I’m an amateur writer. One of the worldbuilding things I wanted to explore for my fantasy/steampunk word was the fact that the life of vampires who originate from commoner class must really suck, pun very much intended. You’d end up as a “high functioning” undead who gets even the few rights you previously had stripped from you. Fertile ground for social commentary.
So in this setting there’s an autonomous vampire state that’s essentially communist. In other nations, vampires are, if not persecuted outright, at least constantly struggling for recognition, and are exploited as night shift workers in the emerging industry.
I wish I could find the urban fantasy story that inspired me to explore this. It was also based on the “hey, not all vampires live glorious lifestyles” premise. I think this was in some Humble Bundle.
Sounds like “Anno Dracula” by Kim Newman.
Dracula managed to kill Van Helsing and then married Queen Victoria. AS Prince Consort he’s brought the undead to the Empire. There are vampire trollops who live no better than their ‘warm’ sisters, and great Lords.
Fun book, and first of a series.
I dunno. I feel if you live long enough you’d eventually become wealthy. If not you’re just incompetent
I too have some similar concept, but for a Metal Gear (the 2D ones) clone in an Urban Fantasy setting, with the vampires primarily being a stand-in for autistic people, and the vampire myth being adjusted accordingly, with the whole “virality” thing mostly relegated to genetics, but present as a commonly held myth, alongside with power-scaling adjustments (especially due to the protagonist being a vampire), with also its own myth that make the common people afraid of them…
at least constantly struggling for recognition, and are exploited as night shift workers in the emerging industry.
This reminds me a bit of Reg Shoe, leading dead rights activist in Ankh-Morpork.
Of course the Discworld is more funny, less grimdark, compared to your ideas.
Or the vampire in Feet of Clay who gets jobs in a pencil factory, as a sunglasses tester, making holy water, etc.
Oh yeah, and wasn’t there a Vampire who became crime scene photographer but had a vial of blood in his chest pocket. Just in case the flash would kill him, the vial would break when his clothing drops and blood would instantly drip onto his ashes and revive him. (Could be the same vampire, not sure)
If you want to future-proof your social commentary, the tech broligarch version of non-geographic nations that overlay existing nations are called Decentralized Autonomous Organizations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decentralized_autonomous_organization
So even if you wanted to merge this into a magic/etheric style framework, it would be easy. Offshore DAO registered far far away meant to be egalitarian representation with a maguffin talisman that a big bad wants to get from vamps to consolidate power and upend the non-exploitative organic system.
