vampire lore time (pt 1?) (Patreon)

a couple old drawings and a couple brand-new ones, which i am now noticing i drew in like the same pose as one of the old ones, lol. some things never change, and for me that's the hunched evil glare. fun to see how my art has changed though. anyway. vampire lore.

in vampwolf, vampirism is a disease. unlike werewolves which are effectively a strange species of their own, vampires are just humans with a permanent, life-altering illness. despite its ability to spread the way it does (bites) it is incredibly rare due to how people who contract it react and often get treated. its rarity also plays in to how society largely doesn't believe it's a real thing, which i used to think might be stupid before 2020, lol.

the disease itself eats away at something or other in your blood, and when there's none left/the body isn't producing enough to feed it, it starts changing you. headaches, body pain, irritability, aggression, etc. eventually your teeth fall out, and new fangs push their way into place. this whole process probably feels like your head is exploding for a few weeks to a few months while the teeth are growing and erupting. it's probably not rare for people to Just Die™ at this point because they can't handle the agony.

then come the cravings. a vampire's sense of taste is vastly deteriorated, and while you can eat normal food, it doesn't taste good and often makes you feel sick. your body is telling you to be consuming human blood, to bite people and spread the disease and not waste time and energy doing anything other than that. obviously there aren't very many ethical ways to acquire human blood, especially not in the quantities you'd need to stay fed. vampires can't feed on other vampires due to the disease not getting anything from other infected blood. so, what about animals?

animal blood is... weird. animals can't get vampirism, and so their blood tastes bad to deter vampires from feeding on them. it works, but only a little bit, and it's not good. it'd be like surviving on a diet of dog food and bong water, you could... probably do it... probably... but it's gonna feel terrible the entire time. meanwhile your body is whispering sweet nothings in your ear about how human blood will solve all your problems. it'll clear up your headaches, stop the body aches, it'll calm you down... but it'll also just keep you craving it forever. you're living with permanent withdrawal symptoms from an addiction you never had.

there are resources for people with vampirism to survive with it and live a "normal" life, but these require some hefty connections to get. most vampires don't have these connections, and also don't know these resources exist; it's difficult to find information on their condition that they can say is real and true given all the fiction and made up crap everywhere. ultimately, vampires that don't Just Die™ tend to live away from people and feed on animals, if anything. they generally live in fear of being discovered because usually, being found out means being killed.