Vampire AU

[ladyvoldything]

In Thedas, vampirism is a rare, powerful, and highly unusual form of blood magic that can be directly learned only from hunger demons. It differs from all other forms of blood magic in that it directly changes the user's body, making them into essentially a monster.

How to become one: Becoming a vampire is far more involved than learning simple blood magic. It's a ritual that must be conducted in the waking world, rather than the Fade. Therefore, the hunger demon needs a body. In other words, vampirism requires sacrificing someone to become a hunger abomination. The hunger abomination then feeds the mage their own blood, and drains the mage's blood in return. Once the last drop of living blood is gone from the mage's body, they collapse and the abomination takes them, feeding on them for a night and a day. The second night, the mage rises again as a vampire, and the hunger demon is freed from the bond between them. Most vampires let the abomination go, but many choose to kill their demonic sire, to cover their own tracks.

How common: The choice to become a vampire is a serious one, requiring a real, extremely risky deal with a demon. Albeit one that many end up betraying. Vampirism is most common in Tevinter, but not as much as one might think: the weaknesses of vampirism make the prospect unattractive to many magisters.

Outside of the Imperium, vampires are the subject of legend and folktales, but most folk, common and educated alike, believe them nothing more than ghost stories. The Chantry teaches nothing about them, and most templars believe them a fiction.

Abilities: Vampires can turn others, of course, in all the usual vampire ways. Vampiric abilities (speed, strength, hypnosis, etc) are immune to templar cleansing and dispels, and vampires cannot be tracked using their mage phylacteries.

Vampires have abilities similar to those in True Blood: speed, strength, the ability to sway the minds of others (glamouring/hypnosis), and heightened senses. Vampire mages can all do blood magic (even if they weren't directly turned by a demon, and never directly learned blood magic). Vampiric weaknesses are similar to those in Buffy: sunlight, though they can handle being in shadows, staking, silver, and certain holy symbols- though, ironically, not the Chantry symbol.

Vampires can walk in sunlight, but it hurts their skin and weakens their abilities. If mages, their magic is hampered, giving them the strength of the average Circle mage and nothing more. Their ability to tolerate sunlight increases the more recently they've fed. However, they will always be stronger at night.

Prompts:
1) Sire - make someone a creature of the night.
2) New Blood - maybe you wanted this, maybe it's being done to you. Welcome to vampirism.
3) Victim - some fanger's sticking a straw into you like you're a Capri Sun.
4) Hunter - did a vamp kill your family? Are you a Templar off the reservation? Idk.
5) Harem - that hypnosis thing? Yeah, you're some vampire's pet now.
6) Wild Card - roll your own. Let's get weird.

Comments

[purple_af]

When his hands move down she drops her arms, clutching at his shoulders like a lifeline, like he's the only thing keeping her afloat. Maker, it may only be a kiss, but it feels so good already- she wants him so badly, she's wanted him for years, and nothing has ever felt more right than this.

Distantly, Marian wonders what she was ever uncertain about. Why did she fight this? Why would she fight against something that has his body pinning hers to the wall, hands on her bare skin, his tongue stroking softly against hers, Anders's soft moan lost in their mouths?

Then he's speaking, resting a hand at her throat and professing a need that makes her gasp. It's not surprise, exactly- it's something softer. The gentle chains of blood magic closing in around her almost made her forget about his fangs and his hunger, so to be reminded of it now is almost shocking. Almost.

But that's okay. Everything is fine- better than fine. This is right, she knows that. This is how things are supposed to go. She's meant to bare her throat for him, and he's meant to move in closer.

Marian is just about to tilt her head back and say yes (yes, of course, of course she'll give of herself- it would be selfish not to, unthinkable, she wants him-) when something roars from deep inside her. It screams for her to push him away, to run, to scream, to fight. But the voice is distant and the blood magic is strong, and for all her efforts to obey that voice, part of her is also trying to follow Anders. She tries to- to something, but succeeds only in writhing helplessly in his hands.

A hand comes up to grip his wrist. It might be an answer, if Anders can interpret it.

[burning_manifesto]

Anders's gaze drops down her hand, the smallest furrow between his eyes. Were he completely of his own mind, he would stop there. Truthfully, he would have stopped long ago and had Hawke locked out on the street for her own safety. Anyone she might meet in Darktown at this hour would be safer than him.

But he isn't Anders now, not completely. Or he is Anders, merely... a different facet. He isn't fully in the throes of starvation yet, and so he is both the human the inhuman together, watching Hawke from behind his honey-gold eyes.

"I won't hurt you," he says, and he means it. Hurting her and drinking from her, they aren't the same thing. "I would never... you're mine, Marian." And there it is, a dark undercurrent in his voice and a sentiment he would never presume otherwise, and will be embarrassed to remember later.

He pulls his hand away from her throat, bringing the hand Hawke has clenched around his wrist to his mouth. He kisses her fingers, one by one, never looking away from her bespelled eyes.

"And I am yours," he practically purrs, the vampiric aspect in him not at all opposed to that thought. She gives him what he needs, and in turn, he gives her what she desires. His magic reminds her just what form that desire takes with a gentle pulse of power that rolls through her body and mind both. No, he will not leave her wanting.

"Trust me," he says against the skin on the back of her hand, fangs flashing in the low light but not bared to bite. For now, at least, he seems content to wait.

[purple_af]

That sentiment that Anders lets slip burrows its way into her mind, growing into the crevices like ivy until it’s all she can we. He is hers and she is his. Marian has thought of that, dreamed of it, for such a long time. And here he is, kissing her gently and promising to give her everything she wants.

Everything she wants- that’s to give over to him, isn’t it? She’s quite sure that what she wants is to submit to him, to tilt her head back and bare her throat and help him. She should help him. She loves him. He needs her. Anders needs her.

“I love you,” she murmurs almost absently, eyes caught on those glittering fangs. Stripped of her defenses and her will, the words come out as soon as she knows they’re true. There’s no hiding anything right now. Blue eyes never leaving his, she tilts her head to the side, baring her throat for him.

[burning_manifesto]

Anders goes entirely too still, his dark eyes wide as he stares at Marian's face. Even as lost as he is, those words reach whatever humanity is left in him. His grip on her wrist tightens almost imperceptibly.

He has dreamed of hearing her say that. Selfish as it was, dangerous as it was, he hadn't been able to stop. In his weakest moments, Anders had even imagined himself telling her the same. I love you. I've loved you for years. At this point, I don't think I could ever stop.

If she had said that at literally any other time, absolutely nothing else would have mattered.

But of course, the hunger can't be forgotten for long. It surges back up with a vengeance, and Anders can't help himself. He leans in, nuzzling against the column of her throat that she'd bared so willingly.

"And I love you," he whispers against her skin, his voice almost sounding normal in that moment. If one didn't look too closely, they might mistake Anders and Hawke for two lovers in an embrace. Perhaps they wouldn't even notice the way Anders sinks his fangs into Hawke's skin without even a bit of hesitation.

Mine. Yours. Need and want and love and hunger. The lines between them all are blurred beyond recognition, now. Anders groans as he presses Hawke back to the wall with the weight of his body once again. For Hawke, there may be just a few seconds of pain initially; but Anders's magic makes quick work of it. It's so easy when you have access to someone's blood to make pain feel like pleasure.

[purple_af]

Marian lets out a soft, pained cry at the first bite, trying to struggle with limbs that barely move and a body firmly held in place. It's a bare thing: she scarcely manages more than a leaden squirm in his arms, that rubs their hips together and does nothing to free her. Even that little takes enormous effort- but she must, because something inside her rages and bangs its fists. Something inside her is terrified, is horrified, knows that this is wrong.

But it feels so good. The pain melts soon into pleasure that has her gasping and letting out a quiet, wordless whimper. One hand comes up to grip at his robes, nails digging into the fabric on his back. The other is pinned to the wall, as helpless as she feels with his fangs in her neck.

There's something unsettling about the feeling of blood leaving her body, of the life-force leaving her... but every time her mind tries to pursue it, to grab hold of that thought, the blood magic gently steers her away. The gentle magic filling her with pulses of pleasure when he drinks her, that makes the sensation of being fed on feel like a hand between her legs- that same magic is still trying to drag her mind down, to a dark, warm place where her will is gone, where everything she wants is what he wants.

Gradually, it begins to work. Her mind fills with the echoes of his want, with the toll of his hunger, and how much he wants her to hold still and let him feed. Her writhing calms.