Opinions about Vampire Roleplayers 🧛

[Elenthas-argent-dawn (Elenthas)]

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

Tomorrow blizzard could add a Gnoll in a cape that turns into a bat and hates the sun called Gnollcula

https://hearthstone.fandom.com/wiki/Murlocula

[Bløndie-argent-dawn]

I’ll might be tempted to change the topic to: 'Why aren’t Vampire Roleplayers Murlocs as stated in the Lore?'

[Elenthas-argent-dawn (Elenthas)]

In fairness, Murlocula was added in the Castle Nathria hearthstone expac, so they’re just another venthyr.

[Vaxir-argent-dawn (Vaxir)]

Most vampires (race: Vampire or Vampyr or San’layn) I’ve seen we’re either in midtown Duskwood or in the Slaughtered Lamb in Stormwind. The rest? I’ve seen as many as I can count on one hand out and about in the world. As you can presume, the Stormwind ones and Duskwood town ones weren’t so appealing. I’ve also seen as far as San’layn Night Elves, also, which were the worst cases (seen in Stormwind’s tavern mentioned above). Looking out for vampiric RPers is something I used to do and, stupidly, I would try to nudge people in the right direction, only to be met with the usual “Night elves can be San’layn! Excuse here” and “I’ll do what i want”. So I did stop the advice, which I shouldn’t have done anyway 'cause it’s not my business what people do.

AHEM.

I love vampiric RP to do and to watch and get involved with. It’s something I find interesting, especially as people seem to not exactly lore-bend, but take things from pieces of rarely known lore or something to make their own concoction of spells and whatnot. The lore itself is cool, too.

All in all, I think RPing vampiric beings is fine and cool and dandy as long as it’s not… Stormwind San’layn (don’t start @ me lol). Then it’s a case of eh. Not my business now, is it?

I loved RPing Vaxir as a far-gone-in-the-head San’layn who was rather alienated from the posh seeming kin of hers. Blood magic and mutations and vampiric stuff, all that, was fun to play with and theorize on.

[Desartin-argent-dawn (Desartin)]

@Vaxir-argent-dawn

All in all, I think RPing vampiric beings is fine and cool and dandy as long as it’s not… Stormwind San’layn (don’t start @ me lol). Then it’s a case of eh. Not my business now, is it?

Starts @ing you furiously.

[Vaxir-argent-dawn (Vaxir)]

Lissen. LISSEN.

I’ll cry.

[Desartin-argent-dawn (Desartin)]

@Vaxir-argent-dawn

Lissen. LISSEN.

I’ll cry.

Okay, I’m sorry.

[Vixí-argent-dawn (Vixí)]

@Vaxir-argent-dawn

Lissen. LISSEN.

I’ll cry.

Dont frick with me.

I WILL cry.

[Jenit-argent-dawn (Jenit)]

I don’t remember the last time I saw a straight up escaped goth vampire sort in WoW RP. Complete blast from the past that. I think the San’layn being added as a more legitimate option for that sort of weird thing kind of took the sails out of it as a trend.

If anyone at all liked Shadowlands I’d expect to see Venthyr RPers but I think you can probably count the people in the world who liked it enough to want to do that on one hand.

I think the other thing is that WoW’s userbase is like, getting old. Back in the day when a sizeable portion of RPers were just playing “what if other popular thing but in Warcraft” characters, the players behind those characters were often literally children, usually like 13-16 years old but as the userbase has grown up people have learned how to have literally any amount of subtlety at all.

[Alannyse-argent-dawn]

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

They are no more vampyr than the blood-thane in Stormheim, and neither of truly vampire for they lack the weakness of typical vampire.
the vampire aesthetic is spread out over a multitude of different creatures.
we have at least 4 different groups ranging from demons, to undead to creatures from the realm of death who am not sure count as undead or something else.
and we have another 5th version if you count the old scholomance boss who drinks blood and turns into a gargoyle.
the actual part that matters in-so far as wows setting cares is defined by the trait of draining life

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

Tomorrow blizzard could add a Gnoll in a cape that turns into a bat and hates the sun called Gnollcula and it would be yet another take on the vampire archetype but overall just a vampyr no different from the blood thane in legion and the venthyr in shadowlands.
who are both arguably vampires but ever so different.

All of them are vampires as vampires exist in WoW’s lore.

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

Tomorrow blizzard could add a Gnoll in a cape that turns into a bat and hates the sun called Gnollcula

Dracula didn’t fear the sun until Nosferatu was released in 1922

[Thuzar-argent-dawn (Thuzar)]

@Alannyse-argent-dawn

All of them are vampires as vampires exist in WoW’s lore.

I am not arguing they aren’t vampires as they exist in wows setting
I argue they don’t exist as a single defined creature such as real world vampires do.

For instance, venthyr are vampire but don’t drink blood
San’layn drink blood but they can walk in the sun
Blood-thane is a vampire that drinks blood? but he converts the pirates with a poisoned red mist.
Dreadlords are not undead (or are they?) but they don’t drink anima, blood nor do they turn others into vampires, they do however turn into swarms of bads.
That old boss in Scholomance drinks blood and turns into a gargoyle, one of a kind.
These are all vampires as far as wow is concerned but they don’t really share all to many traits with each other.

Meanwhile vampires of real world myth share many defining traits making them an easily defined sub-group of undead.

[Vervaina-argent-dawn]

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

San’layn is a vampire archetype, but they are not vampire in the same way Dracula is a vampire.

Quite, though they are tied with the Venthyr as the closest “relation” in my books. They don’t quite embrace the gothic / bat motifs in the same way as the Revendreth lot does; on the other hand they actually drink and make use of blood, rather than anima.

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

Tomorrow blizzard could add a Gnoll in a cape that turns into a bat and hates the sun called Gnollcula

Based.

Also apparently there’s a brand of undead out there with an actual weakness to a stake through the heart, so Gnollcula might just be out there yet.

What the Bonespeakers Buried

[Gabrindion-argent-dawn]

The stake ends up not working though.

[Vervaina-argent-dawn]

@Gabrindion-argent-dawn

The stake ends up not working though.

Yup, that was my point. (Point? Stake? Get it?)

“Oh, the stake didn’t work you say? My apologies, I must’ve had my immortal evil undead mixed up.”

Implying there’s an as-of-yet unseen undead that it might work on.

[Gabrindion-argent-dawn]

Ah, gotcha.

[Thuzar-argent-dawn (Thuzar)]

@Vervaina-argent-dawn

Also apparently there’s a brand of undead out there with an actual weakness to a stake through the heart, so Gnollcula might just be out there yet.

Yeah that is the Blood-thane in Stormheim, he turns a crew of pirates into daywalking vampyr through exposure to a red mist in his crypt and despite what the quest suggest, he is not halted by the stake in his heart, and the quest giver is even unsure if he can even be killed at all.

I actually hinge this quest on the trope of unreliable narrator, I think the quest giver makes an assumption and is mistaken on both accounts, at least until I am proven otherwise.

[Valteryl-argent-dawn (Valteryl)]

This thread opened a very locked and forgotten memory in my head.

At one time there was a gamer, who roleplayed a high elf archmage (no, not Thammaron) and was very into “trying to romance other women in the guild” both IC and OOC. Me and other officers of that guild didn’t know any better, so we let him stay in the guild, which aspect was more of a social RP, done around public hubs like Stormwind.

Imagine my surprise, when some time later we get messaged by a number of people, who say to us that he is san’layn IC and actually not only is into romancing women IC, but also drinks on their blood. We immediately confront the person OOC, very confused and, understandably, will have to remove the person from the guild entirely due to our not-so magical revelation that he is, in fact, san’layn (we were told that IC as well). It was all done over skype, he wanted to have a chat and dude just bursted into tears, crying how he wished to stay in the guild, it wasn’t his fault, etc etc.

Moral of the story is that if you do vampire or any of san’layn RP - don’t do that on public and just for some sort of a shock value reason. Find a guild, or create one, and do that somewhere in Icecrown, because otherwise it WILL create drama and you will most certainly not like the outcome or consequences that will be forced on you.

[Alannyse-argent-dawn]

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

For instance, venthyr are vampire but don’t drink blood

They do consume anima, which is sorta like blood?

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

San’layn drink blood but they can walk in the sun

Dracula has been able to walk in sunlight since the original novel was released in 1897. Count Orlok in Nosferatu is the first vampire that cannot.

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

Blood-thane is a vampire that drinks blood? but he converts the pirates with a poisoned red mist.

He is a vampyr connected to the San’layn somehow, so yes, he drinks blood.

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

Dreadlords are not undead (or are they?) but they don’t drink anima, blood nor do they turn others into vampires, they do however turn into swarms of bads.

Dreadlords are something, presumably demons. They do not drink blood, but they do consume life force.

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

That old boss in Scholomance drinks blood and turns into a gargoyle, one of a kind.

If he was added today he would probably be related to the San’layn or the Blood-Thane.

@Thuzar-argent-dawn

Meanwhile vampires of real world myth share many defining traits making them an easily defined sub-group of undead.

Most of what you have mentioned is from popular culture, not mythology. The only thing they really share is the consumption of either flesh or blood. The Loogaroo of Vodu shares little in common with the Motetz Dam of Judaism beyond drinking blood / consuming life, but both are vampires.

I think you might be focusing a bit too much on vampires as they exist in common popular culture as opposed to the plethora of vastly different mythological creatures that all fall under the moniker of ‘vampire’.

[Obahar-argent-dawn]

@Alannyse-argent-dawn

They do consume anima,

For them specifically (for whatever reason) it’s even tinted red! How novel.

[Thuzar-argent-dawn (Thuzar)]

@Alannyse-argent-dawn

They do consume anima, which is sorta like blood?

Its souls, not sure why its red, maybe naughty sinful souls are just red?
or maybe it sells the gothic vampire vibe they have going on and they color it for giggles.

@Alannyse-argent-dawn

Dracula has been able to walk in sunlight since the original novel was released in 1897. Count Orlok in Nosferatu is the first vampire that cannot.

This is very interesting, and I did not know this, thank you for teaching me something new.

@Alannyse-argent-dawn

He is a vampyr connected to the San’layn somehow, so yes, he drinks blood.

The Blood-Thane features in one side quest which also features the first ever appearance of Finly the hearthstone character.
Finly in this quest makes remarks about staking the heart, which doesn’t work and questions if killing the thane was actually do-able or if he would return in some fashion.
The Thane is named dracul backwards, a reference i’ve been told
and is classed as humanoid not undead in the game (for some reason)
he consumes the life force to heal and drinks blood to damage and stun you. (note these are two different abilities)

I went back to read the quest text and it raises a question as to its placement in lore.

“Most Fascinating! It would appear that we’re dealing with our very own vrykul vampyr! All we have encountered have been of blood elven descent, but it has long been theorized that the vrykul have suffered the curse as well. It’s too bad he’s awake - I would dearly like a subject to study. Oh well, guess there’s nothing for it. Take this stake and put it through the old chap’s heart. I’m pretty sure that should do the trick.”

This was a tomb? located in Stormheim, its unknown how long it was closed off, but this either suggests, the san’layn shares a curse with the vrykul, or they turned him at an unknown time and he returned to the broken isles to be entombed at another unknown time.
Either case he isn’t actually dead, and while he does drink blood he also drains life force (you could argue its the same, but the warlock drain life spell ain’t sucking blood out of enemies, at least not visually)
Not to mention what turned his lackies were not bites per say but the mist that originates from his tomb.

The Thane breaks a lot of common vampire tropes by existing.

@Alannyse-argent-dawn

Dreadlords are something, presumably demons. They do not drink blood, but they do consume life force.

And rock that monster vampire aesthetic.
They are also described at least once as vampyr, psychic vampyrs to be exact, but still vampyr, and as mentioned, their design used to be the default vampire look in warcraft 3 and wow.

@Alannyse-argent-dawn

I think you might be focusing a bit too much on vampires as they exist in common popular culture as opposed to the plethora of vastly different mythological creatures that all fall under the moniker of ‘vampire’.

I apologize, I am no expect on vampires, and know less than you on this topic it seems and I made a poor use of my words.
My angle on this discussion has been taking from the point of the vampire as it exist in modern fiction, as you said, that being to the best of my understanding a hard defined undead creature that sleeps in coffins, hate sun, holy water etc. has connections to bats and drinks blood. I take this stand point because wow is filled with pop culture and so it would make sense if they interduce a vampire like foe it is likely in line with common (mis?)conception of vampires.

The venthyr is literarly walking vampire stereotypes, but if they are not vampires they are just really hardcore larping one.

And if san’layn are The vampires of wow, they are not unique as plenty of strange off-shoot creatures share their vampire aesthetic, some looking more vampiric than they do and plenty of creatures including a few of the playable classes also drain blood/life energy to heal themselves.

And I am not even gonna touch on Kirtonos the Herald whos lore suggest he feed blood to a gargoyle, but his in-game fight saw him transform into the gargoyle, weird vanilla lore he is.

Which brings me back to what I have been saying:
In wow, in-so-far as I have knowledge, this setting doesn’t have a single defined creature that is THE vampire of the setting but a large collective group of creatures that all consume life force, be it blood, souls or straight up life energy, they are all vampyr but non of them is THE vampyr.