User blog:Goddess of Despair/Vampires vs Werewolves



Today is my birthday, so to celibrate 2 of my favorite monsters will battle it out to see which is the dominate species. The Vampire, blood-draining demon takes on the Werewolf, terrifying bearer of the lycan curse. The ultimate match up of fictional monsters begins. Who is deadliest? To find out, our wikians are examining these warrior's most lethal weapons. No rules no saftey no mercy. It's a duel to the death to decide who is the deadliest warrior!

Backround
Origin-Mythology.

Service-Since ancient times.

History-Vampires are a type of demonic undead creature that has superhuman traits and endurance. Their appearance is either humanlike, many times attractive, to being skinny, hunchback, discolored, pale, corpselike and with enlarged claws or teeth. Some vampires can switch between humanlike and demonlike at will, normally by retracting their fangs and claws, allowing them to blend in with human society while hunting. But most vampires cannot change the fact that they have no shadows or reflections. Many vampires can shapeshift, normally into a bat or bat-like creature to give them flight. Vampires also can control many types of black magic depending on the story, though a common ability is hypnotizing people with their eyesight or levitation. Almost every culture in history has had legends about vampires or vampire-like creatures, from the blood-drinking demons of Sumerian mythology, to the Chupacabra of modern Latin American folklore. The most famous Vampires, however, originate from Eastern European folklore. It was believed that especially evil people, or those who had been cursed in some way, would return from the grave as vampires, preying on the living. Only certain methods were believed to be able to destroy a vampire, the most common being thrusting a wooden stake through the heart, and beheading the corpse. Technically, 'vampire' is defined as "any parasite that drains and feeds on the blood or life of the host".

However the characteristics and personalities of vampires have greatly changed overtime. Initially vampires were portrayed mainly as evil semi-demons. Overtime the aspects of their personality, philosophy and even emotion started to appear in popular media. Now a days a vampires are often portrayed more like "rational yet corrupt upper class" rather than "evil demons". In some modern media like the Vampire Chronicles, it is said that vampires even follow religions if they want to, which is a huge contrast with the early concepts of vampires which said they died if they came in contact with holy materials like crucifix or holy water.

Ever since the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker came out in 1897 (based in part on the real-life exploits of  Vlad the Impaler), the world has been entranced by vampires in fiction. Vampires first made the leap on to film in 1922 with the release of Nosferatu, and such films as Dracula, The Lost Boys, and Underworld ensure they are here to stay.

Weapons
Fangs-Unlike most interpretations of vampires that only had two fangs, the vampire envisioned by the panel of vampire experts had an entire mouthful of razor-sharp fangs, making it much easier for its bite to puncture the vessels in the neck to feed off of human blood. In addition, the vampire could unhinge its jaws to increase the size of its bite. All this combined with the superhuman strength of its jaw muscles make the vampire fangs a lethal weapon.

Claws-The vampire has razor-sharp claws on the tips of each of his fingers. Each claw was as strong as steel & swung with the vampire's superhuman strength are very lethal.

Weakness
The vampire's most well known weakness is sunlight. A vampire is not able to go into sunlight or else it will turn to dust. A vampire may also be killed through decapitation, destruction of the heart, or blood loss. Garlic, holy items, running water, etc are not actual weaknesses and will not be considered such for this battle.

Backround
Origin-Mythology.

Service-Nights with the full moon after recieving the lycan curse. History-Werewolves were said in European folklore to bear tell-tale physical traits even in their human form. These included the meeting of both eyebrows at the bridge of the nose, curved fingernails, low set ears and a swinging stride. One method of identifying a werewolf in its human form was to cut the flesh of the accused, under the pretense that fur would be seen within the wound. A Russian superstition recalls a werewolf can be recognised by bristles under the tongue.[12] The appearance of a werewolf in its animal form varies from culture to culture, though they are most commonly portrayed as being indistinguishable from ordinary wolves save for the fact that they have no tail (a trait thought characteristic of witches in animal form), are often larger, and retain human eyes and voice. According to some Swedish accounts, the werewolf could be distinguished from a regular wolf by the fact that it would run on three legs, stretching the fourth one backwards to look like a tail.[13] After returning to their human forms, werewolves are usually documented as becoming weak, debilitated and undergoing painful nervous depression.[12] Many historical werewolves were written to have suffered severe melancholia and manic depression, being bitterly conscious of their crimes.[12] One universally reviled trait in medieval Europe was the werewolf's habit of devouring recently buried corpses, a trait that is documented extensively, particularly in the Annales Medico-psychologiques in the 19th century.[12] Fennoscandian werewolves were usually old women who possessed poison coated claws and had the ability to paralyse cattle and children with their gaze.[12] Serbian vulkodlaks traditionally had the habit of congregating annually in the winter months, when they would strip off their wolf skins and hang them from trees. They would then get a hold of another vulkodlaks skin and burn it, releasing the vulkodlak from whom the skin came from its curse.[12] The Haitian jé-rouges typically try to trick mothers into giving away their children voluntarily by waking them at night and asking their permission to take their child, to which the disoriented mother may either reply yes or no.[12]





Various methods for becoming a werewolf have been reported, one of the simplest being the removal of clothing and putting on a belt made of wolfskin, probably as a substitute for the assumption of an entire animal skin (which also is frequently described).[14] In other cases, the body is rubbed with a magic salve.[14] To drink rainwater out of the footprint of the animal in question or to drink from certain enchanted streams were also considered effectual modes of accomplishing metamorphosis.[15] The 16th century Swedish writer Olaus Magnus says that the Livonian werewolves were initiated by draining a cup of specially prepared beer and repeating a set formula. Ralston in his Songs of the Russian People gives the form of incantation still familiar in Russia.



In Italy, France and Germany, it was said that a man or woman could turn into a werewolf if he or she, on a certain Wednesday or Friday, slept outside on a summer night with the full moon shining directly on his face.[12]



In other cases, the transformation was supposedly accomplished by Satanic allegiance for the most loathsome ends, often for the sake of sating a craving for human flesh. "The werewolves", writes Richard Verstegan (Restitution of Decayed Intelligence, 1628), {C}are certayne sorcerers, who having annoynted their bodies with an ointment which they make by the instinct of the devil, and putting on a certayne inchaunted girdle, does not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own thinking have both the shape and nature of wolves, so long as they wear the said girdle. And they do dispose themselves as very wolves, in worrying and killing, and most of humane creatures. {C}Such were the views about lycanthropy current throughout the continent of Europe when Verstegan wrote.



The phenomenon of repercussion, the power of animal metamorphosis, or of sending out a familiar, real or spiritual, as a messenger, and the supernormal powers conferred by association with such a familiar, are also attributed to the magician, male and female, all the world over; and witch superstitions are closely parallel to, if not identical with, lycanthropic beliefs, the occasional involuntary character of lycanthropy being almost the sole distinguishing feature. In another direction the phenomenon of repercussion is asserted to manifest itself in connection with the bush-soul of the West African and the nagual of Central America; but though there is no line of demarcation to be drawn on logical grounds, the assumed power of the magician and the intimate association of the bush-soul or the nagual with a human being are not termed lycanthropy. Nevertheless it will be well to touch on both these beliefs here.



The curse of lycanthropy was also considered by some scholars as being a divine punishment. Werewolf literature shows many examples of God or saints allegedly cursing those who invoked their wrath with werewolfism. Those who were excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church were also said to become werewolves.[12]



The power of transforming others into wild beasts was attributed not only to malignant sorcerers, but to Christian saints as well. Omnes angeli, boni et Mali, ex virtute naturali habent potestatem transmutandi corpora nostra ("All angels, good and bad have the power of transmutating our bodies") was the dictum of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Patrick was said to have transformed the Welsh king Vereticus into a wolf; Natalis supposedly cursed an illustrious Irish family whose members were each doomed to be a wolf for seven years. In other tales the divine agency is even more direct, while in Russia, again, men supposedly became werewolves when incurring the wrath of the Devil.



A notable exception to the association of Lycanthropy and the Devil, comes from a rare and lesser known account of an 80-year-old man named Thiess. In 1692, in Jurgenburg, Livonia, Thiess testified under oath that he and other werewolves were the Hounds of God.[16] He claimed they were warriors who went down into hell to do battle with witches and demons. Their efforts ensured that the Devil and his minions did not carry off the grain from local failed crops down to hell. Thiess was steadfast in his assertions, claiming that werewolves in Germany and Russia also did battle with the devil's minions in their own versions of hell, and insisted that when werewolves died, their souls were welcomed into heaven as reward for their service. Thiess was ultimately sentenced to ten lashes for Idolatry and superstitious belief.



<p class="MsoNormal">A distinction is often made between voluntary and involuntary werewolves. The former are generally thought to have made a pact, usually with the Devil, and morph into werewolves at night to indulge in nefarious acts. Involuntary werewolves, on the other hand, are werewolves by an accident of birth or health. In some cultures, individuals born during a new moon or suffering from epilepsy were considered likely to be werewolves.

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Becoming a werewolf simply by being bitten by another werewolf as a form of contagion is common in modern horror fiction, but this kind of transmission is rare in legend, unlike the case in vampirism.[12]

<p class="MsoNormal">

<p class="MsoNormal">Even if the denotation of lycanthropy is limited to the wolf-metamorphosis of living human beings, the beliefs classed together under this head are far from uniform, and the term is somewhat capriciously applied. The transformation may be temporary or permanent; the were-animal may be the man himself metamorphosed; may be his double whose activity leaves the real man to all appearance unchanged; may be his soul, which goes forth seeking whom it may devour, leaving its body in a state of trance; or it may be no more than the messenger of the human being, a real animal or a familiar spirit, whose intimate connection with its owner is shown by the fact that any injury to it is believed, by a phenomenon known as repercussion, to cause a corresponding injury to the human being.

<p class="MsoNormal">

Weapons
The werewolf posses a mouth full of powerful sharp teeth that can rip through flesh with ease. The werewolf also has blunt claws which are its main weapon for combat.

Weakness
The werewolf is only a werewolf at night whilst the moon is full, this means that once it's day the werewolf goes into human form and is vulnerable. Werewolves, like most creatures, die of blood loss. In werewolf form, the werewolf loses all human intellegence it had.

Voting/battle Information
The battle will be a 3 on 3 and will take place in a small abandoned town surrounded by a forest. Voting is in the form of points, 2 point for descriptive edges or 2 paragraphs. 1 point for 2 paragraphs or edges that are not that descriptive, and 0 for one word or sentence. Voting ends May 4th 2013.

Battle
Vampires   Werewolf

To be written.

Expert's opinion
To be decided.