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Showing results for tags 'new takes on old tropes'.
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How can you possibly do something original with vampires? I decided to try. In my Turakian game, vampires are all deliberately created undead, brought into being by a particularly vile necromantic ritual. Vampires are created by an evil ritual in which the victim is deprived of food and water, repeatedly cursed, and then slowly bled by a combination of exposure to bloodsucking creatures such as leeches and mosquitoes which are force fed to the otherwise starved victim and of draining the victim's blood into a pottery vessel inscribed with curses, from which the victim must drink. When this ordeal finally ends in death, the victim will rise as an undead monster hating their tormentor but compelled to serve and obey. Every vampire has at least two forms; one resembling who they were when alive, and one obviously monstrous shape that is humanoid but reflects the form of one of the bloodsuckers used in their ordeal. Some vampiric powers can only manifest when in the latter form. The monstrous form will always include the head changing into a giant version of that of some parasite such as a mosquito, tick, leech, or spider (technically I know a spider isn't a bloodsucking parasite but it's close enough for necromancy ok?) Some examples of powers associated with specific bloodsuckers: Aspect of the Mosquito Swarm: vampire dissolves into a cloud of mosquitoes Aspect of the Leech Aquatic Ambush: Limited Invisibility if in water Aspect of the Spider Webs: An Entangle power There are ways a vampire thrall can win free, in particular, if the vampire's creator is destroyed. Free vampires can become powerful vampire lords- and once having undergone the hideous rite of transformation, any vampire knows how to inflict it on others.... Lucius Alexander I had more written up for these things but the palindromedary ate most of my work.