Vampire Rules and Regulations

[Countess Erzsébet Báthory]

Vampire Terms

Born/Made Vampires: Vampires can breed, just as humans can, and can also breed with humans. However, this is not the only way of creating new vampires. Vampires can also pass on their "condition" to humans by way of the Dark Gift (see below), creating what is known as a "Made Vampire". Vampires who are conceived and born are obviously "Born Vampires". Born vampires can grow and age to a certain extent, but made vampires will remain forever at the age at which they were turned.

Dark Gift/Trick: The process of turning a mortal into a vampire. The mortal must be drained of their human blood to the point of death, at which point the vampire must feed them his/her blood until the Dark Gift takes hold, and the human becomes a vampire. The Dark Gift will cure virtually any injury (save for decapitation) and/or disease, reverse ageing and will "freeze" the human at their current age. It lengthens the canine teeth, stops the heart from beating and makes the receiver appear more beautiful. In certain circumstances, it can also change the colour of the new vampire's eyes to red.

Entombment: An act of punishment. It involves chaining the condemned vampire into a coffin, and then sealed in a tomb or bricked into a wall (Countess Bathory was the first to suffer such a fate) to await oblivion, which can take centuries even without a supply of blood.

Kissing The Sunrise: A vampire slang term. It is an act of suicide/execution, and involves a vampire chaining oneself to something (so as to prevent escape), and awaiting the morning sun to burn him/her to death.

Little Drink: The process of feeding on a mortal, but taking only enough the slake the vampire's thirst, and not enough to kill.

Nosferatu: Just as wizardkind have the good, the bad and the worst, so too do vampires. Nosferatu are hideous, ghoulish vampires without souls or sentience. Their only desire is to feed, kill and reproduce. Nosferatu are capable of stunted speech, but are not considered to be capable of any reasoning or logical ability. Their language is considered to be poorly remembered from their time as a human. They are formed when a mortal does not receive enough vampire blood to fully transform him/her during the Dark Trick. Nosferatu are considered abominations and threats to vampire survival, and are illegal to make or harbour.

Torture Of A Thousand Vials: The vampire's immortal body is cut into pieces, and each piece is placed in a separate vial, and each vial is placed in a different spot. He or she is still alive, broadly speaking, but continually suffering.

Vampire Characteristics and Appearance

Vampires are just like humans in that their appearance is greatly varied, but there are some common characteristics that can help in identifying one. They invariably possess long, sharp fangs. These are not as long as the media likes to report, as this would make bite wounds miss the vein. They are longer than human eyeteeth, but not excessively so. Their fingernails look glassy, and are very sharp - more akin to claws than nails - and their ears always have a slight point.

Vampires tend to be pale and gaunt. Caucasian vampires tend to have a faint blue or lilac tinge to their pale skin. Asian and African vampires appear to possess a subtle golden hue to their skin, and may or may not be more pale than the living population. A vampire's eyes can be almost any colour, but "born" vampires often have golden coloured eyes. Made vampires can vary throughout all human shades, blue to brown and everything in between. Older vampires who have tasted more blood can develop red eyes. All vampires will find their eyes turn red when they are hunting, hungry or angry.

Drinking blood is necessary to a vampire's survival. Half vampires can eat human food, and may or may not find nourishment in it. Full vampires can rarely stomach human food, and require human blood in order to continue living. As blood is the only fluid they partake of, vampire tears and sweat can be either partly or completely composed of blood. Their blood possesses incredible healing powers, and can be used to treat human injuries in small doses.

Their skin becomes harder and paler with every century, until the oldest vampires look like statues of living marble. These older vampires tend to hide away from the general human population, knowing their appearance attracts strange looks.

As a species, they tend to congregate in packs or "covens" as they prefer to call their groups. Extremely long life can be lonely, after all, but they are not gregarious by any stretch of the imagination. Too many hunters in one area thins the population of prey, so vampires tend to avoid gathering more than five of their kind in one place for longer than a few days.

Vampire offspring grow as slowly as human children, needing seventeen to twenty years to fully reach maturity. Born vampires require blood to drink from birth, whereas half vampires may or may not need blood for nourishment depending on which side of the family he or she takes after. The need to drink blood can also develop later in life for half vampires, but this tendency is lessened in subsequent generations that breed with humans.

Vampire Powers/Abilities

Vampires have various strange powers, unrelated to wizarding abilities. They have longer lifespans than wizards, providing they avoid sunlight and fire, and possess ethereal beauty that is thought to be a way of luring in potential prey. One of their most notable magical abilities is a natural talent for Legilimency and Occlumency, more simply known to vampires as "reading" and "cloaking" thoughts. Almost all vampires can smell blood and fear easily, and will detect hearts beating. This plays a huge part in feeding.

They are highly skilled at blending in with shadows at night, and remaining unnoticed if they wish to. They can move with astounding speed and are prodigiously strong. More powerful vampires can use their voices to enchant and entice victims, rendering the unfortunate humans powerless in their grasp. Their hearing and sense of smell are heightened, due to their predatory nature. They can also be superb mimics, imitating voices and playing instruments with great ease.

One vampiric power that comes with age is that of self-transfiguration. Some vampires can become rats, or even green fog. Some can become humanoid bat-like creatures. One of the less common, but most famed in Muggle and Wizard literature, is the ability to become a cloud of bats. These forms of vampiric transfiguration can be prevented by wizards with simple charms that need to be re-cast once a day.

Vampires possess a magic all their own, but it is not controllable in the way wizard magic is. Their magic makes them beautiful, powerful and enduring, but it comes at a terrible cost - the need to drink human blood to survive.

Vampire Weaknesses

It is hotly debated as to whether or not vampires are actually immortal, as they can most certainly be killed, but their lives can continue almost indefinitely providing they feed and avoid sunlight. Vampires have some major (and not very publicised) weaknesses despite their amazing powers. Sunlight is one of the most obvious ones, and can leave vampire skin blistered and raw in the mildest cases, and as a lightly smoking pile of ash in severe cases. Half and quarter vampires can sometimes endure mild amounts of sunlight, but will burn easily. Fire will severely damage a vampire, and can completely destroy their bodies if it is sustained and powerful enough.

Blessed items are not a way to kill vampires, but will make them highly uncomfortable. An unblessed crucifix will have no effect on a vampire, whereas a blessed one will. Holy water will irritate the skin, but not burn it like sunlight. Holy books and places will make all vampires highly uneasy, and even hysterical with panic. Silver will burn their skin like acid, but the wounds will eventually heal.

Vampires can also be drawn "into death" with their victims. If a vampire continues to feed after the victim's heart has slowed to the point of death, they will be ill and may or may not recover.

Garlic tends to give them terrible indigestion, and stakes to the heart will not kill them despite extensive Muggle literature claiming the contrary. This is due to their hearts having stopped by the Dark Gift. (Vampire blood is believed to be pumped by a strange form of magic. It is an obscure branch of magic that is not well studied, but is known to vampires.) Decapitation can certainly slow them down, but burning is the only certain way to be rid of a vampire, although if a vampire escapes the fire/sunlight he or she can make a slow recovery by drinking copious amounts of blood until their cells regenerate.

Being deprived of blood will make a vampire increasingly thin and gaunt. He or she will feel weaker and will become more vulnerable to sunlight, fire, silver and holy items. He or she may or may not become more aggressive than usual. Vampires can survive centuries without blood, but will become shambling, undead horrors without it. Usually, a blood-deprived vampire will become catatonic, waiting until blood is scented nearby so they can feed. In other cases, the vampire's own instincts will take over, and he or she will enter a frenzy and feed until their existence is no longer in danger.

Half vampires are more prone to mental disturbances. This is believed to be due to their mortal and vampire heritages clashing to a certain extent. To vampires, humans are prey; to humans, vampires are predators. Having such a duality within oneself can be extremely difficult to reconcile, and while the vampire side of oneself can never be removed, (the Dark Gift is considered incurable) the human self can most certainly be destroyed. Some half vampires can master their internal dilemma and live happy, fulfilling lives; whereas some descend into madness that occasionally cannot be healed. Breeding with humans is discouraged for this reason.

The Pale Court

The Pale Court is to vampires what the Ministry of Magic/the Wizengamot is to wizards and witches. Founded in the days of ancient Rome, the Pale Court has sat for centuries as the only body to be able to regulate vampires to any real extent. The wizarding Ministries have tried to control vampires, but this control is merely a front in order to prevent hostilities with the wand carriers.

A new head is elected every half century, and is referred to simply as "Lamia". The most recent Lamia was Lord Fuilteach, but his term has come to its natural end, and the Pale Court is formally selecting a replacement. The Lamia is akin to the president of a democracy, being the one to sign and to solemnize official documents and laws, preside over legal and criminal disputes and represent the vampires in their dealings with other beings.

Shrouded in mystery, the Pale Court's proceedings are a closely guarded secret, due to vampires believing that their race, as predators of mortals, are superior to wizards regardless of their command of magic and use of wands. Those who are not of vampire blood are never permitted to know of the Pale Court's current location (rumoured to "float", i.e. change location for every meeting) and are not allowed to know the names of any members of the Court save for the Lamia.

The Pale Court passes laws for how vampires are to behave in their dealings with vampires, magical beings and Muggles. The few known laws are as follows:

• Secrecy is paramount. No matter how much Muggles suspect, they must never know of the true existence of vampires. Breaking this law, and revealing oneself to a non-magical being is punishable by Entombment, the Torture Of A Thousand Vials or Kissing the Sunrise, whichever is deemed more appropriate by the Pale Court.
  
  Use the Little Drink, willing donors, blood bank donations or animal feeding as much as possible.
  
  When a full kill is required, cover up the wound so as to prevent Muggles identifying the kill as vampiric. Full kills of magical beings are easily traced, and too many will result in the vampire responsible being handed over to the wizards for trial by Wizengamot. You have been warned.
  
  Creating Nosferatu is strictly forbidden, and any known Nosferatu are to be burned upon discovery or captured and brought to the Pale Court for extermination.
  
  Breeding with magical beings is permitted, but not encouraged. Half vampires are unpredictable at best, and may result in Tepes Syndrome. 
  
  Turning a Muggle or magical being into a vampire by means of the "Dark Gift" is strictly regulated, and only permitted by prior permission of the Pale Court, or by appeal in case of an emergency transformation. Should the transformation be deemed inadmissible, the newly made vampire will be exterminated by Kissing the Sunrise.
  
  We are vampires, a proud, noble and ancient race. Excessive violence and/or cruelty to living beings, or drawing too much attention to oneself by barbaric methods will be viewed with a certain extent of displeasure by the Pale Court. Remember you are a vampire, and not a common street thug.

[/ul]
The full list of laws is rumoured to be far more extensive, stating precedents and referencing cases that date back to Ancient Rome and beyond (and bizarrely enough to we mortals, is often still within the living memory of members of the Pale Court). No human has ever seen the full list of vampire laws and lived to tell the tale. Revealing any of these laws to mortals, whether Muggle or magical, can result in a full criminal trial by the Court.