How would go go after a vampire? (imaginary)

I’m a role player and my character in my game is going to go after a vampire who is way more powerful than her, any of her friends, or any of the weapons she has on hand. The battle will come, since he has my character’s little sister. But, my character has the SDMB listed as a contact, and its time to get creative, and take advantage of every tool available.

So, I’m asking the Teeming Millions for their creativity. Common household (or semi-common, I do have access to just about anything.) solutions to vampire killing. Dusk til Dawn’s holy water filled condoms, crosses, flaming crossbow bolts, whatever. Low skill threshold for use, my character isn’t a fighter, but she wants this thing dead.

My newest idea was napalm or keroscene filled christmas blub ornaments. Toss like a softball, smack into the undead, light up.

I would like to re-iterate that this is entirely imaginary and I’m not losing my grip on reality. I’m fond of this character and I don’t want her to die. I’m looking for suggestions toward that end.

What mythos?

By that I mean, in the world of this RPG, what are the aspects of vampires? Are they killed by beheading? A stake in the heart? Holy water? Contact with a cross? May they cross running water? Need they be invited to enter your home? Can the step upon hallowed ground?

(I’m always reminded of Richard Benjamin’s character, Dr. Jeffery Rosenberg, in Love At First Bite showing up at the restaurant where Dracula is wining and dining Cindy, Rosenberg’s erstwhile girlfriend, and announcing triumphantly, “Ah ha, Count! The way to kill a vampire – six silver bullets!”

He fires repeatedly into Dracula’s chest as waiters tackle him. Dracula, unharmed, replies calmly, “No, Doctor. That is a werewolf.” And Rosenberg is dragged away, protesting, “Hey, no harm done!”)

It would be helpful to know how vampires may be injured or killed before offering advice.

  • Rick

I’m reminded of the scene in Terry Pratchett’s Carpe Jugulum, in which Nanny Ogg goes over the methods of vampire killing recommended by various cultures. Some call for special ingredients, etc., but they all end with cutting the vamprie’s head off. That’s what actually kills 'em, just as it would anyone else.

But I don’t know the rules for vampires in your game. Can they be killed by holy water? Are they vulnerable to religious symbols or sunlight? Do they have any supernatural weaknesses at all, or must they simply be killed the way you’d kill a very tough human opponent? If the former, you’ll want to exploit that, but if the latter you’re probably dooming yourself if you start messing around with crosses and suchlike.

On the off chance that this vampire is sensitive to religion, I remember that the title character in Carmilla become very uncomfortable and said she felt ill when she heard people singing hymns. A boom box blasting Gospel music or even Christmas songs might provide your character with sufficient opening to swoop in and cut the vampire’s head off.

That’s one of the issues at hand…I know, but my character doesn’t have much of an idea of what would kill a vampire beyond usual Buffy shows, vampire movies, and Anne Rice. my character knows that fire hurts them, in large amounts, has seen one use an automatic weapon, and in her research has come across all the normal stake through the heart, sunlight, silver, and garlic solutions.

She doesn’t really know. She is the closest thing to a religious character that is in the game, so she will be packing holy water and always wears her crosses anyway. But she (and I) can’t count on those working. (And my out of character knowledge tells me that they probably won’t. The way this storyteller works, my character has abilities that I don’t know about. One of them may be the ability that crosses will work for her. But its unlikely.)

Out of character, I’m playing a very low level Mage in the World of Darkness. Very low level mage. Dual tradition Celestial Chorus/Verbena. The whole cabal, except for an NPC and one player, are apprentices. My character isn’t procificent enough with guns for the usual tactic of shooting said vampire a lot until you can safetly get close enough to light them on fire. (Or a high enough level mage for my personal favorite method of offing a vamp, which is to increase the friction between them and the air until they light themsleves on fire by moving.)

Well, there’s the Robert S. Macnamara Mekong Delta approach: burn everything that moves. By this I mean gasoline on the floor and a lit Zippo tossed at the puddle.

Homemade napalm is easy: dissolving styrofoam in gasoline makes a thick, gooey substance. You’d be AMAZED, by the way, at just how much styrofoam it takes to actually saturate the solution.

This highly flammable, viscous mixture may be bottled in thin glass containers for throwing and lighting. To project flames, you may take a hint from the movie version of Buffy: hairspray and a lighter will give you a nice gout of flame as well.

Given the lack of fighting proficiency, I’d stay away from crossbows and stakes. They require skill and, in the case of a stake, a close-up approach. Not a good idea. If your character can get togtehr a couple hundred dollars and doesn’t mind a vilation of federal law, he or she may be able to find a Tec-9 type automatic weapon on the streets. While bullets will probably not kill the creature, a full clip emptied into it will certainly knock it down, perhaps even stun it. Very little skill necessary: point and pull trigger.

  • Rick

If your game world has Vampires, then it will also have professional vampire hunters. As such you could hire my services for a mere $1000 per day plus expenses. I am trained in the ancient Japanese martial arts, and will fight using twin 3 foot long sharpened ewe wood staffs that I have had blessed by a Catholic preast. They have the lords prayer whittled into them allong there length, as well as the words to an excommunication. I also have a katana with extra heavy blade for decapitation requirements.
I wear a long duster jacket, that is lined with both kevlar and fine steel chainmail. In a backpack I carry holy waters from several repitable sources, as well as garlic, wolfsbane, a pistol with silver bullets, several holy symbols and items blessed by their appropriate religious authorities.
I could get to your house in a days time, just send me payment in advance to
Bippy, Vampire and Werewolf removal Co.
23 Garlic Bulb Rd.
Gilroy
CA 92123
or email me.

Can you get one of the Hunters from the World of Darkness (Hunter, The Reckoning) to help your mage out?

Drop a #2 lead pencil down the barrel of whatever gun is at hand and shoot them.

Spray hair spray or raid or a lit Bic lighter for a flame thrower.

mmm…hairspray and a Tec-9. I do have access to a wonderload of stuff. The people in charge of the Chantry’s armory are probably too bright to give my character (or any of her friends) a Tec-9. (my little group has already caused many, many problems and near heart attacks for the higher ups in charge of seeing that we live to get past being aprentices.)

I’m probably going to end up doing a “burn it all” approach if it comes down to it. Its easy and can be done from a distance. My char actually has some training with crossbows, but not with guns.

The fun part of this is that I can say I’m preparing all sorts of the fun explosives that I would never (well, okay, rarely) play with in real life.

Some hints from a veteran vampire hunter, from the Palladium Rifts universe:

[ul]
[li] Vampires am extremely strong. Avoid fisticuffs.[/li][li] Vampires am extremely hypnotic. Avoid eye contact.[/li][li] Find out the weaknesses of vampires in your universe. You may want to get a lore skill if you have the time.[/li][li] Kill from a distance. Once a vampire am on fire, their dodge rolls go to hell. Light 'em up, and stick 'em full of crossbow bolts. Preferably blessed ones. With silver tips. That shoots bees out of their mouths.[/li][li] Since you probably have to go to the vampire, as he has your sister, be careful of the vampire’s familiars (if applicable). Just because they’re human, doesn’t mean they’re a pushover.[/li][li] Don’t let him bite you. Ever. Seriously.[/li][li] Once staked, don’t unstake. You can always buy another stake. Trust me on this.[/li][li] If you can, cover yourself in holy water or oil prior to combat. If oil, watch out for the slipperiness, and open flames. Set my own head on fire once, no lie.[/li][li] Molotov cocktails full of holy oil am handy.[/li][/ul]

And I second on the napalm idea. My group used a very similar strategy, involving the napalm and a version of the tiger pit trap. Worked extremely well. Lining the pit with wooden spikes helped, too.

Good idea from the movie Vampire$: use silver mesh collars when fighting vampires. Very handy idea.

Good luck! Let us know how it turns out.

Explosives? Why didn’t you say so!

Find out where his little den-hidey hole thingie is. One time when he isn’t there, go wire the place up for demolition. When he returns, blast the place to the ground.

Or do the classic “bucket of water” on the door prank. Only fill it with your homemade napalm.

Hunters! I’d probably try to find one…if I could know they existed. Currently, we’re trying to talk a Templar into helping us out, but she’s a bitch.

I’ve been working on a lore skill for several months, but the problem is that I do not have access to reliable information on vampires.

The current plan (on my end anyway, planning for the cabal is like making a plan to herd cats) is to gear up and head for my sister, who is a nice five hour drive from me. She’s still where she is supposed to be, she’s just way too friendly with someone I know is a vampire who wants to get back at me. I’ll have to find out what he’s using as a base out by her.

Demolitions and traps…hrm…I’m worried that he may have better security than I can take on, but then again, we got into this mess because we broke into one of his other hidey holes. (Not on purpose, really. I said my little group has made a habit of making normal situations lethal.) If we could get in there, I don’t see why we wouldn’t be able to get in where he is now.

Collars are a good idea, as is the pit trap. I wonder if I can get a hold of theatre pyrotechnic pots. Flame throwers from a distance.

Well, a super-soaker filled with holy water would reasonably be able to be obtained by your character. With a bit of effort, syringes can be obtained, or at least those under-the-skin turkey baster devices, both of which could be loaded with the holy water. If you can’t get the syringes or injection devices, bribe the GM with a plateful of brownies, and see if you can get some DMSO added to the holy water without it losing its magical properties. The DMSO allows instantaneous absorbtion of the holy water into the skin, causing lotsa damage immediately.

If you cant’ get that stuff, and your GM is a hard-liner, you can always go buy an assortment of Nerf balls, and soak them in holy water. The water gives the balls more distance as you throw them, plus if you miss, there’s always the chance of splashing damage, and holy-water burns to the legs usually slow down the vampires enough so that you may hit them dead-on with another shot.

The last with water – If all else fails, you can go to a specialty glass store, and you can buy bottles that are fairly thin glass. Then, if you go to Home Depot, you can buy 6-foot wooden dowels, and some duct tape. You put the holy water in the bottle, put the dowel in the hole (tight fitting dowels!) and then duct-tape them together. You can then use it like a club to smash at the vampire, which shatters the bottle, dousing it. You don’t want to use regular beer bottles, as they are sometimes too thick to shatter.

Now, if you want to get esoteric, AND you have properly bribed your GM… You know those cans of air that you use to blow the dust out of your keyboard/computer? Well, in their liquid state, they could conceivably be called a fluid, and they COULD hold a “holy blessing” charge. If you invert the cans, the liquid shoots out, and you can get a decent range on some of the cans. Secondly, if you are close enough, you also get the freezing damage inherent from the liquid. Go for the eyes! But then, if the vampire is close enough for you to spray it, its probably too late anyway.

Wooden knives can easily be obtained at almost any given mall around you that specializes in African or South American kitch. You know - the ones that sell the nifty tapestries, carved wood statues, wooden animals, etc. (Around here, I can think of four within a 20 mile radius). They usually have a section of faux spears and knives made out of ironwood. Barring that, they have large-size elephant sculptures, from which you can break off a tusk. If you can’t get that, then a good specialty carpentry store can sell the stronger imported woods, which you can sharpen to get both the stake effect, and possibly a cutting-edge to use as a weapon.

With Fire, one of the best things to do, for both comedic effect and result, is to use cans of Silly String. If you buy the good kind, you can get like 10 to 15 feet of launch for the string. In games I’ve played, it serves to make both the GM laugh (which is never a bad thing), and once it made the vampire laugh itself silly by realizing we were attacking it with silly string. This made it slow down. Then, when we threw the lighter at it, and the string exploded in a large ball of flame, he wasn’t laughing much more.

Finally, like in the movie Blade, a full-spectrum flashlight bulb could do some damage, depending on the type of vampire. If you shine it on them, and nothing happens, then you can still run away - of course, making sure to do the typical throw-the-flashlight-at-the-vampire, run away screaming, and break a heel and tripping maneuver. One must keep with the rules of b-grade horror movies, after all.

(jeez. Did you ever have one of those moments that just makes you realize how geeky you are? I need to get out more often)

How active is Law Enforcement in the game? Because most of the things listed would get you into a LOT of trouble IRL.

A supersoaker filled with garlicky Holy Water would be a lot less trouble. Just don’t spray wildly. You don’t want be standing there going “Oh Shit” as you run out of water.

Bathe in the stuff before setting out, perhaps even soak your clothing in it. Makes you a lot less attractive a target.

White Phosphorous grenades. Or a sunlamp.

Do you have the opportunity to choose the time and place of confrontation? If so, time: high noon. Place: out in the sun.

Find the vampire’s lair, sneak in under the light of day with some trustworthy and buff friends. Grab the vamp’s coffin, chain it shut and head outside with it. Take it to a carefully prepared island or boat in the middle of a rushing river. The island or boat should have garlic, mirrors, rose petals, and holy water, wafers and symbols laid out in concentric rings. Put the coffin in the middle of the warding circles, open it and run.

More water ideas:

Rent a pressure washer. Fill it up with holy water. Knock on the door. When he comes to the door…PSSSSHHHHH!

Water balloon slingshot. Find a high building and practice your artillery skills. Bombard Vampire Dude.

Poison Umbrella. I saw this on some show about spies. Apparently, the Soviets made an umbrella and made a little spring-out tip, covered it with poison, then jabbed somebody. Modify the idea into a hyopdermic full of holy water. Stab, inject, run like hell.

Other:

All My Shootinz Be Drivebys”. Load up a car full of people. Give them all shotguns. Driveby his vampire ass. If you have access to reloading equipment, make your own shotgun shells. Soak the shot in holy water or add some chunks of silver in there, if silver works on vamps in the WoD. Have a priest bless the shot (“Bless this, thy holy hand grenade…”).

Noelq, Thanks for the creativity! My ST is properly geeky enough to go for the spary air idea…if blessings stick. (That’s a big if, I can’t depend on it working, it would make things go well if it did. I can only hope, and pray, honestly.) DMSO’s a good idea too. As is silly string and the full spectrum light. I had thought of it, but didn’t write it down yet.

Chimera, The show down will probably end up in World of Darkness Detroit. So the long arm of the law will probably stay out of it. (The last time we met up with this vamp, he got into a fight with some other people who were trying to kill us and sparked off a gang war…while we ran. The cops didn’t get involved until after we got to a safe house, I don’t think.)

As for blessings, if they work, I should be able to do them. In a really distracting and odd turn of events, I’m what goes for the group’s priest. (Which may help explain why we are in so much trouble…)

[ul]
[li]Dynamite. Lots of it.[/li][li]Bow & arrow. Flying stakes, dude.[/li][li]Sun lamp.[/li][li]Take collodial silver suppliments for a while.[/li][li]Chainsaw.[/li][/ul]

If you’re breaking in to his place, then do it in daylight, and take a mechanical digger along. If it’s a house, pull a wall down. If it’s a pit, dig it up. If you can’t get expose it to sunlight that way (because you might hurt your sister then at least give yourself a safe zone of sunlight to work in. Be aware of time and clouds though. As Dante said however, remember to be aware of the possibility of human servants, who could be well-equipped themselves.

If you can’t find a specialist hunter then anyone with a rifle would do, a bullet to the head will slow most things down, and that can be done from a relatively safe distance (less danger money). Remember to take an axe along for the beheading, you’ll feel really silly if you’ve got nothing bigger than a carving knife. The more people you have the better (assuming they’re vaguely competent and trustworthy), especially because various things like holy water and UV light can be used to get him off someone he’s grabbed without harming them.