Looking for an old magazine article that did a Traveller write-up for Dracula

[gloriousbattle]

It actually wrote him up in a couple of other sf systems too.

Can't for the life of me find it.  It was not WD, Dragon or Space Gamer, but one of the minor press magazines IIRC.  I am just collecting weird Traveller articles now, and would like to find this one.  If anyone can point me in the write direction, it would be much appreciated.

[gloriousbattle]

Found the Dracula article!! 


I was wrong, it was Space Gamer, #74 pgs 21-24.  It actually had stats for Traveller, as well as Call of Cthulhu, Champions 1e and The Fantasy Trip (shows you how old the article was).

And we're talking a POWERFUL Dracula too!  The Champions version comes out at 616 points, and the Traveller version would be a major campaign villain.

[gloriousbattle]

So now that I have Traveller Dracula, what do I do with him?  Please don't say flush him down the toilet, because he doesn't fit into the Third Imperium.  This thread is for those of us who enjoy science fantasy.

Anyway, suppose you wanted to create a Traveller campaign (Third Imperium or not) that used the Count as the major villain?  How would you handle it?  Some issue I thought of:

Crosses and religious icons:  In many modern stories, these do not affect vampires.  After all, we've all grown up and there are no gods.  Huh?  There are no gods but there are vampires?  Or is that just what the vampires want us to think, thus making us go through life unarmed against them?

For that matter, what about the sun: let's face it, starlight is pretty common in space.  How do the vampires get around this problem?  Is this why they still need us, other than as a food source?  Also, what if the vampires are negative energy beings from some evil universe, the stars are alive, the vampires came here to destroy them, and the stars created life as their defense against the vampires in a war that has lasted hundreds of billions of years an d is only now coming to its final battle?

Where did the vampires come from: Did they follow us from earth, having always been with us?  Are they some genetic experiment gone horribly wrong?  Were we actually foolish enough to clone the dna of a long dead enemy?

What are the vampires doing: Are they basically just dungeon monsters?  Hunted animals that humans try to wipe out wherever they can?  Are they actually unknown, and running the Imperium from behind the scenes?  Or have they finally come forth and declared themselves?  Are ordinary humans just the slaves and cattle of a vampire nobility?

Do they still all have Eastern European accents and pointy fangs: Enquiring minds want to know.

[revford]

No reason immortals can't last from the current age into the Third Imperium, they are immortal after all. 

Crosses I think would be lost to history, but it's faith not the shape that affects the undead, so artifacts of the age should repel them.

On sunlight, they can travel in low berths just like anyone else, then act as the modern vampires do and only come out at night on planets.  Or perhaps they lurk in abandoned asteroid mines which get no natural sunlight at all.

Vampires can exist on earth at night, with the light of distant stars upon them, also under moonlight, which is reflected light from a nearby star.  So perhaps they are only affected by direct light from a very nearby star.  In deep space they would be fine and in system they would only be effected if the light shines directly on their ship.  They could approach their target planet from the shadow of the local gas giant.

Where did they come from?  Mad Science, Archeotech is the most Traveller Universe sounding idea, some experiment from a bygone age.  It could even be some nonsense from the Ancients that was left on Terra in the distant past and has haunted the darkness, feeding on mankind all the way from prehistory.

What are they doing, well, depends on the Vampires you prefer.  Either working some sinister scheme controlling key Nobles in the Imperial Court, or they could be near mindless monsters for an Aliens style bug hunt.

I think it's the law that all vampires have to sound like Bella Lugosi, even space vampires. 

[gloriousbattle]

Vampires can exist on earth at night, with the light of distant stars upon them, also under moonlight, which is reflected light from a nearby star.  So perhaps they are only affected by direct light from a very nearby star.  In deep space they would be fine and in system they would only be effected if the light shines directly on their ship.  They could approach their target planet from the shadow of the local gas giant.

Good point.  One thing modern goths tend to forget when they are all dreaming about becoming vampires with all of their powers, is that vampires have to be sneaky evil overlords, as during half the day they are vulnerable to any kid with a stake or a can of gasloline that wanders in.

Would space make this easier or worse?  Maybe they could live easily on Pluto, but would not be able to go to Mercury at all (to much ambient light, even on thedark side).

[revford]

It's a strange one, as vampire myth is focus around the Earth being the centre of things, it's all about day and night.

When you look at things from space, on a station or ship the rotation of the any planet in the system just doesn't matter to you.

How do you define night when you aren't on a spinning planet?

[The_Beast]

The modern versions tend to define things by intensity of light, not time of day.

Underworld's glowing bullets, Blade's high-UV spotlights...

I'm going to guess even starlight, and more so Pluto's distance from our own sun, would not be healthy, just not fatal or crippling.

Doug

[revford]

So once you know that vampires are around and UV sensitive, some UV lighting on your ship would be a worthy upgrade.  You'd have to weigh up the protection vs vampires with making your ship too disco. 

[gloriousbattle]

So once you know that vampires are around and UV sensitive, some UV lighting on your ship would be a worthy upgrade.  You'd have to weigh up the protection vs vampires with making your ship too disco. 

No ship can ever be TOO disco. 

[warrenss2]

Found the Dracula article!! - Where? I wanna see it!

Warren