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Vampire Names Throughout Europe and the UK

kate — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 14:27:25 +0000

Whether they’re told as common folklore, or believed to be real terrors and creatures that roam the earth, there are many names for vampires and vampire beings throughout the world. Here are some common vampire names that send a tingle up one’s spine throughout Europe and the United Kingdom.

Bruja: This creature took the form of animals although it was usually thought to appear as a female. The Bruja was also known to attack mostly infants. This vampiric creature is known mostly throughout Spain. In Portugal, there’s a known creature that’s similar to the Bruja, called the Bruxa. The Bruxa however, were thought mostly to be witches and not vampires. They too however, attacked mostly infants.

Callicantzaros: This terrifying vampire is of a special sort that’s known throughout Greece. Not only are these vampires born around the holidays, from Christmas Day through to the Epiphany (New Year’s), but this is also when they are most known to attack and be the most violent. They also have long talons, which make them much more dangerous.

Dhampir – Dhampirs weren’t actually vampires. But they were thought to be a specific kind of vampire hunter. What gives a dhampir they’re power is that they are the son of a vampire and during the 17th and 18th century, it was thought that only dhampirs could kill vampires. It was common for other people to disguise themselves as dhampirs, claiming that they could kill vampires in order to make a profit. These types of vampire hunters were also thought to be common throughout Bulgaria, where they are called vampirdzhija.

Lamia: Throughout Greece there’s another vampiress that strikes terror. This creature however is only half woman, and the rest of her is half serpent. Lamias are thought to live in caves and they come out to feast on children. They also sometimes take the form of beautiful women, who are all-woman, in order to seduce men so that they can also drink their blood.

Nachzehrer: This vampire is found in graves in Germany and has very particular traits. They will always hold the thumb of one hand with the other, and their left eye is always open. They sit in their tombs while feasting on their prey and make loud grunting noises.

Neuntoter: Also found in Germany, this vampire spreads terror of a different sort. They may not drain you of your blood, but they do spread the plague!

Upir: The Czech Republic is a vampire that stems from the thought that everyone has two souls. After death, one soul moves on to the afterlife and the other soul, known as the ‘lesser soul’, remains in the corpse, leaving it to become reanimated. Found in graves, it usually had its eyes open and had two curls in its hair. Another characteristic of Upirs was that they had two hearts.

Ustrel: These vampires were found in Bulgaria. These vampires came from babies that were born on a Saturday and not baptized. When nine days had passed after their burial, the ustrel would come back to feed on and drain the blood of livestock. After they had become strong enough, ustrels would then remain out during the day, hiding in among the livestock, and feasting on them one by one.

The Four Best Vampire Animes

annimi — Sun, 15 Nov 2009 13:48:24 +0000

Hellsing – Hellsing actually follows Dracula, –er, Alucard, and a descendant of the original van Helsing, who formed the Hellsing Organization, which kills and controls the vampire population. How? Well, because the latest in the Hellsing line is a hardcore, cold female who keeps Alucard on a short leash, and turns him out as an agent to kill his own kind. Alucard doesn’t seem to mind, and he does a damn good job. There are two animes, and a manga; the manga came first, detailed, original, stylish, then the first anime. Sadly, the first anime sort of sucks; the animation is herky jerky, and sources say, doesn’t really follow the manga very closely at all. Though it has a damn catchy theme song. Hellsing Ultimate is a shorter series, with better quality animation, that sticks to the manga story throughout.

Vampire Hunter D – D for Dhampir, he follows and hunts vampires, some classical some not. Think of it as a gothic vampire Western, that just happens to be anime, and you’ll have arrived at the general style. There are two films, 1985, 2000, a video game, a comics series, and an audio drama! Hunt down both movies and check them out, if you’re in the mood for some dhampir-on-vampire crime fighting madness.

Trinity Blood – A totally confusing anime that every seems to love, –also featured on Adult Swim for a short period before its cancellation. The story involves vampires, aliens, earthlings, and Catholicism, –as well as the Vatican playing a major military role, in the future. It’s science fiction gone to extremes, and if you can follow it, you have my lifelong admiration. As for me, I’ll happily settle back with something a bit more one-dimensional any day.

Vampire Knight – If you’ve got the usual hard-on for anime schoolgirls in pleated skirts, –you know you do, don’t lie, –and just happen to have a dash of vampire fandom sprinkled in with the rest of your secret anime obsession, then you’ll love Vampire Knight. It takes place in academy surroundings, where minimal school uniforms and anatomically anime girls abound. There’s action, romance, moody vampires, and vampire hunters; more than enough to fulfill your vampire anime romance fantasies for years. Plus, there’s manga, fanfic, audio drama, short novels, and even a video game!

What is a Dhampir?

Moonlight — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 13:00:58 +0000

Well, it’s a half vampire, half human hybrid of course, Blade taught us that. But this idea didn’t come from the entertainment world. The idea of a vampire/human mix comes straight from age-old vampire lore, Gypsy lore to be exact.

Dhampir is the name the Slavonic Gypsies came up with to call the child of a vampire. This child has some of the powers that its vampire parent has, what these powers are depend on the vampire and myth. How a dhampir is made is also a something that Gypsies debated on. The most commonly believed method is that a newly made male vampire is super horny and feels the need to go back to his human widow to sex her up, if he didn‘t have a wife during life, then he‘ll go after any young woman he can find. It was then possible for his wife or whoever to become pregnant with his vampire baby. That baby was then known as a dhampir but some other Gypsies didn’t use this word, sometimes they would call the child a vampir (if male), vampuiera (if female), vampijerovic, or lampijerovic. Some believed that this child was always male, then you had others saying that it died shortly after birth because its body was made of something like jelly and another rumor was that it in fact wasn’t special at all – that it was a normal human. But for the most part it was believed that it was a child with a vampire parent and a human parent and that because of its vampire blood it had special powers. And when it came to inheriting the lust for blood, well that’s another thing that changes from myth to myth. In some cases a dhampir craves blood, but other times it has no desire for it.

These dhampirs born were usually turned into vampire hunters because of their powers to detect and destroy the undead. Yup, that didn’t come from Blade or BloodRayne, dhampirs in the past were said to hunt vampires. In Serbia it is believed that vampires are invisible and that only dhampirs are able to see them, therefore dhampirs were paid to hunt down and kill these vamps. How this played out is a dhampir would go out to kill the vampire, if you were watching you would see a person flailing around, apparently wrestling with an invisible foe. After some time the dhampir would declare to the watching villagers that the vampire was dead and then he or she would collect a large payment from the town. The last time this happened was in 1959 in the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo.

- Moonlight

BloodRayne

Moonlight — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 13:00:43 +0000

Not too long ago I was talking to someone about BloodRayne and they had never heard of if! How can someone not know about this ass kicking vampire video game? Madness! So today I am going to educate you guys on one of my all time favorite video games, Bloodrayne.

BloodRayne was developed by Terminal Reality and it is a horror-themed third-person action video game that came out October 15, 2002 for Nintendo, GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox. Later a PC version was released but it sucked so bad we’ll just pretend it never existed. The game stars Rayne, the half human, half vampire dhampir who oozes sex appeal, ruthless charm and cockiness.

There are two Bloodrayne games. The first game is about Rayne being taken in by an underground organization calling themselves the Brimstone Society – a top-secret fraternity that hunts down and destroys supernatural threats. They discover her hunting down vampires in search of her vampire father who raped and murdered her mother. In the years between the World Wars, Rayne works as a killing machine for the Brimstone Society. Two missions, five years apart, turn out to be connected by one man. For years, this man has been searching the world for powerful occult artifacts to bring Germany into a new age of domination. Rayne must face this man’s elite Nazi army to prevent them from releasing creatures of unfathomable terror onto the world in their unwavering quest for the artifacts.

This incredibly gory and sexy first game was loads of fun, the lines from the game are hilarious and often perverse. The gameplay itself was ok; it was decent but not the best. The gameplay in Bloodrayne 2 was MUCH better! Like a million times so. Not only was fighting smoother but you also got some badass weaponry and powers. I am tempted to tell you guys to skip the first game and move onto the second one, that’s how much I think the second is better than the first. On that note we’ll move on to the second game…

Bloodrayne 2 was a huge step up from the first game. The graphics were better, the powers rocked, the levels were more interesting (the zoo level is my fave), camera angles didn’t suck and overall gameplay went way smoother. Oh and they added in costumes codes that let you pick Rayne’s outfit… like sexy catholic school girl, oh yea. On that topic, the cheat codes are great too if you choose to use them. There are codes that make you death proof, a code that makes even more blood and gore (who knew that was possible) and even a code that… uh, makes her boobs bouncier. This time the plot isn’t about Nazis but instead about hunting down her evil family members and destroying them. The game rocked.

I was hoping for a third game but one was never released. There were loads of rumors, and still are, but so far there is no sign of a third game. As for the movies that are based on these games… horrible. I have yet to meet a Bloodrayne game fan that liked the movies.

So if you guys are looking for a gory, sexy, super violent game full of dirty and twisted humor you should check these games out.

Here is the intro in the first game…

Click here to view the embedded video.

- Moonlight

Famous Vampire Hunters

Moonlight — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:00:39 +0000

Vampire hunters are the focus of today’s post. Well, famous vampire hunters to be exact. Vampire Hunters have the tough task of killing the creatures that stalk the night. They don’t see them as romantic or lovable like most of us, but rather a menace to society that needs to be wiped out. This list covers some of the big names in the slaying game, not every hunter in the history of forever, but some popular ones.

Abraham Van Helsing: A name we all know of, that of Professor Abraham Van Helsing, the fictional character and a protagonist from Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel, Dracula. A known vampire hunter and enemy of Dracula.

Anita Blake: The fictional necromancer from the novels by Laurell K. Hamilton. When Anita isn’t raising the dead for work, she is killing the undead for the government.

Buffy Summers: The high school hottie from the super popular show Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Not only is she badass but she is hilarious as well.

Blade: The half vampire, half human vampire hunter from the movies and comic books. He teams up with Whistler, a retired vampire hunter and weapons expert, to get revenge on the beasts that killed his mother.

Bloodrayne: Another dhampir seeking revenge on the monsters that destroyed her family. This time a super sexy, leather covered video game character.

Dark Hunters: I am just going to bunch this awesome group of men and women together. They are vampire hunting army of Artemis, from the sexy book series by Sherrilyn Kenyon.

Michael Colefield: Detective Sergeant Michael Colefield, the vampire hunter from the Ultraviolet mini series on tv.

Carlisle Cullen: Do I even need to explain this one? The father-like vampire from Twilight. His human father hunted vampires and eventually so did Carlisle, until he was turned into one himself.

D: Vampire Hunter D, a character in Japanese novels, is yet another dhampir (they make excellent vampire hunters). He is renowned for his amazing skill and unearthly grace, but feared and despised for his mixed lineage: born of both races but belonging to neither.

Edgar and Alan Frog: The young brothers from the movie The Lost Boys. When they aren’t running the comic shop they are out hunting vamps.

Gabriel Van Helsing: The vampire hunting hero in the movie Van Helsing, played by Hugh Jackman, along side with Kate Beckinsale.

Harry Keogh: The anti-hero of the Necroscope series by Brian Lumley. Harry has an assortment of awesome powers, like – talking to the dead, teleportation, telepathy and a bunch more.

Magiere and Leesil: Magiere is a dhampir and Leesil is half-elven, they hunt vampires with a fey-dog, Chap. From “Dhampir” by Barb and J.C. Hendee.

Sean Manchester: A real life vampire hunter who founded the Vampire Research Society and also took part in the Highgate Vampire in London.

Javier Mendoza: The vampire hunter in the tv show Blood Ties.

Robert Neville: The main character in the novel I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. Robert is the sole survivor of a viral pandemic, the symptoms of which resemble vampirism. He tries to find a cure to it so it’s sorta like vampire hunting.

Zero Kiryu: He is one of the main characters of Vampire Knight manga. Zero is Yuki’s close friend and the only other Cross Academy Guardian. Zero carries an anti-vampire gun named “Bloody Rose.”

There’s your list of well known vampire hunters, if you know of more please feel free to share.

- Moonlight

Vampire Abilities and Flaws

veritas — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 09:29:04 +0000

The abilities of a vampire are numerous, and naturally depends on what vampire is in what area, for one to know what kind of things they might be capable of. For example; many species of vampire are not know to be able to fly, however, the bruxsa in Portugal, the lansuir in Malaysia, and aswang in the Philippines all have the ability to fly. Other vampires native to cultures in different regions must first change shape to fly, which is but one more of their many talents. A vampire might turn into a dog, cat, bat, wolf, insects, and pests or rodents; anything to escape destruction. Many cultures believed that during the cremation of a vampire if you were to let even one maggot, or bug to escape from his corpse during the burning that he would have survived. Vampires also have the ability to defy gravity, in some cases, such as Count Dracula’s nimble talent of scaling walls like a spider, head down facing the ground.

To invade locked doors, or escape in tightly cramped areas, the vampire is able to transform himself into a mist, or vapour, so that he can travel beneath doors or through keyholes. Others believed that he was able to reduce in size or dimension, so that he could slip through narrow spaces. The vampire also possesses great mental and physical strength; if he is not able to hypnotize his enemy, he will surely have the strength of several men to defend himself. Some vampires have the power to control other animals, making them familiars or servants, while others are able to control the elements. Some believe that vampires are responsible for crop failure, and bad harvests. The Balkan people, among a few other cultures believed that a vampire could have intercourse with a human female, producing their dhampir offspring. Many cultures believed that vampires naturally possess eternal life, or at least live very long lives. In India and the Ukraine, some species of vampire stole human organs, while the Romanians believed that vampires caused impotence.

Despite the vampires many numerous strengths, they also have many weaknesses that render them destructible by man, or skilled hunters. For example, many cultures believe that a vampire is unable to cross over a threshold that they have not been invited into. Others believed that vampires could not cross over running water. European cultures maintained the belief that vampires must sleep during the day, which keeps them in a comatose state. The reason being for sleep during the day, is yet another weakness; vampires are unable to withstand direct sunlight. The vampire in many legends is vulnerable to Christian religious objects, as well as hallowed ground. Some cultures also believed that vampires must return to the soil of their native land in order to regenerate their powers, and to sleep. The other weakness, is that vampires are unable to see themselves in mirrors; this would not seem like a weakness, but was actually used to capture Dracula, in the film Dracula 2000.

Vampires » dhampir

Vampire Names Throughout Europe and the UK

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The Four Best Vampire Animes

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What is a Dhampir?

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BloodRayne

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Famous Vampire Hunters

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Vampire Abilities and Flaws

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