Whizbang Dustyboots said:
Stoker's Dracula isn't the wuss that Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula is, but he has more layers than the bestial vampires that existed prior to the 19th century. It's probably open to debate as to whether manners and the ability to switch gentility on and off constitutes a veneer or a real indication of virtues hidden within the depths of his dead heart.
First off, I was combining two thoughts on the earlier vampire novels. "Carmilla" and "Varney the Vampire, or Feast of Blood", became "Carmilla, Feast of Blood" in my head, probably because "Varney" isn't terribly intimidating or imposing vampire name. (Hey Vern, .. bla BLAH!)
Here's a good link with the actual stories. I have not read these myself (Except for Dracula), so I don't know if they provide information that would contradict me or not
http://www.dagonbytes.com/thelibrary/vampire/
As for whether manners and gentility constitutes any level of virtue, I take Hamlet's GM-ing approach that "The devil hath power / To assume a pleasing shape" (act ii, Scene 2)
I'd like to thank Mouseferatu
Mouseferatu said:
There's no romantic angle to Dracula in the novel. None. The whole feeding and "seduction" thing isn't a love metaphor, it's a rape metaphor, cloaked beneath the veil of Victorian sensibilities.
Let me use this to compare. These are some of the several different ways to look at fiends, and each of these is perfectly viable for a campaign.
1. Fiends are races that were born on a given plane, and evil because that what the local culture is. To me, this makes them look too close to s/f aliens.
2. The evil of fiends is the continued evil of those mortal souls that became fiends; to some level they still have some free will to choose to do something good, or can somehow maintain some level of good from their life experiences.
3. Extraplanar creatures are completely and totally evil because they are the personification of (demi/)human(/iod) evil.
4. At some point, the fiends had the ability to make real moral decisions and freely chose to be the way they are. Their conversion is permanent because they had full knowledge of what good and evil truly are and truly mean, as opposed to the mortal races, and made a permanent decision. This allows for a "Fall of Lucifer" scenario. Mortals have more freedom because they don't understand the depths of what is going on, making the moral decision a more fundamental commitment to moral principles, and so making the active and continual decision to be good or evil more meaningful. As the astute reader will have guessed since this section is so long, this is the one I go with.
Free-willed undead (like vampires) as I said, are damned souls still in the mortal world, and are so beyond hope of redemption or any true act of good.
One step down are the Thaumaturges (as described by Green Ronin, most recently in The Book of Fiends), mortals who still have the ability and potential for good or evil who still actively and continuously embrace damnation. Now *that's* what I can a good BBEG.
Even evil mortals (although possibly not Thaumaturges) can still show some aspects of good, or love, or the positive virtues. I believe there is a quote in the Elder Edda that can be translated, "No man is so good that good's all he's got / No man is evil that he is worth nought", so I share my DMing world view with that ancient Norse DM as well as Shakespeare (not generally thought of as a DM because when people use "the Bard" it was the 1e bard, and not many people liked that one.)
You and Joss Whedon, actually. Unless ... Joss? Is that you?
naaaah ... but does this mean that there is something I should be seeking out and examining?
