Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Rechan" data-source="post: 4881559" data-attributes="member: 54846">Back in the old days, some folklore said sinners would become monsters. For instance, someone who committed suicide might return as a vampire. These monsters were a punishment, often to both the person who was the monster, and the community it plagued.In this world, What You Are is related to Who You Were. Monsters are what happens when People Go Bad. If not individuals, than communities. They are the results of curses, the anger of Gods, the meddling in Forces That Which Shall Not Be Meddled With, or those that have given into their bases. A society that practices cannibalism eventually becomes ghouls, for instance. Hedonists or the savagely violent become lycanthropes, because they wallow in their animal natures. Witches or hags are those that have hateful feelings towards others, that have jealousy and vengeance in their hearts.The reason that the monsters are the dominant forces? Because Humanity dropped into the Dark Ages of Morality. The humans that remain are really the only Good humans left.This would also instill a serious paranoia among humans that they can't make mistakes, have to police their own, and basically engage in a constant witch hunt for sinners, evil doers, etc etc. Humans also have mundane countermeasures vs. the monsters: the dead cannot cross lines of salt; the scent of wolfsbane repel werewolves; the fae cannot cross lines of cold iron, and only on Certain Days are they truly free to pursue mortals.Aside from Vampirism being a Curse (Thou Shalt be a parasite to Man, to drink his blood, to live in his Shadow) that just managed to catch on really well?Man has always been afraid of the dark. The dark holds the Unknown. It is that which lives at the edge of the light. It is the home of monsters since before there were light. And while Man shuns the dark... some embraced the darkness. They took it into themselves, and became one with it, so that they would not be afraid any more. But when you take the Dark into yourself, you can no longer bare the light; it burns you just as it burns the shadows away. And, as Man fears the darkness... the darkness feeds on man's fear. The blood of a terrified man is ambrosia to one who has embraced the Darkness; it is distilled Fear.On the topic of Fae, Raymond Feist's book (Fairy Tale) had two interesting notions. 1) The Fae's origin are angels who, during Satan's uprising, did not get involved; were too wicked to be allowed in Heaven, but not evil enough to be damned to hell, so instead fell to earth. 2) The fey have a pact. All faeries are contained in one general geographical area, but that area moves every six months. They cannot actively accost humans unless the pact that binds them (buried treasure at each location) remains buried (hence, theirs). If the pact is broken, all bets are off.</blockquote>

Verification