/lit/ - Literature

>>14923615
Hey, in a lot of fantasy settings, vampirism, lycanthropy, and similar states of beings are depicted as basically viral curses. If that's the case in your setting, did you have a historical "patient zero", the first person to "contract" the curse and start infecting others with it, or did the condition arise separately on multiple occasions, which could accounts for different independent variations/"strains", like with Prometheans? Is there any way to "vaccinate" someone against the curses, or even cure them? What about having both curses at once?

On a similar note, if vampirism is infectious in your setting, what keeps vampire numbers from growing exponentially? I've always liked the idea that you have to be fed vampire blood instead of just needing to be bitten, or something similar. Also, are vampires "alive" enough to have children normally?