Monday, October 29, 2012

MONSTROUS MONDAY: My Monster

How is your MONSTROUS MONDAY going so far?

Mine is GREAT!  I love seeing so many cool monsters.  I have not gotten to everyone, but I will.
In fact you can still sign up!  I am sure I am going to spend the next couple of days going to every site and reading what you all posted.  If I am going to run a blog hop and people are going to work to get posts up then you can expect that each and everyone will get my attention.

I wanted to talk about what sort of monsters I like.  I have spent this month posting all sorts of monster stats in preparation of this day.
- Wine Nymphs
- Ruslaka
- The Awakened Golem
- Witch Monsters

I also talk a lot about monsters here as can be seen from my posts tagged Monsters.  Now it is natural to assume that I would want to talk about Witches today. Though honestly I don't see witches as monsters.  Witches are witches.   No in truth my favorite monsters are Vampires.



I have talked more about vampires than pretty much any other monster, maybe even all monsters combined. The vampire is our dark mirror of our times.  He can be plague and pestilence, or smooth killer, or even ersatz super-hero.  While Edward my not look a thing like Dracula or Count Orlock, he does share more than one quality with the likes of Lord Ruthven or Lestat.


My favorite of course is Dracula.  He can be suave, sexy and cool and then in a flash be violent and bloody; a rampaging monster.  He is the best of what is great about vampire literature and film.
I have talked a lot about Dracula and the subject never gets old to me.  Back in the day I had this folder that I had written "Project Dracula" on.  It was one of my first attempts at multi-stating a character for more than one system.  Near the end of the 90s I had worked him out in dozens of systems.

I would later go on to do the same thing for the real life Countess Erzsébet Báthory.  If I have written more about Dracula, Bathory wins in terms of shear number of visits to my site.  She fascinated me and horrified me at the same time.  I could not imagine the scope of her crimes or even how she got away with it all.  I guess in the end she didn't and she got her everlasting youth afterall.

I also spent a lot of time discussing the cheesy horror movie Vampyres. I will not lie, I enjoy the hel lout of this movie.  What I like about it is how the vampire has evolved yet again here to be victim and villain.   Likewise I have felt the same about Carmilla.

Looking around this blog I seem to have stated up more vampires than I have witches.  Oddly enough I have not played all that many games of Vampire. Either the original Vampire the Masquerade or the newer Vampire the Requiem.

If vampires are thing and you also like old-school gaming then might I suggest my free book, The Vampire Class.  You can play a vampire character in Basic Era games and it is 100% free and 100% compatible with my new  book The Witch.

So what about you all?  Do you like vampires? Why or why not? Share your thoughts below!

For me they are the ultimate in Halloween monsters.



27 comments:

Digital Orc said...

Yes, I love vampires. I built a slightly different type (non-magical) for my own D&D world, but love reading about all kinds.

Hammer vamps are still my fav as far as flicks go.

Pun Isaac said...

Vampires have always been my favorite monster. I know they've been done to death (horrible pun intended), but they're just great. I like all types, from the brooding anti-heroes to the savage monsters (Hell I'll even take a metro vamp every once in a while).

Despite being my favorite monster, I never really used them in D&D because of my hatred of level drain.

Christine Rains said...

I'm a huge fan of vampires too. I've made characters for Vampire the Masquerade, but I've never played. I've played Werewolf and Changeling, but no one ever wants to play vamps!

Pun Isaac said...

Christine I had the opposite problem. I always had people willing to play Vampire, but no one ever wanted to play Changeling (which was my favorite).

S. L. Hennessy said...

I love vampires (or I did before Twilight). I'm a huge Bram Stoker and Buffy fan. Gotta love the undead.

Awesome blogfest!

Gwen Gardner said...

Hi Tim! So far, I'm finding a lot of vamps as favorite monsters. I tried to read the original Dracula as a child but it was beyond me. I must say, though, that my interest in vampires is re-peaking. I think I'll try the book again:) Thanks for hosting. I am having a blast today visiting everyone and hearing about their monsters:)

Anonymous said...

I love vampires too and the fun thing about them being so popular these days is they are changing in so many ways. Mindless eating machines, suave and handsome sex machines, long-lived deviants, sparkling...even the bad is at least interesting!
Great blog-hop, thank you! :)

Crystal Collier said...

Underworld. Need I say more? Interview with a Vampire. There, I said it. Lost Boys... The list goes on. The ironic thing is I hated vampire growing up--while my husband (as a kid) would sleep in his toy box, pretending he was one of the undead. Love at First Bite won me over--so stinkin' cheesy, but oddly addictive. I mean seriously, Dracula with a tan? We wrote a vampire musical back in 2003 that we occasionally push toward Broadway. (We'll get there when we're good and ready.)

Final word: sparkly vampires suck. (Not in a good way.) Bram Stoker would turn over in his grave if he knew about the glittering undead. *shudders*

Tonja Drecker said...

Yep, I'm a vampire fan - only of 'real' vampires, though (not the ones that glitter). They're so elegant, yet evil, yet alluring, yet fascinating, yet deadly... simply wonderful.

M Pax said...

I love the evil vampires. Not so much the sparkly ones.

Sabrina A. Fish said...

Vampires are awesome. My fave is Lestat.
Hopping by from the MM Blogfest. Thanks for sharing your fave monsters.

baygirl32 said...

I like vampires :)

SpacerGuy said...

Awesome blogfest Timothy. I love chilling monsters, Star Trek have a Salt Vampire with fangs and an insatiable desire for humans!

Susan Gourley/Kelley said...

I like Vampires as monsters. I don't care for vampires as heroes. Thanks for hosting this Monster Hop.

Cathy Keaton said...

I do like vampires as both monsters and heroes, like how they are portrayed in the anime, Trinity Blood. Those are my favorite vampires. But, vamps are pretty versatile and can symbolize so many things in human culture that they get used a million times over. Provided they are used well, I continue to like them.

The Erin York said...

This was super fun, Tim. I enjoyed reading your post and learned a lot. I really appreciate you hosting this blog hop!

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

As long as they don't sparkle!
And Vampyres - as in, the one with the tagline "They're lost girls?"

Timothy S. Brannan said...

Alex. Yup thats the one!

Aldrea Alien said...

I adore vampires. Heroes, villians, I care not ... but they better have fangs. Can't fathom why you wouldn't have a bloodsuckering creature without fangs.

Maybe it's because I identify more with the fanged ones. I mean, I can scare school kids with a smile.
Heck, I've been -asked- if I was a vampire while I standing in the beaming sunshine. (true story) My mind with thinking "Hey, three/four-year-old kid, think about that."
What did I say? "Yeah, I'm a vampire."

^_^

HitAdjacentAlly said...

I like vampires, too, and I plan on peppering various types in amongst a certain horrible dungeon I have planned.

By the way, I just posted 3 monsters over at Hit Adjacent Ally. I'll do a round-up link post for you.

Jeremy Bates said...

Thanks for the blog hop. I like vampires per se, but I am not into this new wave vampire who shows up in Twilight. All the glitter and b.s. just ruins the good rep of a vampire. lol

Shannon Lawrence said...

Despite people maybe being a bit tired of vampires right now, especially the sparkly ones, I don't think they'll ever truly be pushed out. I still like vampires. Bathory has fascinated me since the moment I read about her, and I am determined to find the perfect story for her some day. Intriguing and terrifying. Twisted.

Shannon at The Warrior Muse

Debra Gray-Elliott said...

Love these "monsters".

Tim Knight said...

I do love me some vamp action - although not when they're all wet!

As top-of-the-foodchain predators, combined with an innate suaveness, they are hard to beat.

Jolie du Pre said...

Serial killers fascinate me, and one of the most fascinating is Bathory. They say her punishment was locking her up in her castle and letting her starve and die there. She was truly an evil woman/vampire.

Jolie du Pre
Precious Monsters

J.C. Martin said...

The vampire is a classic monster, although I do prefer the older ones a la Christopher Lee and Anne Rice. The sparkly vegetarian ones just don't do it for me!

Thanks for hosting this fun blogfest!

Unknown said...

No doupt, you like Anne Rice and her books about witches and vampires, as do I. I must say though that I do not consider either monsters of Halloween, I think those are way more scary. I rather like Vampires and witches :)