Journal Entry #1 Lessons From Father and Personal Research on Vampire Ancestry and Hierarchy

 

On this day I thought it would be wise to transcribe everything I remember my father teaching me about my heritage and the history of vampires. Additionally, I thought it would be wise to combine that knowledge with what I have learned over the centuries I have lived learning about my background while searching for my brother. 

From both what father had gone over and my research over the years, what seems to be a "known" unknown is how vampires exactly came into existence. What is known is that vampires appeared sometime around 100 CE. Before then, there was no record ever recorded of anything vampire like. According to father. A singular person is whom all vampires share a lineage with. But there has never been concrete evidence as to how or where he came from. The known is that he created followers and thus the 10 ancient vampire houses were created. Although most humans would say the first vampire was Dracula, vampires know that the first was Ambrogio. From him game the 10 great noble vampire families: The house of Ambogio, Dracul, Kieran, Ruthaven, Bathory, Morieve, Paole, Matheu, Frenz, and Cai. Vampire history tells that Ambrigio took on 9 followers who became vampires after him and thus created what current vampires know as the ancient noble houses. Those that still live from that time are the apex vampires (only 2 are known to still exist from ancient times), and those with direct lineage from these houses are the high class vampires.

Currently, only 6 of these houses remain fully intact. Over time, with vampire hunts, vampire wars, and various incidents, some houses were wiped out, or the direct lineage was so disrupted that the house was dropped from the list. 

While humans might not know this, vampire society is very hieratical, and class based. Nobility is taken very seriously in the vampire world. Your lineage and how directly connected you are with your ancestor's blood lines, marriages to other nobles' houses and how you were created effect how you are viewed with within the society. This is to say, if you came from one of the ancient houses, and your direct lineage always connect to a noble house (your parents always married with a noble from another ancient house) then you would be high on the hierarchy scale and have much power in social gatherings and tribal hearings. These are known as purebred vampires. Next in line below the ancient nobles and the nobles would be the aristocrats, those that may not have 100% noble blood but most of it is. Maybe some of their ancestors at some point chose a weaker bloodline or went with a turned vampire. They would hold less authority within the society but would be a step above those below. 

The lower classes, which often are treated as workers, looked down upon, and have less vampire powers would be those that have less connection to the purebred vampire line: such as turned vampires, and day walkers.

 If you were to put it into perspective the hierarchy would be progenitor noble, ancient noble, noble, aristocrat, turned vampire, and day walkers. 

On the topic of vampire houses, it should be mentioned that each ancient house has unique vampiric abilities associated with their lineage. This is the reason why nobles purposely seek out nobles from other houses when seeking a mate. In order to strengthen their own lineage, its in their best interest to find a vampire that has different vampiric specialties than them as to create children that have both sets of skills. Although there were 10 houses originally, it's only relevant to talk about the 6 that remain, as those that died out, only remnants of their powers remain. That would be the houses of: Dracul, Kieran, Ruthaven, Bathory, Matheu, and Frenz. Interestingly enough, although the original progenitor of vampires had his house wiped out, his vampiric skills were inherited by all the houses, thus although not listed, is a part of all vampires and why purebred vampires can still have weaker powers of a vampiric skill that wasn't in their lineage.

Vampire skills can be categories into 3 classes and then subclasses from those. Noble vampires from each remaining house will have a specialty in physical, psychic, or transformative powers. 

I have to note here that although there are 6 remaining vampires noble houses. All vampires still have skills from the original progenitor, Ambogio, as mentioned before. And why human often assume all vampires have the same powers since in many ways they do, just to lesser extent than one whose lineage specializes in certain skills. It's also interesting to note that most humans default into thinking that the second oldest, the house of Drakul, was the original when thinking about vampires. But as for how 4 vampire houses perished, well, that deserves its own chapter. 

The house of Kieran, which I am descended from, specializes in psychic abilities. The specific specialty for my family was telepathy.

The house of Dracul specialized in physical strength. With the specialty of the senses. The house of Ruthaven specialized in physical strength, with the specialty of raw physical strength. The house of Bathory specialized in psychic abilities with the specialty of mind reading. The house of Matheu specialized in transformative powers with a specialty in shapeshifting. And finally, the house of Frenz specialized in transformative powers with a specialty in changing appearance such as forever looking youthful. 

Now to a human reading this it would sound confusing because in media they see vampires having a variety of skills and this information seems to speak contrary to this. But it is in fact pretty simple when you understand genetics and passed down traits. Nobile vampires didn't seek to keep their specialties to themselves, rather, in fact, the actively looked to marry other noble vampires that had different skills set than their own. In this way children would be born having skills from both parents. As the lineage progressed down the line and children chose to marry other noble vampires with different skill sets, eventually you have what you humans are familiar with. Vampires that have a variety of powers. The major take a way to be had from this is that a vampires strongest skillset is tied to their direct lineage. That is to say, for example, a vampire from the house of Frenz would have their strongest vampire power being the ability to change their appearance. Their 2nd strongest would be from their other parents side. So, for example, if they had a parent that was from the house of Ruthaven then they would have pretty strong raw physical strength. Then as the children married vampires from other houses with other specialties, you have current vampires that have a variety of vampiric skills, but their strongest being where their lineage traces back to.

Now the information above mostly pertains to ancient nobles, nobles and even to some extent aristocrat vampires. When it comes to turned vampires, it's a different story. Turned vampires generally don't have many if any of the specialty vampire skills outside of increased strength, and senses. Depending on who turned them and how much blood their received, they may have a weak skillset of the transformative, psychic, or specialty physical abilities. This is why they are seen as low class due to their tainted blood and not being purebloods/true bloods as well as their lack of abilities in comparison to pureblooded vampires that were born vampires. 

And of course, there is the elephant in the room which is what I am, a day walker. Day walkers are a rare species of vampires that happen by rare fluke usually and unintentional. Because in my world, vampires and humans cannot mate due to one being undead and other living, this makes it difficult to create a day walker. The few records and incidences of day walkers that have existed pointed to a rare occurrence of these creatures happening when a noble vampire fed from or changed (this option rarely ever happened due to the prideful nature of vampires) a pregnant human. The common theme was that there was struggle in which vampire blood was spilt when they attacked the woman and the vampire assumed they fed enough that the woman died. In the rare cases, the woman didn't and was on their dying breath but was able to consume the vampire blood that was spilt in the struggle, the possibility of a day walker can occur. This allowed the woman to survive and become a turned vampire. Even rarer then is that chance that the carried child would not be consumed by the now changed vampire DNA running through the mother's body. If the child survived, it meant that the vampire DNA was able to bind with the growing baby and create what is known as a day walker. A child born with both human and vampire DNA. 

Because of such a tainted way of becoming a vampire, most vampires see day walkers as tainted blood and not real vampires. Moreover, they see them as prey due to the fact that they have the rarest blood known to man. 

This leaves what I am, a true day walker, someone of an enigma. If day walkers were a rare species to find within the vampire community, then even rarer was a true day walker, a creature that was born from a day walker and a vampire. On one hand if they chose to live in the vampire world by hiding their human heritage, then technically they could live as noble vampire. But that's risky due to the fact that they would be around many vampires with strong psychic abilities that could easy access and go through memories or read their thoughts and one slip up could mean death. On the flip side if they chose to live as human, they would have to live a lonely existence due to the fact that they were still a vampire and really wouldn't age, which would require them to change their existence every handful of decades. 

But in both cases, if found, they would be considered low on the vampire hierarchy and become a target of prey to noble vampires. 

Father left me with valuable information on how the vampire society works and why I should be cautious of it while also many questions which I had to fill in by researching ancient texts while on my quest to find Akio. This is what I know of the vampire world I never belonged in and have stayed hidden from all my life.