Yes. They don’t have any of the hangups of our fictional Vampires. Here’s the rules:
1. Vampires must consume blood to survive. Most only do this once a week or so. Some go for months without blood. Some drink it every day.
2. Vampires are extremely strong and fast, and incredibly durable. They are very slow to tire, and can heal from almost any injury.
3. Vampires are slightly more powerful during the night, but have no aversion to daylight.
4. It is not common knowledge how Vampires become Vampires. You have to be bitten by another Vampire for teh virus to be passed along, but the rate of infection is so low that its very uncommon. Since Vampires often feed on willing victims, most Vampires never realize that’s how they became Vampires. Almost no Vampires in Yeld realize their affliction is a virus. There are all kinds of crazy theories about what makes someone become a Vampire. The most popular is that once a year Prince Dragul chooses several people at random to receive his gift through a magic spell.
4. Vampires cannot turn into bats or wolves.
5. Vampires have no aversion to running water. Many Vampires have a strong aversion to certain holy symbols. This seems to vary by Vampire.
6. Vampires love coming into homes uninvited.
7. Decapitation will kill a Vampire. A stake through teh heart won’t, but since it is a very serious wound it will weaken them.
9. Vampires don’t sleep in coffins. Coffins are actually rare in Yeld anyway, since the dead are usually cremated so they don’t return as zombies. However, a group of kids form our world started a “Vampire Themed” bead and breakfast, complete with sleeping coffins. The idea has caught on and is growing more popular.
10. Vampires can see their own reflections just fine. Nearly all Vampires have greyish skin.
11. Vampires love dressing in black. Probably this is because of Prince Dragul, who always wears black.
12. Vampires have only been in Yeld for 1000 years, and there actually aren’t that many of them. A few thousand, maybe? Many of them are the first Vampires that Prince Dragul created, influential nobles and knights that be gave the Gift of Undeath to when he was scheming to take over the Kingdom. this includes Urano, Vargas and Kerrigor. So a lot of Vampires are very old. Of course, most have no idea that they are infected by a virus, so as they pass it on eventually other Vampires are created. So your range of Vampires is from about 1000 years old to about 12. Vampires will probably live forever unless killed.
What makes it interesting for me is that the Vampires themselves don’t really know any of this. Or some of them know some of it, but only through trial and error. They don’t have a history of vampire fiction and lore to fall back on, so for them Vampire is just a word that means “people who accepted Prince Dragul’s Gift of Undeath and now are scary fast and strong and don’t get older but sometimes drink blood”. Being a Vampire in a world where that word has no context is interesting. The Prince kind of ruined it though. He’s a super stereotypical Vampire. Dressing all in black, long cape, super dark and emo. Cruel, Mysterious. Sexy. So of course all the other Vampires try to emulate him.
Apart from the whole emulation bit, it makes sense to me on a practical level. Even if you’re super powerful, having to give constant demonstrations is a hassle so it makes sense to go with the visual shorthand for ‘unless you want to deal with a threat similar to our despotic ruler, back the heck off’. I imagine a certain subset of vampire who revels in a fight might dress more flamboyantly.
For sure. That makes sense, and is probably exactly what’s happening. I imagine that most Vampires are at least a little elitist, and want to stand apart and show off what they are.
What we’ve seen is that the Vampires who are really into fighting and showing off tend to wear the most “Vampirey” fashion. Lots of black leather, spikes, horned helmets, capes. This is both court and military fashion too. In the comic you can see this with Vargas and the Hand of Autumn. Vampires that are just fitting in or getting by tend to wear more normal clothes, although they still prefer black. I think the only Vampire we’ve seen that didn’t wear black is the pirate from Season 6 who Marah took the hook from.
“2. Vampires are extremely strong and fast, and incredibly durable. They are very slow to tire, and can heal from almost any injury.”
i’m imagining the scenanigans that can be caused by this.
and the self sacrifice.
“I can heal from almost anything, i should be the one to take hits for my allies”
Yeah. Vampire bites spread an extremely infectious virus. A very small number of people infected eventually turn into Vampires. The rest become zombies whenever they eventually die. Shortly after prince Dragul arrived in Yeld and started offering knights and nobles his “Gift of Undeath”, dead people started rising from the grave or coming back to life wherever they died. This was called the Plague of Undeath, and has been a major issue in Yeld ever since. They no longer bury their dead, or allow them to lay in repose. You burn them, or at least tie them down and chop their hands and feet off.
Almost no one has ever put together that the plague is connected to Vampires. Most Vampires have no idea.
Third-person pronouns are used to speak about someone in the third person. That is, the person being spoken about is not the speaker or the person being spoken to, and often is not present at the conversation. The expectation that a person has a say in what words third parties use to describe them in conversations among themselves is vanishingly rare culturally. This is because that’s generally not how language is used (that is, the information it is used to convey), in part because such personal preferences are often not practically available in situations where one would use third-person pronouns.
Here, for example, a new character shows up, and a reader refers to the unnamed character in a comment using a third-person pronoun, apparently based on Tilly’s assumption of the character’s sex based on visual cues, as is common practice when using languages with gendered words. As a world-building issue, the physical diversity of Yeld residents means that visual identification of sex would be less reliable than it is on Earth among humans, so it’s plausible that there would be a linguistic norm regarding uncertain situations, and pronoun use would not necessarily map to standard modern English.
However, if people use language in the same way, whatever words they use need to be workable in the same way. That is, there needs to be a way for people to speak about others who are not present or about whom little is known, as when talking about a stranger who just arrived, or when introducing an acquaintance to a bug you just met. English uses gendered third-person pronouns for people because that’s often an important piece of information in social interactions which is available at a glance. It’s possible to set things up differently, but the means of acquisition and the practical significance of the information encoded in the terms used is important to consider.
In this case I was talking about adding identifying pronouns in the note’s of the comic for the sake of the reader’s information. Something like “This strip introduces “Cbar (They/Them) and Tenzin (He/Him)”. hat way the readers know who the characters are and how to refer to them, even if the characters in the comic don’t. I did something similar in the new Modest Medusa books, noting the first appearance of characters with “First Appearance: Ekans (also known as Meg)”. I think the extra info is helpful for readers since theres so many characters to keep track of and its a 13+ year comic at this point.
I do wonder if Yeld would have developed its own customs for this. That’s interesting to think about. Yeld society is a dozen alien cultures that have melded together. At the same time, people are separated by geography and distance, but not language. It would be neat to see how regional customs develop. We talk a LITTLE bit about this with the Fairies in the new book, but its a neat idea to explore in greater detail.
You know, thats my fault. Although, I suppose that Tilly might have called them Lass anyway, not knowing. Anyway, another good reason to introduce characters with their pronouns.
So they are vampires. I thought so.
They have that vampire skin tone.
Question for ya Jake, are the vampires in Yeld able to enter buildings without being explicitly invited?
Yes. They don’t have any of the hangups of our fictional Vampires. Here’s the rules:
1. Vampires must consume blood to survive. Most only do this once a week or so. Some go for months without blood. Some drink it every day.
2. Vampires are extremely strong and fast, and incredibly durable. They are very slow to tire, and can heal from almost any injury.
3. Vampires are slightly more powerful during the night, but have no aversion to daylight.
4. It is not common knowledge how Vampires become Vampires. You have to be bitten by another Vampire for teh virus to be passed along, but the rate of infection is so low that its very uncommon. Since Vampires often feed on willing victims, most Vampires never realize that’s how they became Vampires. Almost no Vampires in Yeld realize their affliction is a virus. There are all kinds of crazy theories about what makes someone become a Vampire. The most popular is that once a year Prince Dragul chooses several people at random to receive his gift through a magic spell.
4. Vampires cannot turn into bats or wolves.
5. Vampires have no aversion to running water. Many Vampires have a strong aversion to certain holy symbols. This seems to vary by Vampire.
6. Vampires love coming into homes uninvited.
7. Decapitation will kill a Vampire. A stake through teh heart won’t, but since it is a very serious wound it will weaken them.
9. Vampires don’t sleep in coffins. Coffins are actually rare in Yeld anyway, since the dead are usually cremated so they don’t return as zombies. However, a group of kids form our world started a “Vampire Themed” bead and breakfast, complete with sleeping coffins. The idea has caught on and is growing more popular.
10. Vampires can see their own reflections just fine. Nearly all Vampires have greyish skin.
11. Vampires love dressing in black. Probably this is because of Prince Dragul, who always wears black.
12. Vampires have only been in Yeld for 1000 years, and there actually aren’t that many of them. A few thousand, maybe? Many of them are the first Vampires that Prince Dragul created, influential nobles and knights that be gave the Gift of Undeath to when he was scheming to take over the Kingdom. this includes Urano, Vargas and Kerrigor. So a lot of Vampires are very old. Of course, most have no idea that they are infected by a virus, so as they pass it on eventually other Vampires are created. So your range of Vampires is from about 1000 years old to about 12. Vampires will probably live forever unless killed.
Our old friend was a vampire! But he was an Oathbreaker, if I recall. I’m guessing the guy we knew wouldn’t be friends with these vampires
Almost certainly not.
This is a really interesting set of rules.
What makes it interesting for me is that the Vampires themselves don’t really know any of this. Or some of them know some of it, but only through trial and error. They don’t have a history of vampire fiction and lore to fall back on, so for them Vampire is just a word that means “people who accepted Prince Dragul’s Gift of Undeath and now are scary fast and strong and don’t get older but sometimes drink blood”. Being a Vampire in a world where that word has no context is interesting. The Prince kind of ruined it though. He’s a super stereotypical Vampire. Dressing all in black, long cape, super dark and emo. Cruel, Mysterious. Sexy. So of course all the other Vampires try to emulate him.
Apart from the whole emulation bit, it makes sense to me on a practical level. Even if you’re super powerful, having to give constant demonstrations is a hassle so it makes sense to go with the visual shorthand for ‘unless you want to deal with a threat similar to our despotic ruler, back the heck off’. I imagine a certain subset of vampire who revels in a fight might dress more flamboyantly.
For sure. That makes sense, and is probably exactly what’s happening. I imagine that most Vampires are at least a little elitist, and want to stand apart and show off what they are.
What we’ve seen is that the Vampires who are really into fighting and showing off tend to wear the most “Vampirey” fashion. Lots of black leather, spikes, horned helmets, capes. This is both court and military fashion too. In the comic you can see this with Vargas and the Hand of Autumn. Vampires that are just fitting in or getting by tend to wear more normal clothes, although they still prefer black. I think the only Vampire we’ve seen that didn’t wear black is the pirate from Season 6 who Marah took the hook from.
“2. Vampires are extremely strong and fast, and incredibly durable. They are very slow to tire, and can heal from almost any injury.”
i’m imagining the scenanigans that can be caused by this.
and the self sacrifice.
“I can heal from almost anything, i should be the one to take hits for my allies”
Yeah, that happens for sure. Thats very much a Urano kind of thing. And Urano is a good example of a Vampire that didn’t end up being an awful person.
What’s with the cards, then? Are Yeld’s vampires mute?
This one appears to not talk.
We’ve seen plenty of Vampires who do.
I take it this particular vamp is mute for some reason?
Looks like it.
“Coffins are actually rare in Yeld anyway, since the dead are usually cremated so they don’t return as zombies.”
Well, that sounds important.
Yeah. Vampire bites spread an extremely infectious virus. A very small number of people infected eventually turn into Vampires. The rest become zombies whenever they eventually die. Shortly after prince Dragul arrived in Yeld and started offering knights and nobles his “Gift of Undeath”, dead people started rising from the grave or coming back to life wherever they died. This was called the Plague of Undeath, and has been a major issue in Yeld ever since. They no longer bury their dead, or allow them to lay in repose. You burn them, or at least tie them down and chop their hands and feet off.
Almost no one has ever put together that the plague is connected to Vampires. Most Vampires have no idea.
So… Dwarf Fortress undead, roughly speaking? Do zombies have an infectious bite too?
They do. Although its the same thing. A zombie bite won’t turn you into a zombie right away. You have to die first.
But the big question is: by “drink”, does she mean blood or alcohol?
*they
I should start adding character pronouns to make it clear for people.
Third-person pronouns are used to speak about someone in the third person. That is, the person being spoken about is not the speaker or the person being spoken to, and often is not present at the conversation. The expectation that a person has a say in what words third parties use to describe them in conversations among themselves is vanishingly rare culturally. This is because that’s generally not how language is used (that is, the information it is used to convey), in part because such personal preferences are often not practically available in situations where one would use third-person pronouns.
Here, for example, a new character shows up, and a reader refers to the unnamed character in a comment using a third-person pronoun, apparently based on Tilly’s assumption of the character’s sex based on visual cues, as is common practice when using languages with gendered words. As a world-building issue, the physical diversity of Yeld residents means that visual identification of sex would be less reliable than it is on Earth among humans, so it’s plausible that there would be a linguistic norm regarding uncertain situations, and pronoun use would not necessarily map to standard modern English.
However, if people use language in the same way, whatever words they use need to be workable in the same way. That is, there needs to be a way for people to speak about others who are not present or about whom little is known, as when talking about a stranger who just arrived, or when introducing an acquaintance to a bug you just met. English uses gendered third-person pronouns for people because that’s often an important piece of information in social interactions which is available at a glance. It’s possible to set things up differently, but the means of acquisition and the practical significance of the information encoded in the terms used is important to consider.
In this case I was talking about adding identifying pronouns in the note’s of the comic for the sake of the reader’s information. Something like “This strip introduces “Cbar (They/Them) and Tenzin (He/Him)”. hat way the readers know who the characters are and how to refer to them, even if the characters in the comic don’t. I did something similar in the new Modest Medusa books, noting the first appearance of characters with “First Appearance: Ekans (also known as Meg)”. I think the extra info is helpful for readers since theres so many characters to keep track of and its a 13+ year comic at this point.
I do wonder if Yeld would have developed its own customs for this. That’s interesting to think about. Yeld society is a dozen alien cultures that have melded together. At the same time, people are separated by geography and distance, but not language. It would be neat to see how regional customs develop. We talk a LITTLE bit about this with the Fairies in the new book, but its a neat idea to explore in greater detail.
Oh, sorry! I thought “lass” meant a girl…
You know, thats my fault. Although, I suppose that Tilly might have called them Lass anyway, not knowing. Anyway, another good reason to introduce characters with their pronouns.