Fangtastic Friday -The Dhampir

Hello, everyone, and welcome to another awesome installment of Fangtastic Friday! This meme was started by my wonderful friend, Beth Ann Masarik, where we get to talk about every vampire - from books and movies to personal experiences (as showcased in last week's post about LARP). This week, I'm going to talk about the Dhampir.

According to Balkan legend (as cited in Wikipedia), a dhampir is the child of a vampire father and a human mother. This child has similarities to its vampire father though without the weaknesses. They are also supposed to be adept at detecting vampires. Some myths say the dhampir is so ashamed of what it is that it hunts its vampire parent. Its naturally enhanced abilities and detection make it the perfect vampire slayer.

Some dhampirs you may know about include...

(Because I like the way it's worded in Wikipedia, here ya go): According to Richelle Mead's series The Vampire Academy, dhampirs were also made by Moroi men and dhampir women. They inherited the Moroi's strength and speed along with their improved senses. Dhampirs also inherited the ability to stay in the sun for longer from their human ancestors. Dhampirs either grow up in a blood whore town (a town where dhampir women give blood to Moroi men), or in an Academy. In these Academies', they learn how to defend Moroi and how to kill Strigoi. They get a promise mark once they graduate and then they get assigned to a Moroi. But there are also some Dhampirs who go hunt Strigoi on their own or who you can hire to protect you. These Dhampirs aren't assigned to a Moroi.

In the BLADE movies, Wesley Snipes plays a human-vampire hybrid who protects humans from vampires. From the vampire bite his mother received just before giving birth to him, Blade received generative healing abilities, superhuman strength and speed, the enhanced senses of vampires and bloodlust. Blade is able to suppress his bloodlust by being injected with a garlic essence infusion.


I have seen all three movies and know a little about the comic book that started it all. I also know there have been several versions of a game made for this series.

Vampire Hunter D. I'll admit I don't know much about this anime series, except that the D stands for Dhampir. I also know this series of novels has spawned movies (which I have actually seen one of), manga, and action figures. So once again, here is what Wikipedia has to say about it... 
D is a dhampir, the half-breed child of a vampire father and human mother, the ideal vampire hunter. He is renowned for his consummate skill and unearthly grace, but feared and despised for his mixed lineage: born of both races but belonging to neither. Often underestimated by his opponents, D possesses surprising power and resourcefulness, having most of the strengths of the Nobility and only mild levels of their common weaknesses. It has been seen in both movies that his power is not only physical, but extends into the magical realm as well. His supernatural powers make him one of the strongest beings in the world, if not the second strongest second only to his father. However, D prefers his physical abilities, only using his magic in times of great need. Unlike most dhampirs, D is able to live as a "normal" human; however, he is marked by his unearthly beauty and exceptionally powerful aura, and thus rarely accepted by human settlements. In terms of weaknesses, he is randomly susceptible to sun-sickness, a severe type of sunstroke, about once every five years (far less than most dhampirs). D also recovers from it at a rate far greater than other dhampirs. Usually it takes several days to recover from sunlight syndrome, longer if the dhampir is exceedingly powerful, but D recovered in a few hours (around 1-6 hours approximately) despite being one of the strongest if not the strongest dhampir alive. Otherwise, D does not appear to suffer from other vampiric weaknesses usual to dhampirs, being able to physically restrain opponents with his aura and having godlike reflexes surpassing even those of Nobles.


So, that's all I have to say about Dhampirs. Do you know of any I've not mentioned? Do you think dhampirs make the ideal vampire hunters? What if the dhampir lived with its vampire parent?


Happy Friday, everyone!
EM