Vampires in Enchantia are unique: they follow the classic vampire rules such as aversion to sunlight, vulnerability to ash, bloodlust, immortality, and dark powers. However, their society is different. Instead of elegant nobles living in gothic mansions, Enchantia’s vampires are circus nomads who run medieval horror fairs, with gothic-themed circus tents, booths featuring horror-themed games with cursed prizes, others selling food with “special ingredients”: from cotton candy and blood-flavored ice cream to fried corpse larvae disguised as fries, hamburgers, and hot dogs with meat… best not to know what exactly. There are horror rides with a decayed, damaged, and precarious appearance that somehow run perfectly. Most of the vampires themselves are medieval horror jesters, with creepy makeup and costumes, and their games and jokes revolve around macabre themes; more than making people laugh, their goal is to unsettle. Other circus members are horror-themed acrobats, and their animals are deformed monstrosities, some of which were once civilized inhabitants of other factions, and even normal humans kidnapped directly from the normal realm. Each circus is led by a “Circus Director,” who is the strongest alpha vampire.
It is not exactly known what the vampires of Enchantia truly want. They don’t seem interested in global domination or power, nor are they aligned with anyone. Their only known goal is to spread fear, madness, throw society into chaos, and corrupt the weak. Why? Apparently, they do it for their own personal amusement.
Their terror fairs seem to appear out of nowhere, hidden in forests or among rocks and mountains, invisible to the eyes of cities and inhabited places, but not too well hidden so that travelers and adventurers can find them. They lure new victims with magical posters visible only to weak minds. Their circuses must possess some memetic property that influences ordinary people. The people of Enchantia are well aware of the vampires' presence and the danger they pose, and children are taught from kindergarten to stay away from clowns and the circus. Yet even adults, who are the first to warn children, when personally involved with their malevolent fairs, seem to almost forget the existence of vampires and fail to notice the threat—at least not immediately.
The vampires lure their victims into the circus, where they keep them occupied with horror-themed entertainment; meanwhile, the victims are isolated from each other to be terrorized more intensely and traumatically or to be kidnapped. Some victims return home with health problems (including lycanthropy) due to the “cursed food sold at the circus.” They also come back with cursed souvenirs, forgetting their experience or even that they possess such items; some are found wandering the woods, completely insane and delirious. Other visitors never return home: they become food for the vampires (and possibly for other visitors), new vampires, or monstrosities for the circus. This is how they reproduce, or they even become new cursed souvenirs for the prize games (if you think that doll you won at a game is alive, staring at you and seeming to beg for help… maybe it really is). No faction or race is immune or safe from them, not even the humans of the normal world. It is a mystery how they acquired the knowledge necessary to travel freely between the various worlds. Only high-level and powerful individuals can resist the powers of the circus; these are gathered into “vampire hunter” teams to eliminate the problem drastically.
Oh, the vampires also invented the curse of lycanthropy. In Enchantia, lycanthropy is a curse, or rather, a supernatural disease. It works like classic lycanthropy: during full moon nights, it transforms the infected into a more feral, monstrous, and aggressive version of themselves. Fortunately, a cure exists.
Their dark God and Creator is Kaahs. No one knows his true form, and those who have seen it either died of pure terror or went completely mad. Nevertheless, he is called the “Clown God of Chaos” or the “Infinite Eyes in the Darkness,” creator of vampires and numerous curses, a dark God of Chaos, Fear, and Madness. He is able to foresee the future, manipulate events, and possesses ancient forbidden knowledge. His origin is unknown; there is only an old story about a meteor that fell millennia ago.
The idea of medieval horror circus clown vampires was inspired by the Harlequins from Warhammer 40K, but only for aesthetic reasons. The actual Harlequins’ lore is much more complex than just Eldar horror clowns. Perhaps in future updates to my lore, the vampires will have a more developed backstory; there’s always time to update or rewrite the lore.