The stereotypical vampire?

[superbleeder12]

http://www.d20srd.org/srd/monsters/vampire.htm

this.

 

[Highlordawesome]

Underworld Vampire

 

[Erana]

Vampires are soulless demons which feed off man and have and are given power by fear, hence the power of religious objects 'n symbols that the user puts strength in. Really, I don't think they're foocubi, they just have jedi mind control.
Of course, being a demon, they have some sort of weakness which puts them into place: sunlight.
And they aren't special, they're just demons. No uber 1337 powers beyond other types of demons, like werewolves and yena. The whole idea of some immensely powerful uber-being is really more of the idea of exceptional cases in which any sort of being gains extrordinary power over time, like baneko or kitsune critters of Japanese lore.

Its not: be bitten, get superpowers with slight drawbacks. Do not collect $200.

(Count the number of obscure, nerdy refrences in there.)

 

[Delicious]

It's a dude in a cape that eats necks.

Yeah pretty simple to me.

 

[AbsoluteVirtue18]

Let me list off essential traits:
-bloodthirst (preferably human)
-destruction in sunlight
-fear of holy symbols
-incredible strength and speed
-undeath
-weakness to staking or decapitation then treatment of body
-maybe shapeshifting

This, although I can deal without the holy symbols weakness. Usually things that are hurt by something like that means it's outright evil, and leaves nothing for the writer to go on in terms of a moral conflict.

 

[DarkLordofDevon]

Christopher Lee.

Christopher Lee

Its not Sir Christopher Lee fault that he was born to do villain and scary people roles...Frankenstein, Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Scaramanga, Saruman, Count Doku and Dr. Wilbur Wonka...

But Sir Christopher Lee is a legend. His mixture of style and terror will forever be my ideal of a vampire. It is a compliment to him! That his skills as an actor are so respect.

 

[Avashnea]

I like Kim Harrison's vamps. Especially the living vamps.

 

[Inco]

Though I like the I Am Legend (the book, not the movie)

Thats what i was going to put down, the book describes each of the aspects of a vampire in very large detail and puts more common sense into it. I would go on to explain all the aspects in detail and why they occur (like why they hate holy symbols) but i wouldn't want to spoil such a good book.

 

[SomeLameStuff]

bloodthirsty

destruction in sunlight or at least some burning! Weakening at least.

incredible strength, speed and regenerative abilities

undead

nearly impossible to kill (Stake, holy water and decapitations. personally I think the "repelled by garlic and crosses" thing is kinda dumb)

And the vampires don't sparkle in 'Twilight'. They sweat body glitter. Seriously, Twilight has some of the worst special effects I've ever seen.

 

[vultureX21]

Bram Stoker's Dracula is also a very boring book. I read it in English Lit, and ugh - I wish I read the "good parts" version. It's the painstaking description and archaic words.

Bram Stoker's work is an absolute literary classic. If the wordiness bothered you, understand it was a product of it's time and all Victorian novels were expected to have a considerable amount of exposition and description. Remember, it wasn't a time period where you had TV or the Internet to provide instant gratification and constant action. With all that leisure time spent reading the crafting of the text was as important as the story in many ways. You couldn't condense a story into a 90 action movie then, maybe a 2-3 hour play if you were lucky.

However, I understand the distaste for some of Stoker's book when he gets into long winded, relatively action-free moments. The structure of the novel, being told through journal entries and newspaper clippings, does a good job of setting the scene and providing character insight. It also raises the question of narrative accuracy, since one character is recounting and event and you wonder how much their account is colored by their personality. Think about it that way and slower parts of the novel become more curious and thought-provoking.

If you want the more constant action version try finding the film Bram Stoker's Dracula or go see the play Dracula, which is in many ways different from the book and features Renfield as the narrator. Indeed, it turns Renfield into a much more intriguing character in so many ways, which is impressive given how interesting he is in the book.

Oh, and fun fact! Dracula is largely a commentary on the fear of disease brought to England from the "outsider" that corrupts and destroys the purity of England. It's an analogy to the fear of communicable diseases and the dangers of associating with the "distant" people of the world who might ruin the glory of being British! There, wasn't that fun?

 

[Slash Dementia]

The blood thing seems compulsory, and to me, they generally need the super strength and speed. Also, the fact that you need a serious effort to even slow them down is vital, as is the idea that they don't die by normal means. They are either infected by a non lethal feeding or are born to the condition. It is incurable.

The invitation to enter is cool, but not necessary, as is the sunlight and holy symbols weaknesses, and shape shifting. They are often more intelligent than humans

Vampires should never, never glow in sunlight.

This is the best description I believe.
Just by looking at the vampires in the Twilight movie I see how bad they are. They look fruity...
My perfect vampire will always be Kain though. =P

 

[Grimm91]

Well there is no real stereotypical vampire. The myths of vampires are many(nearly one for every culture on Earth) all of these are different in some way shape or form. The popular vampire of the early nineteenth century is the "classic" vampire, as portrayed in Bram Strokers "Dracula". Due to the success of that book vampire were launched into pop culture thus why we think vampire to be one way. Now with the raging popularity of Twilight the vampire will be changed again and in twenty years kids will think that all Vampire should be shiny.

 

[oliveira8]

Christopher Lee.

Christopher Lee

Its not Sir Christopher Lee fault that he was born to do villain and scary people roles...Frankenstein, Dracula, Jekyll and Hyde, Scaramanga, Saruman, Count Doku and Dr. Wilbur Wonka...

But Sir Christopher Lee is a legend. His mixture of style and terror will forever be my ideal of a vampire. It is a compliment to him! That his skills as an actor are so respect.

I was not really critisising him. Its just that he was born to be Dracula and other villains.

Also here some useless trivia about Lee and LotR film.

From the whole cast and crew Lee is the only person to have meet Tolkien in person, and number 1 fan, he calls himself a "Middle-Earth geek", and reads all the books at least once a year. His dream since he read LotR and became an actor was to be Gandalf cause its his favourite character.

But when the casting for the film started and he asked to play Gandalf but saw that the role of Gandalf was too demanding for him(alot of horse riding and sword fighting) he asked to play Saruman.

 

[Fbuh]

Traditionally, there was nothing romantic or pretty about vampires. European myths upheld that vampires were pale, bloated, decaying, and foul smelling. The beginnings of the 'romantic' vampire probably began with Bram Stoker, though even then Dracula was still a creepy monster. It was really Anne Rice who evolved vampires into what they are now.

Personally, I disfavor the new vampires, because they tend towards the romanticism, which is such a far stretch away from what original vampires were: monsters.

 

[Megatheist]

I like to think Nosferatu should be the definition of vampire. Such a classic.

Seconded.
Also, This is a Vampire. Note the lack of Armor due to the lack any need for it.

 

[Nickflip]

No goddamn sparkling.

 

[psychowatcher]

The stereotypical vampire (in my mind) is the following:

-Thirst for blood (This could be the blood of animals, humans, virgins only, and so on, but there has to be some sort of bloodthirst)
-Weakness to sunlight (I'm not calling for horrific burning or instant disintegration ala Blade 2, but I am asking that sunlight, at the very least, weakens the vampire to an extent. I dunno, maybe to the strength of a normal human?)
-Undead (This is a biggie. While their are a few exceptions, those are reserved for dhampirs. Vampires who are not undead are little more than immortals with blood fetishes.)
-Enhanced strength, speed and resilience (lowered in sunlight naturally)
-Nearly impossible to kill (staking, decapitation, and/or burning are the obvious choices for kill techniques)
-Fear of holy symbols (This one is one of the optional ones. If it is used, then the religion of the vampire while they were still alive determines the symbols needed, as a crucifix will have little effect on a vampire who, in life, was a Shintoist, or believed in the Norse gods.)
-Slight shapeshifting ability (Again optional. It seems it would be useful, whether they change into a bat, wolf, mist, or just a slightly more good-looking humanoid figure)
-Alluring (Okay, now I'm heading full throttle to Hollywood Vamp fangirlism, as vampires are supposed to be blood-bloated corpses. However, if a vampire is alluring and, in the words of a die-hard Twilight fan I know, "OMGsexy!!!1!", this could aid in his quest for blood. Especially with the stupids of today, seeing beauty as a obvious sign of pure virtue, while anything ugly is not worth their time.)
-Flight (Okay. I'm a Hollywood Vamp fan to the bone. This is because of The Lost Boys. When someone made a Vampire: The Masquerade bloodline for them, my brain almost imploded. As such, this is also optional)
-No sparkling (This is obvious. If a vampire did sparkle, it would only be because he covered himself in body glitter in hopes of getting an easy meal via Twilight fans. Or it would only be his fangs glittering in the moonlight.)

I'm sure more can be said, but as such, I refuse to call the Twilight characters vampires. Meyer-pires or shampires, maybe. But compared to them, Count von Count from Sesame Street, Count Chocula and Count Fangula from Beetleborgs are in the same group as Dracula, Lestat and Carmilla. Sorry for the overdose of text here. Twilight is a favorite rage rant subject of mine.

 

[cleverlymadeup]

If the wordiness bothered you, understand it was a product of it's time and all Victorian novels were expected to have a considerable amount of exposition and description. Remember, it wasn't a time period where you had TV or the Internet to provide instant gratification and constant action. With all that leisure time spent reading the crafting of the text was as important as the story in many ways. You couldn't condense a story into a 90 action movie then, maybe a 2-3 hour play if you were lucky.

actually the wordiness of the victorian novel was mostly due to the fact that most authors got paid by the chapter and published the stories by the chapter, so the longer it was, ie more chapters, the more they could get paid. it had little to do with the lack of anything else to do

 

[Bobkat1252]

I like the Supernatural approach to the vampire:

Doesn't burn in light but highly light sensitive.
Only killable through beheading or total dismemberment.
Stronger and more agile than a normal person but not by any excessive amount.
Vampirism is caused by a virus, the virus causes all circulatory functions to stop and causes the infected person to become dependant on blood for sustenance, their digestive system rejects all other foods. The virus spreads through contact through a vampire's blood, not by a bite.

This version isn't a juggernaut like some vampires are yet still is a challenge to kill, a happy medium.