Did everyone get enough pie yesterday? I hope so. And if not, settle in with a slice, because I have a treat for you: An interview with Grant Black, president and CEO of Black Industries, billionaire, and vampire.
Black Friday
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Category Archives: Winters’ World
Bloodlines
Bloodline: All of the vampires descended, through Deliberate Transformation, from a specific Spontaneous Transformation.
“You’ve noticed that the vampires here all have slightly different abilities?”
I shook my head. “Except Mircalla. She can do some freaky shit.”
“Yes, well. Vampirism didn’t spring up from one isolated source. We all evolved slightly differently in different places, and there are different abilities and characteristics associated with each of these Lines.”
-Josephine and Grant – Black, Chapter 12
Catherine’s Vampires
I suppose, before I get too far into this project, that I should clarify something about the vampires I am discussing. I’ve already discussed Catherine’s writing process in a previous post. So given the way she writes I can’t definitively discuss all of her vampires unless she stops writing (and we don’t want that, do we?). So what I am talking about in these posts are the European-style vampires that appear in Black.
The vampires from China are mentioned once in Black, and (just as a nasty little tease), I know Josephine briefly interacts with a group of Asian vampires in Red (the as-yet-unpublished sequel to Black). This group has not been fleshed out yet, but Catherine has hinted that these vampires are not the same as the vampires I’m currently exploring. How different will they be, I don’t know. But if and when we get to them, I’m sure I’ll be comparing the two groups.
Deliberate Transformation
Deliberate Transformation: The process of a human becoming a vampire with the aid of a vampire.
The process of Deliberate Transformation varies by line and is never guaranteed to work. Some people just do not survive the conversion process. Hale and hardy or feeble and frail does not necessarily make the difference. It’s just one of those weird things that may have to do with how much the person wants to live, how pure their soul is, or how many Twinkies they ate.
Nescience
As promised in Spontaneous Transformations, this post will explore my theories about why vampires know so little about the process.
Spontaneous Transformations are very rare, and it seems that one has not happened in a very long time. The most recent being some 2000 years ago to my best knowledge, and as far as anyone knows, none of them are still alive. This leaves no direct source of information about the events surrounding their transformations. And of course, “out of sight, out of mind” probably applies here too.
Spontaneous Transformation
Spontaneous Transformation: The process of a human becoming a vampire without the aid of a vampire. Sometimes called Original Transformation.
Note: The more common Deliberate Transformation will be discussed in a later post.
Here’s the interesting part, these transformation terms are mine. Vampires don’t have names for these things, they apparently don’t think about them too hard. In fact, most vampires have never met an “original” vampire, or even know who was the first of any line. The only vampire still in existence known to have been transformed by an original is Augustus. And by “known”, I mean most vampires consider this information a myth. I’m not sure if Augustus even knows with certainty that he was sired by an original.
Webmaster Specials
As someone who played Advanced Dungeons & Dragons back in the day, I understand and appreciate the world creation processes that authors go through. Worlds can be little more than our own with a splash of fiction, to highly customized and alien places. They can be created on the fly as the story progresses, or heavily planned in advance. They can be filled with intricate details or painted with broad stokes. However they are created, exploring them can be interesting and fun.