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Asking for a friend (aussie.zone)
submitted 1 day ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[-] [email protected] 36 points 1 day ago

As always, it depends on the writer/DM

Assuming standard vampire mythology though, a warrant isn't an invitation to enter, it's permission for someone to enter against your will, with the backing of the government.

So, on a "magical" level, it wouldn't meet the criteria because the origin of that limitation isn't about a legal standing. It's about the space being lived in, and the construction of the space giving boundaries that can be/are present in a non physical way.

Foundations, doorways, windows, they all have a degree of "mystical" presence beyond their physical purpose, within this context but also in general. There's some beliefs out there about how a foundation has to be laid to make a space a proper limitation. It's akin to sanctified ground in a way.

And, depending on what stuff you dig into reading about this stuff, once that boundary is in place, the actual building/home could be destroyed, and the boundary can remain, a kind of ghost wall that can't be seen, but still has presence on a spiritual level.

With all of that in mind, the vampire would be unable to cross the threshold no matter what government agent said they could, unless that government could be said to be the owner. However, most of the mythology on this kind of stuff, ownership is irrelevant. What matters is who lives there, so even that might not work.

[-] [email protected] 14 points 1 day ago

There's an Adventure Time episode wherein a vampire won't enter a "house" - not because they can't, but because they believe it would be impolite.

This is reminiscent of that.

[-] [email protected] 4 points 8 hours ago

Ye and in Castlevania they explain that the sign of the cross works because vampires are an evolved predator species so putting a weird geometric shape in their face makes them confused and have a panic attack because they can't fathom it. So the cross works on hindu vampires too

[-] [email protected] 2 points 7 hours ago

Supposedly, the reason they don't show up in mirrors is that mirrors used to be backed by silver and silver is elementally "pure."

Your geometric theorem reminds me of vampires having to count grains of sand. Maybe vampires are just giant nerds.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

No self respecting vampire would do otherwise.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 23 hours ago

What if a house or the minimal requirements for the border was built overnight surrounding the vampire? Would they be able to leave? I assume it would be a distinction between whether it's the border or crossing of the border itself or if it's the whole house? Though invites could be rescinded and they get pushed out, right? So then it must be the whole house.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago

OP is the correct answer. The reason vampires can't enter homes is because of the positive mental energy built up around the house as a threshold. Giving consent to a vampire to enter is allowing them a pocket through the threshold. Said threshold is built up through regular living. A family home with a stay at home mom and three kids will have a stronger threshold than an apartment lived in by a two-job worker. Some stronger vampires can break through weaker thresholds (depending on source). There are multiple supernatural beings that this threshold can (supposedly) stop, not just vampires. So just because someone else tells them they have legal permission to enter a home doesn't mean they'll be able. It's magic, not legality.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 17 hours ago

Leaving shouldn't be a problem. It's the sanctity of "home" that prevents them from going in without the invitation. Those boundaries are meant to keep bad out, not in. That even applies to some of the rituals and prayers used to bless a home in general. They're usually phrased to bring good, and bar bad.

Then there's also the fact that if you build around the vampire, you've made it part of the home, they no longer need an invite because they belong.

Back in the older myths, there's no mentions of rescinding an invitation at all that I ever ran across. That's a very modern concept. I'm not certain where it started tbh, it's been years since I was deep diving vampire stuff, and I wasn't particularly paying attention to when things came around as much as the various myths existing. I was into it out of a combination of personal interest and gathering ideas for world building.

I wanna say that the idea of a rescinded invitation expelling the vampire was brought into common thought in the movies, but I'm damned if I can remember for sure. Nor where it showed up first. My memory says it was somewhere in the eighties horror boom, but that might have been preceded by literary invention

Now, if I was writing vampires that had to be invited in, I like the idea of the "magic" of home being powerful enough to physically expel them. But I tend to like to base my magical effects on something historic (No matter how loosely applied) when I can, and I'd likely use the basis of the foundation of the home being the seat of the magic. So I still wouldn't apply the effect to a foundation built around them. They'd be safe inside the boundary until they left.

At most, I would have them feel uncomfortable there. Reason being for that much that the "life" of the home would be rejecting them. That's a concept I've played with a little as a DM/GM before.

[-] [email protected] 22 points 1 day ago

Nope - the warrant gives them a legal right to be there, with or without your consent, but is absolutely not an invitation.

[-] [email protected] 6 points 23 hours ago

They may be able to go in to perform police duties. Vampiric activities must be kept to a minimum.

[-] [email protected] 18 points 1 day ago

No, as a vampire still needs to be invited into the home. A judge can make the sun assaulting officers with death rays illegal but theres nothing they can change about nature.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I disagree. The most governments can straight up kick you out of your home, so it seems to me the cosmic laws of the universe that govern whether a vampire has been invited in would recognize the warrant as an invitation by the judge into the home.

[-] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

So in essence, all a Vampire would need is someone with the authority to let them into anyone's home. I wonder how one would define that authority?

Ooh, what if the judge is the Vampire!

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Under this philosophy; citizens residing within states that have the castle doctrine would legally be protected from vampires while in their motor vehicles?

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

What is a castle doctrine?

[-] [email protected] 0 points 1 day ago

Motor vehicles? Castle doctrine is about overriding the usual limitations (around what's reasonable use of force) on the right to self defence if you're in your home. Cars don't come into it.

Some places also extend the same protections that castle law provides to your home to your car, but that's separate from castle doctrine itself.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

I didn't realize the car bit was separate, I assumed it was the difference between stand your ground and castle doctrine.

[-] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah true "stand your ground" is anywhere, or at least anywhere public. Not sure if it applies in private spaces that aren't your own.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

But couldn't the law be written so that a warrant once seen by the home owner must legally be considered a mandatory invitation, making the cop legally allowed to enter the home?

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

A, this is why magic isn’t real

B, the law can say whatever the fuck it wants it still can’t bend reality. More likely and much simpler, the vampire cop brings a non vampire friend who beats you until you “willingly” invite them both in and they plant drugs all throughout your house.

[-] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago

A, this is why magic isn’t real

I don't think the question is about magic vs reality, we're talking vampires here, right?, but to know how if vampires were a thing, it would be possible (or not) for a vampire cop to enter a house without being invited by the home owner, even with a warrant.

B, the law can say whatever the fuck it wants it still can’t bend reality.

The law doesn't need to bend any reality, it never does. Law is not about scientific laws, it's about human behavior. At least modern laws as some older ones may have tried, and maybe some particularly stupid modern ones too, but their ability to bend said reality to their will is still to be demonstrated :p

The law is a contract, with a sanction of some sort when it is broken. Be it to pay a fine, or to be prevented to do certain activities in the future, or be forced to do some other ones, or to go to jail. Up to the death penalty, in some places.

The law is about making the citizens bent to its will, not the reality.

That will is, in theory at least, is the expression of the common will, also known as the agreed upon desire of all the citizens. Citizens don't define laws of physics (which would deal with 'reality') and no matter how hard they may want, the also can't alter them.

Speed limit is not about enforcing a certain speed over which the laws of physics would suddenly (and magically) crumble. It’s about punishing people not respecting that agreed upon speed limit. That’s also why it’s very possible to have different speed limits in different places. Physics doesn't change, our expectations do.

We will drive faster on a highway than, say, next to a school despite the car being the same, with the same driver and with the same laws of physics applying, why? The place is different and also how we are expected to behave in such a place which, near a school, should obviously be to slow down so we the drivers (aka old/adults enough to have our driving license and act responsibly) can compensate for kids being… kids, aka not always being attentive to what’s going on around them, or being silly.

A warrant, for example has nothing to do with giving its carrier some magical power to enter a place (say by moving through a closed door or through walls, or by teleporting there) but it has all to do with punishing the owner of the place for not letting the warrant carrier enter their house, even if they don’t want to.

So, all I was saying is that in that ‘fantasy’ world where vampire cops would be a thing, the law may as well be written so it makes it a ‘mandatory welcoming' for the home owner to let in the vampire-cop, any refusal to comply to said 'forced invitation to enter' being sanctioned by a more or less severe punishment… Which, btw, is not far from what a warrant is supposed to be doing in our (this time, real) world ;)

[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

just because they legally have to doesn't mean they physically have to though they could still not invite you in

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Invited in by who though? You might say the owner, but then that means that kids or tenants don't count. So it might be "anyone with authority to do so", which would include judges following the prescribed process...

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

It could also just be "anyone lawfully inside already", which would allow the owner, kids, tenants, or even guests, but not a judge.

[-] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago

I meant: the warrant would equal an invitation to enter one's home, an invitation decided by the judge to which, as a law abiding citizen, the place owner would be forced to comply with.

this post was submitted on 27 Jun 2025
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