Vampires · Era II, The Mikaelsons
What Nature Charged
The counterweights that arrived with vampirism: burning in sunlight, no entry to a home without an invitation, vervain, wood through the heart, and every emotion amplified into something close to unbearable. Witches patched the first with daylight rings. Nothing patches the last.
Details
- The humanity switch — shutting emotion off entirely — is the flip side of that amplification, and the reason otherwise sympathetic characters commit massacres on a semi-regular schedule.
- Vervain blocks compulsion and burns on contact. Half the town drinks it in their coffee.
- A vampire in transition has 24 hours: feed on human blood or die.
- Daylight rings are spelled by a witch and keyed to one wearer. Remove it in sunlight and the vampire burns within seconds.
- Vervain in the bloodstream blocks compulsion entirely. The town's water supply is dosed at various points, which is a running quiet arms race.
- A vampire's emotions do not just intensify, they overwhelm judgement. This is why the show's most sympathetic characters have three-figure body counts.
- Turning off humanity is reversible, but the memories are not. Everyone who does it has to live afterwards with what they did while it was off.