Vampires in Eorzea

[KageTokage]

I tend to associate it with it voidsent due to their favored method of harvesting aether being to hunt down living victims and the Nightkin from the RDM quests (Who are the closest thing to actual vampires XIV's setting has to offer) exhibit the same tendencies and gained their aether-draining abilities from voidsent blood.

But yeah, I also have distaste for it due to it being overdone and it also wouldn't add anything of significant value to the game unless they were seriously willing write up some manner of subplot for it like they did in the Elder Scrolls series.

[Xau]

uh, why not?, if they existed on previous games, then is kinda odd they haven't added any yet

[Zojha]

The reason why SMNs can use Egis is the same reason why RDMs can use White and Black magic, while the separate arts are forbidden on their own.

And even those forbidden magics are available to you thanks to "reasons".

I rest my case. It really doesn't matter. If it doesn't fit, you make up reasons why it does, the lore to support something never exists until it does. Even if it's just "You got chosen, lul". WHM doesn't really seem much deeper than that.

As for distinct vampire connotations, I'm afraid that got ruined by memes for me. I firmly associate vampires with sparkles now. So I prefer to just think of it as the concept of leeching blood, symbolically life.

[Zsolen]

That type of harvesting doesn't make it vampiric. Demons are known to use similar methods, but they are not the same. A succubus is a prime example of this.

[Nestama]

uh, why not?, if they existed on previous games, then is kinda odd they haven't added any yet

If they're to be regular mobs, sure. That's fine. However to make them playable would be pretty silly (how would a player go about the world during the day?).
Oddly enough, they've only existed as humanoid mobs in the first Final Fantasy (boss) and as mostly NM's in FFXI (capable of charming and transforming players into bats. Their bestiary also states they're more dangerous than demons because of that fact).


This is the Vampyr of FFXI.

[BillyKaplan]

And even those forbidden magics are available to you thanks to "reasons".

There's a difference between 'available' and 'allowed'. We can summon a Primal. We really shouldn't. And in that case, while you're right about WHM, BLM is still very much taboo and even the CNJ who's enabling your group of BLMs is in trouble if it ever goes public. We'll probably handwave it away by saving the day or what have you, so you'll be right there, but for now BLM is still vastly forbidden by the lore. And mind you, the debate has shifted to whether or not it'll be ALLOWED, not possible.

So I prefer to just think of it as the concept of leeching blood, symbolically life.

But that's just leeching, not necessarily vampirism. I get where you're coming from, but it's still not quite the same.

[Zojha]

There's a difference between 'available' and 'allowed'.

A difference that in this case does not matter. I don't think you get the point.

The point is, it's a made-up world with made-up rules. If something doesn't make sense, you can always create some excuse why it does. If tapping into primals doesn't make sense, you create Egis and safe methods like trances and suddenly it does. If you cannot make somebody a WHM, you make a lolchosen exception and suddenly you can. Can't breathe underwater? Well, let's make up some random ritual that allows you to, problem solved. And you thought there were 7 chakras? There are actually 14 now.

And similarly, you can always make up some excuse why you'd be fine cuddling a voidsent in public. There is no justification for it 'now', but there wasn't a justification for breathing underwater until Stormblood either. Now there is. The jobs I named are just meant as examples from an earlier time where there also was no justification until suddenly there was. And I could name a sheer endless amount of further examples, because ultimately, all lore is made-up like that. First you want something, then you decide how to justify it. It's a process that is constantly applied. It's how fiction works.

Good storytelling doesn't change what is already established in that process, but rather establishes new things. That's what SE generally adheres to. Instead of going:"Actually, you could always breathe underwater.", they make up a new ritual that didn't exist prior.
Bad storytelling changes things that were already established. You can find numerous cases of that at Blizzard, a classic being the story of the Eredar.

What all this means however is that using established lore as argument for why something is or isn't possible or plausible is a weak argument at best, pointless at worst, because it's all subject to change. When the original creators do the changes, we call that canon. When random people on the net do that, we call it fanfiction. Quality of both varies.

But I think I've derailed the topic enough at this point. Spoiler tags to reduce visual clutter. Zojha out o/

[DeaconMoore]

Hmm, are we sure vampires aren't already among us? I sense a fair bit of necromancy around as it is...

[Claviusnex]

I don't know about vampires. Whose cultural version would you use? They don't really exist in Japanese culture other than what started showing up in films in the 1950's even today the ones I've seen more commonly resemble the Chinese jiangshi rather than the European concept of the 50's. Other cultures have them as demons or what we here in the West would consider zombies. Just seems to me it would be better not to open pandora's box on something so culturally diverse.

[Balipu]

Necroing the old thread as I got my answer on this role panel. Vampires definitely existed in tales, and that's why we have vampiric plants as such. And as the devs are running out of monster name, we might actually come across vampires.

Oh and a big thank you for Koji and Oda-san for the answer.