M.J. Saulnier
Semi-Retired User
I understand. I have one vamp/lycan story that I love, but it's not like the usual material you see. At the height of the Twilight and Underworld franchises, my Rp friend Sunal had a similar bone to pick. He wanted to make a story that would serve as an example, within our community at that time, of how it can be done properly and without the romance and cheesiness. He recruited my help to make sure the plot was sound enough to justify the concept. I hadn't really entertained the meshing of the two prior to that. Over time I adapted my own version of it and it became one of my better stories on a conceptual level because it's about much more than vamps killing lycans.
I might be able to shed some light on the whole thing for you.
The reason they became so prominent is that both the vampire and lycan are not just monsters created for story telling.They are two of the only humanoid monsters that were feared as being real in ancient Europe. There were times when they both created paranoia and fear in a very real sense. Their mythology has become so thick and robust, that they are go-to concepts when telling stories about monsters and humans. The idea that they might actually exist in secret is birthed from trying to pin logic to it. If you want to tell a story about vampires, it's difficult to say they've always been here and everyone knows. They hunt us every night, and that's common knowledge. This would force the creator to create an alternate version of reality and society where it's man vs monster. This is generally not favorable. Instead people imagine that if vampries were real, they would be smart enough to protect their existence from mortals, because we tend to get pitchforky at times and destroy things we fear. With lycans the very same issues arise.
The usual material you see is just vampire and lycan, monster vs monster, skill set vs set, edgelord vs edgelord. But when done properly, these creatures can be so much more. They facilitate a story about human nature. The frailty of mortality, and the curse of immortality. There's actually a wealth of conceptual gold buried beneath these creatures, it's just rarely tapped into in Hollywood or RP. With A Legacy Written In Blood, the goal was to remind people that vampires and lycans can, and should be about far more than cheap thrills, sexual violence, and edgy conflict.
