I was wondering, do the Vampires and their Thralls have a religion of any form?
No one got any leads?
I was wondering, do the Vampires and their Thralls have a religion of any form?
No one got any leads?
Last edited by Arnizipal; 02-04-2012 at 07:43. Reason: Merged double post
Maybe they would worship dhar,but i doubt it. I would say they were too individually powerful and power hungry to serve anyone or thing.
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Given gods tend be alot more 'hands on' in the Warhammer universe, supernatural irreligious does seem to make odd sense for powerful undead creatures. Though I quite like the idea all the vampire groups maintain a vestigial link to the Khemrian/Lahmian gods, perhaps mixing in local flavour along the way. The idea of the von Carsteins making a blood sacrifice to Set in a tumbled down Sylvanian Castle is very juicy.
Yeah, "screw the gods!" seems to be a reasonable default approach for the warhammer Vampires. You have that, not unique for the warhammer setting, thing where worshipping something more powerful than you is for creatures that have a finite lifespan an all that...
Guess you could count (ba-dom-tish!) worship of Nagash, but it is in that case it is more of personality cult and being part of the grand plan...
Forgot about Nagash - also when dealing with a millenia old wizard who effectively birthed your 'race', the line between personality cult and bowing at the altar cult could get a bit vague.
However given Vampires very essense involves the winds of magic, and lets not forget, theyre immortal, not invincible (five centuries of rampage probably leaves big slate for sin), a bit of respect to the other side isn't all that dumb an idea. Then again they are incredibly arrogant creatures so they probably assume they're the one to live forever and rule a global undead kingdom.
Speaking of which, if it wasn't for the focus being on 'hungarian in a tuxedo' for the VCs I'd say Nurgle in some form would make a logical deity for the undead, after all he's all about wriggling, maggot strewn, pus-encrusted life.
I dunno, I think their undead nature might make any kind of religious observance pretty redundant - the gods have nothing to offer them, and they have nothing to offer the gods.
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If gods were simply guardians of souls I'd agree, but gods are very interventionist, and vampire exist purely because of magic aka raw chaos
I think i read somewhere that Tzeench offered the Lahmian queen the last piece of the elixir of life. I dont think they worship him though. i'd say its an individual choice, some vampires propably worship Nagash others will propably worship the gods they worshipped in life, yet others will consider themselves gods.
Since vampires arent a unified society i doubt they have a unified religion. goign to vampire mass every sunday seems like a good way to attract the attention of the witch hunters.
As for the power of the gods, they're likely to strike bargins with whoever fits their agenda, i could see a blood dragon worshipping khone or khaine (the witch elves seems to be some kind of elvish vampires after all), or a necrach worshippign tzeench.
A vampire that have been turned against his/her will might even worship Morr praying to him to free them from the curse.
Vampires strike me as just a wee bit egotistical enough to assume that they are gods.
In WHF the gods survive because they genuinly offer their follwers something. Chaos can give you a useful mutation, Sigmar provides miracles, the horned rat will send a daemonic ally. While they do believe in their existence many societies onyly worship them for perosnal gain. Vampires don't really need anything a god can offer. 1 on 1 they are already more powerful than all the strongest champions of the gods- it takes years of service to become a chaos warrior however a vampires is stronger from the start. While they could benefit from the strongest gifts these are usualy very unreliable and probably not worth the investment. You also need to consider whether the gods want the vampires. Many order gods won't help a vampire regardlesss of how much they worship.
The gods of order however offer much less in terms of divine intervention. Often they just get credit for things that cannot be truly verified they had anything to do with. its more a matter of faith (Only warrior priests actually wield the power of sigmar and their power might come from themselves and their conviction rather than being divine intervention, also most normal human worshippers never see the power of sigmar themselves). A vampire who choose to worship them would propably not expect them to interfere on the battlefield it'd be more of an idelogic decision than a tactical one. As for the gods of chaos i say they would accept anyone who would fight for them, but seeing that vampires are already immortal the dark gods have less to offer them (they'd also risk losing their immortality to spawndom), but it's not impossible fluff wise for a vampire to enter their service of them to become a demonprince. in fact it'd be a cool idea; a demon prince that once was a vampire or necromancer, leading a host of mixed undead and demons.
actually, isnt that kind of what nagash is? a demon prince of sort, he gathared his power himself rather than relying on the gods to bless him, but he gathered enough magical power to himself to become a magical being and a true immortal (much more so than vampires). The line between demon prince and a lesser god of chaos is a blurry one after all.
Otherwise i think the vampires have alot in common with the goul'd from Stargate. they're virtually immortal they are alot more powerful than most humans (the goul'd use tech vampires magic) yet they are dependant on mortal humans to survive. I could easily see them claiming to be gods.
In fact didnt the first vapires back i lahmia do exactly that? rule as god kings/queens of their mortal subject?
Last edited by TheDungen; 01-04-2012 at 14:00.
Not exactly certain on if the Lahmians acted as gods, but I do remember coming across some background that suggested that vampires may indeed see themselves as gods. I believe it talked about how vampires have a susceptibility to madness, which can easily cross into megalomania and delusions of godhood. After all, they are quite powerful creatures with many followers, many of whom rely on the vampire for their existence. It also fits in quite nicely with real-life vampire lore, what with Renfield basically worshipping Dracula in the novel.
But I think, as with many background questions on Vampires, it comes down to the Vampire himself. They are very individualistic creatures, that retain much from their lives. I can come up with a few circumstances off hand, and I'm sure more may come with time or another's perspective. I like the idea of the tortured undead--a repentant vampire praying to Morr, a Sigmarite priest turned out of a twisted irony--really interesting stuff. But nothing that really covers all the bases.
Vampires gain less from worshipping gods, especially as many cults of worship hold a strong dislike for the undead, in addition to this wizards are less inclined to be religious as knowing the nature of magic means that they will get at least hints at the nature of gods. One of many vampire weaknesses (not all vampires have it but some do) is also religious symbols.
The Strigoi was once worshipped themselves (it didn't end well but still) which together with a bestial nature makes them unlikely to be very religious.
The Necrach have great arcane knowledge so they probably know quite a bit about how the gods likely work.
The von Carsteins drove the priests from Sylvania during Vlads reign which supports the idea of them not being too religious.
The Lahmians don't seem religious either but they have less reasons to not be religious than those above and I could even see them keeping a lose connection to the gods of ancient Nehekara.
The Blood dragons must hold to a code which fits poorly with most gods, the code does however work fairly well with the cult of Ulric or belief in Khorne so I could see a Ulric or Khorne worshipping blood dragon.
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i dont think religious symbols hurt vapires themselves but rahter than like with warrior priests prayers, its the faith the wielder of them places in the symbol that hurt the vampire. a sigmarite symbol belonging to a vampire would thus not hurt him since he's the only one placing his faith in it.
Necromancy (and Vampirism) is by its very nature a rejection of Gods and the afterlife. The closest either ever come to actual religion is the worship of either themselves or Nagash as the Supreme Lord of the Undead.
Initially they might just keep to whatever they worshipped in life. A hunter by life, once Vamp'd may still worship Taal, a sailor may still worship Manaan.
But as they get older, Vampires become much stronger and much more arrogant to the point were they would reject these gods, confident in their ability to do things for themselves and not need such help.
Vampiric wizards might be more wise though and realise that making pacts with Tzeentch can greatly increase their power.
And all but the most arrogant of Vampires, even if they don't worship, must at least respect and revere Nagash. For he is literally and undeniably their creator.
But overall Vampires are about as varied and individual a species as you can find so I doubt there could be a definite answer to the question here.
The whole point of Undeath is emasculating the gods and doing without them, so I don't see any Vampire being religious once they've grown into their new role. They simply have nothing to offer each other.
Vampires do retain a lot from their human lives, they would still know about and even acknowledge the Gods.
However, as their personal power increases and they become capable of all but God-like acts themselves they probably lose any respect they might once have had for them. Not to say that they might not be fearful of facing a God themselves (this is the Warhammer world afterall, who wouldn't be scared!) but they would probably be contemptuous of a mere mortal priest begging for divine favour. Being creatures of dark magic they would have reason to be cautious though, the right spell could clean their clock.
You wouldn't really need to single out Tzeentch for that, or even restrict it to wizardly inclined Vampires. However, there is a few snags. First off, Vampires have no soul to offer the Chaos gods. Second, the Chaos gods do not bargain with other creatures as equals so the vampire would have to submit to them and just accept whatever scraps of knowledge or power they might care to offer. And having as much personal power (or at least potential for power) as Vampires do that would be a very hazardous road to travel for very uncertain gains.
Indeed, besides which - they're already immortal! The big pay-off that a Mortal follower of the gods hopes for is already theirs. Much of what Nagash was after runs parallel to the goals of your average chaos worshipper, immortality and earthly domination.
If Nagash had been born further north he could have made it as an Everchosen. See how Be'lakor would have liked that
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