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.
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.
I’m in the middle of reading Dracula for the first time right now and while the count part makes it seem normal for Dracula to be living in the castle, the castle is absolutely a vampire stronghold that has been in the dracula family for centuries because they are vampires.
Like I’m sure the count thing is a good excuse but it’s implied that they’ve been around and probably in the castle since before “counts” were a thing.
Imagine living for centuries and still not having any money saved up.
That absolutely would be me as a vampire.
On the other hand, if you’re immortal and you can’t manage to build a fair bit of wealth, what are you even doing with your time?
“You had a balance of 93 cents. At an average of 2 1/4% interest over a period of 1,000 years, that comes to…$4.3 billion.”
Even Fry could manage this shit backwards….
Kinda like if trump just shut his mouth and sat in his dad’s wealth he’d be rich yet here we are…
Everyone knows that vampires live in a detached single family home on Staten Island.
Sorry to burst some peoples dreams.
The castle in the photo needs restoration, which is hugely expensive compared to restoring a house.
I don’t about Romania, but in other European countries historic buildings are required to be maintained by the owner and it is restricted what they can do.
In Spain if the castle/palace is considered as a good of cultural interest, the restrictions are even higher. You cannot do activities that can damage it, like converting it into an hotel or restaurant. Also required to allow the public to visit it for free, at least four days each month.
