Eldritch Creatures 101 part 4

The other entry for my Eldritch Creatures collection and this one is a very popular one, vampires. Now before anyone gets all butt hurt about the vampires I've drawn or how I presented them let me tell you to either grow a spine or get out. I'm not going to tolerate anymore bull crap from you morons as of late.

I'm also going to be more careful with the information I find regarding the monsters I'm looking, some people who viewed the Lycanthrope 101 piece mentioned about some of the information and I would like to thank them for correcting me on them.

Vampires, like werewolves, have become extremely popular in literature and in the media (mostly due to books and movies like Dracula and the god awful Twilight books, and for those who find this offensive fuck off). The Vampires we know of are undead corpses or dark handsome strangers who seek the blood of maidens, who burn in the sunlight and can’t shine a reflection in mirrors. This of course isn’t fully true with all vampires as these are found mostly in fiction not folklore with numerous types of vampires sharing only few traits mention in fiction. The most common Vampire portrayed in Crossover called the Strigoi or the “undead” vampires are very similar to the ones mentioned in the media as they are the blood suckers the come out at night to terrify the living and that they can shape-shift, seduce people, and cause sickness and death. These beings, along with the other forms of undead, have existed sense humanity could record history and the process of creating vampires have been all but forgotten from the minds of accomplished magicians and ancient priests. It’s likely the practice came around the time before or after the creation of therianthropy and most likely some of the first undead creations went into hiding when the ancient civilizations of man fell.

There are numerous types of vampires mentioned in ancient lore such as the Morri (also known as the “living” vampire and is considered just as common as it’s counterpart), Dhampirs, Churels, Jiang Shi, Penanggalans, Mormos, Baobhan sith, and the more common type as shown above, the Strigoi. The Strigoi as mentioned above is what most people today think of vampires as undead corpses rising from the grave to drink the blood from the living and to spread sickness and death across the land. The Strigoi vampire also called Strigoi mort resemble corpses, making it nearly impossible to tell them apart from regular corpses; only when they become active at night can they be told apart. There are some features of the Strigoi vampire that sets them apart from corpses and humans such as the long bat-like teeth and the bizarre colored eyes that give off the hint of malicious intent. Others would mention that the Strigoi vampire would also have two hearts and orange hair but others mentioned different other traits. Of course they also have the abilities of vampires people today know such as shape-shifting into animals and mist (and possibly people), invisibility, possible mental powers like mind-control and much more.

Some Vampires like their counterparts in the media cannot appear daylight while others can’t appear during the daytime, this could be the result of whatever magick the animated them weakens and causes them to revert back into a corpse-like state but still conscious during the time being. Other traits about the vampire are that the only way to permanently destroy them is cremation or burning the corpse (however some don’t have bodies and require other means to deal with them).

In Crossover, some Vampires, like werewolves, can take on more monstrous forms with some resembling large bat-like demons but unlike werewolves and other Therianthropes they can control their bestial hunger and fury (such as the Morri) but with some other vampire types like the Strigoi can easily lose their control at any given time when in such state. This however, appears rarely in folklore (or human folklore as humans only recorded things they have encountered) so there’s actually not much regarding the Strigoi vampire or all other creatures without going deeper into searching for these fiends and finding out the dark secrets behind them, only searching through Eldritch folklore can there be more about Vampires.

Strigoi vampire, Crossover (c) me