The History of Vampire Mythology — From Folklore to VvW
Vampire mythology did not start in Hollywood. It started in small villages, centuries before movies existed. Here is how that folklore grew into the modern vampire — and how VvW borrows from it.
Village Fears, Not Vampires
Long before the word "vampire" existed, Eastern European villagers buried their dead with strange precautions. They placed stones in the mouths of corpses. They staked bodies into the ground. They did this because they feared the dead might return.
These fears usually followed a plague, a bad harvest, or an unexplained death. Villagers needed an explanation. A restless corpse, or "revenant," was easier to accept than an invisible disease. So the revenant became the scapegoat.
- Garlic was hung near doors and windows to repel evil spirits.
- Wooden stakes pinned suspected revenants into their graves.
- Church bells and holy water were used to "cleanse" a haunted house.
The Novel That Changed Everything
Bram Stoker's "Dracula" arrived in 1897. It took scattered village superstition and shaped it into one character. Count Dracula was aristocratic, seductive, and cunning. He was nothing like the shambling corpses of folklore.
Stoker's book set the rules most people still associate with vampires today. Sunlight is dangerous. A stake through the heart kills. Garlic and crosses repel them. These rules did not exist as a single package before Stoker wrote them down together.
From Page to Screen
Early films picked up where Stoker left off. "Nosferatu" (1922) kept the monster ugly and rat-like. Later films, especially from Hollywood in the 1930s, made the vampire elegant instead. Bela Lugosi's Dracula wore a cape and spoke with charm.
This shift mattered. The vampire stopped being purely disgusting. It became attractive, even romantic. That change opened the door for everything that came after.
The Vampire Splits in Two
By the late 20th century, vampire stories had split into two clear types. One type is the tragic, romantic figure who struggles with their own nature. The other is the pure predator, closer to the old folklore monster.
Games and books today usually pick one side, or blend both. Neither version is "more correct." They are two branches of the same root myth.
How VvW Reinterprets the Myth
VvW builds its vampire race on both branches at once. Vampires in Aeternum keep a classic weakness: silver. The Silver Dawn, an anti-vampire faction based in the eastern highlands, hunts vampires with blessed silver weapons. That detail comes straight from folklore, where silver and blessed iron were common wards against the undead.
At the same time, VvW gives vampires real strength and agency. They are not helpless monsters waiting to be staked. They are a playable faction with their own weapons, culture, and rivalry against the werewolves. That rivalry mirrors an older storytelling tradition too. Folklore rarely treated vampires and werewolves as allies. They were usually cast as opposite forces — one tied to blood and night, the other tied to the moon and the wild.
The result is a vampire that respects centuries of storytelling, while still working as a balanced, playable race in a modern game.