anne rice's vampires

[This wiki contains spoilers from the Anne Rice vampire Chronicles]

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Anne Rice is one of the most known vampire writers of today. Her vampire's are more elegant than as an example Bram Stokers vampires. Anne Rice's world feels so real that it feels completely possible that the creatures called vampires live all around us without us knowing about their existence.

Her most known vampires are Lestat and Louis, who are both fairly young vampires.
The history of the vampires is told in the books of Marius De Romanus (Blood and Gold) and by the words of Lestat de Lioncourt in Queen of the Damned.
Because in the end, it's not Anne Rice who writes the books, it's the vampires themselves, who are telling their own stories for us.

The books and how they are written tell a lot about vampires in themselves. The older vampires are vice and thoughtful where the younger ones are often fierce and quick-tempered.

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The history of vampires started many thousands of years ago in the lands close to Egypt. A vicious, angry demon who longed for a body of her own got into the blood of a queen who ruled the lands there at the time. This was the first vampire, who could change humans into vampires, but who was also dead and could no longer walk under the sun.

The Queen existed for a long, long time, until the near history, when she was destroyed by a group of vampires who survived her wrath.

In the thousands of years the vampires have turned others into vampires and destroyed each other and themselves. Those who have been turned and have managed to survive the loneliness of eternal life, still exist in this world and have became more powerful than anyone could ever imagine.

Vampires have powers that only grow as the vampires grow older. They can travel long distances in short times, they can go on without feeding for long periods of time and they have incredible physical and mental powers. They can also hide themselves from humans easily and read people's thoughts and attract possible victims to them with their mind gift.
The older, stronger vampires are also able to set other vampires aflame and destroy them with only thoughts.

The fact that any kind of christian marks or tools could be against the vampires, is imagined. In fact, from the start, this rumour was set loose by a vampire, who wanted to control other ones so they would fear God and worship Satan.
Todays vampires have realized that foolishness of this and do not fear crosses, crucifixes, holy water or churches any longer. In fact, many vampires enjoy going to churches for the art and music and peace in them.

Vampires love beautiful things. They are often very beautiful in physical appearance themselves and seem almost divine to people. Their features turn unhuman in time: their skin turning white and cold, their fingernails classy and their hair full and shiny. They never grow old and never die.

Vampires do not have to fear deceases or other fearful things that humans must fear. They do not drown, because they do not have to breath. They can bury themselves underground, into the dirt and sleep for centuries if they so choose.

But vampires do loose their strength if they do not feed for a long time. young vampires need to feed every night, the older feed when they feel like it, they can survive long times without feeding.

The biggest weaknesses vampires have are sunlight and fire. Fire burns them into ashes, just like sunlight. Vampires also fall into a sort of coma during the daytime, when they can not defend themselves from anyone or anything, though they have some sort of self defense mechanism which makes it possible to counter attack an attacker without ever gaining consciousness if they are being threatened.
Vampires can easily sense when they are being threatened and when they are approached by friends.

Vampires cannot be killed by a stake trough the heart or ripping out their heads. The heads can be placed back and it will root back in, except if it's thrown into the sunlight and/or burned. The stake will cause pain, but does nothing else. Garlic does nothing for vampire's, they might even like the smell of it.

Vampires suffer from the eternal life. In the end, after thousands of years, the eternal existence sometimes feels like a curse for them, when everyone around them dies and everything changes so much that nothing can no longer be recognized. This is why vampires often gather together or live together. It is still impossible to bear another eternal creature near you for eternity, so in the end no vampires can have an eternal happiness. Things always change.
Still, vampires often fall desperately in love, with each other or with humans, who they more often than not turn into vampires in the end, death is too much when you love someone.

Many vampires decide to end this eternal existence, when it feels nothing but a punishment. This is when they go into flames. Either stay outside when the sun rises or walk into a fire and burn themselves.
It is the biggest crime for a vampire to kill another of their kind, but it has happened very often. Vampires are often very rigorous about their territory and protecting what is theirs.

Property means very little for vampires, because everything fades with time. Clothes, houses and such items can easily be replaces and when you live eternally and have vampiric powers and strenght, the need for money is irrelevant.
Still, beauty, art and music is very important and dear for many vampires and they treasure the gifts of art dearly.

Vampires are interested of their own history and many have searched for it from the eastern europe, where the many stories of Dracula and other vampire's are from, but all those vampires have found from the birthplaces of those stories, have been mindless killervampires who remind more of zombies than vampires. Their own history is only known by a very few old ones, and those only tell their stories to the ones they love.

In the end, vampires are beasts, they are beautiful, lethal killers in the night, who can bedazzle people with their grace and looks, but who are the blood sucking beasts who survive by killing people. This does not stop people from loving them dearly.

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More info coming, probably. There is too much to remember everything without any help =P

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Other vampire legends

Older ones:
Bram Stoker: Dracula

New ones:
Buffy vampire hunter

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Back to ECM vampire text

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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vampire

[Zardra]