Belated wishes and small hiatus

Seasons' greetings y'all!

As you may have noticed, there was no Special this past Sunday (because christmas), and there won't be one next Sunday either. The Specials will resume on January 7th.

In the meantime, I'm still severely struggling with insomnia, to the point I decided to just give up for tonight after spending the last two hours tossing and turning - and thinking. I can't sleep. And I seem to recall having a similar issue last year, so my guess is this is the time of year for me where 3 AM at the soonest is my bedtime.

But the attempted sleep wasn't in vain. So though there's no Special these couple of weeks, have a couple of fun Aeyuu facts instead that came to me in between two Fates thoughts :D

- Syrilae, and perhaps other spellcasters on Aeyuu, have two hearts. The primary heart is like ours, though located lower in their chests; the secondary one is more like a tiny ball located along the upper main artery. This heart is what powers their magic.

I haven't quite figured out everything yet, but I know when a thought feels this right it means it is right. I see this secondary heart activate when using/powering up magic, which essentially means (I think) that they physical functions and magical abilities aren't interdependent - even though their magic does get cast through their hands (logic there, I assume, is because this heart is closest to the hands, but with practice one may be able to learn to control what appendage magic come from. Maybe even as a breath. That'd be cool. *.*)

As a note, Syrilae blood itself consists of magic in part. So do their bodies. So I guess it makes sense that such creatures would require additional organs to function properly. Pretty sure the secondary heart also plays a part in digestion. But I'll have to figuratively dissect someone to figure all of that out.

- There are a lot of different metals on Aeyuu; some are common to other worlds, even our own, such as steel and gold (called aur). Others are unique to that world - one of which is basically a sort of flint-like ore that can be refined into metal as well as gems.

This ore is called gernate. As the name sort of suggests, this is a reddish rock, mined mostly in the Human lands. It doesn't look much different from iron ore, but has a different consistence. When heated to a certain degree, it'll melt and can be used in conjunction with steel ore (a name I might still change but I picked 'steel' to mark the fact it doesn't rust like iron) to create weapons and other items. If left to harden on its own, gernate will gain a certain transparency and basically become a red gem (imagine translucent jasper). But gernate ore on its own has an interesting attribute not found in other minerals: when scraping it with for instance a knife, it will create red-hot sparks that, yes, can and will cause fires.

I haven't thought yet of all its uses, but one of 'em is the invention of lighters and lanterns that are self-sufficient. Real gernate is pricey, so most common-use items are made of a synthetic gernate ore created by alchemists. Still gotta think of how they did that, but then I feel like there's still a lot of natural mysteries and utilities I should be thinking about. Oh and I'm now pretty sure gernate ore is used in the guns the Humans will manage to manufacture eventually.

Or how to 'other-world' items and stuff found in our own world XD

Pretty sure I'll be thinking about more things, but that's for the current random ideas. I've been missing my favourite world :) next year it'll return more on the forefront of things - right after I finish writing Fates. As it stands, I have a professional editor hired for Fates, meaning it'll get self-published sometime in 2018. And if all goes well, The Age of Silence's first draft will get written too.

For now, I can but hope my sleep schedule will become more normal again, because my brain is about dead. XD

Happy holidays everyone!

Sunday Special #21 – From Human to Vampire (psychology)

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Every Sunday I run a Special relating to my writing endeavours and the world of Aeyuu, which is the stage for many stories developed further through the Tales from Aeyuu Patreon. These Blogs are closely tied with my novel-to-be, The Age of Silence, which is basically a story about Love, Sacrifice, and Death.

Previous Special Arcs:
0. TAoS Themes (3 journals)
1. The Syrilae (7 journals)
2. The Necrolore (6 journals)
3. The Denumbra (2 journals)

Today, we continue to delve into Vampiric aspects, namely what goes on in their minds.

Art commissioned from dannii-jo

The Vampire: intelligent predator or humane beast?

The answer has yet to be uncovered by the alchemists who poured over this age-old question, but most will agree that a Vampire at its best is a bit of both. Even after being turned and losing its memory, a Vampire might still show signs of humanity, such as a certain care for animals, a preference for certain foods, or even a deep-rooted hatred for people it no longer remembers. Korindian studies of of the Vampiric brain have yet to reveal how and why this change occurs, as do the studies regarding their venom. All that is certain, is that Vampires aren't Humans. As such, they are treated just like any other dangerous predator and dispatched whenever possible, even if it means murdering a relative.

But those who have stood alongside Vampires have very different stories to tell as to their sentience - and even as to their humanity. Tales of Vampires killing their own kin to save a Human, of Vampires helping to rebuild a devastated village, or even protecting Humans against Elven invasions; there are as many tales of good deeds as there are of evil deeds, or so does the rumour go. Among mercenaries and traveling warriors, Vampires are appreciated companions whose strength and instinct may mean the difference between life and death in combat. Vampiric healers and Imperial soldiers aren't unheard of, but keep their true identities well hidden. 

Be it good-hearted or ill-intentioned, a Vampire remains a predator. All Vampires have in common a need to consume fresh blood to stay healthy, and ignoring this Hunger, as it is called, will drive even the best of them to attack innocents on sight and rip them apart. The youngest Vampires are by far the most dangerous, but also the most vulnerable: the Hunger blinds them, distracts them, and they know only to attack in a straight line. Whereas older Vampires have a better grasp of their Hungering madness, and are able to juggle the craving for blood with a certain strategic clarity. It is nigh impossible to discern youth from experience, as even an old lady may be but a fledgling Vampire in disguise, and a child over two centuries old - both with the strength to pull an adult man off his feet. To a Hungry Vampire, all that lives is considered easy prey. Yet there are known cases of Vampires with relative success in fighting these primal urges, often leading to their deaths.

How and why would a Vampire defy its own instinct? There are no factual answers to this question, but theories point at the level of humanity a Vampire retains after being turned. How fundamentally different is a Vampire who fondly remembers the smell of flowers from a Vampire who fears, and kills, an armed man? Why do these memories remain and surface, when even loved ones are completely forgotten? And what to make of these Vampires who'd rather bleed and kill themselves than to ever risk taking another's life?

Many more questions exist than there are answers found. Vampires are a difficult breed to approach - reclusive, paranoid, if not entirely homicidal. The Korindians have found alchemical ways to subdue these beasts, but no method is truly foolproof - thusly proving that, like among all races, exceptions and unique individuals exist.

Be the Vampire an intelligent predator or a humane beast or both at once, it is also a mystery that may never be solved.

* * *

And that is all for this week. I had a bit of trouble writing this up, but it's likely due to the two coffees and my brain being in a whole other universe at the moment. Still. I tried and make this as interesting as humanly possible ;)

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next Sunday Special, same Blogger channel :D

Enjoying the world of Aeyuu?

Please consider Supporting me

on Patreon. Thank you ^^

The Self - Who am I to You?

My day started out pretty amazingly with this view of my backyard,

Then it got even better as a fellow writer shared some words of encouragement with me that I really, really needed to hear this morning. With the whole Patreon debacle, the entirety of my hopes for the future disappeared. When you no longer have hope, all that is left is a deep dive.

Were it not for this little pit of 'YOU CAN FUCKING DO IT' nestled in my heart and soul (and rationality kicking my ass for letting emotions get the better of me), I may just be giving up right now. And a part of me is. I'm grieving the loss of hope and having to build my perspectives for the future from the ground up again.

It's nothing I've never done before, and certainly not as hard and seemingly impossible as getting over a ten-year depression caused by daily bullying at an age (14-15) when you're basically supposed to be building yourself. I always think: I got through that, the rest is trivial.

But then I had a discussion with an ex-coworker from a few years ago, and I got so pissed off at the mentality - not him, as I know he's a good guy. There's a fine, but very real, distinction here. Just like with Patreon, you can hate the company, but understand the individual. And I got an inkling as to where the negativity comes from, anyway.

But why did I get pissed off? Because of the mentality that people without jobs are 'social parasites', and it'd be good to put these people to work in volunteer jobs - namely, right now, to clear out the snow for the old and the isolated. I actually like the thought, because it'd give these people a chance to get out of their own isolation and feel useful (a much needed sentiment). But I greatly dislike the idea these people are parasites - and this because, being unemployed, it puts me in this 'parasite' category.

Needless to say, words and opinions were exchanged, and I figured I'd just be honest about things when he said I probably felt targeted - it's true. I feel targeted because I feel for people in a situation worse off than my own, as I understand how horrible it is to be there. You're viewed as scum, as parasites,a s people who don't want to help themselves. More stigma won't make things better. So, yes, I get 'righteously angry'. I honestly sometimes wonder whether I'm still capable of 'feeling', so it's nice to be reminded now and again that I can. And what pissed me most off is how he beat around the bush, when he could have said right away: yes I'm a cynic and this is how I view things (which he eventually did).

In the meantime, more negativity got out into the world, and I now feel bad for this guy being trapped in such negative thinking. Because fuck you idealistic empathy *sigh* but anyway. Indirectly, I got to know he doesn't think of me this way. Which does make me happy, as I don't think of him as an asshole just for sharing that kind of opinion. I did at first XD but that was the beating around the bush. I like honest, straightforward people who say things as they are, and answer things straight. The rest gets under my skin (and now you know how to piss me off - please don't do it <<)

However, I find this conversation to have been enlightening. I'd thank him for it, but I'm worried he'd think I'm being a sarcastic bitch XD seriously though, the part that struck me as we finally got to the core of the issue and words were being truthful (=that he's a cynic), is something said before: that I felt personally attacked. Yes and no - no because I rather feel for people in my situation and can relate; yes because, well, yes, I am technically a social parasite, so it hurts when people I like share opinions that basically state they dislike people like me. At the base, I'm not a parasite by choice: I had an awesome job, the company went broke, I haven't been able to find a job I liked that much; then I had to take a job out of financial necessity, and to this day (two years later) I still have a bruise on my thigh from hitting a little door thing at the register that wasn't well closed and that I hit full force.

Every day I am reminded of how much I hated that last job (except for my colleagues). Every day I am reminded through this wound of what I had, what I lost, and what I fucking refuse to sacrifice ever again. Yes, I am technically a parasite, but in my mind I'm currently a monstrous beast that will destroy anything in its path towards the future I want. Which is kind of not a good way to be. With the Patreon thing, my being unemployed and perhaps soon kicked off welfare, and weeks-long insomnia caused by I imagine the financial stress, my self-confidence is at a very low point. I can barely motivate myself to write. But I will write, because that's all I'm good at. I can only live on the hope this book in the works will start helping with the finances - or be a huge success, though I prefer keeping my feet on the ground.

But, I saw today just how negatively I think of myself, as well. For all my growth, for all my drive, I am still very much prone to beating myself down and thinking myself not good enough.

In a way, I think I ought to be grateful the Patreon story ends. I tried, I failed, and what I take home is the experience and knowledge that,

1. I can stick to a schedule and write a lot more than I think

2. When creating out of a financial aspect, I am not doing what I should be doing

3. I'm a writer. That's my category. Always will be.

And, for some irrational reason, I still have the feeling 2018 will be explosively good. So lets hope that gut feeling's right. Because I'm also not feeling anything bad happening for the coming three years (or beyond, but that's still far away).

I will never be like other people; I will never find satisfaction in leading a 'normal' life. I don't want to regret. And I know that if I were to try and 'fix' my technical social status through expected means, I'd regret it for the rest of my life. I can't keep wasting time. And if people want to see me as a social parasite, then that's their choice; if they want to see me as a low-life once I fall off the face of society, then that's their choice. But I shouldn't, and can't, let others' views negatively affect me - rather, I prefer to try and positively influence them. And that's my choice.

Total self feelgood post, but sometimes those are needed XD I really have no idea where I'm going beyond getting my book ready, edited, and published. And if it weren't for the love of a good man who understands what it's like to chase a dream and succeed, we wouldn't be getting a chance at reaching for the crazy dream. I always think things happen for a reason, but it can take time to truly understand what that reason is.

All that said, it's time for me to go back to Fates. 20k words in a month is the goal, and getting some stories edited to share their first chapters publicly. People do amazing things all the time. I can't let a setback push me back into old thinking patterns, or keep me stuck there. Now I get to write for the love of it again. And maybe do some cross-stitching sometime soon. Haven't allowed myself such a break in a couple of years. 

Sunday Special #20 – From Human to Vampire (physiology)

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Support us on Ko-Fi ~ Liberapay

Every Sunday I run a Special relating to my writing endeavours and the world of Aeyuu, which is the stage for many stories that will be developed further on the official Tales from Aeyuu site. These Blogs are closely tied with my novel-to-be, The Age of Silence, which is basically a story about Love, Sacrifice, and Death.

Previous Special Arcs:
0. TAoS Themes (3 journals)
1. The Syrilae (7 journals)
2. The Necrolore (6 journals)
3. The Denumbra (2 journals)

Today we delve into the physical attributes of Vampires.

Physiology: from Human to Vampire

In the Sommerdiev Empire, it is a well-known fact that to become a Vampire, one must be bitten by a Vampire. This fact, however, isn't foolproof: there are cases of Humans seeking out Vampires, being drained of their blood and life, yet never to rise up as Vampires themselves. The most driven of alchemists, most of them Korindian, have long explored Vampiric physiology to try and determine what about their bite triggered transformation.

They discovered that, through a nigh invisible cavity at the tip of their main fangs (incisors) and the twitch of a muscle in their gums, a needle-like protrusion shot out. Further research revealed venom glands within the teeth themselves - a physical mystery yet to be comprehended that gave further credibility to the theory Vampires are divine beings. How else could solid teeth change shape and hollow out to accomodate a previously non-existing, apparently self-replenishing gland?

Experiments were conducted to understand the process of Vampiric transformation - of 'turning', as it became known; these were not all conclusive, as certain alchemists died when the newly made Vampires went berserk. From the few that were succesfully contained and observed, the alchemists derived theories. The greatest theory, which was proven true across the Empire, was the 'clean slate': the theory that, upon transformation, a Human's memory is wiped out. People across the lands had lost loved ones to vampirism, to later discover their loved ones no longer remembering them. Yet these new Vampires had retained quirks from their old lives, such as a love for animals or a particular food, down to fighting moves or a traveler's instinct to always pack a blade, just in case.

Another theory proven true was the 'predator switch': that a Human become Vampire developed new skills and even instincts during their metamorphosis. People missing for a few days were found again, as Vampires, with the strength to crush a man's skull when they'd barely been able to lift a blade before. How much a Human changed, however, was never defined; each individual seemed to undergo a different change, with only accrued strength and better sight in the dark being common among all Vampires. As well as the need to feed on blood.

Make no mistake: a Vampire can subsist on cooked meals alone. Some even enjoy the pleasures of great banquets, and thus perfectly blend into society. But eventually, they will need to feed on fresh blood. If they don't, they visibly age - like Humans naturally do. They become weaker, short-tempered, until such a time comes that Hunger blinds rationale and they attack the first wounded person crossing their path - oft leading to their demise. With the advent of madness-inducing Rosebleed and paralyzing toxins, Vampires lost their top-predatory spot in the foodchain.

Yet to this day, Vampires have yet to be eradicated. With Human history advancing ever further, it became clear that Vampires' lives could be long-lived - if not eternal, lest they encountered a 'fatal accident'. These Old Vampires are most feared of all, and easiest to recognize - there is no fear in their eyes, no fault in their stride, and have often the looks of aging adults while speaking in words laden with the sort of knowledge obtained through long experience. How long a Vampire truly can live is as-ot-yet an unknown that alchemists everywhere are keen to unravel.

* * *

And that is all for this week. I didn't really know where to start off, so I figured it'd make sense to delve a bit into the physical facts of Vampirism.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next Sunday Special, same Blogger channel :D

Enjoying the world of Aeyuu?

Please consider Supporting me

on Ko-Fi or Liberapay.
Thank you ^^

The Grand Patreon Debacle

As you will probably know if you run into this post: Patreon has decided to change its business model and charge a Creator's Patrons the fees that said Creator was paying before. There's a massive uproar on Twitter, the Patreon Facebook page I'm on has gone strangely silent, and there are people who have lost their entire livelihoods in a couple of days.

A little about me for context's sake: I'm Belgian. I had to legally register as a company to even get to use Patreon; thankfully, Belgian laws are such that I paid nothing, and am paying nothing because my business is artistic and I'm not earning enough through it. As a Belgian, I pay 21% VAT; so a pledge of $1 made to someone else comes down to $1.21 for me. My four Patrons were friends and family based in Europe, so all had VAT (three of them at 21%), plus conversion fees - better for them, worse for me. But I had hopes and plans. And I still do.

If you haven't read the articles/essays/Twitter/Patreon blogs, here are the highlights - as I understand them, of course.

1. Creators will now take a whopping 95% earnings home, and fees they were previously charged are shifted onto Patrons. 2.9% + 0.35 cents will be applied.

It may not seem like much, until you get to the point where this will be applied per pledge; so if you're pledging to several Creators at once, you will be charged these fees for every single transaction.

A simple example: the one $1 pledge I had would now come to at least $1.60, while the Creator takes home 0.95 cents. Needless to say, I'll be supporting this artist through other means.

2. It has been said major research and experimenting has been done with Patrons and Creators to figure out this new business model, in their own blog. Fact: there are big players who openly said they never heard about any of this before it hit everyone - now, less than two weeks before changes will take effect (18 Dec). There are people whose livelihoods were destroyed, as people refuse to pay the extra fees. With the $1.60 I was facing for a $1 pledge, I can understand how they feel. And I had only one pledge to another Creator.

Now, the logic behind this change has been extensively debated wherever I've looked. On the one hand, people see it as a cash grab; on the other hand, it is logically explained through a change Patreon has been trying to implement for quite some time now: charge up front.

Charge up front is a beta option allowing you to, as the name suggests, charge new Patrons up front - a change requested by Creators due to what I'll call 'pledge ninjas': they come in, select a pledge level, download everything they want, and delete their pledge - effectively obtaining all content without paying a dime. the artist I was pledging to had it happen to him despite his work being early access, meaning it becomes available anyway to the public after a short while. So charge up front was the response, but it created another issue: people pledging at the end of the month, and being charged again at the beginning of the month, with the Creator feeling required to give a refund.

To fix this issue, they are now planning to have Patrons pay on the anniversary date of their subscription - meaning de-aggregated pledges, and thus more fees as every transaction becomes its own transaction, and no longer a bundled transaction as it is now. I have read so many Tweets of Creators wanting to keep this system that I truly do wonder who, exactly, their test subjects were for this change.

Which does give more credit to the thought Patreon changes its policy to gain more money. With its CEO having been contacted by phone by some Creators, I'll give him the benefit of the doubt for now. As someone rightly said: you can hate a company, and still respect an individual - be they the head of the company. One Creator quoted the CEO as saying, 'we fucked up the roll-out'.

3. 'We fucked up the roll-out'. I, as many others, understand this as meaning they don't regret the changes they've implemented, despite the uproar, despite people losing their livelihoods. So, one can logically come to think it means the changes are necessary for the platform to keep existing, as I've seen some people say. Honestly, I don't know what marketing idiot would think it a great idea to roll out such a major change while warning people two weeks in advance, and during one of the busiest months of the year. I'm not marketing savvy and even I know this, in itself, is a major fuck-up. Which gives more credibility to Patreon not being there for profit, but being people who had an idea and tried their best to implement it and realize, sometime down the road, that it's not working well. With their reputation broken and people losing faith in them, I'm not sure how they'll be able to 'un-fuck' the roll-out.

But this is a painful reminder that nothing in this world is acquired. We are all at the mercy of changes such as these, and it is such a classic economic fail I've seen my own government do it. Need money => create more taxes => people buy less, so less profit! Perhaps the Patrons who stay will make up for those who leave.

My take on it is: let's wait until January 18th and every Patron finally knows how much extra they'll be paying. I predict more losses. I hope to be proven wrong.

4. There will 'likely' be changes as to how Creators can pay other Creators, namely in becoming unable to use their earnings to pay them - resulting in yet more fees. This is taken directly from the Patreon Community forums.

The last lines are self-explanatory. I have no idea what they mean by 'edge cases' or 'complexity to the payment system'; all I know is: extra Paypal fees.

5. 'We'd rather have our GMV (=gross merchandise volume) be made up of fewer, but truly life-changed creators rather than a lot of creators making a few dollars.'

Which basically means: small-time Creators are unwelcome in our new business model. The entire essay can be read here. I'll admit, I didn't understand all of it. So my attention rather went to the explanations of the Patreon staffer Raviv, who this statement belongs to.

The debate I've seen going on Twitter is: what does 'truly life-changed' mean? According to the article, 

Patreon's understanding of 'life-changed' is a specific, undisclosed number. To Creators whose life changed thanks to Patreon, this number relates to the fact whether they can buy groceries, pay bills, and even the rent if they're lucky. My life would already be changed with 400 to 500 € a month. I don't need a thousand or more: just enough to get food on the table and feel like I succeeded at the only job I'm able to do, and that is writing. Job opportunities are scarce here for 'unqualified' people (=people without a bachelor degree or experience in the branch they're applying for). With being trilingual, gifted with words (less so when I don't edit myself), capable to draw, to think, with a high desire to help others and fierce loyalty when I'm given a chance, all I get to hope for is working in retail because that's where my experience lies. And the cruel reality is: I hate retail; I love numbers, but I hate statistics, targets, forcing people to buy stuff they don't need and sometimes don't want. I hate retail. I broke my health working my last retail job at a supermarket. And I still have a bruise on my leg after two years. Every day, I am visibly reminded of how much I hate retail. So earning even €400 would be life-changing, because that'd mean not having to go back down that road.

But clearly this is not the sort of life-changing we are talking about. No one knows exactly what they mean. I'd love to know their definition of it.

Even if it makes sense from a business point of view; well, hey, those current 'life-changed' Creators started out small, themselves. They got there through their own dedication, their own hard work - Patreon is but an intermediary between fans and Creators. Patreon did not make them big - those people did it on their own.

6. Which leads me to their beloved Twitter catch-phrase 'We're getting artists paid'. I believe 'certain artists' would be more fair. Patreon has showcased itself as the place to be as Creator to earn a living; it's true that the big Creators on there somehow made it look easy - I, too, joined in the hopes of reaching these heights, and was sorely disappointed when I realized Patreon isn't the place to grow a following, that this had to be done off-site. So, I put the work in - perhaps not as much as I could've/should've, but I tried. Regular free updates, monthly story bundles, extra stories, Twitter, Facebook, I did what I could. And still would have, until I discovered I'm not the market they're catering to - anymore.

Here's the reality: with a push and a shove from higher up, people can get chances they'd never have gotten otherwise. Instead of breaking the little Creators, Patreon could and SHOULD have set in place a system that showcases the 'upcoming' Creators - small people like me who put in the work, do regular updates, try their hardest to get noticed. When you do regular updates for 8 months (beginning to end), chances are you're here to stay and trudge through the desert to reach that oasis.

And this could have resulted in more 'big' Creators, more fitting into that GMV. In the end, they were eitehr a beautiful dream, or charming hypocrites. Or a little bit of both. 

And that's all I wanted to say. In the meantime I've moved over to a donations site instead, Liberapay, and set up a Ko-Fi. I've asked my four Patrons to delete their pledges, I will be deleting my one pledge soon, and my page as well. I don't know what the future will hold. What I do know is that I won't have to watch my precious Patrons be hit with extra charges just to show their support.

And at the same time, I realized how little of my heart's goal I got done through Patreon and, let's face it, its paywall. I was so focused every month on getting things done for my Patrons that I failed on my goal to be read and enjoyed. Hence why I moved to a donations site. Plus, I like how they're set up, so we'll see what comes of it.

Now it's time to pull up them sleeves and make work again of everything I set out to do. 2018 will be good. But my heart goes out to everyone whose future is now uncertain because of Patreon's 'fuck-up'.

Sunday Special #19 – Vampires: an introduction

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Every Sunday I run a Special relating to my writing endeavours and the world of Aeyuu, which is the stage for many stories developed further through the Tales from Aeyuu Patreon. These Blogs are closely tied with my novel-to-be, The Age of Silence, which is basically a story about Love, Sacrifice, and Death.

Previous Special Arcs:
0. TAoS Themes (3 journals)
1. The Syrilae (7 journals)
2. The Necrolore (6 journals)
3. The Denumbra (2 journals)

Today we shall start a new topic relevant to Humanity: the Vampires.

A brief history

Since the advent of the imperial Sommerdiev line, with the first Emperor rising at the top of the food chain and claiming all individual countries as one big nation under his rule, Human society has evolved beyond what some believed nature, if not the Gods, had intended for them. Dissimilar countries united under one banner, trade and travel became more commonplace and safe, and with it networks of information sprang to life to corroborate the history of Humanity.

Yet it never became clear when the first Vampires made their entry into the world, nor whether the originals looked at all like Humans - or were originally Humans, as all contemporary Vampires are. It has been debated by many a scholar that Vampires were once a race unto their own, unable to reproduce, and that they somehow evolved into the parasitic predators known to mankind; less rational scholars have argued that such evolution is nothing but a scientific fallacy and that Vampires are a form of divine retribution for crimes committed by unscrupulous brethren; regular citizens view Vampires as nothing more or less than a plague that must be eradicated.

But all is not so simple to the people who have met Vampires up close and lived to tell the tale. A Vampire may be brutal just as it may be kind - it may kill just as it may help. Though they are as wild beasts when hungered, well-fed Vampires are nigh impossible to discern from the regular populace at first glance. Vampires may speak and smile and even laugh, their fangs may not always show - not until it is too late. Usually, by the time a Vampire has begun to socialize, it is already beyond too late.

Though at first glance not a recognizable trait by the common population, excessive strength is oft a telltale sign of vampirism. What is considered excessive may vary from person to person, one thing is certain: if an apparent Human is capable of easily blocking a blade with bare hands and not show a hint of fear, one ought to take all necessary precautions and aim to sever head from neck. That is the only proven way to kill a Vampire, as anything else will only drive it mad, and flesh wounds will heal in a matter of moments.

In the later years Humans have concocted new ways of detecting Vampires and getting rid of them. Alchemists developed a virulent poison called Rosebleed that affects a Vampire's blood flow. Once entered the bloodstream, a Vampire will go mad with artificial Hunger (a state of being that denotes immediate need for blood lest the Vampire goes berserk) and attack on sight anything in their path - Human or Vampire. Mercenaries and city guards have begun using Rosebleed to eradicate entire nests in one bloody go, with satisfactory success. Certain Vampires are capable of jugulating blinding Hunger to retain a tactical instinct; Rosebleed completely annihilates their thinking patterns and renders them vulnerable - from a tactical point of view. Hunger increases a Vampire's strength and speed. Often, Rosebleed is used in conjunction with unwilling bait.

But as information has spread across the lands, so have Vampiric numbers dwindled. Where once Vampires came to rule the Human lands as the ancient Elves had, Humanity regained the upper hand. The Vampires slowly faded from street view, but never truly disappeared. Though still predators, they adapted to their surroundings and started blending in - be it among the common populace, bands of mercenaries, or even among city guards.

Nowadays Vampires are no longer as feared as they are despised for what they are: diseased mockeries of Humanity - sub-Humans. With the advent of science, Vampires have become far easier to cripple and dispatch. As long as one gets the first blow in.

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And that is all for this week. Thought I'd start us off with a global view, so I get an idea of where to go next :)

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for the next Sunday Special, same Blogger channel :D

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