[b]Name:[/b]Gul (Shapuran: Vampire)

[b]Basic Description:[/b]
[i][u]Physical:[/u][/i]
A curse (or blessing, depending on who you ask) given in adulthood, there are no immediate physical changes. The most obvious change is the two which they are most known for: Immortality, and the need to eat human flesh. Though they can consume blood as well, they can live on anything edible taken from the human body, and tend to prefer choice cuts the same way normal people prefer certain parts of a cow or a pig.

Children can be given the curse, but the changes in them are much more extreme and result in feral monstrosity. The mountain peoples tell legends of Kizzeh, infants who were given the Gul curse, that hunt along the roadsides and trick their prey by crying so that travelers think they are abandoned babies. When somebody takes pity on them and approaches, the Kizzeh springs out and feeds on them. Stories about Kizzeh vary wildly, with some traditions giving them wings, while others suggest they have god-like agility. As far as anyone can tell, however, these are just stories, and there have been no believable reports of them in recent memory.

For the adult Guls, the changes they undergo take time. Their skin loses color at first, so that darker-skinned people slowly go a brown-grey and light-skinned people go a ghostly white. This happens within the first year. Next, their hair begins to lose color, turning red in the first few decades of the curse, before eventually cycling through red to faded pink to platinum white. Their hair is usually white within fifty years of being changed. As they get especially older, their hair will grow thin an translucent, and they will begin to lose it roughly one hundred and thirty years after being changed.

Their eyes also lose color, becoming either red, pink, or grey as time goes on. It is said their eyes have a faint glow to them as time goes on. Their skin ages, but in a very different way, so that they remain youthful looking until around the time their hair goes white, and even then their skin doesn't grow loose. Rather, it seems to grow tighter, like their skin is being stretched. Once they reach the last few decades of their sentience, their skin grows thinner.

Guls are harder to kill, impervious to disease, infection shock, or sepsis, though they can still bleed out and will suffer the same effects as humans do when it comes to damage to their organs. They are technically immortal, but mid to late 100's they will begin to lose their mental facilities until they become rabid beast-like creatures. The Gul-Shapur of Poertia have countered this with a promise to commit suicide once they reach this advanced stage, and the entire dynasty swears to police itself. Outside of that kingdom, however, different rules may easily apply.

Reproduction is peculiar for them. Male Gul's are sterile, but females can give birth to human children so long as she has a human mate. For the child to become like their mother, they have to receive the curse in adulthood, thus they are human in childhood with human weaknesses and needs

The other physical changes are these. They do not sleep. Though they can eat and drink typical food, they do not get sustenance from them. They are more energetic than normal people and have a tendency toward mania, causing them to take more risks, seek more pleasures, and be more aggressive on the battlefield.

Despite wives tales of the sort, Guls/Vampires do not have pointy teeth. They do not sleep during the day, and the only danger the sun causes them comes from the lack of protective pigment in their skin, causing them to be more susceptible to sunburns.

[i][u]Historical[/u][/i]:
In the lands of the old Vishaput Empire, Vampiric legends tells of the Guls. These were men punished for their hubris and their attempts to live like the Gods. They become predatory, paying for their extended lives by the need to feed on human flesh so that they are forced out of society. Eventually madness grips them, and the lesson the Gods have taught is complete, that no man born mortal can handle the effects of Godhood. Before the Gul-Shapur came to power, Guls were mostly hermit-sorcerers or monsters living in the dark places of the world, and they were hated and feared. Heroes hunted them down, finding their lairs and slaying them with displays of heroic heroism.

The people of Shapur from the forgotten lands across the desert had similar legends about the creatures they called Vampires. The Vampires of the Shapurans were people so great that death himself chose them to serve him. Death, Shapuran legend has it, was the first man ever made by the Gods. The Gods made it so that the first man would not age because they did not understand what aging meant, and when the man died they fixed his wounds and brought life back to his flesh. His life was a struggle, fighting to survive and suffering any time he failed, only to be brought back to suffer all over again. After thousands of years, the First Man grew tired, and he begged the Gods for his life to have an end. The Gods could not understand death, because it was not of their nature, but they felt that the first man could, so brought him up to true Godhood and allowed him to become the force of death because they knew he would be wise in that matter. When he ran across men who he felt could handle immortality, he would allow them to continue living so long at they chose to serve him. In these stories, the Vampires are noble heroes who prey on the weak and stupid so that the strong and clever shall live on and prosper. Vampire stories often involve two men, a hero who is a great fighter and a villain who is weak and cowardly, or a hero who is clever and wise and a villain who is immoral or foolish, who are put to the test by the Vampire. The villain dies, the hero survives, and the Vampire grants the hero the property, offices, and wife of the villain.