‘What’s for supper, mummy ?’ or, The Relationship Between Humans And Vampires
Here’s a thing to think about. In our descriptions of feeding, most of us leave a trail of absolute carnage across Ravenblack. The messages in public halls are full or descriptions of throats ripped out, bodies left strewn in alleyways (often in great heaps), and humans torn limb from limb.
There are, depending on who you ask, anywhere from ten to thirty thousand of us in this city, if you include the hosts of minions and thralls. As a very rough count, and allowing for those vampires who sleep the night away, I make that something like 50-100,000 humans snacked on EVERY NIGHT !
And yet the fools still come out to play after dark. Why haven’t they all long since fled, or decided to lock themselves in every night and only poke their noses out just after daylight ?
Depending on what milieu the city is set in (maybe the subject of a future article), why haven’t the humans’ civic authorities acted to rid the city of this scourge (that’s us, folks !). They could have called in the military, or got the police to hose the streets down with riot control vehicles using water cannons loaded with HW. The hunters seem a very inadequate response indeed to a threat of our magnitude. Where, even, are just the simple angry citizens, complete with pitchforks and torches, hunting down our resting places as we sleep through the hours of daylight ?
So let me pose an alternative hypothesis. The average human has 8 pints of blood. We take a few, but rarely enough to kill them. Innate vampire powers mean that our victims are unaware of this theft of their lifeblood. They just wake up feeling tired and lethargic. Under this idea, the casualty rate drops to maybe a few dozen a night, or a couple of hundred at most. Pretty average for, say, a large city in the third world, where the night isn’t regularly patrolled by a disciplined, motivated police force.
Something to think about, isn’t it ? So what do you think ‘ how do you see the ecology of the city working ?
Comments
Arsanga
Well, I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I personally don’t feed every night, nor do I always kill those I drink from. On occasion, perhaps, but… grins Well, I may stir shit up saying this, but not every vampire in this city is 100+ years old, you know. There is so much complaint about vampires being too “nicey-nicey” and not outgrowing their human roots. Well, I was only turned a little less than 4 years ago; excuse me for not suddenly being as heartless as someone who’s been lurking for centuries rolls her eyes I still hold some compassion for humankind, jaded as that may be by now, and no amount of insults against that are going to make me outgrow that faster. I have an eternity, I’m going to take my damn time becoming as compassion-less as some of the “elders.” And that may be a weakness, but it can also be a strength. ahems But that’s another topic altogether, forgive me ;) About the military strikes, though… smiles fondly I have seen a few of those in action, actually… Sadly enough, I think only Naomi and Archangel are still around to remember those…
~Arsanga ó Cionaoith~ Mother of the Phoenix Eternally Bound to Murrz Ramirez SotP