PopCulture vs Myths?
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A thought brought about ye olde joke of "vampires aren't actually repelled by garlic":
One of the main thing that comes up pretty much any time I read something about vampires says things like: "Oh, crosses, garlic, running water, etc all of that is bullshit." So if you found yourself believing you had a vampire problem what would you do? Would you think garlic works? Crosses? (What if you thought you had a werewolf problem? Would you think they were stuck to changing on the moon? Or no?)
I'm interested less in any theorycraft about what would actually be truth about these myths and pop culture ideas if monsters were real, because obviously they aren't real. I'm interested in what a modern person might think about these monsters, how the change in "myth" and "legend" has altered the human belief.
Myths and legends were based on things we didn't understand, couldn't explain, or were afraid, etc. Now we've sexualized many of the things we were previously afraid of. (What does that say about the human race?) I'm kind of rambling at this point. But let me put it this way:
You're making a character who is a modern person who believes they are hunting vampires/werewolves/etc and learned what they know from pop culture-- what would they do?
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@Cobaltasaurus Personally, nothing short of beheading or full incineration, preferably not even ash left.
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Seriously assess if losing my life was worth the gains.
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@Cobaltasaurus Fire. Fire works on JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING, and if it's not working, that's probably because you're not using ENOUGH.
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I second the idea of fire.
Honestly any monster of any sort if I thought they were real my answer would be fire. -
Everyone knows REAL vampires glitter.
Also, I don't care what it says about the human race until it starts sexualizing zombies. Cause eww.
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@TNP
I have not checked nor will I; but I would bet my house payment there is Zombie porn out there. ... Please no one prove me right. -
@ThatGuyThere said:
@TNP
I have not checked nor will I; but I would bet my house payment there is Zombie porn out there. ... Please no one prove me right.There is.
There's a movie about a group of guys that keep a female zombie tied down ... I wish I didn't know this information.
@Misadventure wins the thread.
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@Cobaltasaurus Beyond that, there is also zombie porn out there where critics will get downright hostile if the female or male zombie doesn't use green kool-aid or food coloring to change the color of the inside of their mouth/tongue.
Don't ask me how I know that either.
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@Cobaltasaurus said:
because obviously they aren't real.
Obviously. But in this purely hypothetical situation where I, the modern person, believed in some form of supernatural monster... I'd probably keep a kit in my car, preparing me for what I might imagine as the most common forms of supernatural attacks.
First off, there's general survival gear
- Change of clothes
- Hatchet
- Pocket knife
- basic tool kit (including old cast iron, for antiquity's sake)
- fire starter, cans of sterno, multi-use pot for cooking/boiling
- winter jacket
- extra water
- water purifier
- first aid kit
- nunchaku
- WD-40, Duct Tape, zip ties
Then you move into your more esoteric items
- A large bag of salt (absolutely necessary for those chicago winters!)
- EMF detector (to detect the more ethereal things)
- 35mm regular film camera (again, to pick up things the eye can't see. Not the best in a "save your ass" situation, but more in the "planning" phase)
- infrared thermometer
- sage
- bottle of holy water (50/50 mix of St. Peter's Basilica and Sanctuary of Lourdes grotto cause I theoretically was running low on the Vatican stuff and needed a refill)
- Chasing Powder (for when shit gets really obnoxious)
Hypothetically, I'd worry most about the ethereal creatures that I cannot hit with a hatchet, shoot with a gun, or set on fire.
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@skew What? No firepower in your general survival gear!?
These "monsters" usually have minions to deal with too.
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@Tyche Firepower? Like, a gun?
In Illinois, we have some pretty whackadoo gun laws. Keeping a gun in your car at all times could create some huge legal issues for me, not to mention is dangerous. I fret enough about carrying my knife, that I don't want to think about having a gun nearby. You get into one little fight and you don't get sent to Bel Air, but jail.
So, yeah, you do have to do some prep work before you go into a situation you would suspect to be dangerous.
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So on Eldritch my PC's sister and friend were both having some problems with this vampire. It was really fun coming from a more super srs bsns vampire place to be totally dumb about vampires.
All her knowledge came from Twilight, and popular movies. I believe the line of questions started with "oh, is he hot?" And then "will regular garlic work or can you use the canned stuff in the store? Can you hit them with it or if you eat it can you like breath on them and repel them?" She stole holy water "out of that fountain thing in the church" and carried it in squeezy toiletry bottles. When someone finally said they didn't think that was how it worked, she just shook her head and was like "don't believe everything you read on the Internet, man."
maybe I annoyed the shit out of everyone but I love playing and being around the pcs that know nothing.When she finally met her first vampire, he was a fastidious dresser with gloves and she was disappointed he was a snob (not ooc, but IC) and didn't sparkle.
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@skew I don't think the law is going to be your main problem. I thought everyone had a gun in Chicago and it was a free fire zone. You can bet if the vampire is located in the hood their minions are going to be armed. Not to mention you're going to have to defend yourself from the local natives.
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Slightly off topic but this thread reminded me of on of my habits from the oWoD days I would always by the traditiona weakness flaw, things like repelled by garlic, cast no reflection etc, and it was great since every PC would just assume that stuff does not work I rarely got hit with them, of course the few that did think to try the old ways were even more hosed when they ran into other vamps though.
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@ThatGuyThere I've had a couple vampires in the day with full blown hollywooditis. Some games you can't even take them all though because they come up to more than 7 points of flaws for the full set.
Hello! Long time listener, first time caller...
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I like the concept of a Vampire game with optional flaws someone can take to represent the modern lore and tropes. For example, we have a vampire in the LARP I run who has Vulnerable to Silver and Repelled by Religion.
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@Bobotron You can do that in V:tR 2ed. Instead of taking a hit to your humanity, you take a new bane. Or something like that... Forget the exact details, but you could absolutely have a vampire allergic to garlic and repelled by crosses.
