Guide to the Preternatural (The Adelheid Series)
Today’s post is actually something you can find at the end of each of my books, but to make things easier for folk, I decided to feature it on my website and include it on the Adelheid information page so that you don’t have to go to the end of the book to find something out!
Given the great wealth of lore about the paranormal, and that there’s just so much to choose from, I wrote this guide so that people would know what lore I chose to use in my paranormal species.
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Guide to the Preternatural
Introduction
Despite many popular misconceptions gathered over the centuries, no preternatural species is inherently good or evil. Each individual is precisely that: an individual. They are unique and possess free will. Like humans, they are faced with decisions every moment of every day and it’s the choices they make which determine whether they are good or bad, whether they do good acts or bad ones.
Whether or not preternatural beings have a ‘soul’ as understood in human beliefs is a debate pertaining to scholars and philosophers, but suffice it to say that they have free will to make their own choices and they have to deal with the consequences.
Basically, they are just like humans, with just a few extra quirks.
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Vampires
Vampires are not immortal, because they can be killed. They are simply very difficult to kill and if they are not killed, they will live forever, so they are considered eternal. The life span of a vampire can be described like Newton’s First Law of Motion: that a body at rest tends to remain at rest, and a body in motion tends to remain in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. A vampire will live forever, if not acted upon by a specific outside force.
When broken down to the most basic facts, vampires are dead. They have no heart beat or blood pressure; they do not breathe and have no internal body temperature of their own. Like a snake, they will adapt the temperature of their surroundings. Without a blood pressure, no cut actually bleeds but there is generally the pull of gravity that will draw blood to ooze from a wound.
There are very specific ways to kill a vampire: a wooden stake (any kind of wood) through the heart, exposure to direct sunlight or beheading. They suffer an “allergy” to silver, so an abundance of wounds made by a silver weapon will greatly diminish or stop their healing process and can kill them eventually. Being chopped into many little pieces or being thrown into a vat of acid that dissolves the entire body will do the job as well.
Their bodies have a hyper-accelerated ability to mend itself. They are immune to all known/human diseases, they can’t be carriers, and they are immune to poisons. They are exceptionally strong, fast and reflexive; perhaps as much as twice that of a human, or more.
A vampire gains strength as they age. They are not, however, immune to pain, soreness, discomfort, fatigue or weakness, but their natural threshold is much higher.
During day light hours, a vampire will fall into a sleep specific to vampires. It’s a sleep so deep that it is comparable to death, or the deepest of comas. Nothing can wake them. This state is compared to a reversion to their “normal” death state, but without the rotting. It lasts through all day time hours. An older vampire will be able to wake sooner into dusk and stay ‘awake’ later into the dawn, but once the sun is fully up, every vampire will be asleep.
They are not adversely affected by any religious symbols. They can see themselves in mirrors, do not need an invitation to walk into a home and can cross running water under their own power and without any adverse reaction.
Vampires do need to drink blood to survive, but it’s not required that it be human blood or directly from a living source. It can be from a butcher and even chilled long term. They can drink blood that is infected by disease without issue. A pint to a quart will serve them for two to three days. When injured, more blood will help increase their healing ability. They cannot eat or drink anything else, with the exception of water, because their dead bodies cannot handle or process it.
They do not have the ability to shift form. There is no turning into any kind of animal or into mist. The only shifting that takes place is their teeth. Although still somewhat longer and sharper, a vampire’s fangs will recede when not in use. When the vampire is about to feed, is feeling threatened or aroused, their fangs will descend.
To make a new vampire, one must be Turned. No vampires are born, because vampires have no physical secretions with which to make a child. To be Turned, the Creator vampire shares their blood with another being. It can be once or multiple times. When that person dies, they may Turn into a vampire, but there is always a chance it won’t take. More often than not it will. When a vampire dies, the body remains. They do not turn to dust.
Some vampires Turn with abilities. There is no predicting who will and who won’t, nor what ability it might be. These abilities might be the ability to control a certain type of animal, to heal others (very, very rare) or what would be called the succubus or incubus, which is a vampire that can control sexual power/desire and use it to control people, to a degree.
A vampire’s sexuality is controlled entirely by their minds rather than by any shifting of blood flow. The theory is that the body has a ‘memory’ of sexual experiences that the mind can act on, which allows male vampires to achieve erections and both genders to achieve arousal to orgasm without conscious direction, although there are no natural secretions. A female vampire must have artificial lubrication for ease and comfort, although her body will otherwise accommodate the act like a human’s.
Politically, there is a Coven in each major city. Covens operate on a monarchy-style hierarchy with one vampire being the ‘ruler’ of the Coven, although modern life and legality have eased the ‘dictatorship’ style ruling of old fashioned Covens. Smaller surrounding cities and towns may have vampires affiliated with the Coven. Whether joining a Coven is required is something dictated by each individual Coven.
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Shape-shifters/Shifters/Were-creatures
Shape-shifters, or were-creatures, can be born or Turned. The virus can be transmitted via salvia, in human or animal form. It’s rarer to become a shifter by this method, but possible so a shifter should be careful of biting a human, even playfully, to not break skin. Biologically, two were-parents will always produce a shifter child. If one parent is human, the chance is fifty-fifty. If the parents are both shifters but with different animal forms, it’s fifty-fifty which animal form the child will take, but it will be one or the other. There are no hybrids.
Every shape-shifter has two forms: human and animal. The animal form is entirely animal, no human/animal half or hybrid forms. They will always be the same animal. The animal form is always larger, stronger and quicker than the ‘natural’ form of said animal, just like the human form is stronger, quicker and has more stamina than the average human. In animal form, they will think, feel and reason with a human mind.
The animal form is always a predator, which can mean wolves, bears, tigers, hawks, and so on. All possible forms are not documented, but it is known that wolves are most common and the various cat species are second on the list. The rest tend to be rare.
With the full moon, a shifter must transform into their animal self at least once. Older shifters can hold it off longer than the younger, but they cannot avoid it entirely. The body will force it before the night is done and usually by the midnight hour.
Shifting is never a clean occurrence, and is painful for the shifter. Clothing worn is shredded and it takes several moments to complete. A shape-shifter is not able to shift until puberty. The first shift is part of the process. A strong shifter can half-shift and then turn back before completing it.
Shifters are neither eternal nor immortal. Their healing is accelerated and they are immune or resistant to many diseases and poisons. They also age a little slower. All shifters have an allergy to silver. It diminishes their body’s healing ability and causes great pain. Enough wounds from a silver weapon, even if the wounds themselves are not fatal, will kill a shifter much like anaphylactic shock.
Almost every method to kill a human will kill a shifter. Shifters just happen to be stronger and resistant, so they are harder to kill. When a shifter is killed in animal form, they will revert to human.
Politically, there is typically a Pack (wolves) in each major city. Others in surrounding cities may belong to it as well, and a member of a Pack who lives away from home for a time will retain their affiliation even over distance. The inner structure of the Pack and whether being part of it is obligatory is up to each Pack.
There are scattered Prides through out the U.S. (lions) but other were-creatures are typically solitary and unassociated. The human tends to follow the animal’s social instincts. The structure of a Pack or Pride is a unique blend of animal and human behaviors, and details vary from Pack to Pack.
When it comes to reproduction, shifters follow human patterns, unless they have been living solely in their animal form for a long period of time. (The feral shifter is another matter all together.) Female shifters do not go into heat to reproduce and they have human gestation periods. During a pregnancy, the full moon loses its power over the shifter and by the second trimester, they are unable to shift until after giving birth.
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Humans
Humans are, of course, always human but some humans are born with paranormal abilities.
There are animators, who can raise the dead into zombies for limited periods of time and control them. The next level of that are the necromancers, which means better and more extensive control as well as the ability to Raise more than one at a time and control over vampires, who are technically dead. This level of power is rare.
There are summoners who can summon demons from other plans of existence.
There are the psychics, also called sorcerers or witches. They have a wide range of possible abilities and varying levels of power. Some of these abilities include telepathy, empathy, telekinesis, pyrokinesis, psychometry, or several other rarer abilities.
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Lesser Known Species
There are several preternatural species that have been so rarely seen or documented that we know little about them, or that they are so widely varied that no single set of rules applies.
The Theriomorph: Theriomorphs are shifters who are not confined to a single secondary form; they can change into any person form or animal form they wish, as long as they have familiarity with it. They do it instantly and cleanly, unlike were-creatures, and any inanimate objects on/touching their body at the time of the transformation goes back and forth with them.
The moon has no sway on them. They are stronger and swifter than ‘normal’ people and animals, heal as fast as shape-shifters and are immune to diseases. They are allergic to silver. They can also exhaust themselves to dangerous levels by too many transformations too close together without proper rest in between. They are not immortal, but by what little we know of them, they seem to be eternal.
The Fae: Fae are secretive, so not much is known about them. Even when a fae acknowledges what they are, they rarely share anything about their abilities with non-fae. They are eternal, possibly true immortals, and can use their magic to blend in so seamlessly with humans that you’ll never know they’re there. There are many different ‘types’ and each have different powers and abilities.
Demons: The source of demons is varied. Some are the descendants of the original ‘fallen angels’ and while they are not inherently evil (they have free will), religious symbols do have an adverse affect on them.
Other demons share similarities in abilities with these kinds of demons, but come from places unknown and they’ll never tell. (It’s generally believed that they live on other planes of existence.) They are named demons for the similarities, and a lack of anything else to call them, although demonologists have defined them into ‘categories’ of abilities, apparent types and how to summon them.
They are varied in how they look, how they act and what they are able to do. The two things that seem to hold true is that they are eternal, with some being possibly immortal, and that they are all tricksters of a sort. You have to choose your words carefully when dealing with them.
A summoner can ‘call up’ a demon of a specific type and ask it to do a task. If it agrees, a lawyer specifically trained in dealing with demons will draw up a contract that will bind the demon to its agreement and give it no room for its usual trickster habits.
The assumption that if there are demons, there are angels has – to date – not yet proven true, as we’ve seen no evidence of angelic existence on the earthly plane.
