Urban Fantasy: The Undead, Part 1

We continue our look at the basics of various monsters for some suitably generic Urban Fantasy in the loose vein of the World of Darkness (both of them...but less stupid, I'd hope!), Kult or even TV shows such as Supernatural.

The Undead - Walking Corpses

The creatures which are part of the rank of the Undead need no introduction and neither does the concept: it is a corpse which, through defiance of reality and biology still keep ticking, from a rotting corpse to a monstrous abomination to an animate skeleton. While Ghosts are obviously a type of Undead they are very different because they lack such a body. There are two major categories of the corporeal, run of the mill Undead: the mindless animates and the self-willed (or alien-spurred) Revenant.

The Animates

Artist unknown.

The lowest form of Undead aren't true undead: they are merely empty corpses inhabited not by a a specific human (or inhuman) will but rather the arcane energies of something else: a necromancer, some cursed artifact or some form of Spirit puppeteering it from a distance through unusual means. By default, in my setting, the Romero-styled zombies are exceedingly rare as are animate skeletons. They aren't created unless some greater power wish for a dumb, perfectly obedient minion. These creatures don't spread like an infection: while they might carry diseases, being corpses and all that they do not spread a disease which create more of their kind. These creatures are generally not much of a threat unless they swarm their enemies. They are basic 1-2 HD generic monsters with no particular special power or mechanic.

The Revenants

This is the wide category of True Undead. Their origin, powers, motivations and weakness can vary immensely: some are by-products of mad science not realizing it is tapping into forces beyond conventional reality while others are born of curses. Others still are what happen when a human which would form a ghost end up with a strong enough link to its body to animate it. When this occurs, the energies which would create a Ghost merge with the body and become one being, infusing the deceased body with a form of permanency no corpse should ever have. Dead flesh somehow still work enough to allow the creature to move around often in utter defiance of its damaged state. Some can and will rot away into a skeleton (and not feel any bit weakened) while others are able to stave off entropy just enough to function but never quite to regenerate to full living function. Undead are an anomaly, death which live.

The rank of these creatures include but aren't limited to:

• The Hopping Vampire of Chinese folklore, called a Jianshi (or any alternate spelling). While its body is stiff to the point of having limited articulation, the hopping vampire make up for it with unusual abilities. These creatures feed on the life force of others.
• The Moroii begin life as cursed, vampiric humanoids with a few oddball abilities and a very good chance of being extremely tragic, cursed with inhuman hunger they despise or fully embracing their nature and being cackling villains. When they die their corpse reanimate as a full-fledge undead which hunger for warm flesh and blood.
• The Vampyr (not to be confused with True Vampires) is just one name and possible spelling for various creatures of European folklore, including alternate names and spelling such as Vrykolakas, Vyrolak, Tympanios, Ubour, Upior, Upir and Upyr. It is a disease-infested monstrous corpse.
• The Vetala is the ancient name given to a creature which exist beyond Indian folklore. It is the result of an impure Spirit animating a corpse and bonding with it, creating a permanent vessel for it as a Revenant. While it retain memories of its host body it is not that person but rather an evil, alien will.
• The ‘unhallowed dead’ or Wight are thought to be born of incorrect burial practice. However, in theory, they can rise from any form of dead which has a severe displeasure with its death and events following it. Wight eventually become angry and spiteful at the living.

Of course, these are but snippets of the entire menagerie of critters and their names taken from folklore. There are many more, such as Draugr and Pishtaco not to mention truly unique Revenants with abilities never seen before or after. There's also the ever infamous mummies of ancient Egypt but it would be wrong to assume every mummy is secretly sleeping undead. And even then, not every undead mummy is a Revenant.

(True) Vampires

So you've seen the walking corpse, bloated with freshly drank blood. You've seen the shriveled and stiffened monstrosity that sucks the life force of anyone it hops to. Truly you've seen the complete gamut of the Undead and conclused that either there is no such thing as capital-V Vampires or you've concluded they are simply a pop culture misunderstanding of rotting corpses that consume human life to sustain themselves. Case closed, right?

....Right?

In the immortal words of Lex Luthor: "WROOOONG!"

So why make Vampires their own thing if the (slightly more) mythologically accurate rotting corpse that feed upon living beings exist. The answer to that is both simple and extremely complex. While I’ve kept a lot of the stuff in here relatively setting-neutral there are elements in there which have grown purely from the setting Lore of my own game. For one thing, it was the earlier (and often discarded nowadays, but still canon) adoption of certain trappings from Anime and Manga. Japanese media have made Vampires a much bigger deal and way cooler than Western medias which have increasingly portrayed them as moody sparkling goth teenagers. Which brings me to the second point. Vampire: The Masquerade pretty much set the benchmark for the modern vampire, especially around tabletop. However, personally I hated these Vampires and their extensive cliques and networks of moody goth-punk edgelords with their nightclubs. What I wanted was a mixture of the zany insanity of the Vampires of the likes of the Hellsing manga mixed with the character which defined Vampires as we knew them: Dracula. Thus the resulting Vampire is a much more powerful being, with immense powers and surprisingly lacking the crippling sunlight weakness we associate. It's just my personal taste but I’m not a fan of ‘Sunlight=Instant Destruction’.

True Vampires are a form of Undead seemingly and confusingly unrelated to the lesser vampiric beings found around the world. Their lineage and history goes back to the primordial, murky depths of the universe. They are few in numbers, although they may have many varied minions (human, monsters and even lesser vampiric beings): each of them a powerful and dangerous creature. They were human, once, but their twisted existence has warped them physically and mentally through the ages.

They are stronger, faster and tougher than any human. They can see perfectly in pitch black darkness and smell the blood in your veins. They heal faster and cannot age. The life force they steal from others is slowly digested or burned to fuel their dark and eldritch blood manipulation powers. Are they invincible, however? Not even close. While sunlight does not kill them it weakens them: their superhuman strength and speed are sapped by sunlight and they find it difficult to heal when exposed to it. Over time they just grow tired of the warm touch of sunlight and how its burning sensation reminds them of their once-mortal selves. Fire will destroy them as it does anything else. Silver and iron, as well as other materials or tricks which repel supernatural and/or impure spirits can temporarily weaken them.

It is fortunate that their ancient minds become so utterly bored with reality because otherwise they might have taken over the world long ago, possibly covertly. Only the younger specimen, those old enough to have developed the full set of baseline abilities but young enough to still remember what its like to be human have an interest in keeping up the facade. These creatures do stalk dark alleys and haunt nightclubs but this is a temporary phase. And, even then, the nightclub part is a exaggeration: each has their own personality and very few really give a crap about goth or punk scenes. Some of them choose to stalk the wilderness and countryside, abandoning the trappings of civilization entirely.

Ancient Vampire by
Antonio Manzanedo

Can they take bat forms? Absolutely, but that is simply because they can shapeshift in any kind of the 'creatures of the night'; owls, insects and wolves were far more common forms before modern human pop culture put the bat under their radar. Very few vampires resemble bats in their true form, safe perhaps for a few rare strains and bloodlines which inhabited Mesoamerica and had ties to the deity Camazotz.

Their true forms reflect their inner nature: that of being a walking, parastic corpse and a monstrous predator of the night. None of them are beautiful in their true form (but shapeshifting and glamour can certainly help with sex appeal). Their flesh can appear intact (or even seemingly alive, even if not) or they can be almost ragged skeletons. Their faces are twisted and feral, with rows of teeth and a mish mash of animalistic features, but real and imaginary. Each is a unique but unmistakable nightmare, one which most vampires embrace. Their inner and outer selves are one and the same. Their dead flesh and spirit amalgamated into a self-sustaining unliving nightmare and plague upon mankind.