The Blood of Dawnwalker - Fantasy ARPG from ex-CD Projekt RED developers

[Camel]

vampires feared holy symbols and it seemed quite traditional.

The efficacy of christian holy symbols on vampires usually imply the existance of God and that is not palatable to most modern gamedevs or the megacorps that own them.

It's an interesting worldbuilding conundrum, as vampires are traditionally handicaped by a lot of rules, and these rules are generally enforced by God, protective spirits, what have you. For example, how vampires often need to be invited into private homes (IIRC, something that's true for Vampyr as well).

Unfortunately, a lot of vampire media and their creators don't feel a need to explain any of this or worse, just handwave it.

Trust me, vampires would be super duper interested in why there's an overwhelmingly powerful force stopping them from doing certain things. And they have the egregiously long lifespans and resources to figure it out.

Vampires in the I Am Legend book by Matheson feared their religion's symbols so a protagonist spooked a Jewish vampire with the Torah.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

In the YA novel Peeps, the parasite that caused vampirism made the infected fearful of what they previously loved. Personal mementos, cultural symbols, etc. Since it turns them feral and cannibalistic, this is the only way they stay away from communities that would hunt them.

 

[S.torch]

The short story is about a vampire guy and wolf gal who fall in love, have kids, then get executed for polluting the bloodlines.

That's exactly what happens in Underworld though. But the strongest argument for it being a rip-off is that the movie makers paid gorillions to White Wolf in a secret contract.

White Wolf, Inc. also said the script was very similar to a story entitled The Love of Monsters (1994), which they published, written by Nancy A. Collins.[8][9] In September 2003, a judge granted White Wolf an expedited hearing. The lawsuit ended in a confidential settlement.[10]

Her drama comes from relationship drama.

Agree, but not every vampire conflict must be about regretting being a vampire.

 

[Bakir]

Maybe the game turns out to be utter shite but they have such nice concept arts.
Gorgeous.
The lighting reminds me of RDR2.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

That's exactly what happens in Underworld though.

No it isn’t. I read it! There are numerous differences. It’s just pareidolia. Another frivolous lawsuit. It wouldn’t have held up in court.

But the strongest argument for it being a rip-off is that the movie makers paid gorillions to White Wolf in a secret contract.

The lawsuit was settled out of court, but nobody knows the terms. WW may have decided to withdraw privately to avoid embarrassment and financial harm from the much bigger and richer Sony. Sony could’ve easily crushed them. That’s not an admission of guilt, but more pareidolia. Sony even released a response to the lawsuit dismissing it as frivolous. See for yourself: https://web.archive.org/web/20031218033420if_/http://flail.com:80/9-25-2003 Sony Response.pdf

Agree, but not every vampire conflict must be about regretting being a vampire.

That was never the argument. What was said is that the internal struggle between humanity and vampirism is the uniquely vampiric conflict. For Selene, vampirism isn’t a curse she struggles with: it’s the source of her superpowers.

 

[Barbarian]

The true solution for the millenial/zoomer "I get very butthurt by anything positively related to Christianity" is doing something like Del Toro's The Strain where vampirism is actually biological in nature. Nothing more than a disease(though there were lovecraftian/eldritch elements associated with "the master" and elder vampires).

But that in many way makes vampires into something else entirely. The Strigoi in the books and series felt more like resident evil creatures then traditional vampires, even though they tried real hard to repeat ye olde tropes(like sunlight killing vampires, or the eldest vampire parasite using the body of an eastern european noble, complete with cape and elegant walking cane).

Too bad nobody dares to bring back the old trope of vampires being absolute *unholy* evil and not some based antiheros or just regular people who need to drink blood. They took the horror out of vampires.

In traditional vampire yarns(including Dracula) the worst thing that could happen to the hero was to become a vampire, because he would therefore become a soulless monster devoid of freewill. Such concept is entirely alien to the millenial atheistard or the zoomer tiktoking agnostic.

 

[Zombra]

millenial/zoomer "I get very butthurt by anything positively related to Christianity"

Oh my fucking god. For the last time, stop. I'm sure this is big news to you, but there were people who did not love Christianity even before the year 2000. Even before your thumb-sucking ass was born. Stop playing the wise old man who has seen it all, and stop pretending the entire world was innocent and harmonious until you were 12. That was just when you started to realize that there were points of view other than your own. Those points of view have always, always been there. Grow the fuck up.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

Dawnwalker isn’t even out yet. I really wish the complainers would shut the fuck up and make their own franchises. There’s nothing stopping you.

Here’s a pitch that some dude in his basement wrote decades ago: https://web.archive.org/web/2005040...ment.com:80/downloads/Website Information.pdf

See? It’s super easy to write your own lore. What happened to make modern people so incompetent and uncreative?

 

[Tyranicon]

In retrospect, one thing I really want out of a vampire game (or any media) is a showcase of how vampire society works. A lot of vampire IPs only really present vampires as solitary predators or at best, a pack of immortals working together (usually haphazardly, sometimes behaving like mental teenagers).

I want traditions, social norms, hierarchies, rules, histories, relationships, alliances and enmities. It's a shame that a lot of the IPs that cover this (Blade, Underworld, etc) only go skin deep.

Really a "fuck it, I'll do it myself" kind of deal.

 

[Zombra]

In retrospect, one thing I really want out of a vampire game (or any media) is a showcase of how vampire society works.

Honestly, this is the opposite of what I want. Once you explain magic, it's not magical any more, and to me monster myths are the same way. I like vampires to be spooky unknowable beasts with a bunch of weird rules, and just when you think you've figured out the math of why, something unexpected happens to ruin your theories. You can still have a happy ending if you want - imo it should be from discovering another weird rule that doesn't make sense but helps you beat them. "Oh, flowers kill them! Why? Who cares! Get more flowers!"

Science stories are great, good horror stories are great, and the two don't mix very well together. My opinion.

(Not that I'm slamming a certain upcoming game it's OK for a good game to explain magic if that's its "thing")

 

[Tyranicon]

Once you explain magic, it's not magical any more, and to me monster myths are the same way.

I think you're misunderstanding me, I'm just saying I want to see more of how vampires interact with each other and familiars or other servants. Generally, you don't see that very often since when vampires are in a scene, they're typically fighting the heroes.

Requiem Vampire Knight is the only one I can think off the top of my head that does explore this. And that setting is far from "standard."

 

[Reinhardt]

in the book vamps actually fear the cross because it is sacred

iirc it was because of wielder's faith. when priest tried to cheat cross stopped working and vampire just crushed it while mocking priest that if he actually dropped cross as he promised he had more chances to win and now cross is just piece of wood.

 

[Zombra]

I guess I got sidetracked into "vampire combat rules" more than just the vampire society thing, but the point stands even for less "mechanical" mysteries. I'm equally okay with not knowing how ghouls or familiars fit together into a vampire's work day. Again, spoils the mystery of what the hell are these things.

 

[Vincente]

give me game where you play as a proper hunter who has to go against powerful vampire on his home turf. not dancing game like twicher and not rolling simulator. ravenloft but more horror.

 

[Bakir]

The vamps they have shown so far in the trailer are interesting.

Brencis. The Roman Empire dude. Charismatic and menacing. Born to be a leader type.

Bakir. The Mogul warrior. Sadistic attention whore. Likes to spill blood.

Xanthe. The Ancient Greek chick. Somewhat Malkavian like. A priestess who dwells in blood sorceries. Interestingly she is way older than the Roman.

Ambrus. Evil Prince Charming. Is recently turned. Wears expensive clothes and carries himself with a certain confidence. The twist is, he was actually a pleb before getting turned. Female portion of the fanbase will most likely swoon over him.

Good stuff.

 

[Barbarian]

millenial/zoomer "I get very butthurt by anything positively related to Christianity"

Oh my fucking god. For the last time, stop. I'm sure this is big news to you, but there were people who did not love Christianity even before the year 2000. Even before your thumb-sucking ass was born. Stop playing the wise old man who has seen it all, and stop pretending the entire world was innocent and harmonious until you were 12. That was just when you started to realize that there were points of view other than your own. Those points of view have always, always been there. Grow the fuck up.

So you are one of the retards who gets hemorrhoids by silly things like vampires fearing crosses in fiction.

Got it.

 

[Zombra]

So you are one of the retards who gets hemorrhoids by silly things like vampires fearing crosses in fiction.

I can't be according to you, because I was born before you.

Actually if you read my next post you'd know I love all the wacky traditional rules about running water, crosses, garlic, and mirrors. The "classic" vampire protocols make a familiar-yet-weird setting that can be enjoyable to visit. I can get into a fantasy story about Christianity being true, and think about what that point of view means, same way I can play a priest of Humakt with conviction in Runequest and think (unironically mind you) about what that point of view means. (Did you ever read Vampire$, which John Carpenter later made into a movie? It has some cool stuff about how abominations feel when they try to enter a church. Of course holy water, crosses etc. work too. Excellent book, well suited setting for a video game come to think of it.)

What I don't do is hang on to that one time a Christian barista was mean to me and go around crying that Christian baristas are the one and only cause of every problem today.

 

[RaggleFraggle]

In retrospect, one thing I really want out of a vampire game (or any media) is a showcase of how vampire society works. A lot of vampire IPs only really present vampires as solitary predators or at best, a pack of immortals working together (usually haphazardly, sometimes behaving like mental teenagers).

I want traditions, social norms, hierarchies, rules, histories, relationships, alliances and enmities. It's a shame that a lot of the IPs that cover this (Blade, Underworld, etc) only go skin deep.

Really a "fuck it, I'll do it myself" kind of deal.

I’m been worldbuilding that in some original fiction I’m writing. In some ways it’s pretty banal because they organize very similarly to human beings aside from being a magical criminal underworld, because what else would they do? In other ways it gets weird because they have multiple magic systems and use it all the time for utility, for example to write signs that only they can see, to create wards that control who can enter a place, etc. You know, typical J.K. Rowling shenanigans.

Another thing that is completely ignored are population dynamics. The human population exploded after 1800, and predator populations are directly linked to prey populations, so this should mean that the supermajority of vampires were turned in the last two centuries unless they’ve been carefully controlling their population to stay low, reproduce slowly, or suffered population decline.

Furthermore, how are they avoiding attention? Secrecy regarding criminal activities is basically impossible in such an interconnected world. If the government discovers them, then they’d be enslaved and weaponized at best. Do muggles rationalize their activities as delusional blood cultists?

I’m not expecting flowcharts or anything, but the question of logistics will eventually come up if you’re writing a plot involving more than a handful of them and that goes on for longer than a short story.

a pack of immortals working together (usually haphazardly, sometimes behaving like mental teenagers).

That’s probably because a lot of these stories are written by/for people in their high school or college years and who have a very tenuous grasp on social organization and responsibility due to lack of life experience. A lot of vampires I’ve read come across as petty and childish in a way more appropriate of high school cliques, frat boys or soap operas than ancient predators. Then again, tons of real elderly politicians act like this now that social media can showcase their worst selves 24/7, so it’s not surprising anymore. Stupid, but not unrealistic. You’d think being a serial killer would weed out the stupid ones, but…

 

[Barbarian]

So you are one of the retards who gets hemorrhoids by silly things like vampires fearing crosses in fiction.

I can't be according to you, because I was born before you.

Actually if you read my next post you'd know I love all the wacky traditional rules about running water, crosses, garlic, and mirrors. The "classic" vampire protocols make a familiar-yet-weird setting that can be enjoyable to visit. I can get into a fantasy story about Christianity being true, and think about what that point of view means, same way I can play a priest of Humakt with conviction in Runequest and think (unironically mind you) about what that point of view means. (Did you ever read Vampire$, which John Carpenter later made into a movie? It has some cool stuff about how abominations feel when they try to enter a church. Of course holy water, crosses etc. work too. Excellent book, well suited setting for a video game actually.)

What I don't do is hang on to that one time a Christian barista was mean to me and go around crying that Christian baristas are the one and only cause of every problem today.

Traditional vampire lore is much "whackier" and Stoker greatly sanitized it in his book - reminder that Victorian society was already pretty much on its way to libtardation and all the characters save for Van Helsing were "rational" and freaked out by the notions of using folk solutions such as Garlic or religious Christian symbols.

The connection with organized religion was much deeper too, logically. In some eastern european cultures vampires were literally people who rebelled against the local variety orthodox church or lived outside its rules in some way(e.g: unbaptized) who would then rise up as undead. I don't really advocate for that in fiction. I just find the total erasure of old tropes because woke retards find it "problematic" to be silly.

That is really what lead to the total reversion where now vampires are the cool antihero protagonists and hunters are the npc enemies. Not only that, but the current concept that becoming a soulless bloodsucking undead is not some terrible curse but instead just "awsum" superpowers.

 

[Zombra]

That is really what lead to the total reversion where now vampires are the cool antihero protagonists and hunters are the npc enemies. Not only that, but the current concept that becoming a soulless bloodsucking undead is not some terrible curse but instead just "awsum" superpowers.

Differentces in the exact format of media notwithstanding, this is really not a new thing. Where I grew up, the kids mostly thought, naturally it's cooler to be a vampire. Awesome superpowers are obviously better, right? Of course at that age we were too dumb to think about trivialities like what a soul is and accepting mortality. Still, I was a maverick who thought the plucky humans fighting back as best they could were cooler. My friends and I agreed to disagree.

 

[lukaszek]

what happened to Delterius ? vampire thread without him?

 

[RaggleFraggle]

I would love more games like Wrath of Malachi where you can stake vampires in their coffins in addition to fighting them with religious paraphernalia a la Castlevania. A crpg where you play as a monster hunter (or party thereof) who uses traditional methods to identify and slay monsters would be awesome. I’m reading applicable ttrpgs like Chill and it sounds really fun. If Call of Cthulhu can have a bunch of official and unofficial video games, then surely the same can be done for gothic horror monsters and so on.