Beyond werewolves – Fangs and fur all the way? Or something else?
by jeanienefrost on Jul.23, 2010, under Jocelynn Drake and Jeaniene Frost
Okay, in my previous post, I talked about being a life-long vamp fan and all the things I did/didn’t like about nosferatu mythology. But any frequent paranormal reader knows that if a story contains a vampire, it probably also contains another non-human creature, too. In fantasy, vampires and werewolves tend to go together like corn and mashed potatoes – yes, my Midwestern upbringing is showing with that analogy, heh – but when I created my fictional world, I went another way. While the occasional ghost might float across the scene in my books, the other main supernatural species in my series in addition to vampires is ghouls.
Before you get a mental image of something out of Night of the Living Dead, let me elaborate. Just as my vampires look human to the untrained eye, my ghouls also would pass the visual Homo Sapien test. After all, appearance-wise, if I have vampires that blended into to the human crowd, it made sense to me that ghouls would, too. But my vampires and ghouls aren’t exactly alike, and their differences consist of more than a variance in diet (my vampires drink blood to maintain their strength, while ghouls derive their nourishment from raw meat and the occasional consumption of the other, other white meat ;-).
I liked having a way for the two species to be similar in overall power, but have their differences act as a sort of checks and balance system. For instance, ghouls are harder to kill with their immunity to silver, but Master vampires in my books can fly and ghouls never gain that ability. New vampires are susceptible to falling into an unconscious sleep at dawn, but ghouls have no weakness to sunrise no matter how newly created they are. Vampires can make others vampires on their own, but ghouls can’t create more of their species without vampire assistance, specifically in the form of vamp blood. Without some balance between their strengths and weaknesses, it seemed inevitable that one paranormal species would dominate the other, and that wasn’t the route I wanted to go.
What about you? Which alternate species do you think would exist well alongside vampires, aside from werewolves? Or do you think vamps and weres are such a winning combination, why fix what isn’t broken?
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July 23rd, 2010 on 7:09 pm
I loved the addition of your version of ghouls into the vampire mythology! For me, I’ve gone the route of adding nephilum and angels alongside vamps and were-creatures. Finding new ways to execute established paranormal lore is always an exhilarating challenge and I think you pulled it off well.
July 23rd, 2010 on 7:27 pm
To be honest, when I first read about your ghouls, I shuddered, but in time I grew to love them just like I do the vampires. Who couldn’t love Rodney? I like that your explanation or version or whatever is perfectly understandable to me and not so “out there” that it hinders my enjoyment of the story. As a fan of paranormal stories, I’ll go there, where ever the writer takes me and gladly follow along, as long as it makes sense within the story. (I’m reading about vamps, I’m in the neighborhood anyway) You do such a good job bringing together vamps and ghouls… and ghosts. I have said, many times, Fabian is one of my all-time favorite sub characters in any book. I love him. Odd, but he reminds me of a dog– totally faithful and nothing but love for Cat.
July 24th, 2010 on 9:34 am
I love your take on the ghoul as it breathes a breath of fresh air into the mythos of the creature.
July 24th, 2010 on 10:41 am
I love your books. That said, I think certain higher demons (because of glamor), exist alongside Vamps. I love your Ghouls and was very upset about Rodney.
July 24th, 2010 on 11:39 am
H.C., have you read Nalini Singh’s GUILD HUNTER series? She has angels alongside vampires. Very cool combination!
Glad the ghouls grew on you, Happy! And I’m a fan of Fabian, too :). He’s in THIS SIDE OF THE GRAVE and in Cat and Bones #6.
Jocelynn, I had such a big debate with my editor about the ghouls right after she read my second book. They squick her out and she wanted to see less of them. My stance was that most werewolves in fiction eat people ALIVE and yet were still considered mainstream paranormal, even sexy. My ghouls, by comparison, were far more civilized by eating only people who were already dead, and having the decency to cook up the good parts first with sauce and side dishes so it would look like any other meal. *pauses* She dropped the subject of lessening ghouls in my series, and later told me that our conversation swore her off eating meat for a week ;-).
Hi Vicki! Sorry about Rodney. I was so sad over that, too.
July 24th, 2010 on 10:51 pm
I like your ghouls too. I think any supernatural creature can exist with vamps, but like you said there has to be checks and balances so one can’t dominate the other. I also love Singh’s Angel/Vamp stories.
July 25th, 2010 on 10:49 pm
I liked your take on ghouls and them being a kind of sister race to vamps. So sad about Rodney too. =(
And I agree, if you have one race why not the other? I like how your series doesn’t have the traditional vamp/were thing. Though I like vamp/were series it’s good to mix things up every now and then. =)
Looking forward to THIS SIDE OF THE GRAVE. I know you hear a lot about Vlad and Ian getting a HEA, but I would like to see Tate get one too. Though I could see how it’d be super hard to get over Cat.
Thanks =)
July 26th, 2010 on 3:20 am
Besides the vamp/were combo, I think vampires and demons would be interesting to read.