The Vampires of Old Completely Lost Their Minds
The vampires of old completely lost their minds.
The vampires of old completely lost their minds.
They had turned vampire because they didn't want to die of old age, only to learn the inconveniences numbered far more than one or two. Stand in the sunlight and you burn. Go without blood and you lose your reason and go mad. Food has no taste. Even your sex drive vanishes. A person goes completely insane.
And there were rivals. By day, hunters who had lost their families roamed about, out to drive a stake through a heart. In the forests they fought werebeasts over territory, and they were busy warring with mages on top of that.
So one clever vampire came up with a brilliant idea. They would band together, just as humans did.
And so the clan was born. Old vampires became elders and managed the organization, while the middle ranks led the youngest. Once the numbers gathered, werebeasts were easier to face, and the hunters could be hunted in return.
But the real problem started here. After feeding off a single region long enough, ordinary humans began, little by little, to catch on and rise against them. Hundreds came swarming, and even some of the elders died. Vampire hunters and the Church attacked in organized force, and the bloodsuckers themselves split into factions and fought one another. At that rate, they were all going to die together.
That was when another vampire offered a groundbreaking idea. Each of them would claim a territory, hide in the shadows, and manage local society from there. They had long lifespans — long enough to become the region's nobles, its magnates, and its landlords, and to use ordinary humans like a fence. Livestock to drink from came easily, and so did human shields. Two birds with one stone.
Once things stood like that, the Church and the secret orders, the mages, every mystical being there was — they all compromised together. Except the hunters. Better to cover it quietly and live in the dark than to throw society into open chaos and perish as one.
And that is how the Masquerade was born.
If only the story had ended there...
This is where the newbie vampires' minds simply gave out. The old elders had stagnated so long they were nothing but rotten water. Disobey, and you die. Obey, and you suffer. Try to live alone, and the hunters catch you and kill you. You are envied for living a long time, yet you have never once lived at ease. Dragged by force into the Masquerade, you spend your whole life in misery over blood and sunlight.
And right there, one genius vampire made a truly brilliant invention...
...So. You know what kind of world this is now, don't you?
I am that fucking vampire.
Come at me, you Blood Ape bastards.