Are Vampires just a higher class of zombies?

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imaguitargod

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I was bored and got to thinking (which is a dangerious thing which usually ends in pain and mysery...or a circus monkey getting dressed up in stalkings) and I came upon the idea that Vampires may just be a higher class of Zombies....

Things in common:
Undead
Cravings (one for blood other for anything living or recently dead)
Sneakly little bastards
Infectious bite

Things not in common:
Intelegence
Easy of mobility
Appearance

Really, there's not much to seperate them. Also, could Frankenstien's monster be considered a zombie!

Discus! :mug:
 
I don't think vampires are a higher class of zombie.

Vampires retain their cognitive faculties and their skin doesn't rot. Also, vampires rise immediately upon death while zombies are known to rise weeks or even years later.

The Frankenstein Monster is an interesting thought. That one I could buy into.
 
Discus is much more entertaining when the competitors are drunk! :mug:

So is javelin toss! I mean.....don't do that. Or if you do, make sure there's a videographer.

As for zombies, I don't buy it. Vampires are intelligent, sensitive to light, can transform. Zombies vary from movie to movie, but are almost universally simple-minded, un-dead humans. These seem to be major differences that could easily be differences in DNA, making them different entities. They both originate from humans, so they're probably closely related. Also, zombies clearly die and are reborn with their death-inducing injuries, vampires don't clearly die, they just mutate.
 
Weeeee!!!! Discus is much more entertaining when the competitors are drunk! :mug:

In my experience this has yet to cause bodily harm, only structural harm. Javelin holes in the wall. :D

Frank N. Stein is not a zombie. He is reanimated human tissue much like an earthworm that's been cut in 2. Frank did not crave human flesh and attempted communication. His only fear was fire.
Zombies have no fear since they have no brraaaiiiiiinnss!!! Zombies are anerobic life forms. They can survive on the bottom of a pond or lake and grab unsuspecting victims as they swim by or, like some frogs, they wait until the lake dries up then wander off to find food. They tend to be attracted to sounds. They lack coordination yet make up for it with dogged determination.
Vampirics are the spawn of the host Vampire and live in a state between life and death. They live only on the blood of an animal, preferably human but can survive on BMC blood also. They have almost all human functions including lust and nap time. They also have cunning and strategy.
 
Non-sense. Vampires can be made from humans but they can also mate with each other to create pure blooded vampires. I have never seen pure blooded zombies, except in "I am Legend" and those weren't really even zombies.

totally different and vampires are way cooler, even if they are going mainstream now.
 
Actually in the book "I Am Legend" they were vampires, they ****ed the movie up with the theatrical release because the whole point of the title that by being the last normal human and killing the vampires in the daytime he became the legend that vampire parents told their kids to scare them, like the boogeyman we have in our society. I never saw the DVD release, but apparently it has the proper ending where the vampires confront the scientist and he realizes that he was trying to "cure" the vampires wife, or something to that effect. They only changed the ending because test audiences preferred him going down in a fiery blaze against the mindless creatures, despite all the evidence that the vampires were intelligent (traps set to catch him, pet dogs, etc.) ****ing Hollywood. Check it.

Anyways, getting back to the main point, vampires are true immortality, which is why they are so ****ing cool. Sure you gotta drink blood and come out at night, but you are going to live forever, provided you don't **** up and get a stake in your heart. Zombies are a pale comparison, reanimated dead flesh with most of the mental faculties destroyed, i.e. not true immortality.
 
This is deeply disturbing. I am watching Shawn of the Dead right now and i watched Return of the Living Dead 5: Rave to the Grave this morning. As the only member of HBT that owns and runs ZOMBIE BREWING CO i am the only one qualified to say......ZOMBIES EAT THE **** OUT OF VAMPIRES!!! Zombies rule do to thier sheer numbers and determination. DO NOT **** with zombies!
 
Nah, vampires are WAY cooler. Way gayer too, tho. Srsly, there's nothing more weirdly homoerotic than louis and lestat sucking each other's blood. But it was still awesome. Gay zombies are just impossible to watch.
 
Actually in the book "I Am Legend" they were vampires, they ****ed the movie up with the theatrical release because the whole point of the title that by being the last normal human and killing the vampires in the daytime he became the legend that vampire parents told their kids to scare them, like the boogeyman we have in our society. I never saw the DVD release, but apparently it has the proper ending where the vampires confront the scientist and he realizes that he was trying to "cure" the vampires wife, or something to that effect. They only changed the ending because test audiences preferred him going down in a fiery blaze against the mindless creatures, despite all the evidence that the vampires were intelligent (traps set to catch him, pet dogs, etc.) ****ing Hollywood. Check it.

What is this "proper ending" nonsense? The book ended in no such way.

They didn't base it off the book anyway, there have been a long list of movies based off that book that were really based off of each other. Apparently screen writers don't read novels.
 
I like Zombie movies. But, I love Vampire movies. I see the similarities between the two. But, Vampires operate on a whole different level than zombies.

:off:
But,What's the deal with the trend in modern Vampire movies making the Vampire into some sort of lovable character. I guess it's ok if their is a little romance in the vampire story. But let's not get carried away. My wife came home the other night with "Twilight". It seems that all of "the girls" at work were talking about it. Man... there's a couple hours of my life that would have been better used working on my collection of dryer lint. These Vampires were able to come out into the sunshine. :confused: Did they burst into flames and die? Noooooooooo..... they sparkled. They fricken sparkled! I kid you not.

I miss the good ole days when the vampire was the bad guy. Although, I'm really looking forward to season two of True Blood. Sure there's a love story, but these vampires can be some bad assed, cold blooded, blood suckers. Plus, there's some nice T&A too. :rockin:
 
Vampires are a kind of greater undead that have a lot more abilities than your standard zombie. Also, vampires tend to be chaotic evil, as opposed to the neutral evil zombie.

Frankenstein's monster is a flesh golem, which is a construct and not an undead. While it has no Con score like undead, it has construct traits and not undead traits. While being composed of human parts, a cleric's turn undead ability does not affect flesh golems as they are powered through arcane means rather than negative energy.
 
Vampires are nothing like zombies. When a dead creature is animated by Animate Dead (3rd level cleric spell), it can be made into either a skeleton or zombie if it is mostly intact. Zombies act as if they are under the constant effect of a Slow spell, have no Int score or skills, gain DR 5/slashing, lose all feats the base creature had (but gain Toughness), and they tend to have a low CR. When creating a zombie, all hit dice gained from class levels are lost (to a minimum of 1) and the remaining HD are doubled and become d12s.

Vampires can be created by other vampires or by the 8th level cleric spell Create Greater Undead. A vampire's abilities increase from the base creature as follows: Str +6, Dex +4, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +4. As an undead creature, a vampire has no Constitution score. All HD of the base creature are retained and increased to d12s. They gain cold and electricity resistance 10, DR 10/silver and magic, and several special abilities. A vampire heals 5 points of damage each round so long as it has at least 1 hit point. If reduced to 0 hit points in combat, it automatically assumes gaseous form and attempts to escape. It must reach its coffin home within 2 hours or be utterly destroyed. (It can travel up to nine miles in 2 hours.) Any additional damage dealt to a vampire forced into gaseous form has no effect. Once at rest in its coffin, a vampire is helpless. It regains 1 hit point after 1 hour, then is no longer helpless and resumes healing at the rate of 5 hit points per round. As a standard action, a vampire can assume gaseous form at will as the spell (caster level 5th), but it can remain gaseous indefinitely and has a fly speed of 20 feet with perfect maneuverability. They retain all skills of the base creature, but also have a +8 racial bonus on Bluff, Hide, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Sense Motive, and Spot checks. Unlike zombies, they have +4 to turn resistance. A vampire can assume the shape of a bat, dire bat, wolf, or dire wolf as a standard action. A vampire can climb sheer surfaces as though with a spider climb spell.

Vampires cannot tolerate the strong odor of garlic and will not enter an area laced with it. Similarly, they recoil from a mirror or a strongly presented holy symbol. These things don't harm the vampire--they merely keep it at bay. A recoiling vampire must stay at least 5 feet away from a creature holding the mirror or holy symbol and cannot touch or make melee attacks against the creature holding the item for the rest of the encounter. Holding a vampire at bay takes a standard action.

Reducing a vampire's hit points to 0 or lower incapacitates it but doesn't always destroy it. However, certain attacks can slay vampires. Exposing any vampire to direct sunlight disorients it: It can take only a single move action or attack action and is destroyed utterly in the next round if it cannot escape. Similarly, immersing a vampire in running water robs it of one-third of its hit points each round until it is destroyed at the end of the third round of immersion. Driving a wooden stake through a vampire's heart instantly slays the monster. However, it returns to life if the stake is removed, unless the body is destroyed. A popular tactic is to cut off the creature's head and fill its mouth with holy wafers (or their equivalent).

Zombies can not make other zombies, but vampires can create other vampires if they kill a creature using their energy drain ability. A creature with 4 or less HD rises as a vampire spawn, and 5 or more becomes a vampire.
 
Wow, it went from a civil discussion of vampires vs zombies. A proverbial duel to the death between two undeads (not sure this is possible)......and there was D&D from straight out of left field.
 
Why can't zombies be the missing link of the vampire evolution,

or were vampires created ?

-Jason

Good question. There are many theories.

- The merging of a blood-sucking spirit and a dying queen (yeah, anne rice is a little kooky)
- Draculas denial of god, betrayal of the church, and drinking of the blood
- Judas - really bad dracula movies taking the whole betrayal thing a bit too far
- infection (i am legend-esque)
- i'm sure there are more
 
Has anyone seen Ravenous? That movie isn't about zombies or vampires, but it has elements of both. Cannablism on the wild west frontier in the 1800s is shown as being kinda like vampirism without the undead part, getting super abilities and crap, but it retains the good old slaughter-and-eat-'em mentality of zombies without the mindlessness.

Also, like vampires, the cannibals in Ravenous are just dripping with the homoeroticism. It's a weird movie, it's basically a black comedy. Don't try to take it seriously - the soundtrack alone won't allow you to do that... half the music is by Damon Albarn, who is one of the people behind Gorillaz.

It's like the tension of Alien mixed up with Interview With the Vampire in the 1800s west, all wrapped up in a crunchy roll of "WTF were they smoking when they made this". It's great in it's bizarre way.
 
I'm not really versed on the White Wolf mythos, but I think the origin of vampires in that RPG system is Cain of Cain and Abel. He was cursed by God to wander the earth forever in darkness, and any of his spawn would carry the same curse.
 
Aww, man, Buford, the last thing this thread needs is Dungeons and Dragons technical bulletins.

Oh, and the difference between Vampires and Zombies: the gayness. While there are of course incidentally gay zombies in the zombie apocalypse, there are unequivocally no heterosexual vampires. Even Gary Oldman couldn't de-gay-ify Vampires. And now...now you have...this:

twilight.jpg
 
To continue the nerdgasm and post whoring, you could kind of equate vampire and zombie tactics to the Protoss and Zerg in Starcraft. Vampires are small in number but they're really powerful and hard to take down, but zombies come in expendable hordes and just do the equivalent of a really slow zerg rush. Small numbers with overwhelming power vs. overwhelming numbers of easy-to-kill units.

Zerg even have a kind of zombie unit - mindless infected Terrans that run straight at things and just explode.
 
I'm not really versed on the White Wolf mythos, but I think the origin of vampires in that RPG system is Cain of Cain and Abel. He was cursed by God to wander the earth forever in darkness, and any of his spawn would carry the same curse.

That's actually kinda cool, and much more fitting than Judas.
 
Aww, man, Buford, the last thing this thread needs is Dungeons and Dragons technical bulletins.

Oh, and the difference between Vampires and Zombies: the gayness. While there are of course incidentally gay zombies in the zombie apocalypse, there are unequivocally no heterosexual vampires. Even Gary Oldman couldn't de-gay-ify Vampires. And now...now you have...this:

Gary Oldman did a damn fine job. There wasn't a lot of homo-erotica in that version...there was quite a lot of sexy vampire bitches, tho.

You're right tho...the de-gay-ification didn't really work out, did it?
 
Aww, man, Buford, the last thing this thread needs is Dungeons and Dragons technical bulletins.

A liberal application of 3.5e rules now an again helps me wipe the WTFery of the 4th Edition rules from my mind :fro:
 
Also, could Frankenstien's monster be considered a zombie!

yes frankenstein's monster is a zombie

but no vampires are not a higher class of zombie, vampires are a different class of the undead but they are not related to zombies and certainly are not a higher class than zombies

lots of differences, vampires are averse to crosses, garlic, and sunlight - zombies don't care about that

vampires may be cunning and sly, zombies are blinded by rage and hate and eternally hungry which is why they seem mindless

plus zombies are cool, vampires are goth and kweer
 
Gary Oldman did a damn fine job. There wasn't a lot of homo-erotica in that version...there was quite a lot of sexy vampire bitches, tho.

You're right tho...the de-gay-ification didn't really work out, did it?

Gary Oldman does a brilliant job in whatever he's in. And that is, to this day, still the only vampire movie I'll watch. But still...come on...

oldman3.jpg

12754__dracula_l.jpg
 
Vampires from "Twilight" don't count. We're a little out of my area of expertise, but I'm pretty confident in saying that VAMPIRES DO NOT SPARKLE. I don't know what kind of creature DOES sparkle (unicorns?), but I'm highly confident that it is not, in fact, vampires.
 
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