There's not enough discussions here, so we figure another won't hurt.

Vampires are one of the most pervasive creatures in supernatural settings. Sometimes they're evil, other times good. And other times again, they're simply (in)different. Some love 'em, some hate 'em, and some want to become them...

But there's one thing that is common throughout the entire expanse of the many vampire mythoi. There's no single "truth" about what powers they have, what their traits are or what their flaws are. In some versions, they sparkle and are fragile. In others, they are unholy beings worthy of the deepest hells. In yet others they are other things.

What we'd like discussed is what people think that the "ideal" traits of the vampire should be.

we can't possibly list every trait, flaw or power. That would take too much time and space. So we'll list some of each.

Powers:
Hypnosis
transformation into bats
transformation into other creatures
Super-speed
Flight
transformation into mist
mind-to-mind speech
Immortality
etc.

Weaknesses:
garlic
Holy water
Inability to cross running water
need to sleep in home soil
Stakes
Fire
Boredom

Traits:
Drink blood
Don't age
Mesmerizingly beautiful
Ageless
long canines
Sparkle
lots of pointy teeth
Gruesome appearance
claw-like nails
pointed ears
Bound to sire
Bonded to sire
Sire irrelevant
OCD

Breeding/Siring:
Single bite turns
Single bite either turns or more likely kills
Blood drinking
Drinking blood plus extra step
Draining
Draining plus blood
Draining plus blood plus more
Normal reproduction
Magic ritual

Having those lists and what you hold in your heads... What attributes do you feel the "proper" vampire has? Discuss.

I'm not that familiar with all the Vampire myth's but I quite like the way they are portrayed in the T.V. Series the Strain. In which it explores the medical point of view as these creatures are created, and the powers they wield.

It depends on genre more than anything.

With old-school gothic vampires, you can get away with 'superstition'-based lore, like garlic, religion, 'magic', animal motifs and such, while modern settings tend to favour cod-scientific approaches, 'justifying' vampire traits through genetics and the effect of drinking blood, which, to my mind, discredit garlic and holiness.

Other elements like psychic abilities can go either way. Glamour does, too, with both the glamourousness and the grotesque being gothic features, while modern interpretations may blur these elements.

To the list of traits, I'd add obsessive, compulsive behaviour. An old (I think) Polish 'remedy' for vampires was dumping a load of grain on the ground - they'd be compelled to count them, distracting them for a getaway/slay. Also weak to sunlight/sunrise.

It also might be worth adding a section for breeding; exact method of vampire creation (any bite, feeding off a vampire's blood, unholy rite, other?) and relationship between 'sire' and 'progeny' (as I call them). Can a vampire breed?

I'm of the opinion that you can be flexible on the powers/abilities of a vampire in order to fit the vampire into the narrative you're creating. If an element of the myth doesn't work for your storyline, chuck it. Bottom line is to come up with a good story that you like.

I think the big ones to work with are blood drinking and nocturnal activity, but there's a lot of explanations for those behaviors that can be used.

I've been in a couple different vampire-themed RP's, but the one I am currently doing requires me to decide just what is and isn't the case with the abilities of vampires, and so this is an interesting discussion to keep an eye on.

HeySeuss said
I'm of the opinion that you can be flexible on the powers/abilities of a vampire in order to fit the vampire into the narrative you're creating. If an element of the myth doesn't work for your storyline, chuck it.

Pretty much this.

As a sidenote; vampires are something people can get super pissy about because Twilight, but ironically nobody cares what you do with something like the Lamia. Which I made a sentient race with great aptitude for spellcasting living next to humans at one point and everybody loved it. It's all about how popular something is, I guess.

That's why we put "sparkle" in that post, because it makes some people so angry. From our observations, the so-called "twi-haters" were even more fanatic than the "twi-hards". But that's just one interpretation of the mythos.

We forgot the OCD trait on our list.

Breeding section is a good idea. we'll add that.

Ellri said
the so-called "twi-haters" were even more fanatic than the "twi-hards".

Just like Justin Bieber, High School Musical and Fifty Shades of Grey, I've never actually met anybody that liked Twilight, but probably a city's worth of people that proclaim to hate it and seen a total lifetime's worth of faddy, lazy comedy material poking fun at their expense.
It does make me wonder why people don't just read the books, watch the films and listen to the music they like, instead of presumably sitting down to suffer.

Anyway, back on topic: the debate also depends on the vampire's role in the story. A single enigmatic vampire is going to be very powerful, while, if they are commonplace, they will be weaker, especially where they are antagonistic by default. A city full of hard-to-kill super-powered human-turning vampires that are the enemy will overthrow the world in days unless they have some super-crippling kryptonite.

Another thought on breeding: how to manage the population. A vampire's food source (humans) is the same as its breeding opportunity (humans), and so, clearly, there is something of a conflict of interest here. In my current RP, the western world has by-and-large accepted vampires. Here, vampires don't even have any meaningful opposition, and so, in order for their population not to completely overthrow that of the humans, they are legally (and internally) obliged not to breed. In my RP, this is done through the intentionally bunged-up licence system, where a vampire must basically file for an application to turn somebody, if they want a progeny.

Another weakness in vampires (as well as anything that is seen as being a servant to the devil or evil) that I would like to mention is the weakness to salt, silver, rowan wood and iron. These appear in the Wardstone series of books and some apply more to witches than vampires but they're all cut from the same cloth, right?

the type of wood varies, but there is a tendency in some tougher breeds of vampire (lone antagonist-type) to only be weak against one type of wood. Iron is more commonly associated with the beings of the Faerie than with vampires. Salt is one we're not too familiar with a direct weakness to. The times we've seen salt used, it was as a spell component/carrier for witches or wizards rather than as a weapon onto itself. Silver occurs at times, but it too is more consistent with werewolves than with vampires, but its not as exclusive.

The "proper" vampire hasn't been... Ever. Vlad the Impaler was when vampires really became a thing and the only notable traits for "Vladpyre" was that he drank blood and mysteriously vanished from his coffin. An attribute that was surprising about olden day mythos vampires as they really started to develop from Vlad's legendarily vicious streak is that the vampire could supposedly only get into your house if you opened the door and invited them in. Yes, you could defeat the malevolent monsters by simply closing a door in their face.

Obviously nobody thinks of that when they think of "classic" vampires. They think of Bram Stoker's Dracula. They think of Interview with the Vampire. Hell they might even think of the Blade trilogy.

The real truth to vampires is that anything goes at this point, honestly. The only "universal" traits people seem to give much of a damn for is that they don't like sunlight, have sharp fangs to bite you with, and have an apparently unlimited storage capacity for blood instead of drinking until their eyeballs pop out of their sockets from the blood pressure. Just do what you want with the vampire. Make it anything you want. My only personal request is don't make the fuckers sparkle because... Really?

EDIT

Although I must add, I honestly think the best modern interpretation of "legitimate" vampires is Vampire: The Masquerade. The clans and their politics and so on in the modern world is fantastic. I love all the powers and how it comes together to form a very strong mythos for them.