CotN: Vampires

Guide to Vampires (Intro)

The fight against creatures of darkness is a difficult, and often painful one! But it is a good fight, and one that must be fought

I was not born to darkness. Beauty, music, nature - these things are sources of great comfort to me. They help me to forget as much as I can forget, was I am. Death doesn't end the hunger for these things, Strahd.

Our new patient, Ishmael, is a peculiar case, bound between the realms of fairy tale and nightmare. He is a seaman from Martha's Pride, out of Martira Bay. He claims his ship was attacked by a dragonheaded vessel described in children's tales. In gruesome detail, he pictures the ship crewed by leering officers with rotted flesh. The complexity of his delusions is both impressive and daunting, and I am not sure which fragment to tackle first.

The day I turned, the land wept for my beauty, as you weep now for your life, cur. Cry not for your insignificant future - you never had one without me. You face a far greater torment than death - the torment of never being able to worship me again. That is your punishment for disobeying me....Tear him to shreds.

And so it is written, each crime weaves a just punishment from the twisted fruits of its darkest labors. No criminal can escape this destiny. The gods stand not idle, when the heart of justice bleeds for vengeance. Punishment is ever the reflection of the crime

Garsoone knew it for a nightmare, but could not escape the sticky strands of fear any more than he could have cut through the nets his grandfather wove. There was something in the surf, some deadly thing, yet no one heard his please, no one saw his lips framing the words over and over: "Don't go in the water..."

I have learned that in fact I is the antithesis of beauty that is beautiful: There is poetry in taking the fair skin of a peasant las or merry boy and molding it into something…well, let's call it creative. Or, best of all, turning the energy and vigor of an inspired leader into a rotting cesspool of despair! That, my lord, is true essence of vampirism for my breed

The Dying is one of the finest operas to date by the esteemed Don Pablo. It tells the tragic story of two lovers torn apart by the jealousy of another. The scenes where the hero throws himself on his love's grave is particularly poignant - though I confess a bit morbit for my tastes!

Ah, the Knight of Cups is troubled, his easy life shattered by sudden oppression. The Tower implies that he can gain emancipation from his situation if he is willing to accept change. The Nine of Wands shows the way; defiance is the key to success.

Jack Bequick, Jack be clever, Jack be visible Forever. Shw your sad face in the glass, Still your laughter; let me pass. Jack be not shrill, Jack be slow. Don't bite me Jack; just let me go

Lady Heather Shadowbrooke

1 November, DR 195: Word today from a farmer that his field suddenly died. Lord Thornwood and the Order investigated and found the sacred shrine defiled. Crude scars deface the stones, blood marks the ground, and a deep hole mars the shrine's center. Father purjaar and his clerics will sanctify the place and fill the crater. Prayers will be said tonight at the Order's chaptel for vanished druids. Lord Thornwood suspects orc shamans and has ordered all patrols strengthened.

Whisper sounds behind you, gurgle underfood. No one ever finds you, no one dares to look. Alligator Lenny gags you with his stink, plucks your every penny, drowns you in the drink

Truly, certain crystals and gems are attuned to specific places… consider those references in Trimia's Catalogue of Outer Plane Artifacts…like the special blood-red coals which are said to lead one to the Nine Hells if properly used. I wonder, does that mean these fire opals lead to one place, or is it the location of use that determines the portal's destination?

Hala is the goddess of healing. What place is there for earthly love in such a calling? That kind of love is a cancer, corrupting the mind through the body. The only vow I have taken, or would wish to take, is to purify the world from disease.

CotN: Werebeasts

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit

The power of hiding ourselves from one another is mercifully given, for men are wild beasts, and would devour one another but for this protection.

The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in beasts, is a power behind the eye.

The Merchant of Venice

Ships are but boards, sailors are but men: there be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves.

New York World-Telegram

Tenors are noble, pure and heroic and get the soprano, if she has not tragically expired before the final curtain. But baritones are born villains in opera.

There is a passion for hunting something deeply implanted in the human breast

And oft, though wisdom wake, suspicion sleeps at wisdom's gate, and to simplicity resigns her charge, while goodness thinks no ill where no ill seems.

The Romance of the Common Place

As the cat lapses into savagery by night, and barbarously explores the dark, so primal and titanic is a woman with love-madness

Ventures in Common Sense

It is a matter of regret that many low, mean, suspicions turn out to be well founded.

Who will pity the snake charmer bitten by the snake, or any who go near wild beasts?

But man, proud man, like an angry ape, plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven as makes angels weep.

It can be said that all vile acts are done to satisfy hunger

All the soarings of my mind begin in my blood.

An Enemy of the People

The strongest man on earth is he who stands most alone.

God sends meat and the Devil sends cooks.

The Trumpet Taken Prisoner

He who incites strife is worse than he who takes part in it.

When is a ghost not a ghost?...Before it dies.

The Ghost Cat (Unfamiliar)

With my aversion to this cat, however, its partiality for myself seemd to increase…whenever I, it would crouch beneath my chair, or spring upon my knees, covering me with its loathsome caresses…neither by day nor by night knew I the blessing of rest any more!...I started, hourly, from dreams of unutterable fear, to find the hot breath of the thing upon my face, and its vast weight-incarnate nightmare that I had no power to shake off-incumbent eternally upon my heart!

Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?

And Wilt Thou Leave Me Thus

And wilt thou leave me thus, and have no more pity of one that loveth thee? Alas thy cruelty! And wilt though leave me thus? Say nay, say nay!

No exorciser harm thee! Nor no witchcraft charm thee! Ghost unlaid forbear thee! Nothing ill come near thee! Quiet consummation have; and renowned be thy grave!

Lord Alexander von Lupinoff

When the footpads quail at night-bird's wail, and black dogs bay at the moon. Then is the specter's holiday-then is the ghost's high noon!

Even when someone battles hard, there is an equal portion for one who lingers behind, and in the same honor are held both the coward and the brave man; the idle man and he who has done much meet death alike.

Do not open your heart to evil. Because if you do, evil will come…yes, surely evil will come…it will enter in and make its home within you, and after a little while it will no longer be possible to drive it out

Violence and injury enclose in their net all that do such things, and generally return upon him who began.

Our deams are second life. I have never been able to penetrate without a shudder those ivory or horned gates which separate us from the invisible world.

The Ghosts of Hospitality

I dropped some stones in a rocky pond one long, forbiden night. Ring on ring they splashed and danced, like oaths, like knightly vows. Now in death, my brother bides his vows, bride, treason, and right. A cry, brief tear. By spilled blood is love, then heart forsaken.

How all occasions do inform against me, and spur my dull revenge! What is a man, if his chief good and market of his time be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more. Sure he that made us with such large discourse, looking before and after, gave us not that capability and godlike reason to fust in us unus'd.

Sonnets from the Portuguese, no. 1.

Guess now who holds thee?-Death, I said. But there the silver answer rang-not death, but love.

CotN: The Created

Peter Quince at the Clavier

Beauty is momentary in the mind-the fitiful tracing of a portal; but in flesh it is immortal. The body dies, the body's beauty lives.

The Aggregate Golem

What a piece of work is a man!...in action how like an angel! In apprehension how like a god!

The Bridge of San Luis Rey

Even memory is not necessary for love. There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.

The Fall of the House of Usher

I had so worked upon my imagionation as really to believe that about the whole mansion and domain there hung an atmosphere…an atmosphere which had no affinity with the air of heaven…

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Oh, come with old Khayyam, and leave the wise to talk; one thing is certain, that life flies. One thing is certain, and the rest is lieves, the flower that once has blown forever dies.

Come dark presence watching my bed, the awful image of nameless dread.

The Ordeals of Change

The sense of inferiority inherent in the act of imitation breeds resentment. The impulse of the imitators is to overcome the model they imitate.

Progress, therefore, is not an accident, but a necessity.

In him inexplicably mix'd appear'd much to be lov'd and hated, sought, and fear'd.

Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage; then lend the eye a terrible aspect.

Oh, but he was a tightfisted hand at the grindstone…a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner!...secret, and self-contained and solitary as an oyster.

Prayer before Execution

In prison's oppression, in sorrow's obsession, I weary for thee. With sighing and crying bowed down as dying, I adore thee, I implore thee, set me free!

Min'Kins / Lian de Loranche Punchinel

And if thy ght eye offend thee, pluck if out and cast if from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of the members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off.

Six Characters in Search of an Author

You…must not count on your reality as you feal it today, since, like that of yesterday, it may prove to be an illusion for you tommorow.

Don Juan: Canto the 8th

Think how the joys of reading a Gazette are purchas'd by all gonies and crimes: or if these do not move you, don't forget such doom may be your own in aftertimes.

Do you not know that tonigt, when the clock strikes midnight, all the evil things of the world will have full sway? Do you know where you are going, and what you are going to?

What have I done, that thou shouldst scorn me thus? What have I said, that thou shouldst me reject? Have I been disobedient to thy words? Have I betrayed thy Arcane secrecy? Have I dishonoured thy marriage bed with filthy crimes, or with lascivious lusts?

Philp Van Artevelde (P1. Act 1. Sc 5.)

He that lacks time to mourn, lacks time to mend. Eternity mourns that. Tis an ill cure for life's worst ills, to have no time to feel them.

The Wolves and the Sheep

"Why should there always be this fear and slaughter between us?" said the Wovles to the Sheep. "Those evil-disposed Dogs have much to answer for. They aways bark whenever we approach you and attack us before we have done any harm. If you would only dismiss them from you heels, there might soon be treaties of peace and reconcilliation between us." The Sheep, poor silly creatures, were easily beguiled and dismissed the Dogs, whereupon the Wolves destoryed the unguarded flock at their own leisure.

But you-you know-ay, ten times more; the secrets of the dead, black terror on the country-side by word and whisper bred, the mangled stallion's scream at night, the tail-cropped heifer's low. Who set the whisper going first? You know, and well you know!

The wind blows eat, the wind blows west; what skills it to mourn or to talk? A journey I have, and far ere I rest; I must bundle my wallets and walk, walk, I must bundle my wallets and walk.

Alastor, or the Spirit of Solitude

I have made my beed in charnels and on coffins, where black death keeps record of the trophies won from thee, hoping to still these obstinate questionings of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost thy messager, to render up the tale of what we are.

Death, be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; for those whom thou think'st thou dost overthrow, die not, poor Death, no yet canst thou kill me. One short sleep past, we wake eternally, and death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die.

I saw how the fine form of man was degraded and wasted; I beheld the corruption of death succeed to the blooming cheek of life; I saw how the worm inherited the wonders of the eye and brain. I paused, examing and analysing all the minutia of causation…until from the midst of this darkness and a sudden light broke in upon me-a light so brillian and wondrous, yet so simple...

But vain the Sword and vain the Bow, they never can work War's overthrow. The Hermit's prayer and Widow's tear alone can free the world from fear.

No song of birds nor any drone of bees, nor light leaf lifted by the wholesome breeze: the air was stagnant all, and Silence was a living thing that breathed amoung the trees. Conspiring spirits whispered in the gloom, half-heard, the stilly secrets of the tomb.

When the Springtime came again, and the lovely flowers were in bloom, and the birds were singning their sweet songs; when the wind breathed softly through the pinetrees, and she was gone, the sunsets were in vain, and all nature seemed mourning. After this I busied myself with all kinds of occupation, but without success. Life became sadder and sadder, until finally in despair I took a foreign trip. I travled far and wide, but always with the same weavy despondency and gloom.

The Man in the Iron Mask

In the future we are now preparing, politics and intrigues may still appear; but the springs by which they work will be so carefully concealed that no one will be able to aught but flowers and paintings.

The Adventure of the Empty House

There are some trees, Watson, which grow to a certain height and then suddenly develop some unsightly eccentricity. You will see if often in humans. I have a theory that the individual represent in his development the whole procession of his ancestors, and that such a sudden turn to good or evil stands for some strong influence which came into the line of his pedigree. The person becomes, as it were, the epitome of the history of his family.

Below me, there, is the village, and look how quiet and small! And yet bubbles o'er like a city, with gossip, scandal, and spite; and Jack on his ale-house bench has as many lies as a Czar; and here on the landward side, by a red rock, glimmers the hall; and up in the high hall-garden I see her pass like a light; but sorrow sseize me if ever that light be my leading star!

Stopping by Wood on a Snowy Evening

The woods are lovely, darkand deep. But I have promised to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.

…if he who rules a principality cannot recognize evils until they are upon him, he is not truly wise.

When lovely woman stoops to folly, and finds too late that men betray, what charm can soothe her melancholy? What art can wash her guilt away?

Twist kings and tyrants there's this difference known: kings seek their subjects good; tyrants their own.

Justine, ou les Malheurs de la Vertu

Wolves which batten upon lambs, lambs consummed by wolves, the strong who immolate the weak, the weak victims of the strong: there you have nature…

The Eyes of the Panther

Nothing but those terrible eyes was visible, but in the dreadful tumult of her feelings as the situation disclosed itself to her understanding she somehow knew that the animal was standing on its hinder feet, supporting itself with its paws on the window-ledge. That signified a malign interest-not the mere gratification of an indolent curiosity. The consciousness of the attitude was an added horror, accentuating the menance of those awful eyes, in whose steadfast fire her strength and courage were alike consumed.

Confessions of a Justified Sinner

To the wicked, all things are wicked.

Men die nightly in their beds, wringing the hands of ghostly confessors, and looking them piteously in the eyes-die with despair of heart and convulsion of throat, on account of the hideousness of mysteries which will not suffer themselves to be revealed.

While some affect the sun, and some the shade. Some flee the city, some the hermitage; their aims as various, as the roads they take in journeying thro' life; - the task be mine, to paint the gloomy horrors of the tomb; th' appointed place of rendezvous, where all these travellers meet.

A wise prince will seek means by which his subjects will always an in every possible condition of things have need of his government, and then they will always be faithful to him.

The inferno of the living is not something that will be: if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together.

Death found strange beauty on that cherub brow, and dash'd it out. There was a tint of rose on cheek and lip;-he touch'd the veins with ice, and the rose faded. Forth form those blue eyes there spoke wishful tenderness, - a doubt whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence alone can wear. With ruthless haste he bound the silken fringes of the curtaining lids forever. There had been a murmuring sound with which the babe would claim its mother's ear, charming her even to tears. The spoiler set his seal of silence.

The bright sun was extinguished…morn came and went-and came, and brough no day, and men forgot their passions in the dread of this near desolation.

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall…man comes and tills the field and lies beneath, and after many a summer dies the swan. Me only curel immortality consumes…left me maim'd to dwell in presence of immortal youth.

Then down the night's dim luminous ways, meseems they come once more, those great star-watchers of old days. The lonely, calm-ones, whose still gaze, on old-time, orient shore, dreamed in the wheeling sons of light, the awful secrets of earth's night.

But first on Earth as vampyr sent, thy corpse shall from its tomb be rent, then shall ghastly haunt thy native place, and suck the blood of all thy race.

Background of Vamprism

A fiend we knew him to be, but we believed him to be a fiend of mortal aspect. Imagine our horror whe the first blow, wielded by our stout dwarvn companion with his razor-sharp axe, merely glanced off our foe's scalp with little effect, as though the weapon had struck a mountain boulder...

Creating New Vampires

I can still remember my first night in this form, the vampire said quietly, even though it was five centuries ago. It was a mixture of joy an horror as I contemplated both my escape from death and the nature of that escape. I still remember keenly the feel of the chill air on my face as I broke out of the earth into the moonlight, and the raging fire in the pit of my stomach that was my hunger...

I was highly impressed by our neighbor when he stopped by for his first visit. He was a very well-spoken chap, exceedingly polite, and almost over-formal for simple folk such as we. For example, when I responded to his knock at our front door, the gnetleman simply stood on the doorstep and conversed, even though I stood back and opened the door to allow him to enter. When I asked why he preferred to talk outside, he responded that his upbringing had indoctrinated him with the belief that one should never enter another's home unless one is specifically and formally invited. So charmed was I by his olden-style formality that I immediately bade him enter...

The small boat capsized, and all of us-my colleagues and the fiend-were cast into the torrent. This was our opportunity. As the rocks battered at us and the rapids threatened to drown us, we grabbed at the hissing, screaming monster and struggled to immerse it. Its strength was inhuman, and the wounds it inflicted on us were terrible. But we withstood it as the only certain way of destroying the hideous creature. We thought we had succeeded when the thing wailed as if in agony, and its body shifted in our grip-but the creature had become a bat. We grabbed for it, but it slipped from our grasp and flew away into the night sky. At that point, we knew that even if we survived the upcoming rapids, our troubles were only just begun...

Life-Blood: Vampiric Feeding Habits

The fiend had its arm casually draped around the shoulder of the unfortunate woman, who was looking into its face with an expression of what could only be called lustful desire. I screamed my frustration at the sky, but was unable to break the arcane bonds in which the fiend had bound me. It lowered its lips to touch the woman's alabaster throat, its eyes all the time fixed on mine and sparkling with inhuman enjoyment. The woman's eyes turned up in her head, and she moaned with pleasure. As the creature bestowed its kiss, I saw the woman's youthful beauty begin to fade. Her skin dried and streched over her the bone structure of her face, wrinkles deepened around her eyes, and her lustrous black hair began to grey. I closed my eyes in soul-sick horror.

The Sleep of the Dead

It was the closed of close-run things. We kew that, outside the old castle, the blood-red sun was less than a finger's span above the western horizon, and that we had but minutes to do what was necessary. The vampire's resting chamber was cunningly trapped, as we expected, but my nimble-fingered colleagues were able to disarm the devices without mishap. I held the stake and the mallet as we approached the ornately-carved ocffin that must have been the fiend's resting place. My companions threw back the lid...The coffin was empty! That was when the hissing laughter-from nowhere and everywhere around us-filled our ears. "Unfortunate," chided the harsh voice. "So close. But the day has ended, my friends, and now so do your lives."

I once interrogated a vampire as to how it fel to hiberate. The creature desribed the condition of "sleep but not sleep," where thoughts are sluggish as thick honey and take months or years to flow. Where dream images intertwine with tru memories. Where sounds and sometimes smells from the surface find their way into the sanctuary, but disturb the mind no more than a rose petal falling on a still pool of water. Time has meaning; hunger has no meaning. There is no future, there is no past. There is just the endless now.