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In The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes, you have to keep a team of American and Iraqi soldiers alive as they navigate an underground labyrinth and attempt to reach the surface. On top of struggling with one another, you'll also have to confront winged creatures that are stalking you from the Shadows.In this article, we'll sum up all the information that you learn over🧔 the course of the game about these creatures, the Vampires, and help you wrap your head around their mere existence. Beware of spoilers ahead if you haven't already finished the gꦦame!
What Are The Vampires?
The Vampires, also called the Underworld Creatures or just the Creatures, are the main antagonists of The Dark Pictures: House of Ashes. The Vampires are actually Parasites who implant themselves into the nervous system of creatures, killing them and taking control. Towards the beginning of the game, you see them inhabiting the bodies of 8-foot t𝔍all, wing🔯ed, bat-like creatures, but quickly realize that humans can become infected as well.
The History Of The Vampires And How They Came To Earth
The bat-like bodies that we first see the Parasites inhabiting are actually an Alien race. The Parasites managed to get on board their ship and began✱ to slowly take over more and more of the Aliens. Eventually, the Aliens were overrun. Unable to control their ship (whether it was due to the chaos or the fact that all the Aliens had died), it crash-landed into Earth. Its power was so immense that it🔥 had enough momentum to be buried deep underground before it finally stopped entirely.
The Alien Vampires dwelled underground there for eons, asleep. Until 2231 BCE, that is, when, as we see in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the prologue to House of Ashes, the noise and bloodshed of a great war between the Akkadians and the Gutians awakens them. After this event, Alien Vampires would hibernate until the new moon or a solar eclipse, when they would emerge above-ground to hunt. Their appearance above ground for centuries spawned myths about a nu🔴mber of differ🗹ent creatures across multiple cultures, including vampires, satyrs, and winged demons.
The locals found that their livestock was disappearing during new moons and solar eclipses, and eventually connected it to the Alien Vampires. They began to worship the Alien Vampires and ritualistically sacrificed people, leaving the organs out for them to eat so that the Alien 🦋Vampires wouldn't attack their livestock. This practice did serve to plaꦏcate the Alien Vampires somewhat, causing them to appear above ground far less often.
However, at the start of House of Ashes in 2003, a shootout between Americans and Iraqis wakes and angers the Alien Vampires, causing them to hunt down the survivors who fell into the caves after an earthquake.
The Process Of Becoming A Vampire
According to the Creature Lif🍌e Cycle (a document left behi♚nd by a researcher), there are five steps for a living thing to transform in𝄹to a Va💃mpire.
1. Hunts Victim
This step might seem obvious, but it's actually crucial. The Parasites don't implant themselves right away; they chase down and track their victims, toying with them first before striking. This is because they are trying to build up adrenaline in their victim's system. For some unknown reason, they like to drink blood with lots of adrenaline in it. The Autopsy Notes about one Alien Vampire noted that blood was found in the creature's stomach and that that blood had a high den🅷sity of adrenaline.
2. Implants Parasite
When the Vampire catches someone it doesn't mean to eat, it will implant a Parasite in them by biting them first to knock them unconscious, then inserting the parasite through the mouth where it can enter the body with ease. The victim will wake up long after the Vampire that i𝓰mplanted the Parasite has left.
3. Parasite Gestates
For a while, the victim can go on as if they were fine. However, they'll soon start experiencing symptoms of the infection. The main thing to look out for is that 𓂃they'll lose a lot of physical strength, their skin will become pale — almost white — and they'll get bags under their eyes. They'll also experience a lot o🍎f pain and the following symptoms:
- Sweating
- Coughing
- Fever
- Headache
- Fainting
- Dizziness
- Nausea
Also, another disturbing effect you may witness is seeing the parasite m💞oving around under the skin.
4. Host Death
When the victim's body is so weak that it can no longer fight off the Parasite, they collapse and begin to have spasms. They will die shortly.
5. Parasite Takes Over
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Now that the victim is dead, the Parasite can connect to their brain and take control of their nervous system. They also replace the victim's 🍬front two teeth with new elongated ones of their own. The process takes around 6 hours from the time of infection to the time when the parasite entirely takes over. However, if the vict🉐im was already dead when the parasite was implanted, it can be as quick as one hour.
The Vampires' Strengths And Weaknesses
The Parasites
The Parasites themselves control the lifeless bodies of their victims, so some of the Vampires' qualities must be attributed directly to them. ​​​​​​
The Parasites have three primary strengths. The first seems to be the ability to make their hosts extraordinarily strong and fast, even beyond what they might have accomplished in life. The second is their saliva. Vampires, regardless of their species, produce black saliva. When a victim inhales the smell it produces or i💧s injected with it upon being bitten, their heart rate increases which means that the Vampire can feed on their blood more quickly. As a side effect, it causes hallucinations.
Their last strength is the cocoons and the fluid they're filled with that players can observe during the final third of the game. While it's possible that the cocoons and fluid actually originated from the Aliens, not the Parasites, we suspect it's the Parasites' because the fluid causes organic matter to stop decomposing. The Parasites need this ཧbecause their victims' bodies do start to decompose after death, even when there is a Parasite implanted in them.
The primary weakness of the Parasites is the fact that they are sensitive to UV light. This is why they only emerge from underground during new moons and solar eclipses. When exposed to UV light, the Parasites (and their hosts) catch fire. The other ways to kill a Vampire include stabbing it in the chest (which is where the Parasite is lodged) or destroying its brain (since the Parasite is connected to the brain, this also kills it). And, as mentioned above, they do have the downside of living in decomposing bodies 🦩that would not last forever without the strange fluid.
The Alien Vampires
Alien Vampires benefit from being in the body of the Aliens. As such, their strengths include:
- Sharp, long claws
- Flight (168澳洲幸运ဣ5开奖网:the Creature Features note indicates that they are clumsy fliers and seems to attribute this to evolution, but it's also possible that the Parasites are not able to fly very well in the Alien bodies because their wings are decomposing)
- Dark-skinned (for hiding in dark places)
- Echolocation
- Thick-skinned (protects the Parasite from being harmed by bullets)
The Aliens' significant weakness is that they're blind, thus relying entirely on 🍒their sense of echolocation.
The Human Vampires
Just as with Alien Vampires, Human Vampires have certain strengths and weaknesses based on their host bodies. Their primary strength is that they're not blind,✃ like Alien Vampires are, so it's much haꦺrder to hide from them.
Their main weakness is (other than the fact that they are not thick-skinned, or clawed, or any of the things which the Aliens are) that they have softer, thinner skin than the Aliens. Bullets might have an easier time killing Human Vampires, since they might⭕ manage to rip through the chest and𝓀 reach the Parasite inside.
