760 Auditory.

I recognize that my fans may not be the best gauge of what typical people know, but what do you guys know about monster lore? What properties to vampires, werewolves, or what have you exhibit? I ask because I though everyone knew that vampires can’t come inside a house if you don’t invite them in.
That was an old rule anyway. What are the rules for monsters as you understand them? Don’t look them up first. Do it from memory.

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Vampires: Crosses, can’t enter unless invited, holy water, sunlight, garlic (except in The Lost Boys – garlic doesn’t work there). Generally immortal unless killed using something listed above. In some lore (lost boys again) you’re not a full vampire until you make your first kill and drink their blood – until then you can be turned human again by killing the head vampire. In others, the vampire infection is actually being possessed by a demon like thing (necroscope series) so there’s no real cure, and beheading is the only sure way to kill.

werewolves: turn at the full moon. killed by a silver bullet. in the necroscope series a werewolf is the same as a vampire – the demon thing infected a dog, which in turn infected a human. havent’ read of any “cure” though.

ghosts: easily caught by using proton energy packs.

umm…

Vampires: Can’t Cross running Water. Die in sunlight. Garlic is poisonous. Cannot enter a house unless invited. Can only be killed by being staked through the heart. Can only rest on their own native soil. Can only give you their real name or a name that uses the same letters. Castes no reflection.

Were Wolves: created by being bitten by another werewolf. Generally seen as a feral state devoid of human consciousness. Seen as a tragedy. Can only be killed by a silver bullet through the heart, though there have been cases that the bullet had to be delivered by the next of kin to the afflicted individual.

Creature of the Black Lagoon: An evolutionary hold over between Man and fish. Stronger then a human, can breath under water. Webbed feet and hands aide in swimming. Susceptible to water based drugs. Not terribly difficult to kill provided you have a shot gun.

Zombie: Exact method of creation varies, but it typically portrayed as being the result of being bitten by the Undead. Slow, and driven by hunger. Method of killing varries but past examples include: Decapitation, electrocution, Dismemberment, Shot in the heart, shot directly between the eyes.

Mummy: Bearer of ancient Egyptian curse. When first awakened lacks heart, tongue, and eyes. It must take these missing organs from those that awoke it. Once it is regenerated, it brings the curse of the plagues to earth while seeking to re-establish itself as lord of it’s realm.

Monster(Frankenstein): Seen as an attempt by a man to create life from death. Very strong, very resilient. Moderately intelligent. Can be killed by fire.

Want to talk japanese daikaij?? Anime Mechs? Sci-fi characters?

Let’s see. I remember in Jericho to make double super ULTRA sure a vampire was dead you cut their head off, stuffed their mouth with garlic, put that in a box weighed with rocks, and threw that into running water. Killing the head vampire is supposed to cure the other vampires beneath them, but I think that’s silly. =P
Also, Vampires DIE (Re: Don’t sparkle) in sunilight. Hate holy water. Have small amounts of mind control if the subject is weak willed, The aforementioned Unable to enter thing. Must suck blood, weakness to crusifix (David’s star if the vampire was jewish) There are supposedly a number of ways to turn someone into a vampire, but I think the only true way is to turn them partially and have them drink of a vampire’s blood. That seems the most… right I guess.

Zombies… Well, if you’re bitten you turn into one and the only surefire way to killing them is destroying the brain (Return of Zombies could survive decapitation). Even though the classic moaning of zombies is for brains, for the most part it’s just human flesh. The only real questions about zombies are the source (Science experiment, Cosmic radiation, religious cult, or others) and how they act. There’s no right answer for these but my personal favourite is a bit from everything.
My zombie scenario would have started with a science experiment that spread from the labs through the air. At first it would only affect corpses exposed to the air (Funerals and morgues for the most part). Since rigor Mortis had set in, but they had most of their muscle intact they’d be the middle, meaning they’d walk at a near normal speed, but with a limp. The virus given enough time would manage to seep into the water and soil, affecting the long dead. They’d be the slow ones who’d crawl after you. And any Human bitten that wasn’t eaten on the spot would be killed by the virus attacking the brain. They’d be the fast ones as they’d had no time to decompose or for rigor mortis. After a few weeks they might slow down, but the whole show might be over by that point.

Werewolf: Turns on a full moon, need a silver bullet to kill it or any silver weapon for that matter, avoids wolfsbane (Heh), and one I find hilarious is that one cure to being a werewolf is scolding. Smack them in the face with a newspaper and you’re set!

Uhmmm… Mummy, Swamp monster, ghosts… They’d don’t really have many rules…

TL;DR: I love monster lore too.

Monster lore? les see…
werewolves: turns wolfy at full moon; killed by silver; if bitten by another wolfy then you’re cured(is that right?)
Vampires: Hates garlic; No reflection anywhere; horrible womanizers(That’s the truth!); allergic to sunlight and killed by wooden stakes.
Kraken: Giant cephalapod; drags ships underwater; extremely intelligent.
Frankenstein: Social outcast?

well that’s all i got atm.

Vampires:crosses, garlic, and sacrament wafers repel them. They cannot be injured with iron, but wood works fine. They burn from contact with holy water. They cannot cross moving water unaided. They cannot rest unless on their home soil. They cannot enter a house uninvited. THEY DO NOT SPARKLE IN THE SUN, they burst into flames. They can take many forms: bat, wolf, rat, etc. Have no reflections.

Werewolves and vampires were originally part of the same myth, which is why vampires are sometimes said to be allergic to silver as well.
Silver represents the moon, which controls the transformations of both. That’s why silver is effective: the moon is supposed to be the only thing that can control them.
In addition, Dracula was originally able to turn into a bat AND a wolf.

There are some conflicting stories about werewolves: some say that anyone bitten becomes a werewolf and can then spread the curse, but there are others that say that a bitten person becomes an “afflicted” werewolf, powerless to control the wolf form but unable to spread the curse, while people born as werewolves have much better control over the wolf form and can pass the curse. Some also say that afflicted werewolves become the slaves of the one that bit them. Natural-born werewolves are also said to be able to shift even during the day. Wolfsbane, also known as deadly nightshade, is said to be a cure if it is given within 24 hours of being bitten, which is dangerous because nightshade is toxic to people normally. Other sources claim that it is toxic to all werewolves. Sunlight does not harm them.
Silver also has conflicting rules. There are claims that silver is the only substance which can harm them, but the older legends indicate that silver burns horribly upon contact with a werewolf. While ‘lycanthrope’ means werewolf, the term for other animal forms with similar effects is ‘therianthrope’.

Vampires have a whole mess of regulations: no crossing running water, no entry without invitation, if you throw rice at them they must stop and count the number of rice grains, if you throw a knotted string they must stop to untie the knot, must sleep buried in dirt of homeland (or original gravesite, depending), garlic bad, silver bad, sunlight bad, holy water bad, no reflection. Stakes are not as clear-cut: some legends say that a stake to the heart will instantly destroy the vampire, but older ones say the stake merely renders them helpless and the only way to truly destroy them is to remove the head, fill the mouth with holy wafers, and then bury it. Conversion is also not clear: a bite is sometimes enough to turn the victim into a vampire, but sometimes a bite only drains blood and conversion requires complicated rituals.
Vampires feed upon the ‘life essence’ of the living for sustenance, and while this is typically portrayed as drinking blood, they are sometimes described to feed on a victim’s ‘life force’.
Most apotropaics are considered to be effective against them, though each object’s success varies with the culture.
Interestingly, the legend of the vampire is based on an actual disease that warps and rots the teeth and causes blisters upon contact with sunlight. Porphyria, I think. Rabies also had a hand in the myth.

Little gray aliens: Have acid for blood. Some can shape-shift. Had a really big spaceship in Antarctica. Planning on taking over the world in 2012.

Garbage golem: if you work at Pier 1 Imports long enough, and have an obsession with ordered gated communities, you may learn how to summon one and create the most perfect gated community ever.

Prehistoric glowing green insect swarms: They lie dormant in old-growth trees, and wait for loggers to disturb them. Will attack people in the dark.

Fluke-man: Product of radioactive recombination of flukeworm and human DNA. Somewhat amphibious. May be able to regenerate from half a torso.

Giant crocodiles loose in the midwest: Not an extant plesiosaur. Will eat small dogs, people.

Guess what my favorite show growing up was.

Vampires are able to change shapes, appearing as mist or bats; live on the blood of the innocent, sleep during the day; can’t come over a lintel without being invited; can’t cross running water; have a compulsion to count and order (such that, for instance, spilling grains of rice behind you will force them to stop and count them). No reflection. Can’t bear holy signs, can’t bear garlic. Need to be killed through some combination of stake through heart, beheading, use of garlic, etc. No reflection, of course.

I think the bit about being unable to cross running water is fairly common for Eastern European monsters, actually.

I much prefer Bram Stoker’s vampire.
Can’t cross running water without resting on soil from their homeland while doing so.
Cannot sleep unless on soil from their homeland while doing so.
Supernatural strength and resilience at all times.
Able to change shape and size (bats, wolves, swarms of insects, fog) and able to command animals and hypnotize any time from sundown to sunset and during the hour of noon.
Sunlight has absolutely no effect either way.
Garlic is felt to be repulsive by them, allowing it to be used as a ward. Some sources claim this is due to heightened smell.
Religious objects burn at the touch.
Killed by having their heart pierced (does not have to be a wooden stake), and possibly thorugh beheading.
Created by a victim being drained to death.
Can create psychic links by having a human drink their blood.
Cannot enter buildings they do not own without permission.
If they “died” long enough ago that they would have decomposed if they hadn’t turned, a true death will cause their body to crumble.
Supernatural powers also include the ability to scale walls, though this could have merely been the enhanced strength aiding Dracula in gripping small hand and foot holds along his castle walls.
Bonus: Van Helsing was an aging doctor with an open mind who just happened to realize what the signs meant despite having never encountered a vampire before.

I’ve always wondered how werewolves were dispatched before firearms were invented – did you just run at them and attempt to push the bullet into the werewolf with your fingers?

(Five years later) Silver stakes in some of the old, old lore IIRC, or decapitation. Given their speed in wolf form, either option was a rather dubious prospect…

Let’s see…

Vampires: Repelled or damaged by religious symbols/implements based on the person’s faith (complete devotion causes burns, same effect whether the person is Jewish, Buddhist, or Christian), extremely obsessive-compulsive (can’t cross running water, has to count spilled grains, has to be invited into homes by the building’s owner), fresh vampires are harmed by sunlight but the older ones develop a tolerance. Killed by piercing the heart with any weapon provided the weapon is left in the corpse, older/more powerful vampires have to be staked with a stake made from their own coffin. Can only sleep in their grave soil, and incinerating the coffin causes the vampire to die, prone to rigor mortis if Chinese(but still able to hop around).

Werewolves: Weak to silver, heightened physical abilities/senses, sometimes adept martial artists, demoted from boss, turns back into human upon death, killing blow sometimes required to be delivered by loved ones, have “nards”, play basketball, feral when freshly changed but over time learn to control themselves while changed, always ruled by bloodthirst either way.

Ghosts: Numerous different types, sometimes have to siphon energy from the living or their surroundings to manifest.
Vengeful Spirits: Caused by general evilness or hateful individuals dying. Depending on the work, this could require a location with high mystical energy. Generally ill-tempered and jealous of the living, always evil. Sometimes referred to as demons.
Nonsentient Ghosts: Caused by tragic deaths, unable to sense the living, constantly replaying the moment of their deaths until exorcised, generally harmless aside from being creepy. Sentient Ghosts: Basically a manifestation of a deceased individual’s will. Your classical ghost, unable to move on until their unfinished business is taken care of.
Poltergeists: Another of the classical ghosts. Sometimes able to communicate with the living by moving objects or writing on walls in scratches, blood, or ectoplasm. Generally dislike the living and want to be left alone. Defeated by exorcism or destroying the haunted location.
“Residual” Ghosts: Not really so much ghosts as strong emotions imbued into the place of an individual’s death, picked up on by the living and ranges from harmless sadness to full-blown psychotic rage with enough exposure. No physical manifestations, no known methods of defeating. Sometimes unable to escape from. Sometimes referred to as demons, also a symptom of a demonic presence.

Demons: Another monster with varying types. Generally evil, sometimes siphons psychic energy from humans to survive, sometimes siphons life energy, method of feeding varies depending on type. Almost always views humans as inferior. The ones that siphon psychic energy do so by evoking strong emotions. Defeated by exorcism.

I know so many more tidbits of lore about monsters. You could say that I’m a bit of a walking bestiary. And yeah, I retain this information much like Brooksie retains her wealth of knowledge on movies and quotes, though I couldn’t possibly tell you where each individual piece of lore comes from.

Up until the late 1970s, “zombie” meant a person killed and reanimated via black magic, typically to serve as a slave for the magician who did the reanimating. This has some basis in fact within the Voudun religion, though in reality it’s a form of chemically-enabled brainwashing. The victim would given a paralytic, which would trick the victims family into believing he/she was dead. After the funeral, the magician would sneakily steal back the “corpse”, and when the drug wore off, the victim would be informed of their new alleged soulless slave existence. In many cases, faith and superstition alone would cause the victim to believe this explanation, and act accordingly, but sometimes psychotropics were used to keep the victim muddled, and sometimes the victim would actually have been brain damaged to some degree due to hypoxia while being sealed in their coffin and/or buried.

During the 1970s the paralytic used to zombify people this way, a refinement of the venom of a particular species of pufferfish, was researched by pharmaceutical companies to see if it would make a good general anesthetic. It was found unsuitable do to the fact that it actually left the subject fully conscious and able to feel sensation, just unable to respond.

The modern concept of the zombie comes from the “Living Dead” films of George Romero. In these films the cause of reanimation was unknown. It was not an infection that was passed through bodily fluids, but rather something unknown that was ubiquitously present in the environment: all dead became zombies, regardless of how they died or whether they’d had contact with other zombies, and zombie bites killed through toxic shock and/or “normal” sepsis due to the general rotten nastiness in the mouth of any corpse.

The idea of a zombie “infection” comes partly from the “Return of the Living Dead” movie series (a copycat franchise attempting to cash in on the Romero movies), in which the zombifying agent was a chemical agent, but somehow still spread through contact like a disease, and part from audiences misunderstanding or not paying attention during the Romero movies.

The idea of a zombie virus, as far as I know, was first codified by the Resident Evil game series, though I’ll bet it actually showed up in literature earlier.

A zombie virus is kinda cracktalk though. A bacteria, fungus or macroorganism parasite might make some degree of sense, but not a virus. Unfortunately, “virus” seems to have become confabulated with disease or infection of any kind in pop culture to the point where even infections that are explicitly stated to be something else, like the red fungus in Steven King’s Dreamcatcher or the body-stealing creature in John Carpenter’s The Thing, are referred to as viruses in other media. This says disturbing things about the general state of public health education.

The idea of vampirism, lycanthropy, or for that matter the non-zombie Resident Evil monsters being down to viruses does kinda work though. Certainly not normal though: one has to wonder what kind of evolutionary history such an unnecessarily complex bug would have. In fact, if I lived in a world where there were viral vampires or werewolves, I’d assume it was bioengineered, not natural. Which would raise very interesting questions if they’d already been around for centuries or millennia. Questions way more interesting than the petty turf wars these stories usually concern themselves with.

All that is only realistic for a given value of real though, these creatures being so fantastical in other ways as to make such nitpicking silly and irrelevant.

The Rage virus of 28 Days Later however is, with the exception of the lightning-fast incubation period, entirely possible & plausible within real world biology.

The original novel “Frankenstein” is a cautionary tale about parental responsibility, not about the perils of dabbling in Things Man Was Not Meant To Know. The “modern Prometheus” part was just Dr. Frankenstein’s after-the-fact excuse for abandoning his “Son”. Seriously: go read the book. It’s about a guy who decides have a kid because he’s fantasizing about how cool the accomplishment would be, and how prestigious the kid will be to show off. Then when he actually sees the kid for the first time it hits him all at once that this is an actual living person that he is now responsible for, not just a trophy, and he runs away. So the kid has to grow up all on his own, being treated with unrelenting cruelty by the world because he looks strange, and along the way he comes to resent and then hate the father who should have been there for him but chose not to be. Neither ever learns to let go, and they both end up destroying themselves in a decades-long spiral of hate and revenge.

Frankenstein is an epic tragedy of deadbeat dad and unwanted son. Thanks to the early pop-culture influence of the Karloff movie though, everyone now thinks that it’s about forbidden knowledge and abominations of scientific hubris. And stitching together dead body parts. That’s not in the book either.

Fun fact: Vampires’ lack of reflection and inability to be photographed are actually based on their weakness to silver. Mirrors were backed with silver, and film used silver nitrate as a photosensitive agent. Fun fact: Nitrate film is extremely flammable, and nitrocellulose is also a primary ingredient in modern smokeless powder under the name of guncotton.

Also, aside from simply being drained to death, the most common method of vampire creation is draining to near-death and then being fed with the blood of the vampire who drained you. In some myths, this must be repeated several times.

Vampires of various sorts:

Anne Rice: Death by fire/sunlight, weakened by blood deprivation by either lack of feeding or deep wounds. Crosses/holy symbols have no effect. Transferred by draining, then feeding vampiric blood, to the target. Need coffins to rest.
Vampire: The Masquerade: Death by fire/sunlight, paralyzed by staking, or by fragments of the cross Jesus died on. The first vampire was Caine/Cain (biblical dude, intentional misspelling was his name once he got the dark gift.) Can be repelled by devout trust in a power other than yourself, known as “True Faith” (need not be religious: A yuppie has successfully repelled a vampire with his credit card because he believed, without any reservation, that money could solve all problems). Needs earth from birthplace to rest. Cannot be appeased by offerings.
Folklore: repelled by Garlic, crosses, fires/bright lights, cannot cross running water, created by the dead possessing the living or by the restless spirits of evil men (murderers and rapists), stopped by staking them while ‘asleep’ or burning them, need burial earth to rest, cannot enter a house unless invited, only gives real name or an anagram thereof because otherwise you are protected from him.
Then there’s Underworld, Blade(meh), and it gets worse from there. Then there’s Eastern Vampires, which drain energy from their targets, but I don’t know them in near as much detail.

I didn’t intend to write a novel, heh, but I could go on for days about all the folklore and mythology of various places around the world… I’m a big fan~

The Mothman moves at night
And rises through the sky.
He flits and floats with purpose
To show you when you’ll die.

Jeez… Vampires are OCD, I remember that much, spill some beans and they’re stuck counting them… I remember the invitation thing too, but really it all ends up coming down to who’s writing them, and who’s just using them to write annoying Romeo and Juliet fanfic…

As for werewolves, Only silver can kill them, they’re ACTUALLY VAMPIRES who just changed shape, and they can ruin your day.

We all know It`s Piskies you need to look out for. Little red hatted cornish bastards.

Seems like the ideas of famous and classic monsters have changed so much over time that many people don’t know the stuff that used to surround them. It’s kinda like ninjas: they were originally cheap assassins with a “do whatever it takes to win” attitude (to my knowledge). Somewhere along the way they were romanticized and turned into beings of honor and mystic abilities.

Vampries and Werewolves have been romanticized for years now, and it (of course) didn’t start with Twilight, though granted, Twilight certainly gave vampires the least amount of reasons to have a depressing existense yet still made them depressed ‘n such (you just sparkle in the light, buddy, at least you don’t combust.)

The classic ideas for vampires, of course, are the weaknesses to crosses and garlic, then there’s the “can’t come in unless invited thing” (which has an interesting reaction if you come in uninvited, if you’ve ever read “Let the Right One In.”) Sunlight, stake to the heart (gotta be wood in some cases), etc. That’s what I can remember, anyway. Then all those things have different effects depending on what you’re reading. For instance, I believe the movie Fright Night shows a vampire being immune to the cross ’cause the one holding it didn’t actually believe in the religion. Then there’s the varying degrees of what sunlight can do and sometimes the stake doesn’t actually kill (just stops them until it’s taken out).

I’m not even sure where the original ideas came from, and hell, there are so many diffrent kinds of things that fall under the term “vampire” that any one of those things could count for one ‘pire and not the other. Maybe they’re all various ways to kill various vampires that have been lumped together over the years? I mean, one vampire thing called a Manananggal can be defeated by sprinkling crushed garlic on it’s bottom half (look it up; the sucker breaks in half. Even worse is the Penanggalan…look that one up with a google image search!) So who knows if maybe THAT was the first thing to be effected by garlic? Maybe that was carried over?

Anyway, just thoughts and ideas. Perhaps these are all easy questions that I could just look up (and perhaps I’ll try). I just wouldn’t be surprised if people don’t know the old ways of classic monsters, ’cause they’re always changing.

I remember some vampire lore stating you can distract them by dumping lots of small objects on the ground like pebbles or grains of rice, and the vampire will be compelled to stop chasing you to count them.

Vampires: do not appear in reflections of silver (everything else does reflect their image cuz silver is typified as holy), they hate the smell of garlic due to sensitive noses, crucifixes specifically cause them to flee in terror (they are eternally damned, Dracula cursed God and was doomed), an oak stake through the heart will only subdue them long enough for you to behead them (required to kill), holy water burns them, real direct sunlight immolates them, dead man’s blood is like poison to them, they shapeshift into bats, wolves or mist…. You know what?

WATCH CHRISTOPHER LEE’S DOCUMENTARY ON VAMPIRES. All the info that isn’t from folktales or Bram Stoker is garbage.

Dullahans: use chariots or ghost-horses for travel, use axes whips or swords, mark prey with thrown saucers of blood, freezes you with gaze from severed head (head also can breath fire), all doors unlock for it, if it wants to kill you it can track you down anywhere. Only weakness is gold in any amount.

Others: Leshy, berserker, puca/pooka (famously real in the movie “Harvey”), wendigo, Aswang

My knowledge of monsters comes from role playing games. Everything I know is a mish-mash of Final Fantasy, Dungeons and Dragons, and White Wolf. On that note, fuck the Requiem, Vampire: The Masquerade is the best edition.

Anyway, from my version of this lore, a ton of this shit was made up by vampires to fuck with us humans. Mainly so that, if the masquerade is broken, that is, a vampire is found to be a vampire, they think back to the myths and go, “Oh shit, get home, they can’t come in!” And then you’re boned, they kill you, masquerade is upheld. Stakes don’t kill them, just paralyze them. They can heal damage caused by mundane sources with general ease, but fire, sunlight, and other supernatural entities can only be healed by a deep sleep known as torpor. A ton of different clans, too, from stuffy Toreador to anarchist Brujah to crazy Malkavians, each with their own different quirks brought about by the blood of the founders of the clans.

Werewolves, or the Garau as they call themselves, are pissed at humans for the destruction of nature, harm to the Spirit Mother Gaia. Many separate packs of wolves for several different types of lycanthrope. On the other side, a being meant to hold the balance, known as The Wyrm, accidentally found itself caught in the webs of the Weaver (I forget what he’s all about though) and was driven completely insane. One pack, known as the White Howlers, went to try to put the Wyrm out of its misery, and wound up corrupted by its power to form the Black Spiral Dancers, the only pack that is out to destroy the world.

Blah blah.

If you’re looking for other shit, I can keep going, but this is the basics of my knowledge.

Crave–

“I recognize that my fans may not be the best gauge of what typical people know…”

So, at what point did you realize you had fans? How did that understanding affect you? B{)}

Let’s see — everything I know about vampires I learned from reading Dracula and Salem’s Lot. You just aren’t going to get that much from the movies or television; you need to go to the source. Bram Stoker set the stage for much of what we know about vampires; he did some research, but like many Victorian-era researchers, he quickly discovered that there wasn’t much in the literature of the day, so he fell back on what most of them did.

He made it up.

That said, most people think sunlight will destroy a vampire, but that’s Hollywood lore. In Dracula, Stoker has the Count walking around London on a hot, sunny August afternoon. Vampires are strongest at night, but daylight is hardly lethal. The business with garlic deterring them is right out of Stoker (I think Herr Dr. Van Helsing pushed it on Harker). A stake through the heart or beheading are equally effective. Some sources (CBS’s Moonlight comes to mind) suggest fire worked, too. I seem to recall — from various sources — that vampires can also be destroyed with silver bullets. They had this whole aversion to silver thing going: bullets, mirrors (the glass won’t reflect their images because it’s silvered) and photographs (the chemistry is silver-based). Silver coins placed on his eyes while he’s in his coffin will prevent him from rising (from an old Dell Gold Key comic book, I think). The garlic was also a good repellant. And I’ve always heard about the invitation into the house. They can only cross open or running water with assistance, and if they strike the surface, they will sink like a stone. They are unable to enter any consecrated place of worship, and religious talismans such as crosses or Stars of David are repellant, but only if the person brandishing it is a believer. What did I forget?

Werewolves… Really not a lot of literature until the 1940s and the first Wolfman flick. Werewolves of [Paris | London]. Hmm… Relying on Dark Shadows and old comics, they can make themselves a werewolf by wearing a belt made of Human skin, or be infected by the [bite | scratch] of another werewolf. They can be destroyed in the werewolf state by silver bullets, silver knives, or hanging and dismemberment (required — remember to dismember)! Wolfsbane (Aconite or Monkshood, a group of flowers in the Buttercup family) will repel werewolves as effectively as garlic does vampires. One text (probably another comic book) said that a necklace of the flowers would prevent the victim from turning under a full moon (“Hey dude, you a wolfman or did you just get lei’d?“).

I’ll tackle zombies because of their recent popularity. Originally, zombies were created from recent cadavers but Voodoo priests, using magic spells, charms and herbs. A living person could also be ‘zombified’ by the same process. Any zombie could be returned to its original state by allowing it to see the ocean. I guess if you’re the voodoo priest keeping the zombie as a slave, that’s something you want to avoid.

If anyone has caught Being Human, either the original British version on BBC Three or the North American series on SyFy, you’ll recall they have unusual takes on the lore of vampires, werewolves and ghosts.

–Perfesser

P.S. And no, I never finished reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. It’s huge and gawdawful boring. I’ll say this, though; if I ever encounter such a synthetic creature, I’ll ‘throw the book at him’; the weight alone of the damned thing is sure to destroy him!

Vampires: Can’t cross running water unless they are in their coffin. Being impaled or burned kills them. Garlic and the cross are repulsive to them, and they actively avoid mirrors, because they have no reflection (some would argue that they also do not appear on photographs). Sunlight kills them too. Feeding on blood. No entry without an invitation (people need to watch Lost Boys more often if they’re forgetting this one).
Werewolves: Aggressive tendencies. May transform into monsters in times of stress. Definitely transforms into a monster at the time of the full moon (one to three days, depending on your interpretation), and stalks the surrounding area for someone to kill and eat. Any blows or cuts from wood or iron either heal immediately or the weapons can’t gain purchase in the monster’s hide. A knife, bullet or other missile of silver is needed to end the beast’s life. If a human survives an encounter with a werewolf, bitten, then they are themselves infected with the curse now. Goodbye normal life and everyone you care about!
I’m not as familiar with there being any common canon for other classic monsters such as mummies and zombies and things.
Let’s see what I recall about Wendigos: They don’t have feet, and the stumps continue to bleed forever. They’re shaggy monsters with lots of teeth and claws. I think that they can fly, and they tend to maim their victims the way that they were made, making more wendigos. Gee! People love a campfire monster to be capable of procreating by way of mutilating humans.

To add something about werewolves not yet written: If you go by the medieval tales, a werewolf actually turns by shedding his human skin and hiding it in a hollow tree. He turns back by donning it again. If you find the human skin and take it, you can keep the were from assuming his human form.

Faeries, not always viewed as monsters, per se, but pretty damn nasty nonetheless. There’s a ridiculous number of rules, but the quick basics:
Will generally leave you alone if you leave them alone, although there are exceptions (See: Tam Lin, changelings)
If you can fulfill a certain number of criteria, you can escape/ensure someone else’s escape from their control.
If you can’t, your possible escape will usually be centuries later.
Have a fondness for loopholes, but this can be used against them.
Will reciprocate kindness with kindness (usually).
Often weak to cold iron.

and Russian mythology… they’re worse. Leave out offerings and pray they leave you alone, although the domovoi and bannik are more likely to be friendly

well i supose it depends on your defintion of monster if you want classic like wolfman , vampire, mummies and the like then you have dont get bit on a blood moon or get turned into a werewolf yourself tho it would seem that rule has ben laxed some what

never look a mummy in the eyes or you’ll be its slave so your suposed to do like you do with a medusa and use a mirror to look behind you

as to fairy folk alldepends on which part of the owrld your in and whom your talking to celtic fae are probly the most unfriendly dont matter if you talking about the seelie or the unseelie the both lure human children in to the fairy world in order to train them to be great and powerful worriors the unseelie do this to sow choas inthe human world cuz they dis like humans and see them as a young and useless race the seelie on the other hand send the kids back into the human world to test humans to see if they are worthy of the gifts that the seelie can bistow upon them they are much like the fox spirits in oriental legends they are great tricksters but if you prove your self wise and capable they would most often reward you with som secret or a a powerful magical item, now if you are to talk about the fae in thegermanic world inthe region of the black forest well they were rather unsavory to they often lead travelers atray to get lost in the woods to be devoured by wolves or other creatures

I also seem to remember something about werewolves having their fur on the inside of their skin while it human form, and if you cut them you could see it under the wound.

Oh, holy crap, sir. WELL!
Vampires, depending on lore: 1. drink blood
2. Have fangs
3. cannot go into sunlight (though this is, apparently, a later addition)
4. can change into bats, wolves, mist (though this is not used much in modern things)
5. Have no soul (completely optional now)
6. have no reflection (tied to the no soul thing in most cases)
7. Must be invited in (ignored a lot nowadays)
8. Cannot cross running water (that one’s gone bye-bye)
9. Are anal retentive (must pick up flax seed dropped in front of them)
10. killed by a stake through the heart and/or removal of the head. Body must be burned and ashes scattered to prevent the vampire coming back
11. vampires can be made when a cat jumps over a dead body
12. vampirism occurs in pumpkins and watermelons :)
13. Failing to place a coin in a body’s mouth may warrant the body coming back as a vampire
14. I forget this one, but when a werewolf dies it comes back as a vampire or the other way around (that one’s never used anymore)
15. vampires are regionally specific– African vampires eat unborn children; I forget some others;
16. crosses and religious symbols repel vampires
17. newer stuff has them also allergic to silver but that’s silly. :p
18. Need to sleep in something lined with dirt form their homeland
19. have a penchant for taking aliases that are their own name spelled backwards or an anagram

Werewolves
1. come out with the full moon/tied to the full moon
2. hate wolf’s bane
3. wolf’s bane can be used to detect them; take some wolf’s bane, which is a white flower, hold it to the chin of a werewolf and it will turn yellow
4. werewolves have hairy palms; sometimes a pentagram on their palms
5. unibrow
6. originally, thought to be demons/witches, I think
7. Originally not allergic to silver; this came about in some of the earlier movies; don’t remember which one, though; the first movies also made them immortal somewhat
8. skinwalkers can be witches that have taken the skins of wolves and made them into a suit to become werewolves
9. it’s a curse passed by biting; over recent decades that has become optional and now many werewolves are born, not made

Faeries
1. fear cold iron
2. come from Arcadia?… I dunno. That’s all I got.

Vamps: also garlic. Forgot cuz someone on my twitter half an hour ago said, “WHY IS THERE NO FRESH GARLIC IN THIS HOUSE?!?” and I replied “Is one of you a vampire?” so I thought I’d already mentioned it. ^^

Vamps: Undead. Crosses and garlic ward off. Can’t cross running water. DO NOT SPARKLE! Sun kills. Stake into heart kills. Holy water burns. Bites kill. Hypnotic power. Giving their blood transforms recipient. Succumbing to bloodlust = Ghoul. Must be invited in (knew that before I read this, too).

Werewolf: Living. Fuzzy. Transform at full-moon. Bite transforms victims. Hate Wolfsbane. Silver kills if it penetrates.

Other Were-beasts: Living. Fuzzy. Transform at set times. Bite transforms recipient. Violent. Other aspects depend on animal.

Ghouls: All vampire attributes. More violent. Border mindless.

Necromancy Zombies: Undead. Risen by dark magic. Kill summoner, kills zombies. Disrupt magic circles, kills zombies. Holy water kills. Blessed items kill. Destroying bodies entirely will stop them.

Virus Zombies: Undead. Spread by virus infecting corpses of victims. No weakness to blessed items. Just destroy them.

Demons: Repelled/harmed by all holy items. Holy scripture is painful for them to hear. Expelled by commanding them BY NAME.

…..I could go on…but….I hate ranting off my knowledge like this ^^;; i’m shy.

I used to think Jesus was a zombie. After all, isn’t Easter the celebration of the day the Jesus zombie rises from the grave to feast on the brains of the non-believers? Only recently I discovered that he is NOT a zombie, but something else instead. He’s a vampire.

Think about it for a minute. Vampires aren’t fond of crosses, and I wouldn’t be after hanging on one for three days until I died. He came back from the dead (like a vampire), and given that all that Mediterranean food uses garlic, he probably had garlic indigestion when he died (and vampires are repulsed by garlic…) If Jesus were just a zombie, then when he appeared again all he would have said would have been the Aramaic version of ‘Brains’, so he must have been a vampire. And after bleeding out, he was probably feeling a little anemic (Need a little blood there??) Christians drink his blood every Sunday (and what more vampiric a tradition could a vampire start??) But the clincher, the most solid evidence comes sadly from Twilight… Vampires sparkle in sunlight, giving off a corona of light. Corona of light, as in halo. Ergo Jesus was a vampire.

Needless to say I got into a lot of trouble with the locals over this one, but not as much as I got into for passing out Pixie Stix laced with caffeine at my sister’s kids’ last school function. Come to think of it, I think that restraining order laspes sometime this month…

Let’s see.

Vampires: Burned by sunlight. React poorly to garlic. Can’t cross running water. Can’t enter your house unless invited. They can be warded off with crosses. React poorly to silver. No reflection. React poorly to holy water. It’s not unheard of to recite bible passages at them, but I’m not sure what that does. They also burn like kindling, so fire works well.

Their strengths vary depending on depiction, but minor shapeshifting (ie bat, mist) is the traditional standby. They’re always ageless. It’s not unheard of to give them some form of mild hypnosis in order to not be remembered. It’s often accepted that those a vampire infects must serve him in some way, whether that be as a mindless zombie or as a subordinate vampire. They can recover from most injuries that don’t utilize one of their weaknesses. In recent years of cinema it’s popular to give them super strength and super speed. I personally prefer my vampire to be physically feeble. They were never supposed to be scary because of their ability to throw a car at you. I don’t mind a little speed though, it’s complements their stealthy nature.

Werewolves I’m not as well versed in. They turn into ravenous beasts on the full moon. They can infect those they attack sometimes. Silver is a big weakness for them, though I’ve occasionally heard of fire working as well. Depending on the depiction their human forms may be different from a normal person as well. In such cases enhanced strength, regeneration, and senses are typically the advantages you’d expect of a werewolf in human form. Traditionally though they’re just normal people when not under the light of the full moon, and might not even be aware of their affliction.

I love that everyone whose mentioned werewolves is using the Hammer/Universal studios version.

A werewolf of lore could transform at will by removing their clothes, becomes a full-on wolf, and retained their human mentality in both forms. Werewolves aren’t considered to be cursed, and are traditionally wlecomed into society because of their control.
a LYCAN is forced to transform by the moonlight, loses all humanity, and is stuck in the halfway form we’re so familiar with. Lycans are feared and hunted, and must be killed by a silver weapon made from a crusifix. Wolfsbane can also force a transformation back to human.

Loch Ness Monster-Restricted to a lake in Scotland. primarily aquatic, though some stories claim she’s been spotted on shore, so possible amphibious. Displays little aggresion towards humans, but has been known to knock small boats about and call back to bagpipe music. Loves haunting renditions of Danny Boy.
Auroch-Twelve foot tall Bull. Commonly Norse mythos. Don’t piss it off. Being a spirit, it cannot be killed. Instead, exhaustion drains its power and forces it to rest.

Aurochs actually existed. They were a precursor species to modern day cattle. twelve feet tall is a little off, but given that uniformity of measurement didn’t really happen until the last couple of centuries, and even then had been known to vary for various physical reasons, the full 12 feet could be plausible under certain circumstances as well.

Also, the Loup Garou. Primarily residing in Norman mythology was a werewolf that changed by donning the pelt of a wolf. Akin to the Berserkers (from the Norse Bear Sark, meaning bear shirt) who were warriors that changed into a bear by donning the appropriate pelt. Of course Greek werewolves were more akin to Native American Wendigo (possibly why current pop culture often displays Wendigo as wolf-like) in that they became what they were through cannibalism. Of course the Greeks, borrowing from Babylonian tradition, could soothe the beast to manhood through sexual acts (Humbaba was made a man by sex with a temple prostitute after he and Gilgamesh beat the living crap ut of each other. Of course that was an allegory to adulthood equaling sexual activity, a concept that exists through modern times)

Fun little compartive mythology fact: Every major culture has some form of mythological giant flying serpent, the most well known being dragons, of course, but existing by other names as well.

I forgot to mention in my prior post that in early folklore the stake only served to nail them to the back of the coffin so they couldn’t get up when they awoke.

Vampires:die in sunlight, garlic is poisonous, cross will repel them, A method for distracting them is to leave a large number of small grains upon your doorstep they would be compelled to count them, beheading can kill them, stakeing through the heart, stuffing the mouth full of garlic and burning them was the most usual way to kill them, believed they could transform into mist, wolves and bats, hypnotic powers,stakeing didnt kill them in and of itself it served to keep them in their graves, people would also take the bones of the vampire they burned and rearrange them so that they would not be able to pull themselves together so to speak
Werewolves: cursed to change in the light of the full moon, it is said that you can become a were wolf by drinking from the foot print of a wolf filled with water, silver will kill them(most popularly a silver bullet)
Zombies:funny thing is there is no real lore concerning zombies as we know them it is mostly hollywood we have to thank for that, how ever there are alot of other undead
Ghouls:Undead risen and posessed by demons to defile and devour other corpses and graves, Holy water and fire generally worked (they were kinda multi purpose tools)
Im a bit of a monster buff though i know alot of old lore about them, mostly eroupean though

Vampires have multiple mythos; all with their own traits. I feel like the defaults are Van Hellsing/Bram Stoker vampires (old school) and Anne Rice’s vampires (new school). Anne Rice’s vampires have far fewer weaknesses; mostly sunlight. They also can’t sire other vampires that easily. Van Hellsing types have tons of weaknesses and restrictions, but have more powers. Most other vampires fit somewhere between. Twilight vampires don’t really count in there… as they more closely resemble fairies than vampires.

It really depends on which particular lore you subscribe to. Especially with so many different versions of vampires and werewolves as paranormal fiction gains popularity. In my mind, however, here are the “rules”:

Vampires – Burn in sunlight, but not instantaneously; cannot enter homes uninvited; cannot cross running water; repelled by garlic and holy symbols; do not have reflections; must exchange blood with a human and then have that human die to make new vampires; can be killed by burning, decapitation, or a “stake” (most implements of impalation) through the heart

Werewolves – Repelled by silver and wolfsbane; are forced to transform on the night of the full moon and cannot voluntarily transform at any other time; can only transmit lycanthropy by biting a human while in wolf form

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