On Mar 20, 12:04=A0am, Mark Stephen <mstep...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> David DeLaney wrote:
> > Robert Carnegie <rja.carne...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> >> Now a big "problem" to reproduce vampires is to make the critters
> >> dependent on humans specifically, but do we have to do that? =A0Do
> >> classical vampire stories have cattle mutilations as well? =A0There's
> >> that crazy guy who eats flies, isn't there? =A0So I'm thinking, we do
> >> have for real "vampire bats"... they just don't dig wolf calls, and
> >> turn into mist, and all that.
>
> > Several different authors have had them able to live off cattle, horse
b=
lood,
> > small animals, etc.; some of them explain that the blood of 'lesser
anim=
als'
> > isn't as tasty, or as vivid, or doesn't pump them up as much, as human
b=
lood,
> > while others have it all be about the same.
>
> > Dave "blood pudding" DeLaney
>
> Nobody's (I think) mentioned the Discworld vampires.They prefer human
> blood, but can explicitly do without it, and the Black Ribboners do.
> They are really immortal, like the Hammer Horror Dracula. They can be
> reduced to dust, but sooner or later, some of that dust will come into
> contact with blood - it may take millennia - and the vampire will
> reconstitute, its personality intact.
>
> Weak vampire: Otto Chiek, the Black Ribbon vampire flash photographer.
> He can tolerate sunlight, but is invariably reduced to dust by his
> camera flash. He carries a small vial of blood which, usually, breaks
> when he disintegrates; failing that the sign he carries asks passers-by
> to break the vial. His passion is for light rather than blood, and he is
> possibly the least threatening vampire in fiction.
This is of course taken fairly directly from real-world 'temperance"
organisations, in the old days, campaigning against alcohol use and
alcoholism. And the "Salvation Army" (are they big in temperance?),
which is a Christian church with a lot of quasi-military set
dressing. All the way down to the modest young girl who plays the
piano at meetings while they sing about never drinking blood, etc.,
and who winks at Otto (von)(Chriek)sometimes... which gratifies him
considerably.
Otto is non-threatening by choice and by self-control, and it's
possible for him to fall off the waggon, in which event people around
him are in great danger. But, having had this plotline explored one
or more times, he's appeared more recently as a cheerful minor
character with a naturally ghoulish sense of humour, given some of the
situations that he's called on to take photographs of - I forget if
the police use him for evidence.
If his dust is mixed with other dust, he tends to reincor****ate (fully
re-clothed) with the characteristics of other materials, such as loose
carpet fibres.
Other Discworld vampires - well, one family discovered that their
conventional vulnerabilities were substantially psychological - e.g.
they expected to be repelled by religious symbols - and could be
overcome by will...
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