Modern Vampyre is something new that I’m trying in the way of storytelling, or at least it is new to me. Tired of how vampire stories have become, I thought it would be nice to get back to the roots of vampire lore. Over the years, vampires have changed to fit our culture. My thought was, what if vampires didn’t change? What if many of the old rules still held true? How would vampires survive in modern society?

For example, there was a time in vampire lore where garlic was not to keep vampires away. The purpose of garlic at this time was for the sake of your nose. Vampires were believed to smell like rotting corpse and so you would wear garlic around your neck in an attempt to protect your nose so that you could deal with the vampire without getting sick. So if vampires smelt of death and they wanted to hide in society today, then they would need some kind of perfume as to not arouse suspicions.

I also want to take into account the advancements of science. Sure, there could be religious reasons why some things are dangerous to a vampire, but there could also be a scientific explanation as well. The cross is typically repellant to vampires, the power of Christ and all that, but what if there is a psychological aspect to it. In the old vampire tales, they were often in Christian societies. What about vampires who come from a post-Christian world? Some tales talk about the cross reminding them of their former self. I want to explore that more. What is that shut-in who has become a vampire repelled by? What about that atheist, Jew, or vegan? Maybe a cross would have no bearing on them. Maybe it would be something else.

So how am I doing this way of storytelling differently? My goal is to release a chapter as I finish them. As this will be an ongoing project, I may go back and edit chapters after they have been published to make the story fit. So there is a chance a chapter you read eight months ago may change. That said, I will note updates here on this page.

Prologue – 02/16/2020