I need to know more about your worldbuilding for Vampire Hierarchy. Thats like my favourite part of your writing is seeing all the freakish Vampire Hierarchy woven into it!!!
Maybe this is a good chance to write it all down in one spot, rather than referencing it in authors notes and comment replies lol.
(I have added #vsmp worldbuilding to some of my posts for people to find if they're interested in that, and will try to use it going forward.
WARNING huge lore dump under the cut. This is all my initial thoughts on how Vampire Hierarchy works, and what I've been working with so far. It will be subject to change if it serves the story better. I don't know if at some point in my fics Louis will explain this to Legundo, or Scott to Pyro, or maybe even Abolish would explain this to someone! Either way they would not explain it like THIS so I don't think this is spoilers to answer.
My main jumping off points are the fact that Owen mentions Louis descending from a long line of Goldsmiths in canon, Cleo's mother and her rules, and Scott's whole... situation. As well as the push and pull Owen and Scott have in canon vis a vis "Scott is not my sire," and Scott's combination disregard and trust of Owen. There's a lot I chose to read into with that lmao.
Fact 1: There is one Sire for every coven. It is both an ancestry, and a position. For example, although Shelby was turned by Pyro in canon, Scott would be considered her 'Sire', because he is Pyro's Sire, and he defers to Scott.
Fact 2: There is still an intimate (either positive, or negative, or any color in between) relationship between someone who is turned, and the person who turns them. They are their sire, lowercase 's'. But the leadership and deference goes to the Sire, until they either die, or are defeated/killed/succeeded after death, by another member of the coven. Or even an interloper if they get the drop on them! (If you come for Scott Goldsmith, you better not fucking miss.)
Fact 3: This is simplifying it immensely, and is not a hard RULE. There are so many nuances and variations of relationship in the coven, and everyone does it differently. Cleo's mother was different from Scott Goldsmith, who was different from HIS Sire (absolute evil freak), who is different from LOUIS. Just look at the fucking train wreck that was canon Owen and Legs once Owen turned him.
Fact 4: You can think of this evolutionary as a survival tactic. If there's rogue vampires, they bring attention to a coven, and make it dangerous to settle in any one place. They do not ration their feeding, and do not consider the weaker vampires of an existing coven who need care, such as fledglings, or injured members. It's the responsibility of the Sire to ensure they are all fed, safe, and protected politically from other covens. It isn't JUST a ruling position, it's a huge responsibility, and only the most capable will take it up.
There will never be a vampire just vibing in a coven territory. They will either be dead, or folded into the coven. (I'll address this in a moment.) A vampire Sire has both a political and instinctual need to murder any vampire not in their coven, who is existing in their territory.
Fact 5: Let's use the Goldsmiths as an example.
Long long ago in ancient Rome, there was a vampire that was very charming. He was turned when he was in his thirties, and had a wife and many children. In spite of whoever sired him, he mutated, and a new vampire lineage was born. This happens on very rare occasion. Perhaps his sire had an affinity for echolocation, or singing, or some sound based trait. Perhaps he had venom that could put people to sleep, and this mutated into the hypnotism the Goldsmiths became so proficient in.
Who knows.
Anyone this ancient roman turned had the same traits, as did his biological children when he turned them. They eventually formed a new coven.
His children had children prior to turning, and so on and so forth, to continue the line. Occasional (every thousand years or so, a very rare occurence) vampiric offspring ensured the bloodline did not get diluted. Louis is an example of a child born of two already turned vampires. Often times lineages die out before they get off the ground, but the Goldsmiths prospered because of their subtlety. It is VERY hard to keep bloodlines like this, which is why long vampire lineages are so rare. There's maybe 50 worldwide, which is not a very large number at all if you consider the population of say, China, or India. (Minecraft China... Minecraft India.... anyway.)
The new sire is chosen from the purest bloodline of the direct sire lineage. It's all very vomit inducing- Scott is probably the third or fourth Goldsmith sire leading the coven. Someone took over after him, and that was probably Louis' mothers parent/sire.
Fact 6: As you can imagine, this makes vampires a fucking nightmare at parties.
Fact 7: Vampires can join the coven either through marriage (often arranged), or through sharing intimacy/approval of some sort with the Sire. Whether it's just trading scents for a while, feeding blood off of each other, or whatever, it takes the Sire's approval for someone to be welcomed. It's a purely inhuman process. There are many ways it can happen, each individual to the situation, but you know if it's happened, as a vampires scent will change. (Vampires are very scent based. Like cats.)
Fact 8: Let's use Owen for an example. Owen as a person, says "Fuck Scott Goldsmith and the gilded carriage he rode in on." VAMPIRE Owen however, sees Scott performing well enough as a sire. He has fledglings, already three generations removed from himself. Bro is speed running forming a coven. They are also locked in together, unnaturally so. Owen does not have the option to retreat from this forming covens territory, even if he wanted to. Owen has three choices in his vampire brain that he does not consciously know are happening, but stress him out regardless:
-Let Scott Goldsmith fold him into the coven. Puke, no thank you.
-Kill Scott Goldsmith. Tempting, but Owen might not be able to take him.
-Escape Oakhurst before either things happen.
Meanwhile, Scott sees Owen (a strange vampire, not of his lineage (or at least, so far removed that it does not make a difference, since Louis was effectively starting his own coven with Owen)) and he has three choices in front of him.
-Let Owen do his own thing. An unacceptable option. That's how covens are destroyed. When they are not united. Scott would be a bad Sire if he did this, by any metric. (Even canon Cleo's! And Abolish's!)
-Kill Owen. Also unacceptable. He kind of likes Owen, and Owen is astonishingly capable besides. Any coven would KILL to have someone like Owen. Fresh blood and all that.
-Fold Owen into the coven forcibly, until his instincts subside and he accepts Scott as his Sire. Acceptable, and not the first time Scott has done so.
In spite of Owen thinking "Fuck Scott Goldsmith and the gilded carriage he rode in on," if Scott puts Owen down enough, and makes it clear that (a certain level of) obedience is the only option, Owen will eventually submit. A HUMAN perspective of the situation would be thinking what the fuck man. Girl GET OUT OF THERE. But to Owen it feels natural, and he hardly notices after a while. Pyro even gets his own taste in my headcanon, because he WOULD test the limits eventually. (Scott works so hard... fledglings these days need such a firm hand...)
Which isn't to say Owen doesn't have bitterness and emotions about it, it's not mind control. He just suddenly gets sick of fighting Scott tooth an nail...he'll fight him on this tomorrow, for now maybe he'll just do what he's told... bide his time... and then before you know it fifty years have passed and bro's being arrange married to a fucking duchess or something.
Meanwhile Louis just had to frown and say pretty please and Owen would rip his own heart out and serve it to him on a platter. Cringe.
Fact 9: In "a duty to others" Cleo begins taking a psuedo Sire role in town, for lack of direction, and organization. She's naturally inclined to it (I think her mother was preparing her for such eventually), and Oakhurst is SUCH an outlier of a situation that a lot of social cues get mixed up and fucked up anyway. Think of how animal behavior gets messed up when they're in a zoo.
also scott breaking owen’s wrists in that fic was. uhmm. does anyone else think it’s a little hot in this room or is it just me. i’m normal, as you can tell
Takes long drag of cigarette. It's the inherent dubious morality and sexual assault allegories of vampires as a theme.
Also I think people veer away from hurting their characters too badly in fic- cracked ribs not broken, sprains and twists and never a broken ankle, etc. In this case I'm like hey! it's a vampire! He'll be okay! Have fun with it! Bounce him off a wall a few times!
Also canonically the beacons provide healing in this universe, so even the humans can take a beating. Never has the field been so ripe for Hurt/Comfort.
Here's some cut beginnings and snippets from chapter 2 of "Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings". I ended up cutting them because they just wasn't sitting right, but it's such a shame because I really wish there had been more Shelby in that fic! Also more Owen/Louis, and Scott/Pyro. And Scott being just terrible.
Tell me if this is interesting to you guys or not lol, but it would be fun to do this more often. I've gotten much bolder about cutting things in the past couple years of trying to improve my writing, and I strongly recommend it.
Originally, I was going to do more Scott POV for Chapter 2, or this may have been part of Chapter 1 originally. I can't recall.
Scott let Owen cut his head off twice before he grew sick of it.
Getting back up after a sword blow, or a broken skull, or a nasty fall was relatively simple. Often Scott could keep walking without pause, as the muscle and bone knitted together. Very satisfyingly dramatic, when one was putting the fear of their liege lord into some dirty peasants. If there was one thing Scott knew how to do, it was die with a flourish.
But having his head chopped off with a woodsman’s axe? This made four times since he had woken up that he had to suffer the indignity of finding his head and setting it back on his neck— not to mention the ensuing headache it caused, as the blood vessels knit themselves back together. Not to mention it left him hungry, and it was getting harder and harder to catch a villager out by themselves to get a bite to eat. Regrowing your neck on a diet of chicken and cattle blood was a challenge, and once again Scott found himself missing the days where people practically threw offerings at him.
He touched the silvery scar tracing it’s way around his neck, thinking of Apo. His wayward fledgling, too proud to come home, too foolish to admit that Scott knew best. She had killed him three times, each more fevered than the last, and that was as a human. Admittedly Scott stood still and allowed it, but there was still skill where she wielded the axe, and a hunger in her eyes that was so inhuman that really, turning her into a vampire was just a formality.
Owen was different. Scott liked that about him— he didn’t lie about what he was, or what they were capable of, or why he did things. Humans took something from Owen, so he took something back. He was hungry, so he ate. Someone hurt him, and he defended himself.
Owen did not like Scott, so he cut off his head. Simple motives.
But if Scott was tired of Apo and her sulking, he was well sick of Owen and his posturing.
He turned over in the dark of the crypt, looking at Pyro’s pale sleeping face so near his own. His fledgling was so new his chest still rose and fell while he slept, even though they didn’t need to breathe, but Scott enjoyed the iron rich smell of Pyro’s breath filling the space between them. His hair was such a pale stark white that it looked like bone— perhaps to make up for the unnerving black sclera of his eyes. Scott reached up to run a hand through it, thoughtful, and Pyro pressed closer in his sleep like a touch-starved cat.
Pyro lied, of course, and Scott had to resist the urge to tighten his hand in Pyro’s hair until it hurt. He’d given his warning, and so far it had been obeyed. He wasn’t going to go back on it now just because Owen was irritating him, the memory of that belligerent snarl on Owen’s face causing him to frown in consternation.
Scott sighed, and tucked Pyro’s head under his chin, turning so he was on his back with Pyro resting atop him, heavy and comforting. It was nice to have a fledgling so tactile again— Scott had turned perhaps a handful of people in the past, and they all hadn’t turned out nearly as agreeable as Pyro or Shelby. Perhaps it was his habit of turning people who were just as terrible as he was— they thought they had something to prove, or some stand to take against him when really all Scott wanted was to be left alone. It resulted in little spats, sometimes stretching over decades, until Scott was forced to kill them.
Regretful, when all he wanted from them was companionship.
He’d had some success stories now and again, and they had gone off after a hundred years or so to make their own way in the world. They kept in touch as well, and Scott couldn’t help the small feeling of fondness when they wrote about taking fledglings of their own, or meeting with others to form their own covens.
None of them had come to his aide when the village turned on him, of course.
‘If it wasn’t the beacons keeping them away, then it was betrayal. Once I’m done here, we’ll see what they have to say for themselves,’ he thought idly, stroking Pyro’s head.
This was my second go at the chapter I believe- I may have been thinking this was going to be a separate work actually, because I wasn't quite done exploring Scott and Owen's dynamic.
Settling down to sleep with multiple people was an odd experience.
Owen hadn’t slept in the same room as other people since… well. It was strange, was the thing, hearing the cavernous echo of voices against the tall, vaulted ceiling of the crypt. The sound down here was magnified, but once you were around the corner all the edifice and pillars made it feel like a safe warren.
Owen wasn’t sure if it was a vampire preference, or one of his own. He’d spent many a cold, rain lashed night trying to find shelter when he was human. Even if he’d had the coin, even if he’d tried to hide the bandages, the pained mince of his steps, nobody would give shelter to a vagabond.
“No Pyro, I don’t think that’s the arrangement tonight,” Scott said slowly, thoughtfully— Pyro paused where he had been moving to join Scott in his coffin, looking confused, slightly plaintive.
“S… sire?” he pulled his hand back, and Owen felt vaguely nauseous at the sight. Pyro was a vampire in his own right, just like Owen— he didn’t need to be acting like a kicked dog all the time. But he understood Pyro’s hesitation. The fledgling had been sleeping with Scott close to every day they weren’t working on the castle— the crypt Scott used was made of old, polished marble, with a floor of polished deepslate. It looked like normal stone until you walked on it, leaving reflective footprints in the dust left behind. Like deep dark water, smothered with cloud.
They had been sleeping in the castle, since now that they had sheep they could access wool, and it made for a tidy amount of cloth to be turned into beds, or even hammocks strung between pillars and old sturdy ceiling beams. But the town militia had been in and out so many times that none of them felt safe any longer, so the only option was to retreat into the crypt and roll a stone in front of the entrance until night fall.
Scott’s crypt was at the heart of it, sitting atop a plinth of pale marble, with gilded flowers embossed upon the heavy stone lid. The inside was lined with satin, the cloth soft and inviting and surprisingly intact considering it had been laid inside nearly seven centuries ago, if Scott were to be believed.
(Owen never truly believed Scott, because the man lied as easily as… well, not breathed, obviously. But very easily indeed.)
“Oh, well,” and Pyro looked lost for a moment.
“You can come sleep with me Pyro,” Shelby offered. She had her own coffin, newly lined with wool and feathers with her feet hung out the side like a child at their first sleepover. She kicked her bare feet when they looked at her, grinning, and Scott laughed.
“Yes, alright, go join Shelby, I’m sure she’d enjoy the company,” Scott said, and Owen felt a flicker of apprehension as Scott’s dark red gaze turned to him, where he was sat beside the door. Ostensibly to keep watch, but mostly because being near Scott made shivers crawl up his spine, the sense of wrongness keeping him from sleeping as deeply as he needed.“I think Owen is going to sleep with me tonight.”
And last, here's something I cut from SOME Owen work, I don't know which! It might have been Brooding Wings, or it might have been Grim Purpose, I don't recall! There is a common narrative through them all though, since a lot of my headcanons remain the same. I really love this bit actually, and it's such a shame I couldn't find a spot to cram it back in.
‘You’ll be weak still, sleepy probably,’ Louis had teased, Owen’s head tucked underneath his chin and a purr rattling the delicate bones of Owen’s inner ear. Louis would tell him about the turning like a fairy tale story, something to sweep him away from the life he knew to one that sounded so beautiful he could hardly believe it was for him. No more pain, no more fear, no more long cold winters that killed him by drudging inches. No more loneliness. ‘But we can take a turn about the town— I’ve been telling everyone about the miracle cure I’ve had sent from across the sea, for my dear companion. I would love to show them how handsome you are, without the bandages,’ and here Louis had nuzzled against Owen’s hair, his chest moving in an inhale as Owen allowed him to get all the scent he needed, warmth filling his chest, wishing he could return the gesture somehow.
1. Would "Loneliness will sit over our roofs with brooding wings" and "a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead" be happening around the same time? What I mean is that does the "Vampire Hierarchy" carry over from brooding wings to a duty?
2. Will there be a chapter for Drift and Avid in "a duty to others, a duty to you, a duty to the dead"?
The two fics are separate, but the mechanics remain the same through both! Vampires are heavily scent based, as well as hierarchy based. It's why in the latest chapter Apo is acquiescing to Cleo- they are both occupying the town, and one has to be above the other. A starved Apo is NOT going to be the one coming out on top.
Whether "a duty to others" is in the same universe/canon as "Brooding Wings" isn't too important, but either way Scott has ensured Owen's obedience for now. There's nothing to say it didn't happen, and I am using identical mechanics!
"A duty to others" takes place in a nebulous post episode 3, pre episode six or so. Before Drift and Avid are turned, but after vampires are considered real and Cleo and Apo are turned. I STARTED to make an effort to look into what order the Cure books were found, what happened when, etc. But I found out quickly that it was very boring to try and figure out, and wasn't too relevant to the premise besides. I have a real life job man I hate doing too much research for fics.
I'm not planning a Drift or Avid chapter as of now! Although Avid and Legs' relationship is one I would LOOOVE to explore. Right now I'm planning Shelby (and Owen), a Scott chapter, and one last Owen chapter.
