Demonology 101

[Brunhidden]

ullo, me again. i thought id put up a not really a game but more of a fun way to learn and interact. and this seems to be just the place to actually put my extensive knowledge of cryptology to use.

okay, the way this works is that as a child i had waaaay too much free time, boredom, and lybrary acess. as a concequence i learned a lot of weird crap, especially when i came across cryptology reports, old church records, collections of folktales from assorted locales, and so forth. so, if any of you has a question about something like demons, undead, anything remotely occult or whatnot- post a question and ya just might learn something.

heck, someone could just pop up and say something like "tell me everything you know about zombies/succubi/magic rings/large rocks/metalurgy/werewolves in wisconsin/the nearly dozzen diffrent known varieties of sasquatch/ or something equally broad. whenever i come on ill try to fill your noggins with whatever comes to hand.

note- stuff thats in popular fiction novels, movies, or any series featuring witches or vampires is generally so far from historically accurate you may as well call a monkey on a typewriter shakespear. the stuff i say is the old school and probably dosent jive well with that stuff.

nuther note- for those of you lacking in vocabulary, cryptology is the study of things which can neither be proven or disproven. its actually a legitimate field of science, as is cryptozoology, the study of living things which cannot be proven or disproven. hey, dont knock it, not too long ago gorillas, tazelwurms, saltwater crocodiles, and the greater anaconda were all considered 'cryptozoology'

fire away good people...er...things

always know your audience. also, try and know what they might be armed with, how fast thier cars are, and where the nearest safe house is

[Netami]

Fairies. Seelie and unseelie courts. Who came up with those names and who originated the idea of magical folk living in mushroom rings and mossy stones?

[Brunhidden]

Fairies. Seelie and unseelie courts. Who came up with those names and who originated the idea of magical folk living in mushroom rings and mossy stones?

ahem- the world of the fey (faries) is generally divided into three sections. the seelie, unseelie, and unafilliated. the seelie are generally considered (or rather, consider themselves to be) the 'good' fey and are rarely encountered by humans. the most common contact is to stumble across a procession of elves in the woods, the descriptions of which inspired tolkien in the creation of his own elves and most other pretty and kind fairie known to art today. the unseelie were the baaaad faries, and they made no secret of this. typically theese were the ones that people were afraid of going into the woods at night, being very carefull of upsetting anything natural, and often took to carrying iron charms because of. unseelie court fey did things like kidnappings, stealing the souls of those who dared tresspass on thier homes, and just generally hound any nearby humans whatsoever. unafilliated fey make up about 70% or so of the faries you hear about in the old folktales, like the leprecauns and rhe brownies and such. generally they just like to screw with people.

sadly i am NOT twelve hundred years old, so asking me why people invented the languages of gaelic, gaulish, and so on dosent help much. entemology of words will only go so far before you find yourself asking "why the heck is it called the 'sky' anyways?"

here i can clairify alot- fey were never depicted in living inside of mushrooms, toadstools, formaitions thereof, or rocks of any sort. the circles of mushrooms or toadstools were called 'fairy rings' because supposedly thats where they danced on certan days of the year. most people of the time avoided setting foot in one of theese whenever possible, and they were doubly afraid of them if they were occupied due to the fact that time does not pass the same within the ring. many many tales of the fairies talk of someone comming across little men dancing the night away, and foolishly joining in, only to re-emerge days or years later, often crumbling to dust within a day or so due to time hitting them on the back of the skull like a well aimed brick. stones are usually associated with druids, but your probably reffering to the 'hollow hills' that most fey were purported to live in. a 'hollow hill' was just that, a hill that was hollow and contained either a small home or a large hall....except that most of theese hills were indeed quite like a real hill other then on certan nights or certan times when they would open to the air, or merely entering one took you somewhere ELSE so there wasnt any real need for the inside of the hill to even be there.

any further questions?

The lives of the forest folk were quite like the folk themselves- nasty, brutish, and short

[Tapewolf]

Do you know anything about the medieval notion that blackcocks were agents of the Evil One?  Was this a widespread or local idea?  What other animals were considered Satanic?

[Vidar]

Do you know anything about the medieval notion that blackcocks were agents of the Evil One?  Was this a widespread or local idea?  What other animals were considered Satanic?

During the dark ages peopel were afraid of everything black. Cats, pigs, sheep, horses, frogs, crows, cloudy skies at night, etc. If it was all black, then it was a satanic soul-stealing child-murdering spawn of the devil.
Most people were illiterate, and mass-comunication was non-existant. Most of the tales they heard were told in the church, and the gist of those was usually "Feare thee the Lorde, or for ever burne in the Hell, like the Evil Spawne of the Devil thy art!" and they believed that, because they didn't know any better. Questioning the church was, of course, a capital sin, and you could count on the Spanish inquisition to send you to hell a bit sooner then expected.
So people saw the workings o' the evil one who's name should not be spoken in everything dark and black.

[Tapewolf]

Do you know anything about the medieval notion that blackcocks were agents of the Evil One?  Was this a widespread or local idea?  What other animals were considered Satanic?

During the dark ages people were afraid of everything black. Cats, pigs, sheep, horses, frogs, crows, cloudy skies at night, etc. If it was all black, then it was a satanic soul-stealing child-murdering spawn of the devil.

I think it's slightly more involved than that.  Male grouse display in moorland in open areas known as 'leks'.  What you end up with is a 'coven' of little black birds all crowing and doing a little dance for Satan at 4am in the morning or whenever dawn comes.

This was definitely the opinion in certain parts of the UK, but I was wondering if the belief was more widespread or if anyone had any more details.

[Zedd]

Thats really deep lore..Thanks for sharing that...Now I know why most people who are goth or dark like people are shunded in socity today

[Brunhidden]

Do you know anything about the medieval notion that blackcocks were agents of the Evil One?  Was this a widespread or local idea?  What other animals were considered Satanic?

During the dark ages peopel were afraid of everything black. Cats, pigs, sheep, horses, frogs, crows, cloudy skies at night, etc. If it was all black, then it was a satanic soul-stealing child-murdering spawn of the devil.
Most people were illiterate, and mass-comunication was non-existant. Most of the tales they heard were told in the church, and the gist of those was usually "Feare thee the Lorde, or for ever burne in the Hell, like the Evil Spawne of the Devil thy art!" and they believed that, because they didn't know any better. Questioning the church was, of course, a capital sin, and you could count on the Spanish inquisition to send you to hell a bit sooner then expected.
So people saw the workings o' the evil one who's name should not be spoken in everything dark and black.

close, fairly close. except that the big reason for this stigma is due to how the church established itself. people forget that christianity did NOT originate in europe, and was actually a foreign concept brought there at cost of much life and limb due to missionaries often being torn limb from limb for the atrocities they claimed the local pagans comitted and were often given first hand viewings of the nastyer rituals.

when the church started having some sucess at getting a foothold in europe they found that people would accept christianity, but disliked throwing everything they had away. thus, many pagan traditions were polished up, renamed, and made into something 'wholesome'- such as the birth of christmas, naming rituals, and the embracement of things like trees. later on the church decided "hey, they LIKE us now, maybe we can get rid of some of the freaky things they do at random dates that we dont really aprove of" and tried to make people ashamed or fearfull of thier pagan heratage. if you will remember, many pagan customs and traditions involve 'sacrifice' and frequently its a blood sacrifice (although, this is almost never human sacrifice. the romans claims of druids and barbarians is horribly wrong due to them thinking everyone who was not a roman was some ignorant savage) and so they tried to put a stigma on the sacrifice of animals and the worshiping of small idols.

and so was the birth of witchcraft as a sin, demonic animals, and mass panic long long before the spanish inquisition was ever started, and somewhat before spain was even started. sadly this had the side effect of people being afraid of animals- especially goats, poultry, and oxen, due to thier common useage as sacrifices. well, you can understand that during the dark ages its kinda hard to get along in a dirt village without chickens, goats, and oxen, so the church tried to change the stigma so that only CERTAN animals (the ones that were uncommon or useless) were bad- like black cockerels, goats who were not stupid, ravens, mad pigs, and some forest animals. this stigma gained power due to them being used as icons- someone does a woodcut of a witches black mass and youll see cockerels and goats everywhere so that people can understand that theyre doing BAD things to each other and not just dancing naked in a field.

also note that paganisim had two main forms in europe- one was the worship of the 'horned one' which was a badly drawn man with abeard and antlers. even though satan didnt really have a given form the image of a horned man was soon adapted so that people would think that it was blasphemous to honor or own idols of the horned man. keep in mind still that the spanish inquisition hadnt been around yet, and most church law was maintained by your neighbors freaking out and forming a mob if they were scared. the second kind of paganisim was actually aesirisim- the worsip of what are now known as the 'norse gods' (Aesir was singular, plural was Ass). due to the aesirist traditions of telling the fortune in animals innards, believing ravens were messengers and spies for the gods, and the liberal consumption of certan mushrooms to make killing people even more fun then normal....yeah, the catholics thought that there were some things that had to go on probation

oddly enough, the aesirists were one of the easyest converts to christianity. the germanic aesirists (who worshiped the ass looong before half the stories of them were written, german depictions of odin often have two eyes, instead of his charicteristic one) converted first mostly due to the sheer gall that missionaries had to send one unarmed man into a gang of fifty hairy brutes weilding axes and wearing the skins of things that normally eat people. despite about three hundred years of vikings (obviously the most famous aserists) raiding monastaries and playing monk pinyata, the norse villages one by one converted by a simple and bloodless method where a catholic priest challenged a aesirist priest to a duel- they would each build a fire as high and hot as they could, and thier chosen manifestation of godly might would then jump over the other persons fire. the priests (on the catholic side) usually had little problem jumping the norse fire, but the berzerkers (the apex of norse spirituality) hardly ever were able to clear the flames.

For the last time hammish, ye BURNS the houses and ye RAPES the wimmen, not the uther way round!

[Brunhidden]

Thats really deep lore..Thanks for sharing that...Now I know why most people who are goth or dark like people are shunded in socity today

mostly its because those people are usually freaks who think that the world is nothing but suffering because their mom asked them to do the dishes, and feel that the only justifyable responce is to write endless ammounts of bad poetry while wearing too much makeup and clothes from hot topic.

dont get me wrong, i like hot topic (i lack the money to shop there though), hate all poetry equally, and i also understand that some people really do have so much stress and pain they feel like they need to express themselves or burst.....its just that theres many more who are just making themselves social outcasts in a purposefull and driven way

Well of COURSE he feels cold, hes just wearing a fishnet shirt in january and is NOT a vampire. Vampires usually dont hang around at raves and pass out when someone offers them a ham sandwitch.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

Do you know anything about Balore, from Celtic myths? (Isn't this were you ask about things and demons from myths?)

[Manawolf]

I only know from the recent fantasy stuff.  Something about a huge demon of fire of some sort who weilds and whip and sword, both of them flaming.  Large horns, wings, very nasty.

[insanekaosx]

Can you say Balrog influence?

Curious as to if you know the thoughts of the Catholic Church on demons and such these days, you know us Catholics and our silly rules and beliefs

Seriously though, I've read up breifly on some demonology, very breifly, but never really got around to seeing the Catholic stance on the existance of such things.

[Manawolf]

I mainly stand by the way of D&D in terms of myths...except for gorgons and basilisks.  Medusa was a gorgon, not an entirely different thing.  Gorgons are not bulls with petrifying breath.  Basilisks were snake that practically breathed death.  They were not 8 legged lizards with a petrifying gaze (that's gorgons), nor do they have a sight of death.  Basilisks one weakness was the mongoose, the snake hunter, and was the only thing could survive the bite of a basilisk.

[Castle Pokemetroid]

I only know from the recent fantasy stuff.  Something about a huge demon of fire of some sort who weilds and whip and sword, both of them flaming.  Large horns, wings, very nasty.

Actually, Balore is a giant whose right eye will cause instant death for who that looks upon it. That's all I know, and I though you guys could teach me more . . .

[Brunhidden]

yiesh, the way people pass the plate here i wonder if im even needed.


alright, balore- no, i havent heard about him but it seems that he would fit under the category of giant rather then demon. sorry if i havent heard anything about him, but the thing about the eye sounds rather familliar

the stance of the church on demons- once, not all that long ago mind you, and for a loooong time, the church was adamant on the fact that demons existed, they were real, and they could enter the world of men freely. in fact for a long time there were published books on the extensive research done on the subject of demons, thier behavior, effective methods to expell or defeat them, and even named specific demons or types of demons. in more recent years demons seem to have become less of a physical issue and for the most part were forgoten as a threat to man and remembered only as a kind of myth. in part such men as faustus, solomon, and scattered handfulls of lesser remembered men probably beat back the waves of physical threat that men percieved from demons to the point where they just plain dont bother coming up here anymore. nowadays the church just dosent think its all that important and focusus more on morals and ethics then on creatures people dont really believe are real anymore. whats fun about this is that more people believe in demons then believe in angels, you would think they would go hand in hand wouldnt you?

and the basalisk thing.....well, i was under the impression the original version was a kind of iguana like beast who favored dry areas like savanas and deserts. some of the old original stoies DO say its got six leggs, but i dont remember anything about a snake so its most likely either a four or six legged beast of reasonably small size.

There have always been more demons then gods, because for some reason humans are just better at imagining them into existance

[insanekaosx]

Heh, then if all those silly folk are disbelieving, would be quite the time to strike, eh?

The only place I've heard of basiliks as snakes is harry potter.

[Manawolf]

Maybe that's why the mythology site I heard about them from dissapeared.

[Brunhidden]

probably not the best time to strike- people dont believe in them as strongly so they dont have nearly the power they once did, its almost impossible to single out ONE human other then at 2 AM in a park, humans are now as vicious and heavily armed as any demon has ever been, pluss we do about half thier work for them. if you knew some of the more auspicious and notable devils, youd realise that we DO thier work for them and in many ways surpass anything that any demon could think of. yay for the creativity of humanity....i think.

yah, fan sites claiming about the healing power of pheonixes (theres only one, and as far as i know it did jack squat other then kill itself), portray a wide variety of friendly flying things that look like an animal testing lab blew up but kick thier leg when you scritch thier belly, and probably have a fanfic link hidden somewhere. never the best resourse if they base thier works off of movies, comics, or books that feature a plucky little kid going from opressed to popular.

If you ask me, i think those beasties is scared of US. Nice change of pace doncha think?

[Shadow Hunter]

Three things I like to think about
1. Anthros
2.Zombies, (Shaun Of The Dead)
3.Demons And Angels (Hellboy, Consatine, etc.)
4.Vampires?(Hellsing)

ohh thats four. 

[Shadow Hunter]

By the way could someone message me the Correct way for a Avatar?       

[thegayhare]

I know alittle bit about balor lemme find my book on him...

off the top of my head I remember that his eye was so deadly that he had sliced the muscles on that lid to make sure he would never accidentaly open
lets see books books books
raising hell, one of the fake necronomicions, cat magic, english weapons and warfare, essental faires, A+ certification, Irish folk lore thats the one I think... oh wait celtic myths and legends might have something and the encyclopedia of things that never were is always worth a look

Ahh there he is Balor king of the Fomors

THe Fomors are said to be older then the gods, the offsping of chaos and old night, massive deformed giants.  Balor was said to be cow faced and of his two eyes one could kill with just a look.  He got this eye by accident one day when peering threw a window courous as to what his fathers sourceres were preparing and the poisonous magical smoke infected his eye.  it was deadly to both god and giant so it was kept shut at all times and during battle the lid would be raised with a great metal hook.  The Formors waged battle with the gods for and Balor of the mighty blows met with Lugh the sun god (his grandson) in combat and as Balors attandants opened the deadly eye Lugh threw a magical stone (called a Tathlum a concrete ball made from the brains of dead enemies hardened with lime) and knocked the eye out of the back of Balors head.   The eye killed a rank of 27 fomor soldiers that were unlucky enough to be in it's site.  The blinding of Balor turned the tide of battle and the gods rallied to force the fomors back below the sea.

Hmm there is some more   but it's mainlt minor legends surrounding his exploits and how his legends are the basis for the superstition of the evil eye

[Brunhidden]

thank you my homo homie, i didn't know anything about that....other then i think I've heard of fomors or formorians before. anyways, thanks for the help out

Three things I like to think about
1. Anthros
2.Zombies, (Shaun Of The Dead)
3.Demons And Angels (Hellboy, Consatine, etc.)
4.Vampires?(Hellsing)

ohh thats four. 

i was expecting this, but since I'm not going to do a five page post ill just cover some basics and you can ask more specific questions later.

Anthros- believe it or not, there is SOME mythological basis for furries. in both japan and germany (very diffrent cultures, with some random similarities) regular animals often had human intelligence and the ability to speak. no, they didn't stand upright and rarely did they live in houses. demons? well, the Japanese and the Chinese thought EVERYTHING was a demon- seriously, up until about 1910 the Chinese thought America was a country populated soely by demons and had a mountain of gold which the morning sun would turn molten, and if you worked really well for a White demon they just might let you take a handfull....but mostly they were freaked out that Americans drank cow urine and even put it in their tea. so yeah, normal animals from the middle of the woods would talk, often know a great many secrets, and exhibit many humanlike characteristics. a good example is the original version of little red riding hood (very German, in the original pretty much everyone dies but the woodsman. it doesn't get more German than that unless you figure out a way to fit beer and sauerkraut into the story too) where the wolf (NOT a furrie, a walk on all fours and sleep on the dirt kind), a cat, and a random passing bird all talk and nobody seems to take any real notice of this as strange. one can only assume that theres a reason this was considered normal.

Zombies- theres several kinds of zombies, but i haven't seen any zombie movies so i wont really know what your asking about. illjust give the basics

voodoo zombies-  you've probably heard of these, the real zombies. supposedly voodoo practitioners can mix up a neurotoxin able to put people into a deathlike stupor, Wait until relatives bury the dead body, and come along to let it out before the air runs out. the zombie is for the most part without free will and will act as if lobotomised due to being fed controlled doseages of more neurotoxin to keep it docile. supposedly this spell is broken by salt, and locals claim that the zombies will run screaming to a graveyard and claw at the ground to dig a grave because they remember they are dead but its more likely it just does some funky reaction with the toxins.

necromantic zombies- no, not what your thinking. a necromantic zombie is really rare due to how they're created, which is that somebody has their life force drained from them. draining someones life force is obviously a complex ordeal and usually the victims overall safety is not considered so the process is pretty much left unchecked....resulting in too much drained away and a kind of siphon effect like you drop a hose after sucking on it- it keeps draining, and in the case of life force it can lead to a negative amount. thus you are left with a body essentially running on negative life, usually wanting desperately to either restore life or reach a state of zero life (actually dead), but lacking any real intelligence or knowledge to do so these zombies usually settle for mauling anything in their path and often trying to eat things that are still alive (leaving the dead alone). this obviously doesn't work, and actually has a spawning effect due to the zombie radiating negative lifeforce, thus anything dying near one usually raises in the same state of unlike. thankfully these zombies are really rare due to life draining being difficult, lost knowledge, and the fact that whoever tries this at home is usually among the first five people to get their face eatten. another good thing is zombie hordes like this peter out pretty quick, they'll lay waste to whatever village they started it and run out of their driving force within a few days or weeks. sadly during the times of plague in Europe some people were so freaked out about dying they would steal the lives of others to stave off the plague, inadvertently leaving their whole town just a pile of dead bodies in a manner quite similar to the towns that were hit by the plague. ravens and wolves saw to it that nobody really noticed they had been chewed on.

revrants- occasionally dead people just don't stay buried, and these buggers pop up in church records all through the dark ages and don't really fade into the background until the Renaissance. typically a revrant is discovered when someone finds a dead body lying several feet from a grave....no, its not moving, but they could've sworn they buried it just last week. some had to be buried several times, and often roughed up a bit to make sure they didn't think of piping up again. thats the mild cases, because revrants seem to be created when certain people die- in particular the murdered, murderers, suicides, and victims of very violent deaths who were buried improperly. reverants also seem to (when they aren't found face down on your lawn) have some dim memory of how they died, and murder victims may try to seek out their murderers. other examples are certain valleys where nasty battles took place where the slain either keep fighting at random nights for another month or so, or possibly just wander aimlessly in a threatening manner. however, revrants rot pretty quickly, and due to spending most of their time not moving at all are subject to being buried, eatten by forest critters, or possibly both if a dog decides to hide the bones.



Demons and Angels- theres soo much i could say, and it would take a week. mostly ill leave the fun tidbits about that 'demons' are actually divided into demons and devils. no, not like in D&D, but similar. demons are kind of the rank and file, who are as much tortured as they torture, and devoted entirely to the suffering of man. devils however are essentially doing a job, are each unique and often in charge of a certain task, and often have the ability to cross over into the world of men under their own power. thats pretty rare nowadays because it seems like anytime a demon is beatten or tricked they cant come back unless brought back by somebody, it seems the long traditions of soloman, Faustus, and a few hundred unknowns across the world have one by one outwitted just about every fiend that was dumb enough to think it could boss a human around on its own turf.
on the other hand, angels are not so distant as people think. long before the summoning of demons became prominent people routinely summoned angels. routinely, as in all the freaking time. the cabala (a Jewish mystical text) and many even older scriptures details many diffrent angels, what angels are in charge of what things, and how to invoke their protection. usually a physical presence wasn't necessary, you merely called upon them to do some task or to watch over something or prevent something- a good example is there was an angel who was summoned specifically for the purpose of preventing crib death in infants.



Vampires- hoo boy, probably the biggest difference between what people hear and what history tells us. first off, forget the bats, the castles, LLARPs, and every single episode of buffy or blade movie you've ever seen. open your mind to the just downright weird things that the old folktales had to say about vampires. however, most of them believed in the garlic, but they believed garlic kept EVERYTHING evil away.

for starters, the majority of vampires are essentially an embellishment on a revrant (see above) and generally NEVER left their coffins. these vampires would cause disease, mysterious deaths, and painfull sores upon the people they knew and loved during life. yes, the people they loved, specifically family members so you knew it wasn't a plague when only the Brown family started vomiting blood a week after they buried uncle Larry. supposedly they accomplished this by gnawing on their hands and feet (don't ask how someone in a coffin can contort enough to gnaw their feet) and were identified when dug up because of the chewmarks and fresh blood- they were usually then beheaded and often had their heart removed. one small and very strange section of Europe (a region bordering what was once chekeslovokia and Romania) had a diffrent belief, that vampires were hairy, sucked their victims blood out through their pores (trust me, that hurts alot more then being bitten), and had short tails. the weird thing is that it seems the vampires power was stored in its tail, because cutting it off left it witout its strength and it would surely dye at daybreak if it couldn't get it back

the second kind of vampire is the most common, and somewhat more advanced version of the previous kind. during the days they would live in their coffin in the graveyard (not a manor or a castle or any such fancy place) and stay a corpse, at night they would turn into either fog or a toad to escape their grave and surface, when they would then stalk and infrequently attack people, usually in bed or walking alone in the streets. these vampires seemed to be mostly townies, staying near civilisation while rarely being seen in actual citties. this kind of vampire was still very much a corpse, was often of low intelligence and questionable sentience, but often having a decent deal of mysticism about them. for instance this kind of vampire was often believed to change into a wolf to stalk, flee, or attack. thats right, wolf, not bat, ex-nay on the atsbay, Bram stoker was the first person to ever EVER link vampires to bats. typically when a town thought that a vampire was on the prowl (evidence includes- people were attacked at night, woke up from sleep drained and weak, suffered from very specific plagues, or actually saw a dead guy walk around town and hold up a conversation) they would often have the burly men of town assemble, get rip roaring drunk so mind tricks wouldn't work on them, and form an unruly mob which would dig up every recent grave until they found one that was bloated with rosy red cheeks, did not smell of decay, had an erection, and tended to scream when stabbed in the chest. typically the body was mutilated or had its head cut off, and a common practice was to remove its heart, boil it in wine, and the whole town share the wine under the belief that consuming this would ward them against future vampire attacks

the third kind is the closest to the movie versions, and its often kinda hard to pinpoint where along the line the subject in question made the gap between being a live person and being a corpse that pretends its still alive. on very rare occasions it seems a nobleman would become a vampire without anyone knowing they died, so they just acted like nothing happened. alot like count Dracula eh? difference being that the vampire is quite similar to the second kind of vampire in all aspects other then it seems to be very lifelike, doesn't go catatonic during the day, and shows every evidence of being a refined and eloquent individual. these vampires usually met violent ends by beheading anyways due to being crazy noblemen that seems resistant to poisons, so they rarely ever exceeded the life expectancy of a normal person....they were just crazy however, doing things like taking baths in maidens blood and generally being creepy people who would nowadays be subject to sex crimes or homicide.

in all of these cases one thing really stands out- being bitten by a vampire doesn't make you a vampire, nor does it kill you. victims of vampires often actually want to be bitten again, somehow either being dominated by the vampire or seeming to be intoxicated to it. becoming a vampire is a random and natural process which can happen to anyone after death, but certain things make you more likely to rise as one. such things include dying by violent means, improper burial or lack of burial (double so for a murder victim left lying in a ditch by the road), involvement with evil magics, and yes, being bitten by a vampire in life does increase your chances of rising as one slightly....by like 2%. today vampires are really really rare, due to our new and improved ways of burying people which almost always involve filling them so full of embalming fluid they don't have any blood left, or trying to chop the body into small pieces so the cops wont find it. yeah, its pretty hard to rise from the grave when your filled with more preservatives then a Twinkie or when each of your limbs is in a diffrent dumpster.


hope this was enlightening for anyone who wanted to sit down to a good read.

I don't need no doctor
But I need something to kill the pain
Don't know what I'm after
But the pressure driving me insane
Searching for a different ride
Had a funny feeling I can't hide
Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie Stomp
Why can't they just let me be
Alone without the misery
Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie, Zombie Stomp
Flirting with disaster
Morning after killing me again
Hiding from the laughter
And the demons dancing round my brain
Always dancing on thin ice
I guess I'll have to pay the price
Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie Stomp
Thinking how it could have been
If I had never let them in
Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie, Zombie Stomp
Take me to the doctor
cause I feel it coming on again
Don't know where I'm going
cause I guess I don't know where I've been
Looking for a different ride
Always dancing on thin ice
Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie Stomp
Thinking how it could have been
If I had never let them in
Hey, Hey, Do the Zombie, Zombie Stomp

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Wooo! That's a lot of typing, there, Brunhidden. Musing on it must have taking you a while :-)

Vampires- hoo boy, probably the biggest difference between what people hear and what history tells us. first off, forget the bats, the castles, LLARPs, and every single episode of buffy or blade movie you've ever seen. open your mind to the just downright weird things that the old folktales had to say about vampires. however, most of them believed in the garlic, but they believed garlic kept EVERYTHING evil away.

... You try eating two garlics at every meal, and see how many people, animals, and things stay in your general vicinity. I'm hardly surprised vampires stay away, I know I sure as heck would.... I'm surprised the -walls- didn't grow legs and walk away... :-)

[Boog]

What was the original mythology regarding zombies? All I know is that it started as a sort of voodoo thing, but not the why, how, all that stuff.

[thegayhare]

there are some other very interesting legends about vampires

I heard scattering rice on there grave is suposed to keep them at bay since they would have to stop and cound every single grain.  Rose stems across the grave were suposed to work too. As was a wire mesh over you key hole.  the vampire would have to stop and coun each space in the screen

[Manawolf]

This is why I will never use vampires myself.  Too overhyped and contorted by numerous variations (along with all the emo kids trying to be god moders).  I wonder where the idea of the lich came up.  D&D has certainly made it an undead to be feared (it was already a wizard, now it's a wizard that just won't stay dead), and even Rowling's given it a whack with that whole multiple horcruxes nonsense.  So what's the original story?  It obviously involved some sort of ritual, but did it always come down to transplanting your soul into a box for safe keeping into order to achieve immortality?

[Zedd]

The Horned King....Im curious....Anyone have any lore about that?

[Boog]

The Horned King....Im curious....Anyone have any lore about that?

The Horned King... that's celtic mythology right? I'm good at that...
He was a guy with a mask with antlers on it who wanted the Black Cauldron for his own use. Aside from that his history sort of pulls a Grendel; nobody knows where he's from, he's just there.

[Brunhidden]

  I wonder where the idea of the lich came up.  D&D has certainly made it an undead to be feared (it was already a wizard, now it's a wizard that just won't stay dead).  So what's the original story?  It obviously involved some sort of ritual, but did it always come down to transplanting your soul into a box for safe keeping into order to achieve immortality?

actually the idea of a litch is quite old, and can be found several places in the world. first off, the strange thing is it wasn't attributed to wizards, but rather to ogres. and when thinking of ogres forget about half of the shrek movies, they're about that  size or a few feet bigger, but usually they were yellow skinned with jaundice or regular flesh coloured and not green. usually they did live in deep forests and swamps, but about half the time they built themselves large castles in out of the way places. ogres ranged in ability between eight foot brutes who demanded tolls of people on lonely roads all the way to the 'ancestral' ogres who did a whole bunch of freaky things like surviving their heads being cut off and continuing a conversation with their head under their elbow.

supposedly the ritual to make yourself invincible involved removing your own beating heart and placing it somewheres else. examples of this are a giant who hid his heart in an egg in a duck in a well in a church on a hill in a country so far away they'd never even heard of him there. other popular choices are placing it on top of a glass mountain you cant climb, but its easy as all hell to guess where it is with one of THOSE around. in the Americas there was Kilamolayas, the bone man- he was an enormous skeleton supposed to have drank the rivers dry and eatten every man on earth (probably just everyone in the valley, the native Americans thought the world was pitifully small) except for a wisewoman and her grandson. eventually the child grows old enough (I'm guessing about twelve) to challenge the bone man, who laughs and spreads his arms wide daring him to pierce his heart- which the boy knows is in this little finger and not his chest, and so when he dies all the water and people come back. In the far east i remember theres something about hiding your soul in a box too.

the big downside is that if anyone is able to find the heart, they can just squeeze gently to cause agonising pain or just crush and the big nasty who was terrorising the land just keels over. but other then that its proof against decapitation, perforation, laceration, and blunt trauma. i don't know how well it stacks up against fire or acid and quite frankly none of the stories i remember involve the 'invinceable' living for very long so i don't know if it actually allows you to defeat old age either.

Fe fi fo fum, I smell...er...I smell...what do I smell?

[Roureem Egas]

I just wanted to ask: do you ever visit bogleech.com?

I find that site to be equally informative about random bits of the bizarre, be it nature or monsters in legends.