The Gaming Den

Dude, it's not called 'Jojo's Normal Adventure.'

I know, but I wan't prepared for it.

I mean... a squirrel?

Shit, I really have to watch me some JoJos. If it's all that over the top I need it in my life.

It is certainly over the top. There's a lot of hilariously absurd "ah-hah! Just as keikaku*!" in each fight, but the authors seem to be exactly as aware of the hilarious absurdity as the audience, and so it just becomes a part of the ride.

*Keikaku means plan.

I never understood True Ancestors as vampires, but rather fey type thingy that could create vampires.

Rawbeard wrote:I never understood True Ancestors as vampires, but rather fey type thingy that could create vampires.

In Nasu, "vampire" is basically defined as "anything that drinks human blood". They totally count.

Also, they created the "standard" vampires by drinking their blood, because they felt an urge to drink human blood.

That is a bit of a definition debate that could be had. Generally I class anything that has some practical reason to drink the blood of living creatures as a vampire, or a vampire X if X is not humanoid. I don't usually count "used to be human" as a requirement. The Nasuverse isn't the only Japanese setting with the original vampire thing, which may extend to include humans who became vampires by some means other than being turned by an existing one. E.g. Suikoden has the holder of the Moon rune.

If I were to exclude them on anything, it'd be that they can go without drinking blood indefinitely with no ill effects beyond really wanting to. The "standard" vampires are explicitly called out has having a shitty imitation of their immortality because they need to keep drinking blood or they'll die.

Didn't mean the exclude True Ancs, just pointing out they are streching it.

To be a bit more productive I would throw in Hellsing ripoff no. 682740 aka Trinity Blood into the mix. Baseline is pretty stacked (strength, speed, healing etc.) and the top end is usual god like animu stuff.

only looking at baseline I have to side with SR vamps, even after countless edition nerfs they still get immortality, regeneration, physical (and now mental/magical) boosts, speed, good escape tool and +sexy from the start, all for the cost of moderate sun aversion and being shitty swimmers. that a better deal than pretty much any other fiction vamps I can think of right now.

well, maybe except D&D. dominate at will, yo!

Ancient History wrote:Honorable mention goes to the vârcolac.

Which volume is that from?

Not sure I'd count the Pillar men as vampires, but that hardly matters as the actual vampires in JJBA are stupidly powerful enough on their own.

Special emphasis is placed on Vampire – also referred to as Strigoi, biology as mirroring that of parasitic creatures as opposed to supernaturally immortal demons of pop culture..

FrankTrollman wrote:I think straight up Eastern European folkloric vampires are often plenty stupidly powerful. While I admit that a lot of them are basically "kinda strong dudes" that can be defeated by just being "pretty good with a sword" or some shit, there are a lot of those guys who can only be killed by situations so contrived that they require author fiat to ever get in a situation where death is possible.

The hyperbolic displays of power at the high end of Serbian folkore are fucking insane. Like punching mountains out of the ground insane.

-Username17

Any names you could give me to google? Searching for "Serbian vampires" gives me Sava Savanovic, who lived in a mill, and searching for "Serbian folklore" tells me about gods like Svarog, Chernobog and Bielobog, who aren't exactly vampires.

Silent Wayfarer wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:I think straight up Eastern European folkloric vampires are often plenty stupidly powerful. While I admit that a lot of them are basically "kinda strong dudes" that can be defeated by just being "pretty good with a sword" or some shit, there are a lot of those guys who can only be killed by situations so contrived that they require author fiat to ever get in a situation where death is possible.

The hyperbolic displays of power at the high end of Serbian folkore are fucking insane. Like punching mountains out of the ground insane.

-Username17

Any names you could give me to google? Searching for "Serbian vampires" gives me Sava Savanovic, who lived in a mill, and searching for "Serbian folklore" tells me about gods like Svarog, Chernobog and Bielobog, who aren't exactly vampires.

Google searching for Serbian myth isn't going to give you dick, because Serbian is written in Cyrillic and probably neither one of us can read it. You're probably better off searching for Balkan mythology generally or using Bosnian words like Lampir.

In any case, the things I was calling out were Vampire puzzle monsters - invisible vampires that became life draining monsters because a fox jumped over their grave and just basically rampage until a fox jumps back over the other direction, which is basically bullshit that is never going to happen without author fiat. And demon vampires who seem to be able to do basically anything as far as I can tell.

-Username17

I was mainly interested in the "punch mountains out of the earth" part, but the fox part seems really fucking random.

Variation on a classic, in some versions of the myth it's a black cat, not a fox.

Yeah, I've heard the black cat version.

And there's other versions where a nude virgin on a white horse won't cross a vampire's grave, or some such rot. Which makes you wonder how they figured that one out.

Clearly a botched unicorn hunt, how else?

Can't imagine where that myth might've originated. "Golly, little Billy looks pale. Better go find ourselves a white horse and check for vampire graves."

I would imagine it has to do with traditional (European) ideas that white equals purity, and that pureness cannot bear corruption. Thus a "pure" (virginal) woman bereft of the corruption of society/the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil (nude) on a horse which symbolizes purity in its color literally cannot cross a grave that bears the corruption of undeath.

Like many things, it probably originated as the sexual fantasy of some old repressed guy who had way too much moral authority in his community.

What, no mention of Touhou vampires? Shame on you!

They're considered physically as strong as oni (and oni are pretty much the strongest, "I use mountains as improvised thrown weapons" strong), fast as tengu (which are the fastest short of time manipulation shenigans), plus super regeneration, transformation and able to use spells, in particular corrupting divine magic. Sunlight burns them, but carrying a parasol is enough to block it. Rain kinda ruins their day though.

Remilia also has the power of manipulating fate, and depending on how you read her fluff, she basically got Dio Brando as her personal maid, including wearing a frilly maid outfit. Remilia's first appearance has her creating an eternal scarlet night just because she felt like it.

Her younger sister Flandre can blow up anything she looks at. It's canon that she once blew up a meteor into fine dust that was heading towards their general area. It does makes very hard for Flandre to feed, since she more often than not atomizes any humans she sees, so she's usually kept locked in their mansion's basement.

Silent Wayfarer wrote:

FrankTrollman wrote:I think straight up Eastern European folkloric vampires are often plenty stupidly powerful. While I admit that a lot of them are basically "kinda strong dudes" that can be defeated by just being "pretty good with a sword" or some shit, there are a lot of those guys who can only be killed by situations so contrived that they require author fiat to ever get in a situation where death is possible.

The hyperbolic displays of power at the high end of Serbian folkore are fucking insane. Like punching mountains out of the ground insane.

-Username17

Any names you could give me to google? Searching for "Serbian vampires" gives me Sava Savanovic, who lived in a mill, and searching for "Serbian folklore" tells me about gods like Svarog, Chernobog and Bielobog, who aren't exactly vampires.

Most slavic vampires are basically evil sorcerers who died and occasionally get out of their graves to mess with people. In one of the stories a soldier stays for the night with a widow, and steals shiny boots of her dead husband, and is then haunted every night for years by an unkillable evil wizard until he gives the boots back.
In another story, the secret to killing the vampire is taking hundred carts of aspen logs, burning the vampire in them, and when the vampire bursts and birds, snakes, rats, insects and other vermin start escaping you need to catch all of them and throw them back into the fire. Thankfuly for the protagonist the vampire is nice enough to explain his weakness, and isn't strong enough to kill the protagonist before the church bells ring and the vampire falls into torpor for the day. At which point he gets burned.
The vampire's motivation in that story was that he came to a wedding in the village, got angry when someone snubbed him, and used blood magic to (temporarily) kill the newlyweds in revenge.

maglag wrote:What, no mention of Touhou vampires? Shame on you!

They're considered physically as strong as oni (and oni are pretty much the strongest, "I use mountains as improvised thrown weapons" strong), fast as tengu (which are the fastest short of time manipulation shenigans), plus super regeneration, transformation and able to use spells, in particular corrupting divine magic. Sunlight burns them, but carrying a parasol is enough to block it. Rain kinda ruins their day though.

Remilia also has the power of manipulating fate, and depending on how you read her fluff, she basically got Dio Brando as her personal maid, including wearing a frilly maid outfit. Remilia's first appearance has her creating an eternal scarlet night just because she felt like it.

Her younger sister Flandre can blow up anything she looks at. It's canon that she once blew up a meteor into fine dust that was heading towards their general area. It does makes very hard for Flandre to feed, since she more often than not atomizes any humans she sees, so she's usually kept locked in their mansion's basement.

I didn't mention the Scarlets, because even if Touhou vampires are very hardcore, they have laughable weaknesses, since the series is played mainly for humor.

For one side, their "weakness to the Sun" means that they slowly begin to turn into ashes and smoke, instead the insta-gib from Blade vampires, but I don't think Dracula or TYPE-MOON vampires would get weak if you threw soy-beans at them. And as you point, the Scarlets weakness to "running water" seem to be a bit more severe, since Patchouli effectively summons rain to keep Flandre from running amok outdoors.

maglag wrote:What, no mention of Touhou vampires? Shame on you!

In PC-98 canon there's also Kurumi, a typical Stage 2 boss who gets beaten up and made fun of. She brings down the average power level of Touhou vampires by a lot.