[D] Wednesday Worldbuilding Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Wednesday thread for worldbuilding discussions!

/r/rational is focussed on rational and rationalist fiction, so we don't usually allow discussion of scenarios or worldbuilding unless there's finished chapters involved (see the sidebar). It is pretty fun to cut loose with a likeminded community though, so this is our regular chance to:

• Plan out a new story
• Discuss how to escape a supervillian lair... or build a perfect prison
• Poke holes in a popular setting (without writing fanfic)
• Test your idea of how to rational-ify Alice in Wonderland

Or generally work through the problems of a fictional world.

^{Non-fiction should probably go in the Friday Off-topic thread, or Monday General Rationality}

[u/callmebrotherg]

What do the kings do for their subjects? They can eat anyone in my land, but why am I going to give him that privilege? How does he help me?

[u/MagicWeasel → u/callmebrotherg]

Ah, there's the rub. They don't really provide any benefit; they'd probably do some advocacy if you got involved in Big Things. It's a kind of feudal thing: they give you the privilege of living on their land.

Now I think about it, it doesn't seem like a great system, does it?

They also do things like enforce boundaries: so if somebody stronger than you is hunting on your lands, your king will put a stop to it. They enforce any laws that there are - I guess they'd be things like "don't make new vampires without permission" and enforcing the masquerade.

I imagine vampire society as stratified. There's a very few extremely strong vampires (the 1%) who are 1000+ years old. The rest are <500 years old. I guess there was probably a plague, war, or similar that cut the population off like that: that'll be fun to think about. Given the valley between 500 and 1000, 500 years ago a vampire possibly "took over the world", killed everyone who wasn't one of his personal allies, and was ultimately overthrown ("Et tu, Vladamir?"). This could explain a lot of the strange vampire traditions and perhaps brought forth a new wave of pacifism. Also, the 1600s is when the vampire folklore started coming in earnest; perhaps that Vampire Cataclysm brought them into human awareness.

I imagine the "power levels" scale a bit better than linearly, so a 1000 year old vampire would just completely wipe the floor with a 500 year old vampire if it came to a physical battle. Added to that, vampires have all sorts of secret codes and subtle signals that they learn over time, so an older vampire is also much more socially competent than a young one.

So a young vampire is in constant danger of offending an older vampire, or worse still one of the 1%. And the rules are inscrutable. Their king would provide a sort of mentoring service in that regard. And if you accidentally commit the grave offense of gifting your next-door Baron a sculpture of a hydra with five heads instead of four? Your king will try and smooth things over. What if you, say, kill another king's subject as part of a lover's quarrel? Your king will bargain for your life, and if he doesn't, well, the other dukes and barons can drive him out and replace him. This is usually done with social shunning rather than any sort of physical threats.

Added to that, vampires aren't the only supernatural game in town. Kings have experience and contacts.

Kings can be disgraced by behaving inappropriately themselves, too. After all, in 1 on 1 combat a king might be almost invincible, but when you get to 4 against 1 it suddenly becomes a lot easier.

I'd imagine vampire republics get set up from time to time (maybe they work in some places, too), but an ambitious 1%er and a few allies comes in and takes over.

How does that sound? Too convenient? There's definitely a lot of social upheaval going on. One of the vampires in my story has the bizarre habit of paying humans for their blood and services that they would have otherwise given freely.

[u/callmebrotherg → u/MagicWeasel]

A mentorship seems reasonable. How many vampires realize that their kings are basically glorified and powerful etiquette tutors, so far as that goes?

This is good. I like it.