One thing I've always loved about vampire stories is that there are no hard rules. Vampires can be whatever the author wants them to be as long as they're internally consistent within the story. This makes them extremely versatile monsters that can be constantly re-invented and none of them are "wrong".
For example, sometimes all it takes to turn into a vampire is to be bitten by one. And sometimes you have to drink the vampire's blood to turn. Or, sometimes a vampire can just drain your energy without transferring any blood at all.
Of course, the rules can also get a bit ridiculous. Maybe the vampire is required to obsessively count grains of rice first. Or maybe they're required to hop around with their arms out (the chinese Jiangshi). Maybe they can turn into a wolf, a bat, or... fog.
So what's the most ridiculous rule or type of vampire you've come across?
(For the image on this post I wanted the most ridiculous picture of a Jiangshi I could find. I went with a shot from Robo Vampire which has a really fun RiffTrax. The only other Jiangshi I'm aware of is in the NES game Phantom Fighter... because I've never watched any of the Mr. Vampire movies)
The one that never made sense to me was the whole "Unable to cross running water."
So you could trap Dracula with a garden hose?
Also doesn't several Dracula stories have him taking a boat? Hell, a lot of vampire stories in general involve taking a boat
Last Voyage of the Demeter, yeah...
Didn't he bring boxes of dirt from his home to work around the water limitation?
Exactly.
The plot of that is taken directly from Stoker's Dracula.
Yup, and used in Nosferatu too!
Pretty sure they could only cross water if they carried their home soil with them.
Oh that's a good one! How fast does the water need to move to be considered "running"? How wide does it need to be for it to be considered "crossing"? This is like the Gremlins thing about not feeding "after midnight".
The answer is probably "whatever running water I am trying to scare my children from crossing, that's the level of water needed to keep the vampires on the other side."
So you could trap children with a garden hose?
And what about underground rivers? If the water is far enough underground, does it not count?
Mercedes Lackey did a take on this where her vampire character explains that vampires tend to be rather aggressively territorial, and delineate their territories via landmarks. He says that one might as well say vampires wonβt cross lakes, or mountains, or major highways.
i believed is blessed water, by a priest so the river is sanctified and will instantly purify a vampire, demon or undead. dracula seems to possess abilities far beyond any vampire, like flying casting powerful magic, turn to mist amongst other things. also purified salt works against them too.