Hateful Reflections
Have you ever wondered why some vampires show up in mirrors and others don’t? Some people will BS you about how it’s because old mirrors had silver but that’s not true. Vampires appear in mirrors because of course they do, vampires that don’t aren’t vampires at all. They’re the reflections of people that have grown to despise their material twin for some reason or another and have slaughtered and replaced them.
At what point they realized mimicking vampires was a good strategy is unknown but the lack of a reflection isn’t the only tell: Their fangs have the distinct sheen of glass, their proportions are sometimes distorted depending on the state of the mirror they crept out of, and -unfortunately- they lack all the conventional weaknesses of a vampire (crosses, sunlight, permission to enter being required). Stakes work though, but so do most things, they’re made of glass. The danger here is of course when you make the wrong call and try to deal with a vampire the way you would a reflection, they really get you coming and going.
Oddly the best way to get in a vampire’s good graces is to alert them of reflection activity in their territory, they hate the bastards the way the media portrays them hating werewolves and for better reason: Reflections kill in the most stereotypically vampy way they can to throw off the scent from themselves and onto your local dracula. Why they kill is anyone’s guess considering how deceptively fragile they are makes live capture damned near impossible but running theories hew towards attempts to goad other reflections into killing their originals to varying degrees of success.
Ultimately the best indicator of what sort of creature you have on your hands is the subtle application of garlic, reflections can’t actually smell so carefully suffusing an area with garlic will make a vampire out themselves while a reflection will be unbothered whereas visual cues like a cross or holding up full on cloves of garlic will cause the creature to feign the weakness until it strikes.
