Journal Book - The Vampiric Mind and How To Survive It by Valborast Valchek

[Valborast Valchek]

INTRODUCTION

Ignorance is not armour. Disdain to the truth of the world and those that populate it is not a weapon. If you appreciate this truth, proceed on with my blessing.

To know of something foul is not to invite corruption into one's heart, it is does not tarnish; it is an act of education that broadens one's horizons, a resource to be utilised to prevent said warping of vocation and integrity to the soul. For the sake of your own self preservation and to those you call comrades in life in encountering the vampire, I write.

Knowledge is amoral. Application of such knowledge carries with it the burden of morality. It is the truth of this that I live and write so that my own experiences may inform your decisions and tactics, your choices and the life in your command. There are plenty of manuals on how to destroy the subject I write upon. Few on how to understand the nature of the affliction that is not for the afflicted themselves in assurance, placation, propagation and education of their lifestyle. I spare you from reading the curriculum of my youth. Having read such works, I aim to bring import to the living. For while the inhumane works for kindred by kindred are penned by predatory minds that seek to empower their method of self determination and continuation of the curse, I must impress this: there is a worse kind of literature. Books penned by the myopic in reverence for the fanged, to appeal to it, as if it might be courted by wistful words by those who crave the entrapments of the curse. Details on how to pray to such a thing for succour, for ownership, for favour, for consummation of the rite to become one of them; I would burn such things if I had the power. Such tomes are more of a damage to the living than any descriptions that vampires make to educate themselves on how to feed, how to survive, and how to thrive.

Make no mistake. Vampirism is a curse. Anyone who professes mewlings and admiration towards the vampire for hope of becoming one of them or being subservient to their dominion would be considered as morsel, plaything, pitiable ghoul to be discarded and spent by the vampire. If you are a lover of such darkness, be firmly warned. The darkness is infinite in it's depth on how much it does not care for your well being unless it serves it's infernal purpose. They call it the dark gift in hopes to entice the living and to hoist their condition as a banner in the battlefield of damnation. If you are reading and you wish to become one of them, I hope my words shall dissuade you in the details of the banality of such undead society and the social contracts one must respect to continue to co-exist with death's embrace. Such an undead society serves itself and only itself in it's dark work. I am not someone who has simply hunted them for sport or moral crusade, I know the nature of the beast, it's trappings, it's musings, it's detritus.

In writing this I might be labelled sympathiser for the intimate details I shall describe with as a cool disposition I can summon. To them I say this. I seek guard you against the psychology of your enemy in penning this. I seek to arm you with the methods and mindset employed to propagate the darkness, on the nature of it's society and customs, to give you a further insight on that which feeds on mortals and how to empower the rejection of the curse and it's dominion. If hunter you are, I shall guide you on how your quarry thinks so you might unwit and outwit it.

The fanged one, kindred, shadow thing, immortal, vampire; names many for a curse which shapes the individual and the society that they purport. They are numerous in kind and thought, and I shall be exhaustive as I can. I cannot abide the simplistic assessment that all of those within the embrace of the curse of blood thirst share one mind, one personality, as if it were a template to overlap over all of them in commonality of existence. This is the manner of thinking about vermin. Not the sophisticated culture of the blood drinker, of the complicated and nuanced nature of the curse. Consider this. If this book was penned concerning the judgement of single race with such a broad stroke as to label them all simple monsters, how laughable it would appear to those who belonged to such a race. And how it might serve them in their desire to be misunderstood so that such a folly might distance them from being comprehended so readily, so intimately. The cursed love how resemblance to monstrosity reduces others to think of them as fiction, as monster without cognition, as a shadow cast by fear's light. Many think of the vampire as a simple malady to be expunged and feared instead of understood and treated with respect; it serves to better their cause of self preservation and guides the light to dimness and shadows of ignorance with such opaque thoughts. Do not fall into the trap of thinking this a simple subject to understand. Vampirism is all at once an affliction, a curse, a society, a people, a threat, a school of magic, a political power.

And so much more beside.

Again, I must warn you. To engage with the vampire in any form, peaceful or violent, is a perilous undertaking. The first lesson is this. No mistake shall go unrewarded by the kindred to serve their own purpose. And even your successes may play into their schemes. But be better armed and better prepared by the knowledge I impart in this book, so that you may defy their machinations, and better yourself and your fellow living creature. The immortal and ancient have learned many a lesson to undo us in their lifespan, a single mistake prevented is a life perhaps saved. Mayhap your own.

 

[Valborast Valchek]

Immortal entities possess with them a waning of interest towards the common mortal, with a wick that burns forever the intensity of that flame will change for it's permanence. The most common malady of vampirism, aside from those who might smother such existence, is boredom. This indeed may be part of their curse, a dulling of enjoyment of the common courses. No peace remains in the stillness of the mind, no contentment to be found from simply lingering. Mortal kin are not separated from their needs, that of hunger, of thirst, and further trappings of need and want. And so too does the kindred have anxieties to thwart, scratches to itch, curiosities to indulge.

Imagine your moments deep and long into the night in isolated moments, as thoughts do possess themselves the strength to remain pertinent to your plot, as musings and regrets do linger in the veil of time to remind one of what ought and could be. So too with the kindred. Yet their fascination and assertion into the dark instincts of existence lend to them a dreadful aura, a melancholy wrenching of the heart to their plight. They have all the time in their languid calms to fester upon their internal monologues and personal reflections that serve them ill. They think deeply upon themselves and much upon how the world may serve their depths.

The vampire is a hedonistic self indulgent thing, yet such things are welcome tempered by their kin. The most successful and esteemed of kindred resemble themselves as stoics, able to resist the indulgence that would lead them to their end through foolish application of their violent bent. Yet, to test the willpower of a vampire from their feed and fodder is a foolish enterprise, for there is nothing more satisfying to one of fangs to indulge their true nature as one who makes one bereft of blood. Kinship can be found from their company, yet one must always remember that within them that voice does call that mocks the mortal for their all so fragile nature. All of this to say, that while the will of the best of them is mighty, the eternal thirst will reduce those unalike them in affliction to base sacks of blood when their patience is tested, or indeed, their appettite allowed to run it's course without abatement. The hunger, the thirst, the gnawing. These are the terms used by lesser vampires without the years to understand their needs in more sophisticated measure. As kindred welcome maturity and understanding to the nature of their existence, loftier terms might be used that departs from this ulterior dependence on vitae. Some terms I have heard from the more controlled I have encountered: The Indulgence, The Reminder, The Sacrifice. But make no blunder, the thirst afflicts them all, and must be respected.

In those who do not emulate the paragons of control and poise, they become as furious monsters to draw and cast out the living as stock, as game to pursue and slaughter to indulge their hedonistic bent. Such is an all too easy disposition that the kindred may take. While regarded by the high societies of kindred kind, and politicking ambitions of their organisations, as wild beasts, even wild beasts serve a purpose in the order of dark wheels that turn on hubs of malice.

When regarding the kindred, consider not on when they last fed as important. I have witnessed kindred gorge themselves and demand further stock to feed despite their indulgence, for passion drives them and hedonism rules them. Rare is the night that a vampire truly feels as if they are truly without appetite. This is why their indulgences can be so multiplicitous, as to render enjoyment from the factors of dark intrigue which sustains their interests for virtue of their complicated design.

Consider our entertainments as mortals. Our grand works of literature, our striving towards the arts. In this the kindred have us firmly bested, yet firmly divorced in subject matter. While we as mortals might look upon their artist works with disgust, for their creations are often machinations against the living, depictions and projects to render cruelty and pain a song for their fellows to hear and marvel and feed upon. These deeds and works are performed with all the training and finesse of those great Thespians, those esteemed artists of the living. Be cautious, for while it may not seen obvious a kindred's design, you may have a part to play in their latest work, for while the thirst must be abated and defeated in small part by your vitae, so too may your plight feed their drive to provide them with amusement, and perhaps, the crescendo to some meticulous piece, a punchline to grim joke at your fatal expense.

Anything to slake the thirst, to abate the boredom, to provide an interest beyond the banal that they endure forever in the dark and gloom.