Firstly, what an exciting new book Twelve Months is! Great to have some new Dresden in the world, and having Jim in action again.
In Twelve Months, we learned the origin of the White Court of Vampires (or Wamps). We learned that in ancient days there were powerful sorcerer-kings who were effectively demigods (hints of this in the Dresden Files RPG).
One sorcerer-king of Etruria called Laris of Arretium, and a cabal of his peers, summoned an Outsider. A mad god. The Hunger.
They were not powerful enough to properly contain it, and just by being in the city it spread its madness to the citizens, causing them to consume everything and themselves in boundless hunger and hedonism. The other sorcerer-kings hid in the citadels, leaving Laris and his daughter, Thana, alone to deal with the Outsider.
Laris and his daughter realised they were not strong enough to banish the Outsider, but they knew a spell “for binding immortal beings indelibly with mortals”. Their plan was to trap the Outsider to a mortal shell that would inevitably wither into death, taking the Hunger with it.
This did not go well. They successfully performed the spell and bound the Hunger to Laris, but the Hunger then possessed him. It did terrible things to Thana, before she somehow was able to turn the tables and bind Laris in chains for the rest of his life. The Hunger had sired a child on her, the first White Court Vampire - Sethre.
My hypothesis is that all the Vampire Courts started this way - powerful sorcerer-kings who summoned Outsiders and ended up possessed by them. This seems very likely given the connections the Vampire Courts have always seemed to have with Outsiders.
The Elders of the Red Court, their highest nobles, were more than merely ancient vampires. They called themselves the Lords of the Outer Night. Given that Outer Night and Outsider are equivalent terms (you only have to read D&D 1st Ed, some Roger Zelazny, and a few other source materials Jim has said he was inspired by to see the common interchange of both terms) and given that when speaking to Thomas’ Hunger, we learned (or confirmed, given how obvious it was) that Empty Night was the ultimate destruction of reality back into the Outside, I think we can see that Outer Night and Outside are very clearly one-and-the-same.
All Vampires seem to feed on life force via one medium or another, such as through blood or from aura or qi/chi. Something that has become more clear is that life-force and souls are very intertwined. I think it’s no accident the Vampires feed on life-force, on what is partial soul energy. That’s what they don’t and can’t have, a soul. No wonder they want it. It’s the stuff of leftover Creation.
Beyond that, the Vampires also all have powerful mind-magic. The Red Court has mind-magic (hypnosis-adjacent). As do the Black Court (mind control) and I suspect so does the Jade Court (unknown). And, as do the White Court although it is more about creating psychic dependency than hypnosis like the Reds or the straight-up brutal mind control of the Blamps. The point here is that one thing all Outsiders seem to use is mind magic, and it’s very powerful. I think this is no accident - I think it’s all about abrogating Free Will. That stops mortals making Choices, which stops them creating more of the multiverse, which expands into the endless Outside. I can see why they would want to stop that.
Another connection is that we have seen both the Red Court and White Court summon, or be linked to, summoned Outsider demons. The Reds used them in the war against the White Council. The White Court summoned He Who Walks Behind, and possibly others. It’s hinted that Lord Raith may well have summoned more Outsiders in the past, given his extensive library. Now, we know mortal magic is required to summon an Outsider. But, I think it is no accident that the Outsiders that were summoned didn’t attack the Red Court or the White Court. Something to think about.
Now, on the origins of Vampires, I think it is entirely possible the Red King was once a sorcerer-king himself, or more likely the child of one - just like Sethre (the first Whampire). The Red King and the Lords of the Outer Night all have the same straight-up Will attack that gods, Titans and other similarly powerful beings use - Vadderung, Ferrovax, Mother Winter, and of course - Drakul.
I think Drakul, however, is something more. Drakul is stated to be by Jim as “something entirely unhuman that got trapped in human form”. What does that sound like?
It sounds exactly like the original Outsider, the Hunger, that gets bound (trapped) by Laris and his daughter Thana, in Laris’ body.
But something much stronger even. Because the point of Laris’ spell was to trap the Hunger in a mortal shell, where the shell would eventually wither and die.
My guess is that there was a sorcerer-king in ancient times long before Laris - maybe at the dawn of human history (let’s just say 8,000 BCE) - who also was a starborn.
This sorcerer-king starborn summoned an Outsider of formidable power, stronger perhaps than the Hunger that Laris summoned. But because this sorcerer king was also a starborn, he was able to bind the thing and actually control it and become immortal, unlike Laris, who just ended up possessed yet still mortal.
Thus, Drakul was born. I highly suspect that was not his original name, just the name he currently uses - Jim has said he has had many identities throughout human history, just like Vadderung.
Drakul created Black Court vampires long before he had his son, Dracula. My guess is that Dracula was the same as Sethre, an experiment. Born of Drakul and a mortal woman. This tracks with Dracula being very powerful and having enormous paternal issues, and yet also resenting his father too.
From what we have seen of Drakul, he only respects the strong (both in mind and body), the survivors. Dracula perhaps wasn’t a great survivor. Perhaps in an effort to impress and/or perhaps also build his own power enough to challenge his father, he created the Black Court. What had existed before was probably Black Court vampires who were divided, scattered, only the strongest and wiliest sticking with Drakul. The rest hid, or set up their own shops, and/or likely died.
Dracula probably gave them a sense of order akin to the White Court or Red Court, a structure with nobles and leaders etc. I can see why Drakul may have been unimpressed. For all its power, I suspect that Drakul thought it provided too much support for those too weak to stand alone. Likely he knew of the regular Blamp weaknesses, and he probably was even more unimpressed by Dracula getting killed by Harkness. That’s not survival, that’s weak, as far as Drakul is concerned.
I have long held the idea that the Vampires are all connected to the Outsiders. I think I have laid out my case reasonably well, but I’ll see what you all think.
Enjoy. Have at it. Let me know what you think.
