White Wolf vampires respond to strength of faith, and the symbols are just a means to express that faith.
Do you guys know where I can get one of those gold necklaces with a “T” on it?
That’s a cross.
Across from where?
Also, does this work on other vampires, or only those from European origins? How does this effect the greater vampire populace?
If others aren’t affected, what’s stopping another type like Jiangshi from taking over new territory?
(Going with Jiangshi purely because they’re the first ones to come to my mind when thinking of a “non-typical” vampire for part of the world).
I feel like other cultures predating Jesus would have had stories about humans who suck blood, and are undead. African cultures had zombies e.g. but that’s not quite the same thing. Probably South American like Mayans and Aztecs had similar myths. Though I’m guessing they probably didn’t turn into bats. Or does that concept also transcend cultural myths?
Maybe vampires were unstoppable before Jesus. So not only did he save us from sin, he also saved us from vampires.
According to Trevor Belmont it’s not the religious association that’s effective is the bold right angles blocking out their vision because they’re predatory and they have tunnel vision, I guess. So it blocks their sight in a way that’s disruptive. That’s the Anime at least. Honestly it sounds very stupid, to me it would make a lot more sense to say holy items aren’t effective against vampires because of anything to do with vampires, but due to the beliefs of the one using holy items, so it’s their personal faith that gives it power, which at least makes some kind of logical sense. In a magic world the magic user provides the effects not the target.
I like to imagine that there’s no divinity or anything like that, it’s just that the vast majority of vampires fucking detest christians for one reason or another, and simply refuse to stick around when they see a crucifix.
Some are so ancient that they spoke to mohammad and are devout muslims, some just predate christianity so consider it extremely stupid, some had bad experiences with the catholic church and don’t care to distinguish sects, and some simply fell into the militant atheist rabbithole and unironically wear fedoras because obviously no one can stop them doing so.