Vampires SMP (Web Video)

"Welcome to the Vampires SMP. Fourteen humans have come to the ruins of Oakhurst, ready to call it home. But two among them are secretly vampires. Each episode, the vampires will try to turn a human into one of their own. The humans have to work together to eliminate the vampire threat permanently. Vampires have three stages, getting more powers with each stage. They can blend in with humans during the first stage, but once they consume more blood, they will no longer be able to hide. Additionally, humans can find powers to use, granted to them by the holy spirits. With their lives on the line, will the humans be able to fight off the vampires, or will they turn to darkness one by one?"

— Opening Narration on some uploads

Vampires SMP was a private, modded Minecraft multiplayer server hosted by POWCreations in collaboration with noName Ideas. It featured several prominent Minecraft YouTubers and streamers from past POW series and other adjacent series like Minecraft Misadventures SMP.

The story began with fourteen players settling in the ruins of the village of Oakhurst. However, two among them are secretly vampires, seeking to turn the town's human population into fellow creatures of the night. In every episode, while the vampires spread their blight among the townsfolk, the humans had to stay on guard and work together to permanently eliminate the undead threat among them.

Unlike prior POWCreations servers, Vampires SMP is YouTube-exclusive and not livestreamed, with episodes recorded every Tuesday and each person's perspective being uploaded the following Sunday. The SMP was first teased on September 8th, 2025, officially began on September 14th of the same year, and concluded on November 16th, 2025.

Note: Unless otherwise specified, all tropes pertain to the characters, not the content creators that play them.

Spoilers from the first six episodes are unmarked. You have been warned.

The tropes are red and the page is bleeding!

open/close all folders

A – J

Absurdly Sharp Claws:
- Vampires at Stage 2 gain "elongated claws" that make using weapons more cumbersome, but allow for melee strikes to be much more powerful, meaning they can kill with their bare hands.
- In Episode 7, the effects of Pearl drinking werewolf blood to at least gain the strength of a werewolf manifest when Cleo feeds from her, as she temporarily gains sharper nails which make her mêlée attacks hit harder for one minute.
  Your nails grow sharp, let them [purchase] in flesh
The Ageless: Vampires are quasi-immortal and can live for centuries while still looking like young adults, but can still be killed by means other than old age or disease.
Agent Mulder:
- While several characters play Agent Scully, a few believe deeply in the existence of the supernatural, most notably Vampire Hunter Avid (who has every reason to do so), paranormal novelist M, and Occult Detective Shelby.
  Shelby: I believe that every story about every monster and mythical supernatural being that's ever been written is real.
  Owen: Um… every single one?
  Shelby: Yeah. 'Cause explain how so many different places wrote about the same kinds of monsters without talking to each other. They gotta be real.
- Invoked by Apo and Martyn^notejoined by Pyro in Episode 2, who decide to pretend to believe in vampires for 48 hours to suss out whether they're actually as real as Avid claims them to be, whereupon Becoming the Mask would occur if they have concrete evidence of it.
Agent Scully: Multiple characters, including Apo and especially Dr Legs, insist that there is nothing supernatural going on, with the latter even saying that everything has a rational explanation. When Apo is confronted with evidence of vampires existing at the end of Episode 2, she still struggles to accept it, despite having sworn to believe it if she saw it earlier in the episode. Most of them only start coming around halfway through the series when they see what the vampires are capable of with their own two eyeballs.
Alliance of the Alienated: Thanks to many of the townsfolk being hesitant to accept vampirism (at least at first), the vampires quickly find themselves easily outcasted and end up forming their own faction based in Scott's old castle to rely on each other.
Drift: (to Shelby) Maybe if I decide to stay with you all, the one thing that we've got is knowing that both of us, you know, we might not trust everybody, but at least we've got each other.
All Myths Are True: Discussed. Shelby believes just about anything can be true unless proven otherwise, whether it be Santa or Bigfoot or dragons or spirits or cannibalistic sheep… except vampires, which she does come around with in time.
Shelby: Everything that you could ever imagine or believe, it's true.
Alone with the Psycho: This is how the vampires convert their first victims at the start of the series, by venturing deep into the woods beyond Oakhurst in the night together and picking the now-isolated humans off, one by one. Naturally, it quickly becomes a source of panic for the humans involved.
Always Chaotic Evil: Discussed heavily. The holy spirits view vampirism as inherently impure and humanity as pure; Owen and Scott, the two starter vampires, initially using Alone with the Psycho tactics to convert the first fledglings from the townsfolk doesn't help matters either. Among the players, Avid initially assumes that vampirism makes a person feral with bloodlust and unable to be reasoned with due to a past traumatic experience; Ren adopts the same Black-and-White Morality as the series progresses; and even Owen uses this belief as justification for his own atrocities, having assumed that he would be damned regardless of what he did in unlife anyway. However, this assumption is frequently challenged and ultimately proven wrong in the series: Avid eventually comes to terms with his Misplaced Retribution and takes to vampirism himself despite initial hesitation; Ren's dogmatic viewpoint dooms him when he is the one who jumps to conclusions and refuses to see reason when the Cooperation Gambit between the two factions doesn't go to plan; and Louis, whom Owen had assumed would be damned just for being a vampire, can only watch his lover be Dragged Off to Hell in disappointment and pity from the light of Heaven. Even the holy spirits' views are criticized in-series when the Bittersweet Ending with relatively minimal casualties is brought about by the two sides' Cooperation Gambit as opposed to mindless slaughter.
Owen: (narrating) Vampires are beings of pure evil: that's what we all believed, because that's what we had been told. No pure god would ever accept a creature as tainted as that into their everlasting kingdom.
Ambiguous Situation:
- "The Cure" book gives one of the steps for curing vampirism as killing the sire, but this could either refer to killing each vampire's individual sire (which would require more vampires to die for others to be cured) or that killing the Monster Progenitor, or "the Prime Vampire" as Cleo calls them, will allow for everyone in their vampiric lineage to be able to get cured. It's also unclear if curing a sire will still allow for their fledglings to be cured or if killing the sire is the only way to cure a fledgling. While the vampires assume the "killing the individual sire" situation in Episode 8, this question is ultimately sidestepped completely as the only successful instance of Turning Back Human is conducted on a player whose grand-sire is already dead and whose sire is more than willing to die for the cause.
- "The Absolution" cure book mentions that the cure phrase must be spoken in the presence of a consecrated beacon, but doesn't clarify how many beacons must be consecrated for the cure to work. The finale confirms that just one is enough.
- In the Distant Epilogue, Scott mentions Shelby having told him "not to bat in front of people anymore", but it's unclear if this is referring to a specific Noodle Incident or simply general life advice after they left Oakhurst behind.
Ambiguous Time Period: There is little concrete evidence pinning down when exactly the SMP takes place. No one bats an eye at Scott claiming to be a manor lord^note and Abolish claiming to work in a different manor, and yet M's backstory mentions Brookville being lit by gas-lamps and Drift and Shelby bring up photographs existing, which would date the series to around the 19th century. Printing presses also presumably exist to the point pulp fiction (which peaked in the 1920s–40s) is commonplace and accessible, movies exist but are still fairly obscure and not ubiquitous, individuals can be conscripted into the military regardless of gender, natural selection is well-known enough of a scientific theory for Martyn to freely joke about it, Avid and Legs mention penicillin in Episode 6, and Scott (notably having been asleep for 600 years before the start of the SMP) namedrops and quotes Beyoncé in the first two minutes of his 1st episode. The Distant Epilogue takes place in 2006, suggesting that the series took place before the 21st century, but that's about all we know of it.
Amputation Stops Spread: Discussed in Episode 1, as Shelby gives Dr Legs full permission to amputate any part of her that gets bitten by a werewolf to stop her from turning. Shame Legs wasn't around when the resident vampires got her right where they wanted her the next episode…
Animal Gender-Bender: Cleo and Pearl name their "ghost cat" Companion Cube "Oscar", a typically masculine name, but when Oscar appears as a living cat in Episode 6, he appears as a calico cat. Male calico cats are possible but very rare, usually only occurring due to genetic anomalies.
Animorphism: From Stage 1, vampires can transform into a swarm of bats, but this is only temporary and has an extensive cooldown, and their human form would die if they were to die in bat form. They are also able to communicate with humans in this form.
Anyone Can Die: While the first instances of a character being Killed Off for Real don't occur until well into the series, the fact that almost half of the POV characters end their series dead, equivalent, or worse should be a handy indicator that the story is playing for keeps.
Arbitrary Skepticism:
- Despite being a vampire, Scott doesn't believe werewolves exist. Conversely, despite believing in werewolves due to her family history, Pearl doesn't believe vampires exist, at least at first.
- Shelby believes in all sorts of mysterious and supernatural creatures, but rebukes the idea that vampires are real. She eventually comes around.
  Martyn: Oh, that's where you draw the line?
- Similarly, Apo and Drift consider the existence of hostile mobs like zombies completely normal and logical for their world, but don't believe in vampires. Avid thinks that people with such an attitude are just "setting [themselves] up to be surprised one day".
  Avid: So you're telling me you believe in the supernatural — like zombies, right? They're around us. How is a vampire that far off the mark?
Arc Words:
- "So hungry/thirsty", particularly pertaining to the vampires and their Horror Hunger.
- "For Oakhurst" also shows up quite a bit among the townsfolk as they rally each other to unite for what they consider to be a good and just cause.
Artifact Name: Scott's old Haunted Castle was torn down in the 600 years he was in a Forced Sleep, but it still doesn't stop the beacon there being designated as the "Castle" beacon in-game. When the vampires of the SMP reconstruct it as their base of operations, they rebuild it as a large, somewhat gothic mansion instead, but it's still referred to as the "castle".
Awesome Anachronistic Apparel: In Episode 1, while Avid cites Scott's Frozen Fashion Sense as a sign he's a vampire, Drift and Pearl just think he looks cool in his cape. It's likewise invoked by many others in the castle coven, whose Significant Wardrobe Shifts upon reaching Stage 3 are written off in-universe as them raiding Scott and his dead friends' closets for fancier outfits.
Back from the Dead: In Episode 1, Pearl takes a cat-shaped player head as a Companion Cube "ghost cat" that she and Cleo name Oscar. By the end of Episode 6, a living cat appears in Cleo and Pearl's house, where they conclude that Oscar has come back to life.
Bad Moon Rising:
- For the duration of the series, the moon over Oakhurst is blood-red whenever it rises. According to Owen, a local story goes that every few centuries, there's a massacre that paints the sky blood-red. While Dr Legs writes it off as just a natural phenomenon similar to a lunar eclipse, considering how there are vampires on the loose in the vicinity, and Owen is the one who caused the last massacre…
  Martyn: (on the second night) Another blood moon? Are you kidding me? Pretty sure that's a bad omen.
- Likewise, vampires are at their strongest and most agile during nights of "Blood Moons" (occurring in Episodes 5 and 8), being able to run faster and jump higher than usual.
Barrage of Bats: Upon transforming into a bat, a vampire summons a swarm of normal bats around them — to the humans' frustration in combat, as they may struggle to tell a transformed vampire apart from an ordinary bat, allowing the vampire to escape in the confusion. This can be mitigated through an Impostor-Exposing Test such as the "Holy Word" spell.
Beat It by Compulsion: Vampires have an affinity, possibly even a compulsion, for counting things, with Owen knowing exactly how many people he killed in Oakhurst 200 years ago and finding himself stopping to count wheat in his 2nd episode, and Pyro knowing exactly how many planks make up the castle in Episode 6. Subverted with Scott, who doesn't exhibit any such compulsion and self-professedly hates mathematics.
Be Careful What You Wish For:
- Ever since Avid falsely accused him of Shelby's supposed murder, Scott has expressed annoyance over his vampire fearmongering and wanted him gone from the very first episode. Come Episode 7, Avid is permanently killed off but Scott isn't the least bit happy, since circumstances drastically changed after the former's turning and the latter gaining a soft spot for him, which he notes in his eulogy.
  Scott: I spent the longest time at the start here wanting you dead. More than anything, I wanted you not to be a vampire and I wanted you gone. Somehow, against all odds, here I am building you a grave.
- Likewise, after becoming a vampire, all Pyro wants is recognition from his sire, but Scott harshly dismisses him for the impulsive, suicidally-reckless behavior he displays as a Fully-Embraced Fiend. This culminates in Pyro killing off Avid for being a liability to "prove himself", which Scott admits he is impressed by… but being impressed by the audacity of Pyro's actions isn't the same as actually liking Pyro any more for it, and he remains The Un-Favourite. Indeed, Scott now wants Pyro dead, given his fondness for Avid, a wish which a vengeful Shelby grants.
- In Episode 8, Owen mentions intending to see Louis again by choosing death, having assumed that vampirism in itself equals damnation. Well, he gets to see Louis again, alright… just before being Dragged Off to Hell.
  Owen: (narrating) He hadn't come to fetch me… he'd come to see me off.
Big Bad Duumvirate:
- If you see the vampires as the evil faction, Owen and Scott, the two starter vampires, form this dynamic in the overarching storyline. Scott is the smooth, manipulative vampire who convinces many of the new vampires to ally with him while downplaying their predatory nature, while Owen is the vengeful, angry vampire who encourages the other vampires to see the worst in humans, and his misanthropic worldview even extends to other vampires as the series goes on.
- If you see the humans as the evil faction, then Avid and Ren instead form this dynamic. Avid is the one who instills the town with paranoia against vampires and is thus directly responsible for the conflict between them, only to later willingly turn into a vampire for his own selfish reasons and then become exactly the murder-crazed monster that he warned about. Ren picks up Avid's dogmatism and runs with it, becoming the most vocally aggressive member of the Oakhurst militia and frequently sabotaging any attempts at brokering peace.
Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti: Discussed. Shelby, a cryptic enthusiast, believes in the existence of Bigfoot, who are seven to eight feet tall and very hairy.
Bilingual Bonus:
- The third cure tome, "The Absolution", includes the "seeker" needing to say "Voluntate mea hoc nefandum vinculum abicio", — Latin for "Of my own free will I cast away this wicked bond".
- The fourth cure tome, "The Retribution", contains a phrase that will forcefully cure a vampire, "Hoc vinculum tibi dirumpo mala creatura" — Latin for "I break this bond for you, evil creature."
Bittersweet Ending: Just over half of the cast are able to leave Oakhurst if they so choose, with many finding new friends and connections among each other — including Scott, who finds himself working towards a Heel–Face Turn. However, several townsfolk and vampires are Killed Off for Real due to various misunderstandings, grudges, and accidents before the two sides come to a ceasefire and Cooperation Gambit for that to happen in the first place.
Black-and-White Morality: The series initially appears as such as presented by the holy spirits and in-game pop-ups, with humans being the nominal heroic faction and the vampires being the nominal villainous faction. However, as with most POWCreations works, it's not so simple and more of a Morality Kitchen Sink, with characters moving up and down the morality spectrum throughout the series. Scott also lampshades the holy spirits' belief of vampirism to be a condition of despair in of itself, especially since the final Cooperation Gambit to ensure as many people leave Oakhurst as possible relies on both vampiric conversion and holy artifacts for Turning Back Human.
Bookends: Avid's story starts with Elle, having been attacked by a monster, coming through the door with two puncture marks on her hand and facing her partner. Avid's story ends with him coming through the door having been attacked by a monster, with two puncture marks on his hand, facing his partner, this time as his Dying Dream.
Bound to an Area: The vampires hypothesise that the beacons are responsible for the Invisible Wall keeping everyone in and around Oakhurst, and consecrating or desecrating all the beacons can can break it, thinking that all the beacons being consecrated traps the vampires but not the humans and vice versa for desecrated beacons. An in-game chat pop-up in Episode 7 proves this hypothesis to be true. However, Episode 8 reveals that there is one exception to this rule: former vampires Turning Back Human are allowed to leave Oakhurst even without the Invisible Wall breaking down.
Brains and Brawn: Avid talks about his dynamic with his former partner Elle in this way — he considered his sharpest weapon to be his mind, while she preferred to use a crossbow.
Breaking Old Trends: Vampires SMP is a serious creative departure for POWCreations. Their previous projects were livestream-based servers, usually with larger player casts^note that are prone to Chuck Cunningham Syndrome due to the nature of streaming, and often lasted for months at a time. Vampires is a YouTube-exclusive series filmed in weekly sessions with every cast member present, and has a much faster pace of story and release.
Breather Episode: Episode 4 is a downplayed example. It's got some important lore and tense conversations, but no major clashes between the sides and no new vampiric conversions.
Brick Joke:
- Martyn starts out the series as a Mock Millionaire, which is referenced again as a Credits Gag in his POV, saying that he's "not actually rich".
- At the start of Episode 3, Owen asks for some silver, to which Cleo gives him the armour they are wearing, saying they have plenty of silver to spare, only to not make any replacement armour during the session. In Episode 4, when Abolish asks if anyone needs armour, Cleo emphatically says they do… and Abolish gives them the armour Owen dropped, which was Cleo's to begin with.
- After Avid and Shelby's conversational notebook — with their notes to each other hidden under the latter's Real-Person Fic — was left forgotten for weeks following his conversion, Scott finds it once the tree it's hidden in burns down in Episode 7, to Avid's horror.
Burn the Undead: Aside from a Wooden Stake to the heart, burning is the only other known way of having a vampire Killed Off for Real, and even then, it's said to be a "slow" process. This is likely also the rationale behind the "Lantern Thrash" spell granted by the holy spirits.
Call-Back:
- Owen telling Avid he has "the makings of a monster" gets echoed as the title of Avid's 5th episode, the same episode where Avid decides to be turned to cure him of his Wound That Will Not Heal. It's echoed again by Cleo when she learns that Owen ends up killing Avid purely because of the grudge he held against him at the end of Episode 7.
- Upon finding out about Pyro's death at Shelby's hands in Episode 8, Drift immediately remarks how he was a liability, echoing how Pyro had called Avid a liability after murdering him the previous episode.
Came Back Wrong: Humans who die will respawn in town, but come back with one fewer maximum heart each time. Should one die when they only have five maximum hearts, it will result in the human being Killed Off for Real.
Cannot Cross Running Water: Owen comments that he doesn't like crossing running water, at least not "elevated". Indeed, he tends to use a boat or his bat form if he needs to cross water, though vampires seem to be able to swim without too much adverse effect.
Capture the Flag: The beacons found around the server can be consecrated by humans and desecrated by vampires. Consecrated beacons give humans one extra heart of health per beacon and consecrating all the beacons reduces the vampires down to three hearts of health. For every desecrated beacon, one heart is removed from the humans' health, and the vampires gain one heart in turn.
Cardboard Prison: At the start of Episode 3, Avid builds a prison cell in Oakhurst to hold any potential vampires in his "vampire awareness center". However, Scott points out the next episode that since the cell isn't in proximity of the town beacon — which would prevent vampires from being able to use their supernatural abilities — any vampire held in there (at least those of Stage 2 or above) could easily just teleport out of the cell. Complicated, though not averted, by the fact that Avid intends the prison to be for himself if he turns.
Cerebus Syndrome: Downplayed. The series has a dark and spooky atmosphere throughout, but as things progress, the situation becomes increasingly grim. Each episode has fewer moments of comedy than the last.
Chekhov's Gun:
- In Episode 5, Avid leaves Drift a letter telling her about his sickness and his plan to try and find answers, but Drift doesn't seem to have received the letter when Avid checks back on it after coming back from enacting his plan. In Episode 7, Drift reveals she did know about the letter, but hadn't read it until the end of that episode after Avid gets Killed Off for Real and the letter is all she has left of him.
- In Episode 5, Apo reveals that she gave Martyn some of her blood to heal him from his fall from the castle bridge in Episode 3, sparking a momentary panic from Martyn about what this means for his humanity. In Episode 8, when Legs tries to convert Martyn as part of the humans and vampires' compromise, he dies as a result of his body being unable to handle the blood of two different sires.
Color Motif: Invoked on M's part in Episode 3, who takes note of how the beacons are Colour-Coded for Your Convenience and chooses Vibrant Orange as the base colour of the banners of Oakhurst — fittingly a colour associated with warmth and life, when vampirism is associated with the cold.
Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Beacons change colour depending on what spiritual influence has been exerted on them. Neutral beacons at 50% consecration are a dull, pale orange and don't glow; fully consecrated beacons glow a bright golden orange; and beacons desecrated by vampiric influence glow blood-red. The end of Episode 8 reveals that beacons used in Turning Back Human processes burn out and turn black.
Commonality Connection:
- In Episode 1, Avid and Shelby bond over their shared belief in supernatural creatures. At the end of Episode 2, Shelby reflects that Avid was right that vampires existed, but she'd never be able to tell him as such without betraying her newly transformed nature. Later, it's also their friendship that drives Avid to trust Shelby more during his Darkest Hour.
- In Episode 3, Shelby learning that Apo shares their hatred of the government is what allows them to decide to converse with her about vampires.
Companion Cube: In Episode 1, Pearl finds a cat-shaped player head in the Haunted Castle that she takes in and places in her and Cleo's shared house, where the two name their new "ghost cat" Oscar. Oscar is later "brought back to life" as a living cat.
Company Cross-References: In Episode 2, when Owen asks Martyn what exactly the "Word" of the "Holy Word" spell is, Martyn replies by saying that there are entire churches in far off lands dedicated to "the Word".
Compelling Voice: Discussed. In Episode 5, M and Ren describe the vampires' voice as hypnotising and like a spell was cast on them, with both of them being tempted to get converted after hearing Scott and Owen, respectively, talk about the benefits of vampirism, though it is unclear if vampires genuinely have this as an ability or if they're simply persuasive.
Containment Field: It's implied this is the real purpose of the beacons scattered around Oakhurst, which generate the barrier keeping everybody trapped in the area until all the vampires are dead (or all the humans are converted). Ultimately, it fails in its purpose, as the vampire survivors convert all the beacons to allow themselves and a cured Abolish to escape.
*Cough* Snark *Cough*:
- In Episode 6, Scott tells Drift how vampirism tends to bring out a person's primal instincts, with some taking it more gracefully and others giving into the bloodlust, followed by a cough that sounds suspiciously like "Pyro".
- In Episode 7, during Cleo, Drift and Pearl's conversation, Cleo says that there are some people who should never be vampires, followed by a cough from Pearl that sounds suspiciously like "Avid". Cleo agrees.
Creepy Crows: The sound of crows cawing can be heard at various points during the series, fitting the general levels of dread and unease in the series.
Criminal Found Family: The vampire faction are as 'criminal' as one can be in the Ghost Town of Oakhurst, being outcasted for vampirism by the town's residents and generally forced to rely on each other for support, though a few may still retain connections back in town. Shelby's 4th episode is even titled "One Big Happy VAMPIRE FAMILY". Deconstructed, however, in that the faction is far from harmonious and involves dynamics that can be considered outright abusive at worst, and eventually devolves into infighting.
Cross-Melting Aura: At the start of Episode 1, the beacon consecration process at the heart of Oakhurst stops when Scott enters the area's radius, with an in-game chat pop-up saying that a dark force is present. This quickly results in town gossip speculating on whether he is the dark force in question. Later in the episode, it's confirmed that vampires are able to desecrate beacons as long as a "pure being" (read: human) isn't present, in a process mirroring consecration.
Curse That Cures: Since vampires cannot become ill, becoming one can cure someone of any prior physical ailments they had as a human, including seasonal allergies.
- Owen deliberately turned to vampirism to cure the health condition that resulted in his ostracization from Oakhurst.
- Shelby is very surprised to find that she doesn't need glasses to see anymore after her conversion.
- In Episodes 4 and 5, Owen and Scott, respectively, use the prospect of Ren's cursed tongue getting cured to persuade him to get turned. Ren is tempted, but refuses both times around.
- The thing that makes Avid decide to ask Shelby to turn him is his Wound That Will Not Heal getting worse and worse, to the point where he would rather be a vampire than die or become feral.
Dark Is Evil: If a vampire is in the vicinity of a beacon humans are consecrating, the ritual will be interrupted with the warning of a "dark presence" nearby. However, this is only in the eyes of the holy spirits, and turns out to be subverted in reality: not only are dead vampires revealed to be able to go to Heaven should they be benevolent in (un)life, but vampiric conversion plays a crucial role in the Cooperation Gambit for (mostly) everyone to leave Oakhurst in the end.
You feel unable to convert this beacon… as if a dark presence is choking the very light from it…
Daywalking Vampire: Vampires in Stage 1 seem to be able to exist in daylight without too much adverse effect, though the sun does start to irritate and weaken them at later stages. The vampires note that even if they're not damaged by it, they produce a continuous burning sound in daylight, which makes stealth much more difficult.
Death Is Cheap:
- Vampires have Resurrective Immortality and, in the vast majority of cases, simply respawn at their bed or in front of the castle if they die at the cost of not being able to level up from Stage 1 for the rest of the recording session. Wooden Stakes are the only known thing capable of permanently killing a vampire.
- Humans have this to a limited degree, but unlike vampires, they lose one maximum heart each time they die, making each subsequent death easier than the one before. It has also been clarified out-of-universe that humans only have six lives under this system — once they reach five hearts at maximum health, their next death would be final, which ultimately happens to Ren.
Death of Personality: Discussed by Martyn in Episode 5 but ultimately averted: becoming a vampire doesn't mean any change in the victim's personality or loyalties, so the only way for the starter vampires to actually grow their ranks is to convince people to join them. Roughly half of the vampires aren't initially convinced and remain allied with Oakhurst, although events gradually lead them all to either side with the castle or support both factions. Shelby does note that becoming vampires amplifies a person's emotions, which leads several vampires to significantly change due to the transformation unleashing personality flaws that they previously had under more control.
Deliberate Values Dissonance:
- An in-universe instance is addressed in Episode 3, where Owen comments on Pyro's near-subservient attitude towards Scott, saying that the old vampiric hierarchy has been outdated for centuries. Scott, being that old, doesn't treat it as anything unusual.
- Cleo's Code of Honor recontextualizes their Surrounded by Idiots attitude throughout the series as many of the other players' actions are blatant violations of the code.
Delicious Distraction: Animals will not accept any food from a Stage 2 or above vampire but, as per Minecraft mechanics, will still follow any vampire holding food. Scott figures in Episode 2 that this is because the prospect of food is enough for an animal to overlook its suspicions about vampires.
Distant Epilogue: For the survivors who choose to depict it, the epilogue of the series takes place in 2006. Scott and Shelby are still living well in a NYC penthouse with Drift living elsewhere in the city; they still visit Avid's grave every year, Scott is still adapting to the modern world, and Shelby finally finishes writing her book: The Vampire Diaries, whereas Abolish continues to be alive to this day and stops by every once in a while to check on them and keep an eye on Scott as promised.
Divide and Conquer: Discussed in Episode 3. Finding Owen's false confession about his backstory to be suspicious, Ren describes this to be a potential strategy he could have been using.
Ren: I have one thing to say about the confessional if ye hear me, don't'cha know. If I was a wolf amongst the sheep, to get myself a nice, clean, and easy-to-get meal, I'd get the sheep to be fightin' one another, distracted so that I could swoop in and eat one of them for dinner, don't'cha know.
Dramatic Irony: Thanks to the Switching P.O.V. nature of collaborative Minecraft series, the viewers are far more aware of each character's true nature than the characters themselves are of each other, most notably who among the group is secretly a vampire and who isn't. This leads to interesting moments.
- Among other incidents in Episode 1, Shelby declares that monsters aren't allowed in her house as a form of vampire deterrent, only to inadvertently invite one of the resident starter vampires to be her housemate in the next scene.
- At the start of Episode 2, Apo first introduces Truffle being able to sniff out vampires. Cue Truffle's loud snort while staring directly at Owen and newly-turned Pyro, but Apo brushes it off as needing more training.
- At the end of Episode 3, Avid, Drift, and M elect Cleo as mayor-general of Oakhurst to fend off the vampire population, not knowing that they'd been turned earlier in the episode.
- In Episode 4, Sausage jokes about being a vampire in front of Martyn and Apo, and Martyn says he'd kill him on the spot. Unbeknownst to Martyn, Apo is secretly a vampire and very stressed. Unbeknownst to Apo, Martyn is lying about how quick his trigger finger would be in order to protect the other townie vampire, Cleo, who revealed their vampirism to him earlier the same episode.
Dying Dream: After Avid's death in Episode 7, the final animatic in his episode is of his final thoughts before expiring — him going to a version of his home and encountering a partially transformed Elle.
Dysfunction Junction: Almost everyone in Oakhurst has some form of emotional baggage they carry, including dead or missing loved ones, monster attacks, strained relationships with relatives, ostracisation, killing or otherwise holding themselves responsible for deaths, or any combination of the above. And by the finale, everyone who hadn't already been traumatized would either walk out of Oakhurst traumatized or never leave the town again.
Early-Installment Weirdness:
- In Episode 1, Scott is able to interrupt the beacon consecration at Oakhurst just by standing there, whereas Pyro's presence is similarly enough to interrupt the vampires' beacon desecration at the end of the episode. Since this allows an easy way to reveal who's a vampire and who's a human, this is dialled back by Episode 2 such that Stage 1 vampires are unable to interrupt a consecration.
- Dr. Legs is vegetarian, but this was also not decided on until Episode 2, so he eats meat during Episode 1 but not after that.
Eat Brain for Memories: Or rather, Eat Blood For Memories. It is suggested that vampires take in the memories and interests of the people whose blood they drink, such as Pyro developing an interest in Bigfoot after turning Shelby, Owen gaining a memory of "a war unlike any [he'd] seen" from Dr Legs after feeding from him, and Scott learning that Avid is not Pyro's first kill due to having converted them. Episode 7 also shows Shelby getting mental flashes of Avid's death from his perspective when they find out about it happening, with the visions lasting up until they kill Pyro and avenge Avid in the finale.
Emergency Food Supply Animal: Defied by multiple fledglings.
- Pyro refuses to eat his and Apo's adopted pet pig, Truffle, even after being converted. When Apo is also converted, she decides to let Truffle go before she gives in to the temptation to eat the pig. Unfortunately, this situation doesn't last once Apo gets the idea to use Truffle to test if Pyro still has his humanity.
- When Cleo and Pearl discover that their "ghost cat" Oscar is Back from the Dead, Cleo promptly declares they are not going to eat him.
Eternal English: Despite having been isolated from the general populace for centuries, the starter vampires (most notably Scott, who's 600 years removed from the last time he was at the surface) are still able to communicate with humans without any major linguistic barriers.
Everyone Has Standards: Avid's paranoia is tolerated at best and despised at worst by the rest of the townsfolk, but when Owen tells Avid he "has the makings of a monster" during a meeting at the start of Episode 3, the majority of those present think that's taking it too far.
Evil-Detecting Dog: In Episode 2, Scott remarks that it's easier to fool humans into thinking he isn't a vampire than animals, since animals "have a sense and they don't like [him]". Episode 3 further confirms that animals are indeed able to sense vampires and will not respond to them breeding them at higher stages.
(at Stage 1) The animal tentatively eats from your hand, eyeing you suspiciously, as if it knows your true nature…
Evil Is Deathly Cold: Humans tend to describe the bad feeling they get when a beacon is desecrated as "a chill" or "goosebumps", with Ren noting that the chill he felt "in [his] bones" when a vampire broke through the holy defences of the consecrated beacons in Episode 2 stayed with him in the following episode. This is contrasted with the good feeling they get from consecrated beacons, which tend to be described as if they were warm.
Exact Words:
- In Episode 1, when Avid asks Owen if he believes in vampires, Owen responds that he supposes he's never seen one. This works twofold: Vampires have a Missing Reflection, so Owen hasn't seen a vampire, because he hasn't seen himself as one, and the only other vampire he ever knew has been dead for centuries, so he hasn't seen one now.
- In Episode 3, Apo runs off alone, ostensibly to look for Pearl, and assures Drift that she'll be fine because she has "a lot of powers". She had been turned into a vampire earlier that episode, so she does have access to a lot of powers, just not ones that would endear her to humans.
- Discussed in Episode 4 as a Chekhov's Gun waiting to be fired. While sneaking near Oakhurst, Pyro and Scott discuss how they still have standing invitations to visit Ren's house — but since he didn't specify which house, they can still show up at his new place of residence outside town even after he moved out of Oakhurst.
Extra-Long Episode: For almost everybody, their perspective of Episode 8 is their longest video by a mile. Scott and M's POVs in particular are nearly two hours long.
Eye Colour Change: Once they reach Stage 2, vampires' eyes start to turn from their natural human-passing colour to reddish, turning fully red after reaching Stage 3.
Eye-Dentity Giveaway: Stage 2 vampires have reddish eyes, which makes them stand out from humans. After Scott becomes a Stage 2 vampire at the end of Episode 1, he takes to wearing a skull on his head throughout Episode 2 to prevent anyone from seeing his eyes and catching onto him. The vampires give up on the pretense by Episode 3.
Fabricated Evidence: The opening of Owen's 6th episode reveals that the evidence of the occult on Louis' person that was the catalyst for his execution was fake evidence planted by a group who wanted to get rid of him, using Owen's disappearance as an excuse to enact their plan.
Family of Choice: Avid and Elle were childhood friends and the lyrics of "Not Right" have him call her "sister", and her call him "brother" in the extended version, suggesting they viewed each other as siblings.
Fantastic Diet Requirement: Vampires are only able to consume raw meat and blood (from both animals and humans), as anything else — including cooked meat, fish and any kind of crop — "tastes like ash" to them and will inflict the Hunger debuff for a short time.
Fate Worse than Death: Discussed in Episode 7. Avid suggests that death may be too good for Legs and that converting him into a vampire so he has to live with his guilt and regret for possibly eternity would be a much more fitting punishment. In the following episode, Owen deems this Actually a Good Idea… and turns Legs on this basis.
Feral Vampires: Subverted. Avid initially assumes that the entity that attacked Elle is a vampire, possibly in part due to the neat bite marks it leaves behind, causing him to also assume that vampirism leads to ferality and kicking off his short-lived Vampire Hunter career. He comes around after learning that this is not actually the case.
First-Episode Twist: The identities of the two starter vampires are revealed in the 1st episode to the audience, but not the other characters.
Foe Romance Subtext: Avid and Scott started out on completely opposite sides of the conflict between humans and vampires, the former being a paranoid Vampire Hunter and the latter being a Fully-Embraced Fiend, with the two of them hating each other, Avid on principle and Scott after Avid wrongly accused him of murdering Shelby in Episode 1. After Avid's conversion into a vampire in Episode 5, he gives Scott an unprompted compliment and at the start of the next episode, he frets about why he finds someone like Scott attractive. The vampires have a theory that vampirism brings out What You Are in the Dark. This culminates in Avid actually kissing Scott in Episode 7, and at the end of that episode, Scott actually builds a grave for Avid after the latter's death and resolves to kill Avid's killers for him, and continues to see him as a bit of a Morality Chain Beyond the Grave (for snapping him out of his apathy) and mourn him in the Distant Epilogue.
For Doom the Bell Tolls: The sound of a tolling bell can be heard at various points throughout the series, adding to the general atmosphere of unease and dread in the series.
Foreshadowing:
- In the first 20 seconds of Pyro's 1st episode, he claims that the vampires plan to make him their first victim. While he's not deliberately targeted, he does end up being the first human to be turned in the series.
- In Episode 2, Martyn uses the "Holy Word" spell^note in the middle of Avid's house-judging contest, whereupon Owen and Shelby are placed under suspicion for not moving. While the spell didn't actually work on Owen as he was still at a low enough tier to be relatively unaffected, Shelby is a false positive for this attempt at vampire detection… at least, until she's turned near the end of the episode.
- In Episode 3, Cleo discusses what strategies they would employ if they were a vampire: they'd target their roommate to keep them on the same side, and then the most reasonable or influential people in town, and leave Avid to be The Cassandra. In doing so, not only did they accurately call Shelby's conversion the previous episode, but also predict Apo (Pyro's roommate) and themself (the self-proclaimed Only Sane Man) being turned later the same episode.^note
- At the start of Episode 4, when Drift says that she's Tired of Running and maybe they should try to face their fears head-on, Avid jokes that they should both go the whole hog and try to get turned into vampires. While intended to be a joke, Avid and Drift end up being converted shortly one after the other the next episode.
- Episode 5:
  - When the vampires are discussing who to convert at the start of the episode, Scott points out that winding up with two fledglings who are allied with the humans wouldn't be great. Two people get converted that episode… namely Avid, who is hiding his vampirism from the rest of the town, and Drift, who Scott figures is unlikely to want to help the "core" vampires.
  - Also at the start of the episode, Avid notes how flammable the palisade around Oakhurst is, being made of wood, and that vampires could easily burn it down. Two episodes later, Avid himself gleefully helps burn down the walls in question as a vampire.
  - During the Oakhurst militia's meeting early in the episode, Drift assures the group that she can be brave in a fight, only to try and run away and plead with Martyn when he attacks her to test her. She says that she'll be braver in an actual fight, but later in the episode, she winds up getting attacked by Scott, and again tries to run away and beg him to stop… but Scott is nowhere nearly as merciful, and Drift walks away from the fight as a vampire.
  - While visiting Oakhurst during the Blood Moon, Scott notices the list of vampires on the town notice board and comments that they're missing two. At the end of the episode, the identities of several townie vampires are revealed.
  - While having suspected Apo of vampirism since the previous episode, Martyn discusses what she'd do if she had been turned (e.g. if she'd run and hide, side with the vampiric faction, etc.), which Apo doesn't answer. This eventually culminates into Apo coming clean later in the episode, but thanks to Poor Communication Kills, Martyn doesn't take it well and outs her identity to everyone in town.
- In Episode 6, when Cleo brings up that their mother adopted them for the purposes of farming, Owen asks what they were farming, to which they reply, "Animals. What did you think I was farming?" This hints at the fact Cleo was forced to work on People Farms in the past, just not under their mother.
- Episode 7:
  - During the vampires' meeting at the start of the episode, Avid asks for assurance that the other vampires won't kill him, specifically Owen and Pyro, vampires he had previously antagonised while he was human. Avid's worry about those two would turn out to be well-founded, as Owen and Pyro are ultimately responsible for getting him Killed Off for Real, with Owen's disdain towards his prior actions being his motive for doing so.
  - Near the start of the episode, Shelby excitedly asks if the vampires can turn M next, which some of the others object to, since they have their sights set on Pearl. Thanks to Apo, the next vampire would be M, to the annoyance of some of the vampires and the delight of Shelby.
  - While Avid is holed up in Shelby's room after his first death, Owen and Pyro take him to desecrate some more beacons, with the latter saying, "If one human comes back here and drives a stake through your heart, nobody's gonna be here to protect you." Well, it's certainly not going to be a human who does the deed…
  - On his way to the crypt, Avid tells Owen and Pyro that if he made it out of Oakhurst, he'd return home to bury Elle properly as he'd come directly to Oakhurst after staking her, having believed her to be a vampire. Not only does Avid not make it out of Oakhurst thanks to the other two vampires in question, but Elle turns out to be Not Quite Dead.
- Episode 8:
  - Pyro brings up how should everyone have to get out of Oakhurst alive, they'd all have to bury the hatchet with each other or have someone coming after his throat for the rest of his life. That much is true in that Shelby, holding a grudge against Pyro for killing her fledgling the previous episode, ends up killing him as revenge.
  - A short one near the end of the episode: Martyn's last words to Ren are that he'll see him in a sec, said just before his intended voluntary conversion. Thanks to unforeseen complications and reactions thereof, they end up dying about a minute apart from each other, suggesting that they'll be seeing each other again momentarily in the afterlife.
- In general, one of Dr Legs' monologues has him espouse The Needs of the Many as a priority, with one of the lines being, "Lose the leg, save the life." Legs ultimately performs a Heroic Sacrifice in order to turn Abolish human again as part of the human-vampire Cooperation Gambit at the end of the series.
Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire: Zig-zagged.
- Several of the vampires choose to remain aligned with the humans of Oakhurst (at least initially) after their conversion, with most of them being revealed in Episode 5. Even among those who are siding with the vampiric faction at the castle, Shelby is keen on avoiding hurting others and being a Vegetarian Vampire for as long as possible. However, it's also deconstructed in that Shelby helping to desecrating beacons and being on good terms with the more unsavory vampires means she was automatically considered evil by association as well, driving her to remain at the castle due to a lack of acceptance; and the Horror Hunger remains a source of stress for those who don't want to hurt anyone else, especially if they still wish to keep their identities hidden.
- The end of the series invokes and reconstructs it through the humans and vampires' Cooperation Gambit, where the two factions would cooperate in a conversion-Turning Back Human scheme so that everyone can leave Oakhurst with minimal casualties. This means that the vampires who were initially more aggressive must either be dead (Avid, Owen, Pyro) or willing to negotiate (Scott) by that point.
Frozen Fashion Sense: It has been pointed out that Owen and particularly Scott's outfits are rather old-fashioned. Fitting for long-lived vampires, though it's justified in both cases as they had been dormant for the past centuries before the start of the SMP. After leaving Oakhurst, Scott is shown having adapted to a more modern fashion sense in the Distant Epilogue.
Gameplay and Story Integration: If a creator is unable to be present in the session, usually due to internet connectivity issues, it is written in as their character having gotten lost.
Ghost Town: According to M, the town of Oakhurst was left completely abandoned when every single resident suddenly died with no explanation. Most people assume the reason to be plague (as Cleo claims), but Owen knows the real reason, having been there himself. The series begins on the 200th anniversary of the town's abandonment.
Gloomy Gray: The cursed land of Oakhurst and the surrounding wilderness is very gray, full of ashy forests and old stone outcroppings.
Greater-Scope Paragon: The holy spirits are responsible for sending the spell tomes to the humans to help them fight against the threat the vampires pose, and later send them three special tomes with the cure for vampirism.
Grey-and-Gray Morality: Although the humans are nominally the heroes and the vampires are nominally the villains, both factions have real grievances with each other and much internal moral variation. Who seems more sympathetic at any given point depends a lot on whose perspective you're currently watching. This is solidified at the end of Episode 8 with the humans and vampires coming to a ceasefire and compromise to work together, allowing everyone to leave Oakhurst with relatively minimal casualties and at peace with each other.
Haunted Castle: In Episode 1, Drift and Pearl stumble across the ruins of Scott's castle after crossing a fancy bridge. The former comments on how she has a bad feeling about the place, considering it has a corrupted beacon and an empty tomb (which, indeed, used to house a vampire) in it. Dr Legs, on the other hand, dismisses it as just an abandoned building. By Episode 3, it re-becomes the vampires' primary base of operations.
Heal It with Blood: In Episode 5, Apo tells Martyn that when they rescued him from his fall from the castle bridge in Episode 3, they "gave [him] blood", which presumably helped him heal and regain consciousness. Given that this is in the same exchange where Apo reveals they are a vampire, Martyn worries about what this means for his humanity, and Apo's assurance that vampires can choose whether or not to turn someone does little to calm him. However, because of this, when Legs tries to fully convert Martyn as part of the human-vampire ceasefire compromise at the end of Episode 8, Martyn's body is unable to handle having two "sires" and he dies during the conversion process, leaving him Killed Off for Real.
Holy Burns Evil:
- Downplayed in one instance. While Spell Books granted by the holy spirits do not inherently repel vampires, with only select spells being usable to incapacitate them, vampires are unable to use them either.
- Consecrated beacons also do not inherently repel vampires, but Episode 2 reveals that when all seven beacons across Oakhurst and the surrounding areas are consecrated, the health of the vampires is adversely affected, reducing to as low as three hearts instantly. Episode 4 adds that vampires are unable to use their powers around consecrated beacons.
  A divine energy interferes with your dark powers; it should be snuffed out.
Holy Hand Grenade: Humans are able to acquire magical powers granted to them by the holy spirits in order to repel or harm vampires, such as summoning a circle of flames around themselves or causing any vampires around them to freeze in their tracks.
Holy Healing Magic: Every time a beacon is consecrated, human players gain the Regeneration effect and an extra heart of health. Inverted for vampires, where the same happens every time a beacon is desecrated.
Holy Water: The "Blessing" spell allows the user to turn a bottle of water into a splash bottle of holy water, and any vampire that gets hit by some will have their abilities disabled for 3 minutes, with Pyro describing it in Episode 7 to have turned his skin "mottled and rippled" afterwards. Vampires, on the other hand, are unable to throw it as it burns their hands if they try. This is presumably why one of the steps for Turning Back Human is for the vampire to be splashed with holy water.
Horror Hunger:
- The starter vampires, who have gone the way of the Fully-Embraced Fiend by the start of the SMP, have far fewer qualms drinking from humans. The newer fledgling vampires? Not so much.
  - As Pyro's 2nd episode highlights, as a vampire, he has to contest with feeding on the blood and meat of livestock, or even other townsfolk in Oakhurst who are unaware of his conversion, or become extremely tired and lethargic from hunger; he ends up not even lasting the full episode before giving in to his more basal instincts.
    Pyro: But how long could I resist the temptation to sink my fangs into my friends? Or how long would it take them to uncover my deepest, darkest secret?
  - Implied with Shelby as well, with her 3rd episode featuring moments where the screen turns red and a heartbeat sound plays, usually when someone says something that could indicate they are aware she is a vampire. She also mentions hearing her heart beat in her ears and proposes consuming more blood to get stronger after the confrontations ensue. In turn, her note to Avid near the end of Episode 5 advises him to resist the temptation of devolving into monstrosity.
    Shelby: I can hear other people's heartbeats in my brain, from their blood pumping.
- Episode 5 reveals that when Avid's Wound That Will Not Heal flares up, it triggers a near-insatiable "hunger" in him that can only be satiated by killing those around him. He turns to slaughtering animals in the wild so that he can "never hurt anybody" with his bloodlust, especially after his own partner tried to kill him in the same feral state after being bitten.
Humans Are the Real Monsters: Discussed and zig-zagged. The core vampires discuss and hold the opinion that they should rely on themselves as the humans don't accept them in society, even if they haven't hurt anyone. And to be fair, Avid is walking a very thin line of becoming He Who Fights Monsters, having spent a majority of the story so far denouncing vampires as monsters, refusing to believe in the idea that vampires can feel emotions such as love and, in Episode 4, attacking Pyro unprompted and burning Shelby (and Scott)'s house down. That being said, the vampires themselves run the Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness as well and some of them are far less ethical or principled than others, especially with Scott having ruled the town for hundreds of years as a tyrant and Owen having killed literally thousands of people.
Owen: The human race is to blame for what happened to Oakhurst.
Hunter of Monsters:
- Avid and his partner used to be a monster-hunting duo, with Avid responsible for making the equipment and his partner doing the actual hunting with weapons.
- In Episode 3, Pearl also mentions that she considers it her duty to hunt down werewolves due to a family history with them, though in general, her main targets are all creatures that kill others and perpetuate senseless, unnecessary violence.
- The Veylocke family were part of a "shadow organisation" that works with "good vampires" to hunt "bad vampires".
Hypocrite:
- In Episode 3, Scott and Owen chide Apo for not being completely honest about their past, despite the fact that both of them are vampires who have lied about their own pasts, with Owen having lied to almost the entire town about his backstory earlier that episode to boot. Pyro and Shelby mutually shake their heads at this in the background.
- When Apo discloses her vampirism to him, Martyn's first response was to tell everyone in town against her wishes, citing how honesty is the best policy, which is rich given he had kept Cleo's conversion a secret the episode prior without incident, something Cleo herself points out.
- Avid starting out as a Vampire Hunter but later becoming a Voluntary Vampire Victim for a Curse That Cures receives a Hypocrisy Nod from the man himself at the start of Episode 6.
I Cannot Self-Terminate: While Wooden Stakes to the heart can kill a vampire, a vampire is unable to stake themselves. Owen reveals this fact to Legs as he applies the Fate Worse than Death of the eternity that comes with vampirism.
I Do Not Drink...Wine: While vampires are technically capable of eating regular human foodstuffs — as in cooked meat, fish, and plant products — it "tastes like ash" to them and will inflict the Hunger debuff for a short time. Stage 1 vampires are also able to eat garlic, though it makes them nauseous. The only foods they can consume without status debuffs are raw meat and blood (from both animals and humans).
I Hate You, Vampire Dad:
- Apo is understandably resentful towards Scott for landing them in the Sadistic Choice that led to their pressured decision to get turned, telling him to his face that they don't like him in Episode 5 and deliberately leaving him alone to desecrate a beacon in Episode 6. Scott fully expects Apo to get over this sooner or later, until them converting M in an attempt to kill Scott in Episode 7 causes him to issue a "kill on sight" order for her.
- Following off of the above, Apo also wants nothing to do with M after he sold her out to the coven almost immediately after turning him for the purpose of killing Scott. M, likewise, isn't too fond of Apo, given how she tried to kill him multiple times when he was a human.
- Cleo is annoyed that Pyro, the Butt-Monkey of the castle coven, was the one to sire them and frequently makes exasperated comments about this. They hate their other vampire "dad" significantly more, having spent eighty years as a vampire's thrall.
I Love You, Vampire Son: While many of the conversions occur without positive feelings, there are a few exceptions:
- Owen was originally turned by his love interest Louis to cure him of his health condition, and he accepted the offer in part because he'll get to stay with Louis. Even after Louis reveals his true identity as a vampire, he asks Owen for consent again before actually turning him.
- A variant occurs with Scott and Shelby, with the former intending to turn the latter because he genuinely enjoys her company (albeit implicitly still in an unequal sense), as opposed to everyone else he's turned and neglected afterwards. The twist is that Scott technically didn't even get to turn Shelby because Pyro beat him to the bite, but the intention is there.
  Shelby: Oh, phew, you know, I was starting to get the feeling maybe, uh… you only thought of me as food the whole time.
  Scott: No! You were one I specifically wanted to spend the rest of eternal life with! Some of them, I would happily just have as food, some of them I actually– the idea of them being a vampire and forced to deal with them for eternity sounds awful, but not you.
- As part of the humans and vampires' ceasefire and compromise for everyone to leave Oakhurst at the end of Episode 8, Pearl chooses to be the last of the townfolk to be converted to vampirism, and is allowed to choose her own sire. She chooses Cleo.
Impostor-Exposing Test: Multiple spells are intended to help the humans discover who among them is a vampire.
- The "Holy Word" spell freezes any vampire in its vicinity for 15 seconds. Martyn's misadventures with it are a Running Gag throught the series.
  - The spell has no effect on Stage 1 vampires, leading to several false positives and negatives when Martyn attempts the spell a few times in Episode 2.
  - In Episode 3, Dr Legs, Cleo, Avid and Drift all agree to be tested by the spell, and they are all able to move, clearing them. (Though, Cleo would get turned by accident later that episode…)
  - In Episode 8, Martyn uses the spell again during a fight between the townsfolk and Owen, to greater effect this time. Since Owen had transformed into a bat and thus summoned a Barrage of Bats at the time, Martyn's usage of the spell freezes Owen in place but not the normal bats, giving the townsfolk a handy means of identifying Owen, as well as giving Ren enough time to grab an axe and cut him down to Stage 1.
- The "Rallying Cry" spell gives 30 seconds of the Strength buff to players, but it does not work on vampires. In Episode 3, when Pyro and Shelby do not appear to have received the buff when M casts the spell around them, it makes him and Ren suspicious of the two. At the end of that episode, Cleo's reluctance to have M cast the spell and then trying to move away from him as he does so makes Abolish suspicious of them, as shown through his episode having third-person shots focusing on them after the spell.
Improperly Paranoid:
- Discussed, as multiple people bring up the possibility that the previous massacres in Oakhurst were due to the residents violently turning on each other out of misplaced paranoia.
- Downplayed with Avid. While he is Properly Paranoid about the threat that vampires pose, he can sometimes be overzealous about it, notably falsely accusing Scott of killing Shelby in Episode 1 after she wanders off by herself a little too long past nightfall. While Scott is a vampire as Avid suspected, he has no intention of hurting Shelby (other than turning her, at least, which he hasn't done yet either).
Ingesting Knowledge: A Running Gag is people describing gaining powers from the Spell Books as "consuming" or "eating" the books.
Inherently Funny Words: Avid and Drift name their shared house "Merp Manor" because they think it sounds funny.
In-Series Nickname:
- Apo derisively calls Martyn "rich boy".
- Several characters call Shelby "Bigfoot girl" for her obsession with the creature.
- Many of the other townsfolk call Legs "Doc".
- Martyn calls Ren "Specs".
Invisibility: Vampires at Stage 2 gain the ability to turn invisible for 3 minutes, though their invisibility will fade if they deal too many attacks, and armour they wear will still remain visible.
Invisible Wall: An invisible world border barrier that Cleo describes as "spiritual" keeps the players within Oakhurst and the surrounding area. The only way of breaking down the barrier is to either consecrate or desecrate all seven beacons across the map. The finale posits a second means for leaving Oakhurst, albeit while leaving the barrier intact: a vampire Turning Back Human.
Irony:
- The only supernatural creature Shelby doesn't initially and expressly believe in is vampires, the same creatures lurking around Oakhurst and the same creature she would become.
- In Episode 2, Avid criticizes M's use of the "vampire love interest" trope as he claims vampires can't love. A few episodes later, a newly-turned Avid finds himself falling in love with Scott due to vampirism unlocking deep-seated feelings he was unaware of.
- In Episode 5, Pyro points out how Owen, who resents humans the most out of the vampires, hasn't been responsible for converting anyone up until that point and remains unsuccessful thus far. He ends up converting Legs in Episode 8, but his lineage is cut short as he chooses death, Legs ends up performing a Heroic Sacrifice, and Abolish returns to humanity.
- Most of Owen's misanthropy to the point of Misplaced Retribution against humanity in general is driven by his grief for Louis, with the only hope he holds in his heart being that the atrocities he commits in unlife don't matter since he's already a vampire, and when he can finally die, he'll be Together in Death with Louis. However, when he is finally able to choose death for himself, his choice to hold on to his grief to slaughter humanity and cause suffering in Louis' name is what denies him eternity with his love, making his belief in his own damnation a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy.
- Regarding his attitude towards the starter vampires, Legs was under the belief that he would be able to get through to Owen after learning his tragic backstory and dedicates some of his time into helping him, while he couldn't stand Scott's unrepentance as a Faux Affably Evil Monster Progenitor and thus deliberately keeps their interactions to a minimum, thinking he is a lost cause. By the time of the finale, it's evident Owen is far too gone in his grief to change as he forcibly converts Legs and dies the same vengeful vampire, whereas Scott eventually chooses to redeem himself and turn over a new leaf on his own, and continues living while upholding the doctor's Last Request of never going back to his old ways to this very day.
Jacob Marley Apparel: Vampires retain their physical appearances at their time of conversion. Scott is particularly hung up by this, because this means unless he's at Stage 3, he's stuck with dyed blue hair for the rest of eternity.
Scott: I only had blue hair for, like, a month before I got turned, didn't realize that would've stuck!
The Joy of First Flight: Multiple vampires, including Cleo, Drift, Avid and M, find the experience of flying as a bat for the first time to be amazing.
Jumping Off the Slippery Slope:
- Although Pyro is initially hesitant about his vampirism because Warm Bloodbags Are Everywhere, after he loses control and converts Shelby at the end of Episode 2, he starts giving in to the bloodlust and taking Fully-Embraced Fiend to whole new levels. It's also his growing vampiric extremism that leads to him being considered The Millstone and too hostile to be left alive, and his fate is ultimately sealed when he gets on the rest of the faction's bad side and kills the wrong vampire.
- Episode 6 sees a few of the fledgling vampires shed whatever humanity they had left.
  - Apo had been a Pro-Human Transhuman since being turned and decided to play Double Agent for Oakhurst after being outed as a vampire, but after discovering that everyone is trapped in Oakhurst and its surroundings for the foreseeable future, decides that the humans need to die so she can leave and return to Cherri after all the beacons get desecrated, as per the vampires' hypothesis. Subverted the next episode, however, as Apo accidentally converting M in an attempt to kill Scott leads to her being cast out of the castle and having to return to Oakhurst for support again.
  - Avid had already done his fair share of dubious actions as a human — using Circular Reasoning to accuse Scott of being a vampire and Shelby's murderer without too much other proof (and being wrong about the latter), burning down Shelby (and Scott's) house during a Heroic BSoD, and generally being avidly against vampires as a whole — but after getting turned and having his previously incurable wound finally heal and discovering how good blood tastes and how fun and free it feels to fly as a bat, he becomes a Fully-Embraced Fiend and advocates burning and slaughtering all of Oakhurst at such a fast rate that even the other vampires are a bit concerned.
    Apo: He was all for humanity's side and the second he turned into a vampire, he basked in the power.

K – Z

Kansas City Shuffle: This is the tactic that the townsfolk use to finally gain the upper hand against the vampires in Episode 7 — by travelling clockwise around the map and consecrating several beacons in an obvious order, they trick the vampires into checking the hypothetical "next" beacon while the Townsfolk head to the Castle to assault it directly.
Kill It with Fire: By Word of Godinvoked, vampires can die from being burned for long enough… such as the former mayor of Oakhurst getting burned at the stake. According to Owen, such a death is slow and painful.
Late-Arrival Spoiler: Although the vampires' identities are kept secret from each other at the start of the SMP, they are revealed to the humans as the series goes on and more characters are converted, meaning viewers who start watching the series late would be well aware of who's turned. Episode titles and/or thumbnails also often serve as a (un)dead giveaway to the viewers for when a player is turned.
Latin Is Magic: The phrases that the cure tomes state must be spoken to cure a vampire are in Latin.
Light Is Good: Consecrated beacons emit "soft light that warms [humans'] heart[s]", which manifests as the Regeneration status effect, and the humans' total health bar increases by one for every beacon they consecrate.
Like Cannot Cut Like: Inverted; silver blocks will be completely destroyed if mined with anything other than silver tools.
The Masquerade: Vampires tend to keep their existence secret, as evidenced by most of the code of the coven Cleo was from being about how to keep vampires a secret while living in a large town, and Scott joking in Episode 7 that the species' cover may be blown if M publishes a book about his newfound vampirism.
Meaningful Name: While unintentional, the name Oakhurst sounds like "oh, cursed". Fitting for a Town with a Dark Secret.
Medium Blending: Several death scenes, including Avid staking Elle in a flashback in his 1st episode, Avid's own murder and what happens afterwards in his 7th episode, Martyn's final death in his and Ren's finales, and what happens to Owen after his death are depicted in animatic form instead of gameplay footage.
Men Are the Expendable Gender: All six permanent casualties — Avid, Pyro, Owen, Legs, Martyn, and Ren — are male or masculine-aligned characters.
Metaphorically True:
- In Episode 3, Owen's lie to the townsfolk about his backstory includes him mentioning that he could only watch as the castle burned down with many Oakhurst residents inside it. Turns out this held at least some truth, as in Episode 4, Owen tells Scott that he burned down the castle during his massacre, since it was being used as a hiding place, and as a public building at the time, he wasn't bound by any invitation requirements.
- Episode 4:
  - Cleo prefaces their confession to Pearl and Martyn about having been turned the previous episode as them having "died in the castle". They did live, but are now undead.
  - When Scott and Shelby see a group desecrating the Obelisk beacon, he says that he counts 4 people. There are actually 5 others present at the beacon… except one of them is Apo, a vampire.
- In Episode 6, when discussing Avid's options as a vampire, Shelby brings up how killing the sire is a prerequisite step for Turning Back Human and they would never let any of the townsfolk kill Pyro (or Scott or Owen)… only for Shelby to end up killing Pyro themself two episodes later.
- In Episode 8, Martyn reassures Ren about the Cooperation Gambit that they'd only be temporarily converted before turning human once more, and that he'll see him again in just a sec. Those same words also apply when unfortunate circumstances result in both their untimely deaths.
Mimic Species: Discussed. Shelby believes in the existence of mimics, which can disguise themselves as anyone or anything.
Mirror Character: Avid and Owen. Despite starting out the series on opposite sides, both of them are outcasts in Oakhurst who are extremely vengeful and hate the opposing faction with a burning passion for killing their loved one, to the point of wanting to kill everyone they consider an enemy. Both of them also take to vampirism as a Curse That Cures and end up falling in love with an older vampire, even donning their respective love interests' fits while at Stage 3. Both Shelby and Drift lampshade how the two are more similar than they think, with the latter even suggesting that the real reason Owen hated Avid to the point of murdering him is because he was too insecure to face himself head-on, which Owen denies.
Drift: You two are so, so similar, and it's just so funny that you'll never see it. I mean, I guess it makes sense that vampires can't see their own reflections.
Misplaced Retribution:
- Avid's initial condemnation of vampirism stems from the fact that he originally assumed the monster that attacked him in his childhood and his partner Elle in adulthood to be a vampire. Once he accepts the fact that vampires don't turn into feral creatures that can't be reasoned with upon being converted, he comes around. Also deconstructed and Played for Drama in that this initially hostile attitude only proves to validate Owen's misanthropic views and prompts him to personally murder Avid over this after he is converted.
- In turn, Owen's grudge against humanity began with Louis' murder and never really stopped, to the point he blames the human race in general for his ostracization and everything that's happened in Oakhurst — even the newly-settled townsfolk who had no idea Owen or vampires in general even existed before the start of the SMP. Various townsfolk call him out on this at the end of Episode 3, pointing out they hadn't been involved in this mess before Owen dragged them into it first and how perpetuating The Chain of Harm is "not on".
- In Episode 8, after being driven to despair by Owen forcibly converting him before biting the dust, Legs becomes more determined than ever to drive a stake through Scott as he doesn't want his efforts of saving the townsfolk and vampires to be All for Nothing. While Scott is one of the perpetrators behind this entire vampire-human ordeal, he had nothing to do with the personal conflicts between Legs and Owen, given he had left the latter to his own devices without any major influence, and was entirely unaware about the doctor's plans until Drift and Shelby told him. Luckily, this is never followed through as Cleo and Scott manage to calm Legs down enough to hear out their Cooperation Gambit.
Missing Reflection: Vampires are unable to see themselves in a mirror. However, since this is Minecraft, this is restricted to their player avatar being invisible when they open their inventory in-game, which only they themselves can see.
Monster Progenitor:
- Scott turned quite a few people in his glory days, including many of his friends shortly after his initial transformation, and was apparently enough of a deadbeat sire that it's possible Louis (and by extension Owen) was part of his lineage. In addition, he, Pyro (whom Scott turned), Shelby (whom Pyro turned), and Apo (whom Scott also turned) are responsible for every vampire in Oakhurst besides Owen as of Episode 7, and Owen's lineage is functionally extinguished by the end of the series.
- The holy books on turning vampires back into humans lists killing their sire as one of the three steps required. The Oakhurst militia conclude as a result that they'd be able to save every other vampire in a lineage by killing the original vampire: a notion that Scott scoffs at, not believing that it works that way — or if it did work that way, that they'd be able to kill him in the first place. The "falling chandelier" metaphor is never truly verified in-series in the end, though it's implied that Scott is right in that the individual sire has to be eliminated and not just the "Prime Vampire".
Monster Roommate: The series being a Social Deduction Game with vampires living among humans, there have been multiple cases where a human winds up living with a vampire without realising it.
A Mouse Named "Mozzarella": In Episode 1, Apo and Pyro decide to adopt a pig they find in the woods and name it 'Truffle'.
Must Be Invited: If a residence has a door, a vampire cannot access it without being invited. Open requests to access a house at any time count as an invitation, and according to Pyro in Episode 2, these can be invoked for one visit at any point, even if the owner later rescinds the offer. Exploited by Avid, who freely walks into others' houses as a human without asking anyone for permission to prove he's not a vampire, though Dr Legs objects to this flagrant disregard for social boundaries.
Mystical White Hair: Vampires at Stage 3 have white hair, which is one of the features that makes them stand out from humans.
Mythology Gag:
- As indicated by his 1st episode's title "HE'S BACK!!!!", this is not Scott Smajor's first rodeo as a vampire. His Stage 3 skin is also simply an updated version of his Afterlife skin.
- Cleo is quite enthusiastic to claim the "Turn Undead" Spell Book, a nod to their username and default character as a zombie. Episode 6 also has Scott comment on how it's more fitting for Cleo to be undead than to be human, which they attribute to being raised by vampires.
Nerf:
- The vampires receive various balance patches as the series progresses, generally due to being too strong as initially designed.
  - After Episode 2, Stage 1 vampires can no longer interrupt beacon conversions.
  - After Episode 6, vampires at Stage 2 are no longer immune to Wooden Stakes.
- To prevent either faction from immediately rushing to defend a certain beacon or interrupt a consecration or desecration, starting from around Episode 6, the pop-up message alerting everyone of a beacon's spiritual influence being cleansed is delayed.
Non-Standard Character Design: Vampires normally follow a set pattern with their three stage designs, with Stage 1 identical to their human form, Stage 2 adding slightly reddened eyes, and Stage 3 coming with Mystical White Hair and a new, more ornate set of clothing.
- Apo and Avid both buck this trend: the former gets a streak of white hair at Stage 2, while the latter changes his costume at Stage 2. In Avid's case, it's a deliberate difference, emphasizing that this is an Evil Costume Switch.
- Legs is the only full vampire in-series who lacks white hair at Stage 3. He's also the only vampire who becomes more disturbing to look at as he gains power instead of becoming ethereally beautiful, and foregoes an Evil Costume Switch like Apo — his clothes just get bloodier.
Not Always Evil: At the start of the series, the vampires are presented by the holy spirits (and Avid) to be dark creatures and thus evil and irredeemable; Owen and Scott initially using Alone with the Psycho tactics to convert the first fledglings from the townsfolk doesn't help matters either. However, as the series goes on, it is clear that the initial Black-and-White Morality of the series doesn't hold: the vampires form their own Alliance of the Alienated in part due to the townsfolk's dogma driving them away, the more stable former townsfolk are able to retain their moral compasses even after their conversion, and even Avid comes around with vampirism by trying to reconcile with Shelby and later choosing it himself as a Curse That Cures. By the end of the series, the Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness is very evident, with morality not being inherently tied to humanity, and the dividing line between the two factions blurs as a Cooperation Gambit is required to minimize casualties and no true human walks out of Oakhurst in the end.
No Zombie Cannibals: Double subverted in Episode 2. After Shelby gets converted, Owen asks them if they want to "siphon from Pyro", suggesting vampires can feed from each other, but they refuse due to wanting to be a Vegetarian Vampire. The series as a whole subverts this, as vampires are able to take blood from any other vampire who has enough to spare.
Ominous Clouds: The skies over Oakhurst are mostly grey and overcast, with only fairly washed-out sunlight. It becomes even more ominous when the skies turn dark and rainy, as Stage 3 vampires are able to summon rainstorms.
Ominous Fog: Oakhurst and its surrounding regions has a very foggy climate, with Shelby commenting how easily one can get lost around there. After Pearl climbs a nearby mountain in Episode 1, she also notes she can't see very far into the horizon even at such a vantage point. Even under the moonlight, it doesn't get much clearer than that.
One-Man Army: Having Resurrective Immortality and many powerful supernatural abilities, vampires are fully capable of taking on large groups of attackers and coming out relatively unscathed. Owen can and will boast about having slaughtered 2,799 people during his initial massacre of Oakhurst. Scott also mentions in Episode 8 that he used to fell entire armies back in his premodern life as a vampire.
Our Demons Are Different: The creature that attacked Avid, and later Elle, before the start of the series is identified invokedout-of-universe as a demon. Described as a creature of "darkness", it is capable of transmitting its affliction with scratches and bites, with the end point of turning feral or dying, either near-instantly or through a lingering Wound That Will Not Heal that slowly takes effect over years. The transformation starts at a person's hand and spreads to cover their entire body, giving them jet-black skin, claws and horns.
Our Vampires Are Different: Vampires consist of three stages, with each stage being more powerful than the last, at the cost of losing the ability to blend in with humans as they consume more blood, from animals or people. They are able to level down to lower stages by taking damage, which drains their blood/experience bar but doesn't turn back their appearances. Their abilities also don't work when in range of consecrated beacons.
- At Stage 1, vampires have Innate Night Vision that they can toggle on or off and all the other basic perks, such as Resurrective Immortality, the inability to be afflicted by illness, a Photographic Memory (according to Pyro), and being The Sleepless (according to Scott), but Must Be Invited into a place of residence. They can also temporarily transform into a bat and summon a surrounding swarm of other bats with an extensive cooldown and immunity to fall damage once their transformation time runs out, but they cannot damage other entities during that time and their human form would die if they die in bat form.
- From Stage 2 onwards, they have increased resistance to damage, but are weakened and burnt by silver and their eyes start to turn reddish. They are also able to leap through the skies using a "Vampiric Lunge", gain "elongated claws" that make them more suited to killing with their bare hands as opposed to using tools, become able to turn invisible for 1 minute and can teleport between desecrated beacons. It's also at this stage when hostile mobs stop attacking them.
- At Stage 3, their hair turns white and their eyes become permanently red. They also gain the ability to use the "Call of the Storm" to summon 10 minutes of rainfall with a crack of thunder, and their invisibility is upped to 3 minutes.
Platonic Life-Partners: Avid and Elle were best friends since childhood, considered themselves brother and sister and formed a monster hunting team together. Avid only has good things to say about Elle in the series, calling her a "superhero" and the bravest person he knew.
Playing with Fire: The "Lantern Thrash" spell teaches the user how to smash their lantern on the ground to create a circle of fire around them.
Power Dyes Your Hair: Upon ascending to Stage 3 for the first time, a vampire's hair colour would turn white.
Power Incontinence:
- The vampiric players occasionally activate certain abilities (or the wrong ability) by accident.
- On the humans' side, Martyn has a tendency to accidentally trigger the "Holy Word" spell, especially when he's nervous… to Apo's annoyance whenever she's in the area.
The Power of Blood: The more blood a vampire consumes, whether from animals or people, the more abilities they unlock from progressing through the stages of vampirism, at the cost of being no longer able to blend in with humans as well. Humans consuming blood from supernatural creatures also appears to grant them health and/or powers related to the creature in question, albeit in most cases at a cost.
Power-Up Letdown: The vampires point out that the "Holy Word" spell is actually helping them rather than the humans whenever the humans use it in combat, as while it freezes all vampires, it also makes them invincible, and they continue to regenerate while frozen. Later in the series, however, this turns out to be due to Martyn and Ren misusing it, wasting the spell duration on attacking or retreating. Abolish, on the other hand, uses it more prudently, laying cobwebs and silver blocks during the freeze period to ensure the vampire stays frozen once they become vulnerable again.
Prefers Raw Meat: Vampires are only able to consume raw meat to hold back their hunger, and even then, only in small amounts at a time. They are unable to consume plant-based foods, cooked meat, or even rotten flesh or fish without feeling ill.
Professor Guinea Pig:
- Avid and Elle's plan for finding cures for monstrous afflictions got to the point where they were trying to deliberately get themselves infected and test on themselves until something worked.
- In her attempt to try and find a cure for her parents after they became werewolves, Pearl drank werewolf blood as part of an experiment, hoping to at least gain the strength of a werewolf. At first, it appears that nothing happened, but when Cleo feeds from her in Episode 7, the lingering werewolf blood manifests in the form of temporary Absurdly Sharp Claws.
Purification: Zig-zagged. Humans are able to consecrate beacons to grant each other health boosts and the Regeneration effect, but vampires are also able to do the inverse to desecrate beacons.
Really 700 Years Old: Owen was responsible for the destruction of Oakhurst 200 years ago. Scott considers that "baby talk", being an "elder vampire" who's over 600 years old himself — and that's just counting the years he spent under a Forced Sleep.
Red Eyes, Take Warning: If a vampire ever reaches Stage 2, their eyes start to turn reddish, highlighting how great of a threat they are. At Stage 3, their eyes turn permanently blood-red.
Red Is Violent:
- As the colour of blood, red is commonly associated with vampirism, with desecrated beacons glowing blood-red and vampires' eyes turning red as they level up in power.
- When Pearl gains Absurdly Sharp Claws for the first time in Episode 7, it is accompanied by a seemingly uncontrollable need to attack things, which is represented by the screen flashing red in her episode.
Red Oni, Blue Oni:
- At the start of the series, Avid is the passionate and vocally suspicious Agent Mulder Red Oni to Drift's calmer Agent Scully Blue Oni. Likewise, as events escalate, Avid tends to default to aggression towards those he considers an enemy, while Drift would rather everyone just get along.
- Zig-zagged with the starter vampires. Personality-wise, Scott is the sassy, self-proclaimed diva Red Oni as the charismatic leader of the vampires, whereas Owen is the brooding, reserved Blue Oni as the grieving loner vampire with his own agenda. In terms of antagonising humans, however, their roles are reversed as Owen would rather bare his fangs and claws to massacre them all in a vengeance-fueled rage for his beloved Louis, while Scott prefers the long game to convert them through calculative manipulation and is willing to give peace a chance when he learns it's possible.
Removed Achilles' Heel: A vampire at Stage 3 can no longer be killed with a wooden stake, effectively making them truly immortal until they've been bested at Stage 3 and thus knocked back down to Stage 1. Prior to Episode 7, this also applied to vampires at Stage 2.
Required Secondary Powers:
- Users of the "Lantern Thrash" spell become temporarily Immune to Fire for 5 minutes after casting the spell to protect them from the circle of fire.
- Vampires are immune to fall damage, since they have multiple powers such as super jumping and turning into bats that could easily let them kill themselves by accident otherwise.
Resurrective Immortality: Episode 3 reveals that vampires cannot die by normal means — should they be killed, they'll respawn, albeit unable to "grow stronger" until the start of the next recording session. The only exception is if a Wooden Stake is used to deal the killing blow, which would kill them permanently.
Apo: How are you still alive?! I killed you!
Scott: Oh, no, you thought you killed me. There's a difference.
Apo: I put an axe in your throat.
Scott: Mhm, mhm, I see that.
(Apo starts attacking Scott again)
Scott: It was actually great, 'cause you kinda put me back– sure, go. Do it. C'mon.
(Apo kills Scott again)
Scott: (returning) So? Did we get our anger out? Are you done?
Roadside Surgery: The tome "Stop The Bleeding" allows its user to perform "field surgery" by crouching for one minute to restore one heart to a nearby human or themselves. Given the lack of medical facilities in Oakhurst, it's not exactly a painless process.
Robbing the Dead:
- It's practically a Running Gag for players to take random items from the various tombs found around the server, from candles to the flooring to skeleton skulls.
- Likewise, several of the fledgling vampires decide to rifle through the crypt to look for cool outfits for their Stage 3 makeovers. Scott gets used to it, since the occupants of the crypt aren't making use of those outfits anyway.
Romantic Vampire Boy: Zig-zagged. In Episode 2, Avid criticizes M's use of the "vampire love interest" trope in his books, claiming that vampires can't love, whereas M argues in favour of how vampires typically going for the neck while converting someone else is erotic. In reality, as monstrous as vampires can be, they are still capable of love, with Louis, Owen's sire, also being The Lost Lenore to him, and Avid starting to fall for Scott after his conversion.
Running Gag:
- People taking things from the various tombs found around the server, from candles to the flooring to skeleton skulls.
- Making Shout Outs to The Twilight Saga and mentioning that M wrote it in this continuity.
- Vampires describing Shelby as "food"… in front of Shelby, who doesn't take kindly to being talked about like that.
- Referring to vampires transforming into bats as "batting out". Even the vampires start to use this themselves.
- Ren reading something, forgetting he is supposed to be illiterate.
- Fledgling vampires using Scott or his friends' old clothing for their Stage 3 outfits.
- Martyn accidentally triggering the "Holy Word" spell, often to some nearby sympathetic vampire's annoyance.
Secret Room:
- The Don't'cha Flow looks like an ordinary tavern on the surface, but a trapdoor hidden behind the counter leads to a secret underground room that serves as the Oakhurst militia's headquarters, with them hiding it so that vampires don't overhear their conversations. This tactic would be much more effective if they didn't unknowingly invite a vampire, albeit one with no intent of hurting humans, to be a member.
- Dr Legs builds a secret lab hidden in a cave where he stores emergency food supplies, a secret stash of holy water and bottles of water to run experiments on to help work towards the cure. As he shows the lab to more and more people, its status as a secret diminishes over time… so when the holy water is stolen in Episode 6, the humans have multiple suspects.
Sheltered Aristocrat: Cleo points out that many of the other new arrivals, several of whom claiming to be or are rich, don't really know how to be out in the world and do things like grow crops or build a house. Scott, a former nobleman, says that he used to watch the farmers rather than do the work himself, which Cleo isn't surprised by.
Shout-Out:
- Abolish's butler outfit is heavily inspired by Sebastian Michaelis.
- M apparently wrote The Twilight Saga in this continuity, and the series is brought up a lot regarding the degree of accuracy (or lack thereof) they depict vampires.
- Thanks to the Social Deduction Game premise, several references have been made to Among Us, with Martyn describing Avid being The Cassandra to be him playing "the third Impostor" in Episode 3, and both his and Apo's titles for Episode 4 referencing the game outright.
Significant Wardrobe Shift:
- As the vampires become more powerful and ascend in stages, they tend to change into a new, more ornate set of clothing at Stage 3, indicating their increased acceptance of their new immortal (un)life as a vampire.
  - Owen's outfit in Stage 3 consists of clothes that used to belong to Louis, suggesting how he's still bound to his past and his memory of Louis.
  - Avid ends up changing outfits upon hitting Stage 2 for the first time as opposed to Stage 3 after becoming a Fully-Embraced Fiend in Episode 6, showing how the power rush and bloodlust has affected him.
  - Subverted with Apo, who pointedly remains in the dress she arrived in. It's revealed in Episode 7 that Apo's lover Cherri made her dress for her, and with Apo's motivation being to eventually return home to be with her, her keeping the same outfit reflects a piece of her humanity she holds onto even after becoming a vampire.
- The 2006 Distant Epilogue shows Scott having updated his wardrobe from his Ominous Opera Cape (and other Frozen Fashion Sense items) to something more modern, implying that his last promise of a Heel–Face Turn to Legs has stuck so far, thus doubling as a Good Costume Switch.
Silver Has Mystic Powers: Vampires in Stage 1 are able to hold silver just fine, but they are unable to use it when crafting, supposedly because "such trinkets are beneath [them]". By Stage 2, it becomes outright harmful to them, being able to burn them through clothing and forcing them to drop any silver they may be carrying. Stage 2 vampires are also unable to get close to silver blocks, as shown when the silver Avid places under Shelby's doorstep prevents her inadvertent vampire house-mate Scott from going inside using the front door at the end of Episode 1, and Avid himself being unable to enter Ren's house through the front door in Episode 7 thanks to the silver block he had previously given him.
Simple Solution Won't Work:
- At the start of Episode 3, M and Martyn tell Shelby that their roommate might be a vampire and thus evil. When Shelby asks what they should do, since they'd already invited a vampire into their house, M simply tells them, "Move." However, Episode 4 reveals that an invitation can't be revoked just because someone moved away from their original place of residence, and Shelby's been converted by that point anyway and was just playing along, so the point is moot.
- In Episode 7, when Apo turns against the castle vampires, Avid brings up the possibility of trapping Apo's room with silver or using the classic "four iron/silver doors around a pressure plate" trap against her, wondering why nobody thought of it before. Owen and Scott promptly remind him that vampires can't craft with silver, and at their current power, can't hold silver or even get close to it, so using silver against one of their own would never work.
Sliding Scale of Vampire Friendliness: The vampires seen during the series run up and down the scale:
- Scott relishes in the fear he struck into humans during his glory days and resents not having that same power anymore, but remains friendly and approachable due to his confidence that nobody can defeat him. He's also the one of the two starter vampires to find that Love Redeems and becomes a little more empathetic as the series goes on.
- Owen is bitter due to centuries of isolation and is vengeful towards humans for murdering his love interest Louis, eventually finding himself Maddened Into Misanthropy. Louis himself is depicted in Owen's retelling as a kindly man whose only known human victim consented to being turned.
- Pyro initially struggles with his Horror Hunger for blood and wants the approval of his sire, but grows to see himself as having become a superior lifeform with the right to do with his prey as he pleases.
- Shelby and Drift fully intend to be Vegetarian Vampires for as long as possible, but prefer to remain with their more unsavory compatriots due to rejection from the humans. Both being among Oakhurst's most well-adjusted and pacifistic residents, they remain essentially unchanged as vampires, as their personality flaws aren't ones that a vampire's heightened emotions can make worse.
- Apo begins as a Pro-Human Transhuman and fully intends to uphold her soldier's duty to protect the humans, but is eventually driven mad by the possibility of being trapped in Oakhurst forever and becomes sullen and hateful towards all sides.
- Cleo loses any restraint on her arrogance after turning, and presents herself as an ally to both Oakhurst and the castle in order to side with whichever team triumphs while also mocking and denigrating both sides at every opportunity.
- Avid initially rejects his vampirism, but the rush of his new power soon leads him to abandon all of his former morals.
Smart People Wear Glasses:
- Dr Legs is a qualified surgeon investigating physical and mental ailments that affect the "common people" and he wears a monocle.
- Discussed. In Episode 1, Ren advises his group to set up a decent shelter for the night, leading them to comment that the reason for such smart advice is because he wears glasses.
Snowballing Threat: The vampire team. The longer the series runs for, the more vampires there are. The more vampires there are, the easier they can have control of all the beacons. The more the beacons the vampires have, the more health the vampires have and the less health the humans have — if the results of converting all the beacons one way are symmetrical, this especially applies if all the beacons are desecrated.
Social Deduction Game: The premise of the SMP, at least at first — the vampires are out to infect the humans of Oakhurst, while the humans are out to hunt down and eliminate the vampires.
Spell Book: Rarer finds in the mausoleums scattered around the server are tomes from "the holy spirits" that can give powers to those who "absorb the ancient knowledge" contained therein, and they offer a wide variety of benefits. Due to their divine source, they cannot be used by vampires; any vampires who had used a tome before they were turned would have their tome returned to them by the time they hit Stage 2.
- Some tomes provide multipurpose buffs or passives, such as the "Way of the Land/Prospector/Lumberjack" (passive drop rate increases to farming, mining, and harvesting wood, respectively), "Enlightened Eyes" (a few minutes of night vision), "Turn Undead" (which makes undead mobs ignore you for a time), "Uncanny Direction" (always know how far you are from Oakhurst itself), and "Blessing" (create Holy Water once a day).
- Other tomes are best saved for a straight fight, like "Holy Word" (which temporarily stuns vampires of Stage 2 or higher but grants them invulnerability while frozen), "Shoulder Barge" (a rush that inflicts knockback and slowness on the target), "Unnatural Haste" (which, quite simply, grants a few minutes of Haste, which extends to an increased attack speed), "Prayer of Faith" (which grants Absorption hearts after a minute of motionlessness), "Banish Undead" (kills all undead mobs near you), "Rallying Cry" (which buffs nearby humans with Strength), and "Lantern Thrash" (sets the nearby ground on fire).
Spotting the Thread:
- In Episode 2, Drift confides in Shelby that she's suspicious of Owen because he claimed to have left Oakhurst for around 40 years and inexplicably returned, yet looks younger than 40. She's correct in that Owen is not the age he claims to be… much older, in fact.
- At the start of Episode 3, Owen lies to the townsfolk in a town meeting about his past, claiming that the rise of the Vampire Hunter division of the church sparked persecutions and a war that led to many innocents dying and the castle burning down. After the meeting, Cleo points out how there aren't any remains in the castle that indicated any signs of that happening, with Martyn adding that stone isn't exactly flammable. This prompts an investigation of the castle itself.
- In Episode 3, Abolish notices multiple suspicious behaviours from Cleo, including her killing cattle alongside confirmed vampire Owen while saying "I don't care, I'm hungry", being reluctant to stand near Sausage's "Rallying Cry" spell (which doesn't work on vampires) and her calling for everyone to craft silver blocks but not doing any of the crafting herself (since vampires cannot craft with silver). These make him suspect that Cleo is a vampire, and sure enough, she was turned earlier that episode.
Supernatural Repellent: There are various items which can help repel vampires, most notably holy magic and silver — which they are unable to craft with, and burns them at more powerful stages.
Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: In Episode 3, Martyn gets pushed off the castle's bridge and winds up falling a great height and crashing into the river, where Apo would find him and bring him back to Oakhurst. Normally in Minecraft, falls like this don't have any lasting consequences, but here, Martyn suffers from more realistic aftereffects, including a large scar on his leg, a limp and being weakened overall (represented by him permanently losing one heart of health) starting in Episode 4. Downplayed in Episode 7, however, as Legs' "Stop the Bleeding" spell restores an extra heart of health to Martyn again.
Symbolic Distance: At the end of Episode 5 and the start of Episode 6, Apo places herself at the end of the vampires' table in the castle, not even on one of the chairs unlike the other vampires, representing her not being on their side due to being a Double Agent for Oakhurst. After Apo abandons her former Pro-Human Transhuman status and decides the humans need to die so she might be able to leave Oakhurst and go home to her partner, she is seen sitting on one of the chairs besides the vampires at the table at the end of Episode 6, representing how she is Becoming the Mask and working alongside the castle coven vampires now.
Teen Pregnancy: Discussed extra-canonically, with Cleo and her Code of Honor considering "a fledgling siring another fledgling" to be akin to teen parenthood and thus shameful. This is a major part of why Cleo dislikes her sire, Pyro, as much as she does and takes it upon herself to mentor other fledglings like Drift.
Teleportation: From Stage 2 onwards, vampires have the ability to use "Shadow Travel" to teleport directly to desecrated beacons.
Together in Death: Subverted for Owen in Episode 8. After allowing Abolish to cure him and choosing true death, Owen gets to see Louis again waiting at the gates of heaven… and Louis can only watch with a mix of disappointment and pity as Owen is Dragged Off to Hell.
Town with a Dark Secret: The secluded, ruined town of Oakhurst is renowned for its history of mysteries that much of the cast speculate on throughout the series. According to Pyro, a scholar investigating Oakhurst, the town was founded a thousand years before the start of the SMP, but its population follows a strange pattern — presumably of migrations and deaths — that he initially dismisses. M, a writer who specializes in the supernatural, also brings up how a massacre happens every couple hundred years in the town — a claim backed up by Owen, who used to live in Oakhurst. The truth is, the town is somewhat of a vampire haunt — with at least three vampires having resided around there historically (and two of whom being still alive by the time of the SMP) — and Owen was the one who caused the last massacre 200 years ago.
Tranquil Fury:
- While Scott doesn't outwardly react to Avid's death in Episode 7, his episode has static overlaying the audio of the scene, and he ends his episode swearing vengeance without so much as raising his voice. It helps that his usual apathetic nature disguises his rage so well that Pyro and Owen don't suspect a thing.
- Likewise, in Episode 8, after spending the end of the previous episode grieving Avid, Shelby privately confronts Pyro about his role in Avid's murder, and when Pyro's response is to boast about it, she calmly rebukes him… before delivering a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown that leaves him begging for mercy — something that she does not grant.
  Pyro: […] Is that clear enough to you now, Shelby?
  Shelby: Oh, it's very clear. The only liability here, the only weakness, is you. (starts attacking Pyro)
Turning Back Human: Being a series focused on vampires, this idea comes up a lot.
- First discussed in Episode 2, with Pyro considering speaking to Dr Legs about finding or developing a cure for vampirism.
- Avid and his partner devoted the previous 5–6 years before the start of the series to finding and developing cures for monsters, and the bite that would ultimately claim her was the result of her trying to bring a vampire back from the surroundings of Oakhurst for testing. Avid notes that vampirism is a particularly difficult thing to cure.
- Episode 4 confirms that a cure for vampirism is possible, with two of the three known steps involving dousing the vampire with or having them consume Holy Water and killing whoever sired them. In Episode 6, the third and final step is revealed: the "seeker" must speak a certain phrase in the presence of a consecrated beacon.
- Episode 7 reveals another, more direct method of curing vampires in "The Retribution", which just involves speaking a certain phrase, but doesn't give vampires a choice in being cured. Or rather, it leaves the vampire with the choice of "forced redemption" or death, with Owen, the only known vampire to be subjected to this spell, choosing the latter.
- Since it's discovered that former vampires who turn back human are able to leave Oakhurst freely, the mechanism is invoked at the end of Episode 8 as the crux of the humans and vampires' Cooperation Gambit so that everyone can go home with minimal casualties: a designated vampiric sire would convert all but one of the remaining humans, then the last unconverted human turn everyone human again, before said last unconverted human is permanently converted. The plan technically succeeds, albeit with some large hiccups: Martyn dies as a result of unforeseen health complications (as he had been accidentally enthralled by Apo in Episode 3 and thus couldn't physically take a second "sire"); Ren assumes Martyn's Accidental Murder is a result of foul play and has to be put down for refusing to cooperate. Abolish is the only successful townsfolk to successfully undergo this process.
Undeathly Pallor: Vampires in later stages are shown to have much paler skin than humans to demonstrate their undeath.
Underestimating Badassery:
- The vampires spend the first two episodes essentially ignoring the beacons and doing nothing to stop the humans from consecrating them, as they only appear to provide the humans with some bonus hearts. When the entire set is consecrated near the end of Episode 2, they turn out to inflict a near-fatal debuff on all vampires if this happens. Scott's rush to desecrate one in order to undo this causes him to be caught doing so, and not only that, the server-wide message when a beacon is desecrated confirms to most of the remaining players that vampires really do exist, taking away the biggest advantage the vampires possessed. The vampires learn from this mistake and spend much of Episode 3 desecrating as many beacons as possible.
- Abolish goes beneath notice for most of the series due to being quiet in social situations and not getting involved in any of the major server events throughout the first half, leading the vampires to believe that Pearl is the best fighter among the humans. However, when Abolish finally takes the battlefield, he proves incredibly dangerous and employs nearly inescapable tactics to trap and kill vampires. By Episode 7, the vampires start to notice that something's terribly wrong, and nobody should be this skilled at fighting creatures they didn't even know existed until a few days ago, and he quickly cements himself as The Dreaded for the vampires. Unlike Avid, who had never actually seen a vampire before arriving in Oakhurst, Abolish is a real Vampire Hunter.
Unholy Ground: Oakhurst, natch. It's a desolate landscape with a history peppered by horrible atrocities. And, of course, there's the vampires.
Unreliable Narrator: Due to each video being prerecorded, many of the characters edit the view of conversations to skew them in accordance with their character's worldview, such as Cleo's perspective of Episode 6 cutting out many of the lies she tells Pearl that can be seen in the latter's video.
Vampire Hickey: Vampire bites tend to be shown as two small, neat puncture marks, such as Owen's neck as seen in his 2nd episode's thumbnail, or Avid's partner's hand in his backstory animatic. Though it turns out the latter isn't from a vampire bite.
Vampire Hunter:
- After Avid was forced to kill his partner who had been bitten by (what he had assumed to be) a vampire, he turned to hunting and killing vampires to avenge her. This turns out to be a massive case of Misplaced Retribution on his part.
- Established in Episode 4, the Oakhurst militia consists of the more aggressive townsfolk, aiming to both consecrate all the beacons and either cure or kill all the vampires. Shame one of the co-founders of the militia is a vampire herself (albeit of Pro-Human Transhuman variety)…
- Episode 7 reveals that Abolish is part of a shadow organization that helps "good" vampires and kills "bad" vampires who are a threat to humanity.
Vampire Procreation Limit: According to Scott in Episode 4, "No one is born a vampire," suggesting that vampires are unable to have children — or at least vampiric children — once they get turned.
Vampires Are Rich: Zig-zagged. Vampires run the gamut of the socioeconomic spectrum, with Scott starting out as a manor lord (admittedly, one whose fortune fell into ruin over the centuries while he was asleep) and Owen being a working-class lumberjack, to begin with. How wealthy a vampire is seems to depend on how much money they had before they were turned. That said, by the time of the SMP, all of the vampires are generally on the same page when it comes to resources in Oakhurst.
Vampires Hate Garlic: In Episode 1, when Avid offers garlic to Shelby, Scott and Owen to help them ward off vampires in the night, the latter two refuse to take it, claiming garlic won't help against the proven threats such as zombies. Of course, Scott and Owen are the starter two vampires, so that might be why they refused garlic. Garlic does not appear to harm vampires if they touch it, but they do find it repulsive, gaining the Nausea effect if they consume any at Stage 1. On the other hand, humans consuming raw garlic allows them to become temporarily immune to vampire bites once it integrates into their bodily systems, instead causing them to die naturally. Both Shelby and M mourn the fact that they'll never be able to eat garlic bread again.
The garlic should have made its way into your system by now… You feel protected by the creatures of the night, should such things even exist.
Immunity will last for 4–6 minutes.
Vampires Sleep in Coffins: Zig-zagged. Shelby is under the impression that the crypt underneath Scott's castle is the vampires' main bedchambers, despite Scott having only "slept" there under a Forced Sleep for the past six centuries. This doesn't dissuade her from happily picking out rooms for herself and the other fledglings, though.
Vampire Vannabe:
- Scott's vampirism sales pitch in Episode 5 really got to M, as in the next episode, he is fully prepared to allow himself to get turned in order to become as powerful and good-looking as Scott described, going out of his way to put himself in situations he thinks will end in him becoming a vampire. For one, at the start of the episode, M shows up at the vampires' castle and declares his allegiance to Scott… who is extremely confused by this, with him and Drift agreeing that M might be trying a bit too hard to be converted. When he is accidentally converted in Episode 7, he's positively delighted.
  M: I'm gonna get my blood sucked today if it was the last thing I do!
- An unusual case occurs with Legs, who spends much of the middle of the series pretending that he was already converted, in an effort to both protect the Oakhurst-allied vampires by displaying solidarity and obscure how much access to Holy Water^note the townsfolk have. Unfortunately, the vampires never buy the ruse and the rest of the humans quickly figure out Legs is lying.
Vampiric Draining: Vampires can feed on humans by crouching for 10 seconds next to them. This process drains the victim's health and hunger bars in-game, while refilling the vampire's hunger or experience bar.
Van Helsing Hate Crimes: The vampiric faction highlight how the humans — or at least, the most extremist of the lot — are willing to persecute and ostracize them even if they had done no harm to the humans, leading to Then Let Me Be Evil.
Vegetarian Vampire: Technically speaking, vampires are able to subsist themselves on animal blood and raw meat without ever harming a human, but it's nowhere near as filling — Owen considers this practice "unclean" and Scott compares the difference between animal and human blood to a salad vs. a wagyu steak. So far, Shelby^note, Apo, and Drift are the only known vampires to have taken this path. Vampires also have a difficult time sustaining this method due to being unable to breed animals past Stage 1, meaning they often need a human to repopulate the animals for them or rely on the comparatively rare wild spawns.
Vibrant Orange: Since consecrated beacons glow a bright, golden orange, M chooses orange as the base colour of the banners of Oakhurst — fittingly a colour associated with warmth and life, when vampirism is associated with the cold. However, the negative connotations of the colour are shown just as prominently, with M's own Plucky Comic Relief status juxtaposed against the more aggressive townsfolk taking obnoxiousness and even Knight Templar levels of anti-vampirism dogma to a whole new level.
Villains Out Shopping: For a given measure of "villain". The vampires work collectively on rebuilding Scott's castle, and naturally still require food to survive, so they will go out to hunt mobs and collect resources just as humans do. Cleo even remarks in Episode 4 that it's nice to know vampires still need wood after seeing Pyro chop a tree.
Voluntary Vampire Victim: Although some of the vampires weren't turned with their consent or even by complete accident, others knew what they were getting into when they signed up for vampirism (or being a human blood bank).
- Scott is very vocal about having chosen to become a vampire and wouldn't turn back to humanity again even if he had the option. By invokedWord of God, he was born into wealth and met a sketchy man in town who promised him eternal strength and power in exchange for money, and he happily paid up.
- Owen accepted Louis' offer to be turned into a vampire, partially because his health condition wouldn't affect him in undeath and partially because of his already affectionate relationship with Louis.
- Downplayed for Apo in Episode 3. After they decide not to uphold their end of their deal with the vampires, they confront Scott alone, and after failing to kill him and hearing him talk about being a vampire, they decide to be turned so nobody else has to suffer the same fate. Technically, they did consent to being turned, but it's hard to say they were that enthusiastic about it, given the circumstances. This goes on to be a major point of contention in the series, and Shelby does call Owen out on the coercion aspect of the "deal" in Episode 5, pointing out how a Sadistic Choice like this hardly counts as consensual.
- In Episode 4, Legs lets Owen feed on him to demonstrate his sincerity in wanting to help the vampires.
- Episode 5:
  - When Scott offers a sales pitch for vampirism to the townsfolk, M says that he's convinced and offers to be bitten, only for Avid and Martyn to run forward and shove him away. Once he wisens up a little later in the episode, M also offers to be a blood bank for Apo if it means she's not going to go insane from the Horror Hunger.
  - Ironically, Avid would be the one to secretly seek out Shelby to be converted in an attempt to cure a childhood Wound That Will Not Heal. Shelby makes sure to warn him of the risks before reluctantly going through with it.
- In Episode 7, Apo decides to turn M on the condition that he'd kill Scott for her — an offer that he's more than happy to accept, before scamming her out of the payment.
- Episode 8:
  - After much miscommunication in the past episodes, Martyn allows himself to act as a temporary blood bank to help Apo recover from a fight. Likewise, Pearl lets M try her blood to satiate his curiosity at what it tastes like.
  - At the end of the episode, as part of the ceasefire and compromise between the vampires and the humans, all remaining townsfolk will be (in all but one case) temporarily converted before Turning Back Human so that everyone can leave Oakhurst. Unfortunately, out of the four remaining townsfolk, only Abolish (temporarily) and Pearl (permanently) are voluntarily converted; Martyn is willing, but unforeseen complications result in his Accidental Murder, whereas Ren refuses in a fit of vengefulness as a result and is Killed Off for Real without being converted at all.
- Beyond the events of the SMP, Cleo's original coven invokes this by requiring all conversions to be approved beforehand, with their Code of Honor outright saying that a sire should only convert those they "can stand" as opposed to out of pity, carelessness, or fear; otherwise, both sire and fledgling would be killed.
The War Room: The Oakhurst militia builds one underneath the Don't'cha Flow Tavern as a secret base of operations.
Weakened by the Light: From Stage 2 onwards, the sun starts to irritate vampires, apparently burning their skins off. In-game, however, this doesn't have any physical effects on them other than periodically producing a sizzling sound effect and the Sun Weakness status debuff.
Weather Manipulation: Stage 3 vampires gain the ability to use the "Call of the Storm" to summon rain for 10 minutes, which helps them be out in the daytime without the sun burning their skin. However, this ability can only be used by one vampire at a time.
Wham Shot:
- Episode 4 introduces two books, "The Remedy" and "The Cure" (these being part of a trilogy), into the tombs' loot pool, outright confirming the possibility that vampirism can be cured. Those who are shown to uncover these tomes are appropriately shocked.
- Episode 6 has the final cure tome, "The Absolution", finally show up… and it requires a phrase to be spoken in the presence of "a beacon of holy light". And any vampire that gets cured can never be converted back again.
- In Episode 7, a fourth cure book, "The Retribution", is discovered, and it is quite unlike the trilogy from the holy spirits. It's from "a vengeful hand" who believes the spirits are too "lenient" and "soft", and has made up their own chant… that will forcefully cure a vampire or kill them permanently.
What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In Episode 4, when Cleo encounters a wandering trader, she decides to attack and kill it for blood, saying that "they're not really human". Inversely, in Episode 5, Scott considers pillagers human, and has no qualms killing them for their blood. Both mobs have a humanoid design.
What You Are in the Dark: Discussed, as both Pyro and Scott express the belief that becoming a vampire brings out the most primal part of someone or parts of themself that they would otherwise suppress.
Pyro: Vampirism brings out the deepest, darkest depths of one's soul. Whatever we bury and whatever we dredge up in our last moments of life, that still remains when we are brought into this new form, that's what comes with it.
Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The series is demonstrably set in a rough equivalent of the real world, as the Distant Epilogue takes place in the very real New York City, but Oakhurst's exact location is never cleared up. The Scottish Scott and English Owen both being locals suggests somewhere in northern Great Britain, but the presence of characters like Jack von Pyroscythe (who has an Australian accent, an ambigously central European name, and claims to be from "The Capitol") keeps the waters muddy.
White and Red and Eerie All Over: Vampires at their strongest in Stage 3 have white and red in their colour scheme on account of their Mystical White Hair and red eyes, combined with their outfits generally having those same colours (alongside black), which is used to highlight how different they are from humans and how intimidating they can be at full power.
Wicked Cultured: For a given definition of "evil". Upon visiting the vampires' ballroom for the first time in Episode 8, Martyn is very impressed by the fancy architecture and comments how for all the vampires are "bad guys", they have good taste.
Wooden Stake: Wooden stakes are a craftable item in the series, and Avid, speaking from his own personal experience, says they can kill a vampire for good. Later episodes clarify that Stage 3 vampires are "immune" to being staked in that they won't die for good if killed by one, but those on Stages 1–2 aren't.
You Can't Go Home Again: The Invisible Wall around Oakhurst and the surrounding area keeps the townsfolk stuck there, unable to return to their homes (at least for the time being). Pyro laments that being trapped means they can't properly fulfill their dream of being a researcher. The prospect of being trapped in Oakhurst also unnerves Apo enough that she resorts to Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and setting aside her moral compass as a former Pro-Human Transhuman so that she might be able to go home to her lover.
You Can't Kill What's Already Dead: Vampires are nearly indestructible and regenerate from any "fatal" wounds very quickly. To kill them for good, you have to kill them at least once in that session, then deliver the final blow with a stake.
Your Vampires Suck: Shelby tells Drift and Avid in Episode 6 that the vampiric experience is far better than any of the books she's read, and she is met with agreement.

We are fine even though we just might cross the line
We are fine even though we just might cross the line
We are fine even though we just might cross the line
Something's not right…!

Vampires SMP

10 Following

The tropes are red and the page is bleeding!

Previous

Index

Next

Web Video / Vampires SMP 10 Following

The tropes are red and the page is bleeding!

Previous

Index

Next

Vampires SMP

10 Following