A vampire is a human infected with one of five strains of a mutagenic retrovirus named Hematic anthropophagia. Due to a psychosomatic imperative, vampires feed on the blood of uninfected humans. Vampires are also known for their enhanced physical capabilities, longevity, and adverse reaction to sunlight.
Pathology
The virus for vampirism, Hematic anthropophagia, is not related to any known genus of virus or viroid. Due to its unique structure and protein-base, it is believed that Hematic anthropophagia is of extraterrestrial origin - brought to Earth by either a comet or meteor.
It is a very old and well evolved symbiotic retrovirus which benefits its host in many ways rather than killing it. Newer virus like the Ebola virus show their lack of adaptation in the fact that they destroy their hosts thereby running the risk of destroying themselves. A successful virus seeks symbiosis with it's host, not destruction.
The complexity of the virus is staggering. Hematic anthropophagia in many ways resembles a very primitive virus called a prion. Most viruses cause disease by infiltrating the host's systems then attacking specific cells and replacing the DNA of the cell with a copy of their own thus creating more viruses which then attack more cells and so on. The body of the host then recognizes these infected cells as foreign matter and the immune system works to eradicate them. Hematic anthropophagia works in much the same way except that the virus attacks nearly all of the hosts systems and works to adapt rather than change the DNA within the cells, adding extra 'mini-chromosomes' called plasmids to the human DNA rather than replacing it completely. This means that the host's immune system is partly fooled into believing that the adapted cells are still normal and are less aggressive in their removal of them, giving the virus more time to spread through out the body's systems.
Though technically a retrovirus, the degree to which it rewrites its host's genetic code puts it in a league all its own. Most viruses are highly specific in what type of tissue they target. Hematic anthropophagia, however, is capable of infecting virtually every cell in the human body.
Biology
The transition from human to vampire takes place over a period of 24 to 48 hours during which an individual undergoes neurophysical, anatomical and genetic and even mental transformations.
Along with the vastly increased lifespan, genetic changes also endow vampires with another profound capability, that of cellular de-differentiation. In layman's terms, their stem cells are capable of accessing the genetic blueprint to a greater extent than normal human adult stem cells so as to regress to the earlier stem cell stage, and then regrow into various types of cells needed to perfectly recreate missing tissue. As a result cuts, burns and abrasions heal spontaneously without scars, severed limbs can be reattached, etc. In fact their bodies spontaneously heal almost any injury that does not dismember or disintegrate them (i.e., a chainsaw or a consuming fire).
All vampires enjoy a more efficient metabolism than normal humans. Because of this, their bodies are able to perform more efficiently than normal humans. The abnormal strength and stamina that vampire display is a result of a higher production level of the contractile proteins of muscles, actin and myosin. The fact that their muscles heal at an accelerated rate and therefore are able to operate more strenuously also adds to a vampire's physical strength. Due to the greater pain threshold, considerable strength, enhanced immune system and extraordinary regenerative capabilities, vampires are exceptionally difficult to kill. Vampires are the very model of good health. They have low cholesterol and blood pressure and no heart disease. Because of the perfect cellular replication and no added damage to DNA, vampire cells are incapable of becoming cancerous.
The genetic transformation process also causes the gonads of vampires to be rendered nonfunctional. As a result, vampires are universally sterile.
The introduction of the Hematic anthropophagia virus in to the host makeup produces a number of other effects in the brain. Blood flow to various areas of the brain is increased and the production of certain neurotransmitters is stimulated. The areas most affected are the amygdala and the visual cortex. There is also personality changes because of the specific neurochemical changes that each strain of Hematic anthropophagia causes. The changes to the visual cortex cause vision to become more acute. Processing of images proceeds faster. Nightvision is enhanced within certain parameters. The eyes themselves undergo no change, but a large part of human low light sight deficiency is due to the time it takes the brain to process darkened images. The information collected by the eyes is unchanged, but it is processed better.
The size of the corpus callosum is increased, which enables high-speed broadband communication between hemispheres. Their motor neuron nerve axons become almost twice as thick, which gives vampires faster signal transmission and faster reflexes than humans. Vampires also have enhanced intelligence because of an increased the potency of neurotransmitters involved in memory and cognition. Neurotransmitter potency is also responsible for enhanced senses of hearing and smell in vampires.
A bizarre side effect of Hematic anthropophagia's modifications to the brain and sensory system causes vampires to be attracted the odor of the blood from their own species, i.e. human blood. This in turn, gives them an instinctive hunger for the blood of humans. Although the root of this hunger is purely psychological, due to an increased connection between the amygdala (the emotional center of the brain) and the autonomic nervous system, the psychosomatic effects of not fulfilling the blood hunger will be excruciately painful and eventually lethal. By chance, Hematic anthropophagia causes metabolic functions to be altered and enhanced to such an astonishing degree that vampires require far less nutrients than uninfected humans. As a result, even the minimal amount of iron, carbohydrates, fats, glucose, amino acids/proteins, and vitamins contained within human blood is actually enough to adequately meet the nutritional needs of a vampire. So a vampire can even survive solely on a diet of human blood. Because of alterations to the digestive system caused by Hematic anthropophagia, a vampire will become incapable of properly digesting solid food after a few weeks on a blood diet. The alterations to the digestive system also includes anticoagulants that happen to stop blood from curdling in the stomach, thereby preventing any emetic effects of ingesting blood.
One of the Hematic anthropophagia virus's most dramatic effects is on the biochemical makeup of a vampire. Certain new enzymes are produced that protect DNA from damage, however these enzymes possess chemical properties that are extremely unfortunate for vampires. A cumulative amount of ultraviolet radiation exposure causes a chemical reaction within the enzymes that has a deleterious effect on musculature and central nervous system. As a result, when in direct exposure to sunlight for more than a few minutes, a vampire will become progressively weaker. While a several minutes of exposure does not significantly weaken a vampire, a few hours of continuous exposure will eventually render a vampire paralyzed. Which will lead to death by asphyxiation.
Another profound effect of the Hematic anthropophagia plasmids is to switch on the gene which controls the production of telomerase (an enzyme that prevents chromosome degeneration) and to boost its effectiveness with a version of its own in the packet of genetic material that fuses with the host's chromosomes. Genetic alterations also result in a biochemistry that completely protects the cells from ionization damage to molecules and DNA caused mainly by natural oxidation, primarily free radicals. The changes also effect the genes responsible for the metabolic processes involved in aging, by completely suppressing their function. So as a vampire lives, cell division can continue almost indefinitely allowing cell damage to be repaired effectively leading to the cessation of aging at the point of infection.
Strains/Tribes
Vampires are divided into five distinct tribes, which are based on the five strains of Hematic anthropophagia. The specific differences in the strains are the specific pheromonal signals they cause a vampire to emit and the specific neurochemical balances they induce, which cause specific personality types for each strain. The Nosferatu Strain causes physical differences as well.
In every region, each tribe is lead by a Consul. The Consuls meet to advise the Prefect, to consult, and to present grievances. They often have their own agendas and seek to promote their own tribes.
The Sauria are outspoken, turbulent, and defiant, and in human terms, often criminal. The least civilized of the tribes, they are also the most recent to come into being. Sauria are perhaps most descriptively thought of as mobsters. Many refuse to abide by both human and vampire laws, and they are the most likely of all the tribes to be led by ambition and greed for money and power. They see what they want and take it by force. The Sauria are the seedy underbelly of vampire society. They are the Mafia of the vampire world.
The Venators are individualists who sneer at the contraints of society. They are ferocious fighters, proud, hot-headed, and street smart. They tend to drift city to city much more than the other tribes. An ancient hatred between the Venators and the Sauria keep the rivalries churning up dissent. The Venators are loyal and trustworthy. They make excellent bodyguards because of their incorruptibility -- they can't be bought. Unfortunately they have deep difficulties with authority. They have a strong tendency toward rebellion, and struggle to follow even their own leaders.
The Umbra tend to live below ground. They collect knowledge as well as secrets that can add to their power. They embody the features that humans imagine as vampire. The Umbra are the most subtle and cunning of the tribes. While other vampires retain their human countenance, Umbra are distorted by the Change. Grotesque, they are often scorned by other vampires, and certainly unable to move freely among humans. Often derisively called "Sewer Rats," they have mastered skulking and eavesdropping. They can blend into shadows. Yet, they are level-headed and practical. Since they appear the least human, and have to remove themselves from human society to protect themselves, they are the best advisers to the Prefect, being objective and dispassionate in their political judgements. They are also natural enforcers, able to remove emotions from their decision-making. The Umbra are neutral in many vampire conflicts.
The Lumen are elegant, flamboyant, creative, and most of all -- passionate. They savor their immortaility, yet are most connected to the mortal world. They use their vampiric powers to increase art and protect artistic geniuses. They are closely connected to the realms where creativity comes from -- as well as other, darker impulses. For these reasons they are subject to madness. Vincent Van Gogh, for instance, was Changed by a Lumen tribe member when he decided he couldn't live among human beings anymore. Of all vampires, they are the most likely to fall in love with humans. Lumen vampires have worked themselves into positions of influence in the world of popular culture. In the past, they have also used their creative bent and influence to promulgate a false mythology of vampires -- the same mythology we know from the Bram Stoker novel, for example -- so that actual vampires will appear normal and human when compared to the fictional.
The Argentum are the rich, powerful and elite of vampire society and they share a love of high society with the Lumen, not for its pleasures, however, but for the sheer challenge of running things. They are industrialists, leaders, aristocrats. They have a Blue-Blood bearing and are often found in positions of power, where they can shape destiny. They are educated and trained by elite human institutions, which is why the Argentum are the most human in their attitudes and behavior. In fact, they are the "Brahmin" caste of vampire society. They strive to keep control over the Vampire Nation. It is for these and other reasons that Prefects tend to be Argentum.
Umbra Strain
The strain of Hematic anthropophagia that causes transformation into Umbra has two differences to the others. It has a less effective camouflage against the immune system and is itself a more aggressive strain. This means that all through the transition period from human to vampire, the individual's body is ravaged by the war between the virus and the immune system. As a result, those who become an Umbra vampire are scarred by the ordeal their anatomy has gone through.
The Umbra have a bald head which is usually criss-crossed by a network of livid veins and there is a subtle extension of the brow ridges. They also have no eyebrows. Their ears have a pronounced point and the hands too show the signs of the Umbra with sharply pointed and discolored nails.
Pheromones
All vampires emit pheromones that are specific for each strain of Hematic anthropophagia. Because vampires have an enhanced sense of smell, they detect these pheromonal signals instantly and therefore will know a vampire's tribe instantly. The pheromones cause certain reactions within the brains of vampires. Contact with the pheromones from someone of the same strain will cause a vampire to feel an instinctive sense of comraderie with that other vampire.
Due to a biochemical quirk, the pheromones of the Venator strain causes a negative reaction within members of the Sauria tribe and the pheromones of the Sauria strain causes a negative reaction within members of the Venator tribe. The quirk causes the pheromones to simultaneously stimulate the region of the brain involved in aggression response and recognition of people, thereby making Venators and Sauria feel an inherent hostility to each other. As a result of this, an ancient enmity simmers at all times between the two tribes. Because Venators and Sauria can detect each other instantly, they will automatically dislike each other upon meeting.
The Commandment
For countless centuries, vampires prospered and pursued their own schemes and desires. They were invincible, standing above humans in their understanding and awareness of the true nature of the world. They lived openly and arrogantly among mortals, relying on their power and human superstition to preserve them. Then came the Inquisition.
With the Inquisition, vampires faced an enemy that studied both superstitious belief and scientific observation to identify vampires, the demons of the dark. With maddening thoroughness, the Inquisition devised methods to rid the world of these creatures, along with witches, warlocks, heretics, the feeble, and the politically inconvenient. As for vampires, the Inquisitors were diligent in their efforts to trace bloodlines and purge the creatures by the flame. Those vampires who survived swiftly learned secrecy and stealth. They learned to band together in loose networks. Vulnerable for the first time, the five tribes united. They called themselves the Vampire Nation, and this collective group existed first and foremost to enforce its first law, a law most sacred -- The Commandment.
This law demands that the knowledge of vampires be kept from humans. To make the law effective, vampires set about to erase evidence of their kind, instilling doubt that they had ever existed, finally leaving behind only a myth of such creatures. It was safe to hide behind the myth. Through adherence to this law, vampires were able to hide in plain sight within human society.
The Commandment ensures the continuance of vampires through secrecy, and any vampire who breaks the Commandment, who reveals the existence of vampires -- that vampire is outcast, even hunted down.
Prefect
The Prefect is the vampire who has the power to hold domain over a city, set its laws, enforce them, and maintain peace. He or she is the judge who settles disputes among vampire; he or she grants permission for another vampire to Change a human. A Prefect also influences human matters and uses this influence to guarantee that the Prefect position is not lost. But most of all, the Prefect is concerned with the Commandment and preservation of vampire law.
The Change
In human myth, the dead who succumb to the treacherous bite of a vampire rise from the grave to become yet another predatory creature of the night. On the contrary, the act of transforming a human into a vampire requires conscious effort. In order for a victim to become a vampire, their immune response would first have to be severely weakened and then they would have to be exposed to a large dose of Hematic anthropophagia through injection or consumption of the vampire's fluids (usually blood). During the Change, a vampire drains a person's blood to the point when the immune response is lethally depleted and then replaces it with a small amount of vampire blood. After being embraced, the new vampire will take on the characteristics -- psychological and physical in the case of the Umbra -- of the tribe that Changed them.
Before a human can be embraced, the vampire who wishes to "initiate" that human must get permission from the Prefect. Changing a human without permission -- which endangers the Commandment and can be very cruel to the human -- is a serious offense, the Prefect has the right to destroy both the errant vampire and the erstwhile human.
The reasons a vampire Changes someone vary. Some do so out of spite or vengeance, forcibly Changing the human, stealing the mortal innocence. Some Change out of love or desire, even lust. And others seek reprieve from their loneliness, wanting to share their long existence with a creature dark and beautiful, like themselves.
Society
There are vampires in every walk of life. Vampire pass legally as human with the help of fellow vampires working inside various agencies responsible for the creation and authentication of documents -- birth, death and marriage records, etc. However, even these ties sometimes don't suffice -- for instance, when a vampire has lived too long in a community for his lack of aging to escape notice. In these cases vampires may migrate to new cities to establish new identities. Vampires don't recognize human boundaries of state, religion, or culture. They have their tribes and that's all they have.
Although a Prefect is typically an Argentum, leaders of all the tribes covet the position, and conspire constantly to seize it. The peace between the tribes is always tenuous, and it is only through the skill and strength of the Prefect that peace is kept. This peace is all-important, because without it the Commandment is doomed.
Killing a vampire is of course forbidden, but punishment is more variable, since vampires are often ordered killed by the Prefect in order to protect the Commandment. When such sanctioned execution is ordained, it is called a "Purge", and can only be decreed by the Prefect, typically after a "Quorum" is held among the leaders of all the tribes.
History
Since the dawn of time, vampires evolved alongside humans. Wherever there were humans and hominid creatures, vampires preyed upon and fed off them. In ancient times, vampires were savage, merciless killers who hunted humans at night. Among their unspeakable atrocities was the practice of stealing babies and draining their blood.
The first strain of Hematic anthropophagia to evolve was the Umbra. Eventually the virus mutated into new strains, starting with the Venators, who were quickly followed by the Argentum, then the Lumen strain came, and finally the Sauria were the last tribe to evolve. Because they are averse to each other on a pheromonal level, the Sauria and the Venator tribe quickly became mortal enemies. The Umbra came to rule the other strains/tribes, who feared them for their power. At some point the Lumen created music.
Around the year 500 B.C., the Umbra took sides in a Vampire War for the last time. They decided to stay neutral for their own survival. Around 500 A.D. regional populations of vampires began being ruled by Prefects. This system survives to the present day; there is a Prefect in every city, and he is the leader of all local vampires.
In 996 A.D. the Umbra allowed the Argentum to live above ground and to become bankers and politicians so that they could gain power.
In 1478 Pope Sixtus IV authorized the Spanish Inquisition. Humans captured and tortured the vampires because they were thought to be evil. Vampires were hunted down and burned alive by those who feared them and called them monsters. As a result of this persecution, the clans joined together to create the "Commandment," a set of laws punishable by death that were intended to keep vampires from being seen as anything other than human, and the Umbra were able to live peacefully out of sight of humans below ground. A central tenet of the Commandment was that vampires must follow the Laws of Man. This rule began as a practical way of preventing vampires from being imprisoned or otherwise subjected to scrutiny, but over time, it has taken on a more purely moral agenda.
Although each tribe went through various names throughout the centuries, in the early 17th century the modern names of the tribes were settled on.
Over the last few hundred years, vampires (primarily the Lumen) propagated myths about vampires, which include the notions that they sleep in coffins or dirt, are burned by sunlight, have fangs or barbed tongues, are invisible in mirrors, that they can be warded off with silver bullets, garlic strings or crosses, bats flying around, and so on. This was part of the Commandment, and it kept humans occupied looking for those signs as vampires walked among them posing as normal humans. The Lumen even hired storytellers to spread these falsehoods.
Posted on Dec 31, 2007, 8:43 AM from IP address 69.143.28.142