Vampire History

--First up Vam--



Vampire's originally started way before Vlad the Impaler with a guy called Coun du Vam or the count of Vam in English, wherever Vam is. This diabolical character is the first vampire and actually invented the vampire ritual that all the other vampire lords perform to become a head vampire. This guy is my favorite but he still remains unknown to most of the world. You see, Dracula was sensationalized in a book with an impossible connection to Vlad and Dimitri has appeared in many computer games, but Vam has never been in the spot light, probably as his story didn't sound too impressive.

The word vampire actually means "Of Vam" and therefore technically he shouldn't be referred to as a vampire as he is the original. Vam wasn't born a count BTW. It seems strange, but a long time ago, you could become a count and didn't have to be related by blood to the ruler. Much like people get knighted nowadays, it was often used as a great honor as a reward for doing something. You could also be voted to be a count, alot like politicians nowadays, but it would require a public outcry. It wasn't really the done thing but rulers don't like to have their people rise up a rebellion so they gave them a little leeway.

A count is alot like a lord today, they are responsible for the managing of counties within a country. There were lords at this time but they were basically the go between between the public and the count. Ultimately the count had the last say but the lord acted like an adviser to the count, keeping them informed about what kinds of things the public were asking for, so the count could think up how to please the people and also acting as the leader of the people, spinning them fancy words to keep them placid and encouraging them to work together.

So lords were often liked or at least tolerated by the public as their voice to the ruler but unfortunately also the ruler's voice to the public. As you can imagine, if the count decided he wanted to tax everyone ridicules amounts, the lord would get the blame, and if the public demanded something of the ruler, the lord would get the blame again. But they were valuable to both sides, as the count was often good at making decisions but not good at talking to the public and unless the public were planning on starting a civil war, the lord was the only way to convince the count to change his mind.

Now lords got their position by public vote as opposed to the count who had to be approved by either another count, an earl, a duke, etc or some member of the royal family. Vam was a psychopath and I don't mean a serial killer or a guy with autism, he was full blown devoid of human emotion.

If you want a good idea of what a psychopath looks like Derren Brown is a great example. Psychopaths often use alot of powers of suggestion and everything they do is a subtle and quick. Just talking to them for a few seconds you're already under their spell. They always appear very friendly an talkative but underneath they are always analyzing everything you do and calculating their next move. Psychopaths are often very intelligent too but alot of them pretend to be clumsy to lead you into a false sense of security.

Vam was exactly this, he used his advanced social skills to acquire the position of lord and then rubbed shoulders with the aristocracy to get himself appointed as a count. Not that anyone minded however. They were quite pleased he got the job. Thanks to his powers of suggestion he was able to acquire the position of the ruler of his county without having to take orders from anyone. In fact, he even managed to get the current count to be his lord, taking orders from him.

Vam traveled around the known world and learnt new forms of biology and chemistry including the knowledge of gunpowder and narcotics. He then showed off his new knowledge as magic to the people. Both Vam and his people were pagan so there were no suspicions of witchcraft or anything. They thought that he was divine like a god and treated him as a religious figure.

His main trick was to turn himself into different animals including a dog, a poisonous snake (possibly an adder) and a bird of prey (a falcon or kite). He used his knowledge of gunpowder to make a distracting smoke screen. He would then take the animal out of a hidden cage and hide himself in the cage. Then he would talk from the cage to convince them that the animal was him. And finally make another smoke screen, get out of the cage and replace the animal.

Vam also seamed to have hypnotic powers over people and animals and was a master of disguise. He also often used tricks of mysteriously appearing and disappearing without anyone seeing him enter or leave a room.

He was also experimenting with drugs and often tried people for crimes they didn't commit as he got a kick out of it. But rumors started to spread that he was eating the intestines of the people he hung drew and quartered and once, at a banquet he hosted in celebration of the achievements of a fellow count, he served the brains of a supposed criminal in a pudding to his guests. This unfortunately alienated him from the other counts.

Vam had a mansion built atop a hill with a large garden and perimeter wall. I say mansion but remember that in those days that just meant a large wooden house. Vam's popularity soon began to wane though as he became greedy and started to demand alot of his people. The people slowly began to mistrust him as they started to see through his lies.

Towards the ends of his reign he started to go a little mad and become very paranoid. He built traps and alarms in his house that only he knew about and shut himself off from the rest of the world except for his lord and certain counts he had become close friends with.

One day the people were ready to overthrow their ruler and rallied together. This is when the badly treated lord told the people of the ritual Vam had performed. He claimed that Vam had become immortal and was incapable of being harmed other than burning down his house. So the people set upon a plan and gathered the people together.

The people then set alight to Vam's house, whilst he was sleeping at night and the gunpowder resources he had stored in the basement caught alight and exploded causing the house to cave in on itself. There was only a little gunpowder. Not enough to blow the house to smithereens.

Now the next part is where it starts to go from plausible to completely bazaar. Days later, Vam was seen climbing out of the rubble and he proclaimed himself to onlookers as undying i.e. he had returned from the land of the dead. He vowed vengeance and then mysteriously disappeared in a puff of smoke. Now he could have easily built a secret passage but read this...

For a long time after the land of Vam was plagued by many mysterious happenings including disappearing children, people having disturbing visions, unexplained fires and buildings that collapsed by themselves, people who killed themselves for no reason, mysterious illnesses that only affected certain people, people who had died suddenly for no reason in the company of many witnesses, people suddenly bursting into flames or exploding, large groups of people killing each other for no reason, many people being found dead in the lakes and rivers without a scratch on their bodies and countless accounts of animals that went crazy and attacked their owners and specifically just their owners.

Vam was given the name Daemam, pronounced day-mom, which means "Of beasts". The modern translation of the name is Demon. He is also mentioned several times throughout folk lore appearing as either a black dog or a wolf that can talk and he's even mentioned in the bible as the serpent that tempts eve in the garden of eden.

A different site was chosen for the house of the next count and it is often suggested that the reason Vam didn't die was because the grounds around the house were still intact. There is in fact a strong correlation between the date his gardens were plowed into fields and the date the strange events stopped happening though, even though the events didn't actually stop at that date.

It is rumored that Vam became a lord in another county. Counts were pretty much required to have their picture painted but it would have been destroyed in the fire. Lords however were not, so unless somebody traveled across the counties soon after there would not be able to identify him.

There's also a less popular story that seems to be genuine. It's only less known because it doesn't have much relevance to anything.

Apparently he had a son. Under the law he would automatically be appointed as the next count but because of his father's atrocities he was instead banished to live his life out in the woods. He also shared his father's ability to apparently speak to animals and is rumored to live with a pack of wolves. He is often referred to as "Nifur", pronounced knife-ore, which means night creature and the slang derivative of the name is "Nosferatu". Nifur is also referred to as "Werwol", pronounced were-wool, which means man wolf and the more modern translation of that is were-wolf.

He is sometimes depicted as a very hairy man or a being that is half man half wolf. Many of the depictions show him as having black skin or African facial features. Vam apparently had the child while visiting the foreign lands around Persia. Maybe he was the product of an affair that was brought up as his own or maybe he was a child taken from Persia that he raised as his own. Or more likely it is just a dig at foreign countries. Some stories even depict him as a black wolf that can whistle bird song. In fact, he even appears as this in the original story of the Rein-gold.

Little is known about Vam's wife though. Some stories say she died whilst away in Persia and others say she killed herself after the count was denounced. Whatever the story she is not important to the tale and only stands as a side character who's death is meaningless.

Cool eh? The exact date of Vam's rule is quite vague and the exact location of Vam is vague too. We do know that it was before Vlad though by quite a considerable length of time (centuries). And the most likely place the events happened was either what is now Poland, Austria or Turkey.