Fantasy Vampire Corps of Eldergaard (Ooc)

[Mikotsuhime]

Oooooh I like it! Very in depth. I feel like something did not go particularly Right during Leo’s turning because of his severely stunted magic and aversion to solid food (he IS going to be sick later and he knows it which is also why he asked Alyx to fix his ribs because that would SUCK). But also he WOULD cling to Alyx the whole time. He just likes to cuddle. It’s nice. Also he probably stretched it out as long as he could because he was just a BIT touch starved after his brother moved to his own mansion and Rose wasn’t needed to teach him anymore. He would have laid there like ‘no it’s not done yet we should stay like this for five more minutes’.

I haven’t entirely decided what all his limitations are but he is very embarrassed about all of them as much as he tries not to show it.

 

[Reynarda]

Aw, poor Leo! Alyx has been hoping no one outright challenges Leo's legitimacy, because the first test is "can they do your clan's magic" and Alyx swears she did it the proper way! He just struggled a lot and she was exhausted!

I can imagine Alyx just lying there like, "I just threatened all your countrymen and drank your blood why are you clinging to me like this who hurt you" and Leo being like, "you're nice, you can't fool me. if you want this to work, you have to cuddle back"

 

[Mikotsuhime]

Well to be fair to Leo and the circumstances he was in at the time, the fact that she actually gave him a choice was like mind blowing for him. He was like ‘ok you ARE nice I am adopting myself to you’.

 

[Reynarda]

And so continues Alyx's never-ending frustration that no one thinks she's scary

Alyx is like, "Your choices were become one of my vampire slaves or die??????"

Astrid always checks in on Alyx and her new fledgling in the morning, and she's used to finding the fledgling asleep next to Alyx and Alyx giving her the thumbs-up, but when she checked in on the new kid, he was wrapped around her commander, and Alyx just shrugged at her like "I think I accidentally adopted this one."

Also if you think Alyx's guilt at the turning not going PERFECTLY isn't going to eat at her, have you even met this little ball of stress

Maksim is just going to be like, "have you been doing your breathing exercises" and Alyx is just going to slap him and then say she feels better already

 

[Mikotsuhime]

Cyn will pat her on the shoulder and be like ‘to be fair I WAS pretty scared when we first met’ to make her feel better.

 

[jones573]

hmmmm much to consider

I do very much want to put gigi in some sort of situation where she is faced with the choice of her brother or her mission/nation, because I'm mean

(crane mentioned she had been engaged twice, but you'll note she confessed to only one of those- she had a secret engagement to a 'commoner' and was going to essentially elope and abandon her duties as a princess, but the war got worse and her fiancee was like 'look, either me or your country' and obv we know what Gigi chose... Part of the reason why Astrid's advice did not take is because Gigi has already decided she is willing to sacrifice her own happiness/wants for the 'greater good' and I would love to make her have to go thru that again)

 

[jones573]

also i gotta figure out what the hell this project is that the Prof has been working on

(Initially it was gonna be something that would sever the fledgling/sire connection? Like if that connection was what was forcing the fledglings to be obedient, then having it undone would mean a bunch of allarian vampires now had control over themselves again and could fight back

But it would presumably mean that eldergaardian fledglings could also not be controlled anymore, which the clans might not approve of and Gigi would have to argue that yeah, it sucks that you cannot control your own people... But being able to control anyone is always going to make someone want to control YOU, so this is prol best in the long run? )

BUT

it sounds like the vampires (fledgelings and commanders?) are being controlled more by threats/force than by magical means? so idk if that works anymore

 

[Reynarda]

Oof, poor Gigi. But yes, confront those fears

hmmmmm

So it really depends. The commanders themselves are all clan kiddos (they are all quite young vampirically, and no one in Salazar has brought it up yet, but Alyx is technically too young to have her own fledglings), and they are being forced to turn Allarians into vampires under pain of Eldergaardians going after their family (hence Cyril’s presence in the capitol which I still have yet to name).

But once the commanders turn the humans, they do of course have some level of control over them. But that level of control depends on how the fledgling was turned. Alyx’s sire/fledgling bonds are built on trust rather than control because of her turning methods. (Actually it would be quite hilarious if the professor experimented on Leo because Alyx probably has very little ability to actually control anything he does even if she wanted to [have you met Leo] and it would most likely confuse the crap out of the professor.) Other commanders’ turning methods are based on control, so they have more sway over the wills of their vampires than someone like Alyx would, but it sacrifices certain abilities.

So figuring how to break that control would be a worthy cause.

 

[jones573]

does henryk have anything interesting to say to Gigi and/or Rose?

 

[Mikotsuhime]

I know Rose was going to make an off-hand comment like ‘don’t worry, lord vesper has always been quite clumsy’ to Henryk to say that he KNOWS but that’s it because taunting him would be improper.

 

[Reynarda]

Nah, he's still hurting from the punishment he took ;P

 

[Mikotsuhime]

Rose pats Henryk gently on the shoulder and says ‘don’t worry you’re not the first’.

 

[jones573]

mkay maybe I will jump them ahead to the end of their walk so Gigi and Rose can meet Delilah and Rose can deliver sassy comments as Henryk leaves?

 

[Reynarda]

Sounds good!

 

[Mikotsuhime]

Yeah that’s cool with me!

 

[jones573]

do you have any suggestions for potentially more useful things Gigi and Delilah could be sciencing about that might create more leverage for the vamps in their conflict with the eldergaardians?

 

[Reynarda]

Hmmmmm
Lemme think about it

 

[Reynarda]

So I've been thinking, and there are some things to consider.

First: Eldergaard and the clans are evenly matched when it comes to magical ability. The reason they lost was because the clans are not very good at banding together so the Eldergaardians divided and conquered. Getting the upper-hand in this sense would be convincing them all to work together instead of splintering off.

Second: the clans don't like talking about what's going on. It's a bit embarrasing that their kids (a lot of them are/were their heirs) are being used to make mindless drone vampires for the Eldergaardian war (hence Henryk's favorite slur for Alyx). It's probable that Delilah knows by now, but Salazar probably would not have let her tell anyone in Allaria. Up until this point, most in Allaria thought the vampires were being controlled by human commanders. People like Rose who had lived after fighting a vampire squadron would know, but it might not have spread because then people like Rose would have to explain how they knew this information. The fact the commanders were turning captured Allarian soldiers was entirely unknown until Rose and Cyn recognized Leo.

Third: a lot of the clans are misinformed about what's going on (the generals did this on purpose). They think their kiddos have been brainwashed into doing this or have become too indoctrinated by the military. The reality is that this has happened on some occasions, but, for the most part, the commanders are just trying to survive. That looks different for every commander/captain dynamic. Though the commanders hold a commanding officer position, they aren't necessarily treated well. I kinda hinted at that with Maksim's and Jorgenson's dynamic.

But anyway, that would mean that Delilah and Gigi would be informed based on what clans like Salazar think about what's going on. Salazar is even less informed than, say, Alyx's clan, but there are a few clans that have kiddos in the military that are joining the alliance. They are most likely going to think their kids are brainwashed or have turned against them. Some clans may think spirit magic is involved, so any research into how that could be broken would be seen as helpful.

Forth: the value of the commanders is their ability to create strong fledglings. A turned vampire can have fledglings, but the further removed from the original clan vampire, the weaker the abilities are. Therefore, some clans think that if they remove a clan vampire's ability to turn fledglings, it could result in the military returning their kiddos. And the clans aren't stupid. They made a magically binding pact with the generals that their children would be returned at the end of the war so long as they survived. The military actually has very limited abilities to execute them due to this pact. Any vampires they've executed have been "conveniently" killed in battle.

So figuring out how to remove their ability to create fledglings could be seen as a good plan of attack. Of course, this could be considered like sterilizing them, so a few clans might not like it. But then fledglings are not super common, so it could be seen as a worthy sacrifice to get their kiddos back.

(Side note, being the nerd I am, I do have a Science Reason that vampires can turn humans if you're interested in this route)

So I guess this was a long-winded way to say it depends on how effective you want your Sciencing to be. It's entirely possible that Gigi is like, "so I know we were trying to figure out how to break a commander's hold on the vampires but turns out at least one of the commanders is a vampire" and Delilah goes, "yeah, they're all clan kids turning humans, we need a new plan". They could always try to snatch Leo and ask him how he feels about being turned, lol.

What you want to do is of course entirely up to you! ^.^ I just figured I'd frame it before I tossed out ideas, if that makes sense!

 

[Reynarda]

Oh, so something they could do once they realize where Eldgergaard is getting the squadron vampires from would be creating something that stops humans from being able to turn into vampires and they could give to their soldiers. The captured soldiers would end up dead, but at least they wouldn't return as soldiers for the enemy.

 

[Reynarda]

(Oh, and I hope Leo realizes he is in for the lesson of his life and is not too traumatized by flashbacks to when he was first adopted because Alyx is explaining everything she thinks he needs to know--and vampire etiquette is NUTS)

 

[Mikotsuhime]

Leo just wishes he had a notebook to write everything down because he is gonna be so scared to forget something ghg.

 

[Reynarda]

Bahaha, honestly, the clans are so used to Clan Draya purposefully ignoring The Rules, so they wouldn't even think it odd if he did anything Not Right

 

[Mikotsuhime]

Leo just wants to impress people but also that ship kind of has already sailed perhaps.

 

[Reynarda]

Oh, he’s impressed them, but perhaps not in the way he was thinking

 

[Reynarda]

*biting fingernails* I want to know what that research is!

Dang it Jones y u torture me so