Bats, Wolves, and Termites

For a while now, I've been thinking about vampires, zombies, and werewolves. Specifically, what's my take on them? There's a lot of popular examples (most boil down to Bella Lugosi's Dracula versus Kate Beckinsdale in Underworld), but I wanted something to be my own.

Ironically, it was my psychology teacher who highlighted the literary basis. It was in a lesson on Freud's basis of humanity: sex and aggression. Vampires are sex, werewolves are aggression.

The vampire is a mysterious, beautiful thing. Pale skin, opulence, dresses sharply (all Cullens are required to leave the building). It's captivating, sexy, and dangerous. And, at the end, what does it do? Screws you and drinks your blood.

The counterpoint is the classical werewolf. Giant, hairy things with large teeth and an appetite for destruction. Not to mention- they don't have a say when they come out. There is no nuance, or poise in what they do- just blood, savagery, and howling at the moon.

For whatever reason, both of them are incredibly hostile to each other. I, personally, think it makes sense for both of them to team up against the humans, but c'mon... vampires fighting werewolves. It's much cooler that way. (It's also more symbolic- the urge to love against the urge to hate).

I find it ironic, considering how much they have in common. Both are creatures of the night (the sun literally kills one), both are classically solitary, and both transmit their "affliction" by biting.

That sounds very familiar. It sounds like... zombies!

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It's no secret I've got a bit of a thing for well-written zombies. Read World War Z sometime (but dear God, not the movie). And, zombies also fit this pattern, if not with a few caveats.

Zombies are hungry. That's their defining nature. Vampires are sexy, werewolves are aggressive, and zombies are just... hungry. They lack the intelligence and creativity to be anything else.

The biggest point for me was- the teeth. True to nature, they transfer their form to an innocent human by biting them. This conflicts with the urge to consume the victim's organs and flesh, but more on that later.

For this reason, I've decided the zombie "spirit animal" is termites. They're a parasitic organism, one that likes to work in groups. One- a single one- can latch onto something wooden (representing human), and eat the entire piece. A city of humans becomes a city of not-so-humans.

I also wanted to integrate zombies into a triangle, consisting of vampires, werewolves (aka lycans), and other flesh-eaters.

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My first idea is that a zombie is the cross between a vampire and a werewolf. Not proud enough to be territorial, and not pretty enough to be sexy. All it knows is violence. It is the deformed child of both, only carrying their worst traits. This gives vampires an easy out to flick their noses at it, and a lycanthrope mother may have thoughts about carrying a bastard child who can't howl at the moon effectively.

This concept had merits- and I think I'll keep it- but I wanted something a bit more visceral and dangerous.

The deciding factor, I think, is that vampires are always vampires. In almost every mythology, werewolves can become human again. Blood-suckers, on the other hand, can't. They always have teeth. The sun always burns them. The only thing they can "change" into is a bat, and that's... sketchy.

Prototype 2: Zombies are inbred vampires. This one makes sense. Its physiology is distorted, the normally high intelligence is beyond miserable, and any coven would rather go tanning than keep it around. This is also a good plot device to keep George R. R. Martin away.

Pardon the pun, but I needed something with a bit more... bite. #tooeasy

Prototype 3: Zombies are half-humans. If a vampire does the dirty with a human... it ends horribly. This brings tremendous consequence to interspecies sex, and brings a sacred nature to vampire bloodlines- one which I fully intend to keep, in all incarnations. This also makes zombies less than vampires, by nature; only slightly better than humans, they would still be considered lower-class, and barely privileged above dairy cattle humans.

I think I really like options 2 and 3. Vampires, in my humble opinion, have it too easy. They're rich, they're stuck being sexy, they can recover from severe wounds by drinking blood, and they get all the cool toys.

Young man, you need to earn all this.

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Things that go "chomp" in the dark are important to me. The Trifecta all have very different storytelling elements, and I want to make something unique and fun to play out of all of them.

Zombies are the first one I've gotten so far. I'll write more about them in detail later. For now, I'm catching up on monster movies so I can fully flesh out the other two.

Revised V1 test

There's going to be some more upheaval in the first EE test.

For one, there needs to be more gameplay. The lockpicking is looking pretty fine so far, but that sounds REALLY dull as a solo mechanic, fancy-schmancy storytelling aside. So, I'm at a bit of a loss at what to add. I've considered combat, as well as stealth and basic crafting.

For now, I need to settle on a setting. The idea of a dreamscape is pretty appealing, but vague. Entirely vague.

Fortunately, I've just watched a documentary about the state of nuclear power in America. And, to be honest, a crawl through a nuclear power generator sounds pretty damn appealing. There's lots of locks (to be picked, or exploded), it's a generally eerie atmosphere, and it's easy to shoehorn dangerous scenarios into it.

For the time being, the plot can go screw itself. This is a game test. If a story comes along, great! Otherwise, I'll just be up-front with the players. The atmosphere lends itself to a story... but what story? The singular, outspoken scientist who finds a tritium leak? An adrenaline-soaked rush to de-couple the reactor rods before it explodes (due to an error, of course)? Or; a steamy romance between two water pipe inspectors? No idea, but a combo seems best. I'll sleep on this one, and try to crunch out more mechanics. 'Til later, keep it weird.

Onward. Upward?

Wow, that day went quickly.

My life is taking on some interesting shapes right now... but that's not going to keep me from updating. This blog is one of the few things I really enjoy doing, so I plan to write something every week or so. Probably Mondays, and possibly Thursdays. I'll figure out a schedule. Until then, just "once a week."

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On the gaming front, I'm putting Project Malaria down. The EE demands some work, and I've gotten intrigued by lockpicking. It seems a simple enough mechanic, and I need to do some research into it. The tumbler is the encounter, individual pins are the enemies. Easy, right?

I hope so, at least.