Dagan, the First Vampire
Dagan, the First Vampire
The First Vampire was an unfortunate man, named, simply, Dagan. He was an Amorite soldier who invaded Sumer around 2300 BC. Assyriologists theorized that the Amorites were a nomadic people ruled by fierce tribal clansmen who apparently forced themselves into lands they needed to graze their herds. This is because some of the literature that dates to the Third Dynasty of Ur at the end of the 3rd millennium speaks of the Amorites disparagingly. Some documents seem to imply that the Akkadians viewed their nomadic way of life with disgust and contempt, for example: The MAR.TU who know no grain.... The MART.TU who know no house nor town, the boors of the mountains.... The MAR.TU who digs up truffles... who does not bend his knees (to cultivate the land), who eats raw meat, who has no house during his lifetime, who is not buried after death...
Dagan was a fierce warrior, but he was dominated by fear. He had no family, for fear of his enemies learning of them and killing them, even going so far as to eschew contact with his fellows and never making friends of any sort. He died alone of wounds suffered in the taking of Eridu, just over a small rise from his companions, and was too afraid of their scorn to even cry out for help when attacked by multiple assailants.
Dagan’s fear was so great that it even conquered death. That night, Dagan rose, terrified of what the living might say of his defeat. In his search for the men that had slain him, he came upon his countrymen as they camped in a cave next to a clear pool, and, too afraid to tell them what had happened, killed them, drinking the blood of their cooling bodies, as was the tradition of his people’s warrior caste. Yet, unlike before, he found that his thirst could not be quenched, and so he drained each of his companions dry, until in anger, struggling for one last drop, he devoured one of the men’s souls. Upon doing so, he learned that the men he killed did not see the warrior Dagan tearing off their limbs, but instead saw the faces of their victims, men they had killed in battle raised to take their revenge.
Dagan’s fear had grown so powerful that it leached out and coiled around the minds of those near him.
Upon learning this, Dagan left the cave and walked over to the small pool the soldiers had been camping next to and gazed into the blood-stained water. The only face he saw was his own, streaked with the blood of his countrymen. It was the face of a coward, the face of a prideful murderer, the face of betrayal. Petrified by his ghoulish visage, Dagan turned away and rejected his own image, thereafter seeing nothing more than a blur in any reflection.
Dagan traveled extensively over the next few decades, fearful that his treachery had been discovered, and that he was being hunted. He spent his days hiding in caves and dark places, for even the light of the sun, worshipped by his people, reviled him, and burned his traitorous flesh. He fed on the blood of the living, cursed to maintain his twisted existence through a macabre re-enactment of his greatest transgression. Then, one night, he came upon an old man lying in a field. The man was feeble and exhausted, easy prey for the warrior Dagan. But, after Dagan had fed, the man’s dried husk trembled and rose. The man turned and shambled off into the night, an astonished Dagan following out of curiosity.
The man led Dagan to a dwelling not far away, where a large family was mourning the death of their matriarch. As the man entered the gathering, several called out to him, naming him Gangrel, father, grandfather…but he recognized none of them. He fell upon them and killed them, and drank of their blood to satisfy the unholy thirst Dagan had imparted to him. Eventually, only Dagan and the man, Gangrel, were left standing. Gangrel looked at the woman laid out on the funeral bier, and uttered the only words Dagan ever heard him speak: “My wife….” Then Gangrel turned and fled, vanishing into the wilderness. Dagan spent the following day sheltering under the bier before continuing his journey.
This was the first time Dagan unwittingly created another like unto himself, but it was not to be the last. He later found himself on the outskirts of a village, near starvation, where he encountered an old woman, near death, but still possessed of a nearly unearthly beauty. Unable to resist, he fed upon her, and laid her body against the base of a tree so that he could gaze upon her form for a little while longer. But then her eyes opened, and she gazed upon the face of her killer. Her eyes drank of his muscular form, and she discarded her clothing and begged him to lie with her. After their coupling, she confessed that she had never had a lover in life. At Dagan’s astounded inquiry, she told him the tale of vanity and treachery that had been her life.
The woman, named Daeva, was the most beautiful of creatures for miles around. She guarded her beauty jealously, and was terrified of anything that might mar it, such as having to work or bear a child. To this end, she wed an influential man, much older than herself, and slowly poisoned him over the first month of their marriage. After his death, she claimed to be too heartbroken over his loss to ever take another man into her bed, and used the wealth he left behind to live comfortably for the rest of her days. As her own health began to fade, however, a new fear took her, as she realized that she would soon have to surrender her gorgeous flesh to the ravages of the grave. So, when Dagan came to her, she was too afraid of the eventual decay of her precious form to allow herself to perish. Intrigued, Dagan took her as his lover, and they began travel together from that night onward.
Daeva wished to see the great cities of the world, having never traveled far from home, as she wished to avoid the ruin brought upon the flesh by exposure to the elements. Dagan took her to a grand city in his homeland, and she was instantly enchanted. But, eventually, both of them needed to slake their malevolent thirst. Early one night, they waylaid a pair of men arguing in the street. One of them was apparently a madman, raving about the force of his own will, a gift granted to him by the gods themselves, being the only thing stemming the tide of chaos that threatened to consume the kingdom, while the other seemed to by attempting to calm him and take him home. Dagan attacked the madman, leaving his companion for Daeva. Strangely, the madman continued to rant as he tried to fight Dagan, which was not the usual reaction to Dagan’s bite. After Dagan finished with the man, he released him, and the lunatic fled deeper into the city, his heart no longer beating, and his flesh already beginning to cool. Daeva’s meal proved the more common fare, and stayed dead when she dropped him to the street. They stayed in the city for two more nights, trying to find the madman, but left with nothing more than rumors of the disappearance of the King’s insane advisor, Arrakis Ventrue.
Many months later, Daeva and Dagan were awakened in their hiding place in the cellar of a large temple by the sound of voices. On the verge of simply killing the intruders, afraid that their presence had been discovered, they stopped to listen to a most intriguing conversation. Apparently, the town watch had arrested Mekhetia, a young girl who had killed her neighbor. After hearing her guilt-ridden confession, they learned that she had also killed others, poisoned livestock, and burned homes to punish those who had wronged her. She had absolutely no sense of forgiveness, and she herself was no different than those who felt her wrath. When Mekhetia saw the soldiers coming for her, she started to cut her own throat, screaming that none would judge her for her sins, but then her arms fell to her sides, and she began to beg for the soldiers not to kill her, when she realized that judgment awaited her in the afterlife. Realizing that the girl would likely be hung the following morning, Daeva urged Dagan to find her, as no one would be too upset about the death of a girl slated to die anyway. So the pair snuck into the dungeon where Mekhetia was locked away, and slew her, feasting on her blood. But Mekhetia was too terrified of her gods to face them in the hereafter, and snuck out of her cell while Dagan and Daeva reveled in post-feeding bliss. Eventually noticing her absence, they fled, not wanting to be thought responsible for allowing her to escape.
Only once more would fate twist around Dagan’s blasphemous hunger. After Mekhetia’s rebirth, Dagan and Daeva fled to Dagan’s homeland. On their journey, they came across a young boy wandering the streets of a city not far from the place where Dagan had begun his unlife. After much deliberation, the pair decided to kidnap the boy, and take him to the cave that sheltered Dagan during his first tormented days. They would attempt to feed from him, but not kill him, instead retaining him as an easy source of blood. They named him Feratu, which in Dagan’s language meant “the frightened one,” as the boy was so afraid at first that he could not even speak his name. Feratu learned to love his captors, and the three of them lived for several years in the cave that Dagan had begun to think of as his birthplace. After a time, Feratu, now a young man, and with all the yearnings thereof, lusted after Daeva, and every day grew more jealous of Dagan’s power. He began scheming with Daeva, who had noticed the boy’s flourishing beauty as he grew into manhood, and they began to speculate as to how they could kill Dagan. Daeva was concerned, for she had seen him take mortal wounds many a strong man would have succumbed to, only to have his flesh quickly close up as if it had never been parted. Feratu decided that only if he, too, had the same power Dagan possessed, would he then be able to slay his benefactor. One night, he begged Dagan to bless him with the gifts he felt he had earned. Dagan, after much deliberation, agreed to try. So, in the blood-stained darkness of their cave, Dagan and Daeva drained Feratu completely. As his heart slowed and stopped, they anxiously awaited his “rebirth”. After a time, when he failed to rise, Dagan grew frantic, fearing that he had lost the boy he had come to regard as his son. Frenzied, he tore open his veins and tried to pour some of his own life into the young man, to replace what he and Daeva had stolen. Finally, Dagan collapsed, sobbing, across Feratu’s chest.
Then Feratu opened his eyes.
Ecstatic, Dagan leapt up to embrace him. It was then that Feratu struck him, plunging into his heart a spear he had carved that day while Dagan slept. Dagan fell to the ground, paralyzed. Feratu and Daeva fell on him, nearly draining his body of blood, before interring his immobile form in the pool outside of the cave. There he lay until dawn, when the rising sun slowly reached into the depths of the pool and annihilated him.
Thus ends the story of the First Vampire.
Dagan was a fierce warrior, but he was dominated by fear. He had no family, for fear of his enemies learning of them and killing them, even going so far as to eschew contact with his fellows and never making friends of any sort. He died alone of wounds suffered in the taking of Eridu, just over a small rise from his companions, and was too afraid of their scorn to even cry out for help when attacked by multiple assailants.
Dagan’s fear was so great that it even conquered death. That night, Dagan rose, terrified of what the living might say of his defeat. In his search for the men that had slain him, he came upon his countrymen as they camped in a cave next to a clear pool, and, too afraid to tell them what had happened, killed them, drinking the blood of their cooling bodies, as was the tradition of his people’s warrior caste. Yet, unlike before, he found that his thirst could not be quenched, and so he drained each of his companions dry, until in anger, struggling for one last drop, he devoured one of the men’s souls. Upon doing so, he learned that the men he killed did not see the warrior Dagan tearing off their limbs, but instead saw the faces of their victims, men they had killed in battle raised to take their revenge.
Dagan’s fear had grown so powerful that it leached out and coiled around the minds of those near him.
Upon learning this, Dagan left the cave and walked over to the small pool the soldiers had been camping next to and gazed into the blood-stained water. The only face he saw was his own, streaked with the blood of his countrymen. It was the face of a coward, the face of a prideful murderer, the face of betrayal. Petrified by his ghoulish visage, Dagan turned away and rejected his own image, thereafter seeing nothing more than a blur in any reflection.
Dagan traveled extensively over the next few decades, fearful that his treachery had been discovered, and that he was being hunted. He spent his days hiding in caves and dark places, for even the light of the sun, worshipped by his people, reviled him, and burned his traitorous flesh. He fed on the blood of the living, cursed to maintain his twisted existence through a macabre re-enactment of his greatest transgression. Then, one night, he came upon an old man lying in a field. The man was feeble and exhausted, easy prey for the warrior Dagan. But, after Dagan had fed, the man’s dried husk trembled and rose. The man turned and shambled off into the night, an astonished Dagan following out of curiosity.
The man led Dagan to a dwelling not far away, where a large family was mourning the death of their matriarch. As the man entered the gathering, several called out to him, naming him Gangrel, father, grandfather…but he recognized none of them. He fell upon them and killed them, and drank of their blood to satisfy the unholy thirst Dagan had imparted to him. Eventually, only Dagan and the man, Gangrel, were left standing. Gangrel looked at the woman laid out on the funeral bier, and uttered the only words Dagan ever heard him speak: “My wife….” Then Gangrel turned and fled, vanishing into the wilderness. Dagan spent the following day sheltering under the bier before continuing his journey.
This was the first time Dagan unwittingly created another like unto himself, but it was not to be the last. He later found himself on the outskirts of a village, near starvation, where he encountered an old woman, near death, but still possessed of a nearly unearthly beauty. Unable to resist, he fed upon her, and laid her body against the base of a tree so that he could gaze upon her form for a little while longer. But then her eyes opened, and she gazed upon the face of her killer. Her eyes drank of his muscular form, and she discarded her clothing and begged him to lie with her. After their coupling, she confessed that she had never had a lover in life. At Dagan’s astounded inquiry, she told him the tale of vanity and treachery that had been her life.
The woman, named Daeva, was the most beautiful of creatures for miles around. She guarded her beauty jealously, and was terrified of anything that might mar it, such as having to work or bear a child. To this end, she wed an influential man, much older than herself, and slowly poisoned him over the first month of their marriage. After his death, she claimed to be too heartbroken over his loss to ever take another man into her bed, and used the wealth he left behind to live comfortably for the rest of her days. As her own health began to fade, however, a new fear took her, as she realized that she would soon have to surrender her gorgeous flesh to the ravages of the grave. So, when Dagan came to her, she was too afraid of the eventual decay of her precious form to allow herself to perish. Intrigued, Dagan took her as his lover, and they began travel together from that night onward.
Daeva wished to see the great cities of the world, having never traveled far from home, as she wished to avoid the ruin brought upon the flesh by exposure to the elements. Dagan took her to a grand city in his homeland, and she was instantly enchanted. But, eventually, both of them needed to slake their malevolent thirst. Early one night, they waylaid a pair of men arguing in the street. One of them was apparently a madman, raving about the force of his own will, a gift granted to him by the gods themselves, being the only thing stemming the tide of chaos that threatened to consume the kingdom, while the other seemed to by attempting to calm him and take him home. Dagan attacked the madman, leaving his companion for Daeva. Strangely, the madman continued to rant as he tried to fight Dagan, which was not the usual reaction to Dagan’s bite. After Dagan finished with the man, he released him, and the lunatic fled deeper into the city, his heart no longer beating, and his flesh already beginning to cool. Daeva’s meal proved the more common fare, and stayed dead when she dropped him to the street. They stayed in the city for two more nights, trying to find the madman, but left with nothing more than rumors of the disappearance of the King’s insane advisor, Arrakis Ventrue.
Many months later, Daeva and Dagan were awakened in their hiding place in the cellar of a large temple by the sound of voices. On the verge of simply killing the intruders, afraid that their presence had been discovered, they stopped to listen to a most intriguing conversation. Apparently, the town watch had arrested Mekhetia, a young girl who had killed her neighbor. After hearing her guilt-ridden confession, they learned that she had also killed others, poisoned livestock, and burned homes to punish those who had wronged her. She had absolutely no sense of forgiveness, and she herself was no different than those who felt her wrath. When Mekhetia saw the soldiers coming for her, she started to cut her own throat, screaming that none would judge her for her sins, but then her arms fell to her sides, and she began to beg for the soldiers not to kill her, when she realized that judgment awaited her in the afterlife. Realizing that the girl would likely be hung the following morning, Daeva urged Dagan to find her, as no one would be too upset about the death of a girl slated to die anyway. So the pair snuck into the dungeon where Mekhetia was locked away, and slew her, feasting on her blood. But Mekhetia was too terrified of her gods to face them in the hereafter, and snuck out of her cell while Dagan and Daeva reveled in post-feeding bliss. Eventually noticing her absence, they fled, not wanting to be thought responsible for allowing her to escape.
Only once more would fate twist around Dagan’s blasphemous hunger. After Mekhetia’s rebirth, Dagan and Daeva fled to Dagan’s homeland. On their journey, they came across a young boy wandering the streets of a city not far from the place where Dagan had begun his unlife. After much deliberation, the pair decided to kidnap the boy, and take him to the cave that sheltered Dagan during his first tormented days. They would attempt to feed from him, but not kill him, instead retaining him as an easy source of blood. They named him Feratu, which in Dagan’s language meant “the frightened one,” as the boy was so afraid at first that he could not even speak his name. Feratu learned to love his captors, and the three of them lived for several years in the cave that Dagan had begun to think of as his birthplace. After a time, Feratu, now a young man, and with all the yearnings thereof, lusted after Daeva, and every day grew more jealous of Dagan’s power. He began scheming with Daeva, who had noticed the boy’s flourishing beauty as he grew into manhood, and they began to speculate as to how they could kill Dagan. Daeva was concerned, for she had seen him take mortal wounds many a strong man would have succumbed to, only to have his flesh quickly close up as if it had never been parted. Feratu decided that only if he, too, had the same power Dagan possessed, would he then be able to slay his benefactor. One night, he begged Dagan to bless him with the gifts he felt he had earned. Dagan, after much deliberation, agreed to try. So, in the blood-stained darkness of their cave, Dagan and Daeva drained Feratu completely. As his heart slowed and stopped, they anxiously awaited his “rebirth”. After a time, when he failed to rise, Dagan grew frantic, fearing that he had lost the boy he had come to regard as his son. Frenzied, he tore open his veins and tried to pour some of his own life into the young man, to replace what he and Daeva had stolen. Finally, Dagan collapsed, sobbing, across Feratu’s chest.
Then Feratu opened his eyes.
Ecstatic, Dagan leapt up to embrace him. It was then that Feratu struck him, plunging into his heart a spear he had carved that day while Dagan slept. Dagan fell to the ground, paralyzed. Feratu and Daeva fell on him, nearly draining his body of blood, before interring his immobile form in the pool outside of the cave. There he lay until dawn, when the rising sun slowly reached into the depths of the pool and annihilated him.
Thus ends the story of the First Vampire.