Royalty in the Vampyre Community – What is it and does it actually matter?

“…would all the royal bloodlines please step forward.” – and then this picture was taken.

I’ve talked about this moment before in a post when that event was fresh. When it first happened, I was so proud to be a part of it. Unfortunately that pride would swiftly be ripped away by the disillusionment process of how meaningless some of the things said that day really were.

This picture was taken at the memorial for Father Vincent in the Gotham Halo in February of 2023. This was a somber occasion with a lot of nostalgia and love shared between lifelong friends who have come together to mourn their Father, to mourn their King.

This would be the last time any semblance of unity amongst those who consider themselves to be royal would ever have…

But, why would they consider themselves to be royal to begin with? Well, let’s talk about it.

You’ll see the idea of “royalty” come up in VC spaces semi-regularly.

For the extreme tl;dr – VC royalty is bullshit and completely made up.
Oh shit it’s a spicy takes post… buckle up!

 

The short, obvious, & rational reason is simple: We’re in America. We don’t have royalty here.

There’s no secret order of vampyric royalty pulling the strings and running shit. That’s just not reality. Even if certain areas want to set themselves up to look that way… that’s just not actually the case. Best we’ve got is a handful of promoters keeping the last few VC events alive.

In the Vampyre world, royalty dynamics within the community leadership rat race became an extracurricular activity brought into the VC through the assimilation of roleplay elements into their real life community.

That’s just facts. People can scream “we’re not roleplaying” all day long but if you’re holding Court with the “Queen/King/Regent” and the royal council and the heads of the royal bloodlines…. You’re role playing. 🤷 It just is what it is. It’s a community wide consensual role play that those involved show respect towards. There’s nothing really wrong with that if you’re honest about it. People just want it to be real so badly they pretend it’s some kind of underground system of governance. As if the leaders of the VC are really capable of governance😂. Maybe they were in the 1990s. Nowadays? Not so much… Anyways.

Many of the lifestyle aspects of the Vampyre Community are roleplay adjacent. Just because you assimilate these aspects into your everyday life, it doesn’t make it any less “user generated” or extracurricular to the vampyre experience. It’s a long term shared set of lifestyle choices that people consent to play in together. There’s nothing wrong with that at all. As a Coven, we choose to venerate certain traditions, recognize some of these elements, and consent to be a part of the same web and network with folks who venerate royal dynamics. I am the Head of a “Royal Bloodline”, after all. Yet at the same time, I can be real about what this playing field actually is.

How did people land on Royal titles to begin with?

As far as I know, those who posture themselves as vampires have always toyed with identities rooted in fanciful titles. Reading Stephen Kaplan’s book Vampires Are about his experience studying vampyres in the 70’s and 80’s include stories about folks who self identified as royal or aristocrats.

The persistence of these stories speak to the enduring nature of grandiose self-perception amongst vampyric individuals. It’s only natural that these dynamics would grow in popularity, especially once the great connectivity boom amongst the VC when the internet finally stormed society. Human nature is insecure and ego is a vampyre’s favorite mask. Many Vampyres lose the “self mastery” plot along the way and instead go straight to fantasy escapism hell, trying to drag everyone down along with them.

It is unwise to take self identified royal folks at face value. Any discerning individual should hear another call themselves royal and immediately want to question it. VC or otherwise, that’s not normal behavior. If someone can’t handle you questioning their royal title, that’s an immediate red flag.

I am intimately aware of this because I fell deeply into the royalty in the VC trap, championed for it for a while, and then learned pretty quickly how stupid that was. Maybe one day I’ll write about the monstrosity that was the Unity Project and how it bolstered the VC Royalty count way way up in 2017. I offer these uncensored looks into these dynamics so others can learn from my mistakes. I’ll write more about my personal experiences in this department another day. <3

Are there legitimate royal titles in the Vampyre Community?

Well, that all depends on how you define legitimate.

The short answer, No.

The longer answer – there are situations where it is accepted in the Vampyre Community, but it’s something people have to consent to engage with or it doesn’t work. (or it causes a fucking ton of unnecessary drama)

There are two instances in which royal titles are generally accepted, albeit not by everyone. However, these two “royal” connections are at least grounded in reality rather than the aforementioned self proclaimed fanciful title backed by nothing. Despite the “normalcy” of these paths in various parts of the VC, they are not recognized universally nor are they handled the same way by everyone. They also absolutely should never be used to force themselves and their rule on anyone who doesn’t consent to be a part of their environment, and if they are… don’t engage with them.

You’ll typically see royalty in the VC by means of “Vampire Courts”, or by looking at the History of the Gotham Halo.

Vampire Courts

Vampire Courts are a subject I could and probably should write a whole post about. In fact, I think I will… stay tuned for that. lol

Vampire Courts are the style of organization keeping royal titles relevant in the VC, unfortunately. Luckily, the popularity of the Vampire Court has waned drastically in the post COVID world, but they are still around.

Vampire Courts themselves come in two different forms. There’s the “old world” style vampire court and the “new school” style.

“Old World” style courts have largely fizzled out… and by “Old World” I mean from the 1990s/Early 2000s. (everyone over 35 is allowed to groan here)

These Courts included things like the Court of Lazarus and Court of Gotham in New York City, and Iron Garden in New Jersey. These Courts include(d) “Regents”, Leaders like the King or Queen, yet always under the Regent banner. They’d sometimes be the “King-Regent” or “Queen Regent” – but the Regent title was used on purpose to deflect from anyone calling themselves directly the King or Queen. Regent was meant to denote that the title was ultimately temporary and rotatable, as the Regent was not the true Monarch, but a placeholder for the actual Monarch.

“New School” style courts had a burst in popularity during the age of the Unity Project (2016-2019). The Unity Project was a failed attempt at trying to unify the whole community under one banner. In reality, it was an attempt to take over the majority of the VC and try to get everyone to revere a couple folks at the top. A VC power pyramid scheme, essentially.

During this period, the Vampire Court as a “royal organization” led by the King or Queen of the Vampire Court of [insert city] became popular. These organizations were typically structured in a way where their hierarchy mimicked a feudal monarchy chain of command.

I was the Queen of the Vampire Court of Baltimore from 2017-2022

Due to a mix of apathy from organizations who only wanted a fancy title after their leadership run isn’t all glitz and glam, and power struggles within once well meaning or thriving organizations, this style of Vampire Court has largely fizzled out. You can search “Vampire Court of” on Facebook or Google and find all sorts of dead/abandoned pages from Vampire Courts. A few remain, and only 1 or 2 that I know of are worth a shit. When it comes to the Kings/Queens/Monarchs of these organizations, the good ones know their title doesn’t mean shit to anyone outside of their organization. Anyone who holds a royal title that thinks they have dominion over an entire area, they’re delusional.

The only place that has ever had a King that reigns over an entire Halo was Gotham, and Austin Texas for a stint, but in both cases the keyword being “was”. This brings me to the other side of Vampyric Royalty that isn’t Vampire Court related.

In the 1990s, Vampyric Royalty was crafted by means of the original bloodlines of Gotham.

For those who acknowledge the full spectrum of the Vampyre Community’s history and trajectory, understanding some of the roots that got us to where we are now, you will know that the Sabretooth Clan had a ridiculous amount of influence on the VC as we know it. A lot of people don’t like to acknowledge that fact because of their personal feelings about Father Sebastiaan, but fact is fact.

The Gotham Halo is the birthplace of the Modern Vampyre Community. The Vampyre Community existed before the boom of the Sabretooth Era, but the Sabretooth Era molded vampyre [oc]culture for the foreseeable future once it took hold.

When Father Sebastiaan began throwing his events, he brought with him a wave of unprecedented growth and popularity to vampyre culture. Through the years, Sabretooth would cultivate its four original bloodlines: Father Sebastiaan’s House turned Clan, Father Vincent’s original House & Bloodline, Stephen O’Mallie’s House & Bloodline, and D’Drennan’s House & Bloodline. These four original bloodlines became the “Original Royal Bloodlines of Gotham”; established in the late 1990s. I am the daughter of an original founder of a Royal Bloodline and now the Head of a “Royal House & Bloodline.” Sounds fancy, right? It doesn’t actually mean anything though except some cool historical and legacy brownie points. It’s something I’m personally very proud of. Why wouldn’t I be? But beyond being a cool thing historically, it doesn’t serve any purpose nor grant me any favor anywhere. The only favor gained from being a part of these royal bloodlines is granted to the new school inhabitants of these bloodlines building their personal pedestals and personalities upon the foundations of their predecessors.

The folks you see in the first photo at the top of this article are the extended family of the Royal Bloodlines. It includes some of the founders and several generations of children within the family tree of those Royal Bloodlines. It was a nice moment. You’ll never see those people come together like that again, unfortunately.

As time went on from the 90s into the new millennium, the VC landscape of Gotham changed. The original 4 bloodlines weren’t all going in the same direction anymore. Father Sebastiaan and Father Vincent famously fell out, which caused a rift in Sabretooth. Sebastiaan would go about his journey as the public face of vampyres for years to come. Father Vincent would cultivate Gotham’s vampyre culture under his wing. Because of his steadfast presence and consistent leadership in Gotham, Father Vincent would become regarded as the King of Gotham.

Father Vincent’s crown was one cultivated over decades of working with his community. He earned people’s trust being a leader and garnered widespread respect and reverence. He provided something for his community over a long time that everyone needed, and therefore his crown was gifted to him by every person whose soul he touched through his words, his actions, and his love over a span of 25+ years. His title as King lasted until his tragic death in 2023.

That kind of crown can’t be passed down.

When an individual in the Vampyre Community cultivates themselves a crown the way Father Vincent did, it cannot be passed down.

Respect like that isn’t something you get automatically because someone else says so. Even if that someone else is the person who holds that crown.

A perfect example is the passing of the torch from Lord Stephen Orion-O’Mallie to myself as the Head of O’Mallie. Lord Stephen has 30 years of VC history under his belt protecting everyone within his radius the entire time in a multitude of ways. The “crown” of his royal bloodline belongs to him because he has consistently bent over backwards for people and O’Mallie’s protective reputation is largely cultivated by him. The respect he holds from the community is something that belongs to him alone. I don’t suddenly get that just because I’m now the Head of O’Mallie and therefore the Head of a Royal Bloodline. I have always had to cultivate my own rapport with the community to maintain my own reputation. I now have to follow in his footsteps and hope that I can cultivate the same kind of legacy as him so that I can be held in a similar esteem in a decade or so. I can only hope to build the type of immortality Lord Stephen has with my VC tenure. I carry the torch, but I do not have his crown. He never wanted that crown anyways, which is what makes him different.

Nobody can take the crown of their predecessor and expect to gain the same respect from it… This isn’t Feudal England… nobody has to fall in line for you, nobody has to bend the knee. Expect people to fight back who don’t want you lording over them, especially if you’re not providing anything positive to the community dynamic. You don’t own any territories, you’re not “responsible” for people who don’t want your rule you, and you can’t make people accept you if they don’t want that from you. At this point, the idea that any area needs a singular leader pretending to rule over everyone is one that needs to fizzle out. That dynamic just doesn’t work and trying to force it is only going to continue to cause problems.  Royal titles only work in organizations where your constituents enthusiastically consent to revere you as such. Trying to lord over an entire city full of folks who don’t want you is an ego driven endeavor that should be avoided. The types of people who engage in such ego masturbation are not folks you want to be involved with, trust me.  Leaders worth your time will have a tangible body of work that has helped the community around them for the better.

What does this all mean? How should you handle royalty in the VC?

At the end of the day, do what feels right to you. Engage with what feels good. Disengage with anything that expects something from you that doesn’t sit well with you.

You are not required to engage with any kind of vampyric organization or leader you don’t want to.

If you don’t like the idea of royalty, don’t bother with it. They can’t make you.

You are not obligated to bend the knee to anyone you don’t want to bend to, ever.

Nobody in the USA can proclaim to be your King or Queen. That’s not how any of this works. If you choose to join an organization that uses a royal structure, that’s more than okay if you’re making a risk aware & enthusiastically consensual choice to do so. Just vet the living hell out of it first to ensure what you’re engaging with is safe and sane.

 

Should you ever have any questions about this, vampyric titles, organizations, or people who claim royal titles, feel free to reach out!

I’m always happy to help folks sort out whether they’re talking to a legit leader or someone who is fucking around. Feel free to hit me up on Facebook here.