus this could help new vampires develop a social network early on: all they have to do is pay to enter a party.

Anyway, I think vampires would also prioritize artistic interests and entertainment due to immortality: you will get bored very fast.

There might also be a high degree of professionalism and a high work ethic as a result of their conservatism, immortality, community pressure and the desire to survive.

This worldbuilding note is focused around blood and depends heavily on how the vampires drink blood, alongside the related conditions.
In Masquerade and Requiem, for example, getting bit actually feels really good for the vampire and the person getting slurped…while in Abraham Lincoln Vampire: Hunter, the bite is always fatal.
These two separate extremes radically change a lot about vampires…though once you reach modernity with blood bags and refrigarators, you don’t have to worry quite as much.
I mostly assume that the bite is non-painful and non-lethal.

In general, vampires would prefer to acquire blood thru blood banks (which they would own)…because it just makes sense.
Obviously, the blood banks would fulfill their surface-level function…but they’d also discreetly get rid of blood that “goes bad” or “gets contaminated”, which they’d send to their settlements. Though this assumes they can drink blood outside of biting someone.
Besides that, the main possibility is that vampires have mortals they can rely on. Who those mortals are can vary, though I think that for the sake of secrecy (and moral principle if that’s factored in) vampires would avoid anything too morally dubious.
They could simply kidnap undesirables from society, but they might object on the grounds that they don’t want to drink the impure blood of criminals.

Cities would likely have blood rations in place. I think the most reasonable system would be one in which every vampire receives the same ration for free, but they can pay to get extra. This would be the fairest (from the point of view of everyone) and avoids headaches. Plus it allows the upper classes to indulge themselves.

This is to include all the other views that vampires are likely to have. So, let’s not delay and get into it.

I think there’s a very high chance that vampires are racist. Though probably not in the way that you’d expect.

Obviously, they wouldn’t like black Africans, but every other group (besides Native Americans like Indians) is ambiguous.
This is highly dependent on where the vampires are from. So 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 black, 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.
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.

If we strictly define sexism as any view that men and women are not equal…the majority of vampires would be sexist. But if we define it as seeing the other gender as subhuman, it’s likely that the majority of vampires wouldn’t be sexist.
These are two extremes, but they demonstrate the point I’m making. I think vampires would be a bit nicer towards women than expected.

Considering all of history and (assuming vampires are European or Egyptian/Mesopotamian in origin), it’s probable that vampires would think that men and women specialize in different things. And since there are so few of them as compared to humans, it makes sense that they’d ignore concepts like “women should only be a trophy” or “only in the kitchen and nowhere else”. You can’t afford to not utilize women when your population is so small.
Though I think it’s also very likely women would not be allowed to leave cities for their own protection.^M)

It’s usually brushed aside, but I think that female vampires would still be physically less capable than male vampires. Though that really depends on how vampirism affects the human body.

So by very strict modern standards they’d be sexist, but otherwise they wouldn’t be.

This is an unambiguous case: vampires would probably be supremely homophobic and transphobic.

This is because the majority of societies across the globe^N) have been very anti-gay.

As far as they’d be concerned, the modern idea that gays/trans should be left alone would be a strange recent trend.

Would they kill them on-sight? Probably not…unless it’s a vampire.

A question I did ask myself is whether vampires would be fine with crossdressing. And what I concluded is that it’s inconclusive and would depend on the city or religious beliefs. I think that, in general, it would be frowned upon…but not as much as being transgender.

Would vampires be classist and elitist? I’m leaning towards “probably not”.
Though that’s because there aren’t a lot of vampires (presumably) so you can’t afford to sneer at the peasants because…there are only 500 people here total and 400 of them are former peasants. You kinda need them to do stuff for you and sneering at them is counter-productive.

Of course, that also depends on whether vampires would turn anyone who isn’t exactly like them or not. But I don’t think they’d be concerned about whether you’re a peasant or not (and, I mean, some male vampires would definitely turn a girl they think is super pretty, not caring about her social status).
It’s also inherently destabilizing in a way that other views aren’t. So it would not be favored by vampire elites who prioritize stability above all else.

Rather than classisim, though, vampires would be hierarchical and expect people to know their place in society.

I find it unlikely that vampires would be decadent or that they’d favor debauchery/indulging in pleasures. This is because, again, they’ve witnessed the literal ends of civilizations, so they prioritize stability.
Orgies/promiscuity are inherently destabilizing as they can flare up feelings of jealousy/possessiveness and more. The one thing that you don’t want is people in your small city getting jealous of each-other, because that could lead to violence.

This implies the possibility of the hilarious situation where a sexy vampire waifu actually doesn’t like the idea of pre-marital sex because if the relationship breaks off, it could lead to jealousy down the line.

Slavery is ambiguous though the reasons why might be surprising.

First of all, they would 100% not support slavery of fellow vampires for the simple reason that they know it’s economic suicide in the long-run. Thus it’s inherently destabilizing.
Slavery of humans though? That’s a bit more ambiguous, though I’d lean towards them generally supporting it. They would 93% support the South in the American Civil War¹⁾. But in all other cases there would be some ambiguity involved.
This is mostly down to the fact that views on slavery vary a lot across history…and, well, the observable negative effects of slavery for the economy and societal stability.

Thanks to the influence of Masquerade and Requiem has popularize the idea that, instead of one type of vampire running around, there are multiple types of vampires running around.

I’m not gonna expand on this too much – because everything else written on this article is just a remix of what I’ve already written or thought about prior and I only started thinking about this now…
But I’m not sure if this makes a lot of logistical sense, because how would evolution logically occur?

Masquerade and Requiem justify it via different clans developing different traits thru randomly inheriting traits from their sire.^O)

I think this can only be justified with magic, the vampires being alive or the vampires being in a weird semi-alive semi-dead state (as is implied with the Requiem vampires)…or the vampires already starting as separate species with similar traits.

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.

Assuming that most vampires live in small dense cities, what would those cities actually look like?

Well let’s consider that vampires would have to be close to a food supply (humans) while also avoiding the sun.
The obvious conclusion is that vampire settlements would be located underground.

However, I’m actually not sure if they’d build those settlements underground. I have two reasons for thinking this:

1. Technological limitations. It would be difficult to dig down and then dig out a city.^P)
2. Aesthetic issues. I imagine many vampires wouldn’t be happy to live underground without any plantlife.

So I think it’s actually a bit more likely that vampire settlements would be partially underground, but mostly above-ground.
Obviously, they’d have to block out the Sun anyway, so the settlements would look strange on the outside. Like one big irregularly-shaped building rather than a city or town.

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.