On Vampires

The following notes were extracted from Garland's electronic journals.

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I have discovered an interesting anomaly in the life on Gaia's surface. There exist organisms whose souls seem to have 'reversed polarity', so to speak. They exhibit traits similar to the undead, such as being harmed by the life-giving energies of the world, and while it seems they can still ingest normal fare with little difficulty, they seem to get no nourishment and reduced sensation and pleasure from doing so. They seem to retain a limited amount of their intelligence as well, and have adapted predatory instincts to feast on the living. - the indigenous people of Gaia call them ghouls. Their hunger for human flesh is ravenous, though it seems to give them little sating. I will study them further.

They do not, in fact, seem to need to ingest flesh to continue to survive. Intriguing. The lack of feasting, however, does seem to provoke further and further chaotic behavior. Their sustenance seems to come directly from the Manafont, curiously enough. While most would simply dismiss the ghoul as another sort of monster, I believe them to be closer to altered humans. With some rudimentary research, I discovered that this state seemed to have originated when a disgruntled shaman put a curse on the local graveyard to twist the bodies and minds of any who devoured corpseflesh. These creatures may be useful to some degree... the more of Gaia's people that die, the easier the souls of Terra will cycle. But that sort of venture would require an outright war - and one does not make war with monsters, one exterminates monsters. I will begin testing to study and alter this curse of theirs with what magic I know to see if I might raise the intellect of these beings.

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The results did not... quite go as expected. An error, perhaps, caused by my inexperience with such low-level arts as curses. While I was able to change the nature of the curse to grant the ghoul the full use of their former intellect, that is not all that seemed to change in their physiology. Not only did they no longer seem to draw sustenance from the Crystal, the new organism does not seem to be able to walk in the light of Gaia's sun without bursting into flame. As distant stars seem to hold no effect, I had theorized that perhaps they absorb cosmic radiation to some degree, with an entity as close as the sun overloading them enough to combust, but realized that the light radiating from the two moons should produce a similar effect if true, since they produce their own light. It is more likely the 'rules' of this curse had changed, perhaps because the alteration came from this sunless world of Terra (confounded 'story magic' will never cease to cause me grief). In addition, instead of flesh, they now desired blood - and the curse could now be spread from victim to victim during collection, done by two snake-like fangs present in the mouth. Nothing seems to be injected into the victim to cause this, or removed apart from blood - it seems to work simply based upon desire.

These new creatures, which I have decided to call vampires, are much more suited to the task I had in mind, in any case. They think very much like people do. They are still predatory and aggressive, and it seems the transformation causes some degree of hedonistic desire in the subject as well - and given that absorbing blood is an experience that sates their hunger and stimulates the same areas of their brain that procreation, consumption of favorite foods or potent drugs, or even curling underneath a warm blanket in the middle of winter might, they are very likely to abandon any pacifistic thoughts and simply take the blood they desire, regardless of what kind of person they were in life. Their nature is to conquer and feed. Speaking of procreation - though they have no more biological need of this activity, it seems their bodies function in that regard in all areas apart from conception. In fact, the disconnect from other senses (tasing normal food, sensing warmth in the same manner as before) being somewhat dulled might end up causing them to seek such pleasures more often. What sort of creature have I created? The vampires they spawn also seem to be under their direct control, a tempting prospect for any of them seeking power.

In short: These aggressive pleasure-seekers will do whatever they can to feed and populate. Perfect. Should they propagate, they will cause a relatively politics-free side for any particular kingdom or empire to battle. One way or another, they will hasten the removal of Gaian souls from the circle of reincarnation. The question remains - how to manipulate them for optional bloodshed?

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A problem has occurred. An exceedingly narcissistic noble named Carmilla Karnstein Charmed a particularly aggressive vampire into siring her, then killing himself. She's then attempted to initiate diplomacy between the various states and existing vampire covens. Luckily this did not progress whatsoever due to the frenzied emotions that the Mist brings upon the mind. But I cannot grow complacent - she has immortality ahead of her, and she may well succeed eventually. Perhaps I can use her, however. I will increase the concentration of Mist on the continent for the next hundred years or so, and spread rumors and stories to assassinate her character.

...In retrospect perhaps this worked a bit too well. The resulting infighting completely tore apart civilization as it had existed for some time. At the very least, however, Carmilla is now vilified as the monster that I need her to be. Delightfully, she even played the role herself when she tore apart the mobs that descended on her with pitchfork and torches. However, I need Gaia's population to repopulate in order to continue cycling souls. They seem to be starting to rebuild their cities above the Mist... which I suppose I will allow for now. The vampires too, seem to have gone dormant for the moment. In the meantime, I think I will prepare a choice translation of certain information at Oeilvert in a dialect Carmilla should understand. It will likely not be difficult to get her to journey the world while waiting for it to forget her. She has already begun to change into a more ruthless leader, and I have no doubts that when the time comes I can manipulate her into starting a war whenever I like. I need simply keep a deep-seated loathing of her kind bred in the new empire forming under Alexander. Yes... perhaps even a religious movement of some kind.

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Further notes: If ever the vampire problem gets out of hand, consider researching a reversion of the curse. Perhaps the original cursed graveyard site would bear some significance. Not a priority at the moment, however. (Frustratingly, it seems Garland does not mention where the site actually is)