Glossary of terms used in Vampire Earth

The following glossary describes various terms used in the Vampire Earth series.

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Glossary

Aspirants: Teenagers, often sons and daughters of those in a particular caste, who travel with the Hunters and perform assorted camp functions.

Bears: Hunters and the most fearsome of the Lifeweaver's human weapons; warriors who go into a battle-fury resembling that of the berserks of old.The Bears are proud to take on anything the Kurians can design.

Bearfire: The fire for 'Chasing the Red'.

Bolo: The knife that General Hamm issued to the soldiers, similar to the parang a Wolf uses.

Castes: There are three known Hunter groups or castes, they are the Bears, Cats, and Wolves. There has been mention of other people the Lifeweavers have invoked, but at this time no other caste has been named.

Cats: Trained by the Lifeweavers, these Hunters act as spies, saboteurs, and assassins in the Kurian Zone. Some work in disguises; others work openly.

Chasing the Red: A ritual Bears take part in to get them ready for battle. In many ways remniscent of the fury of Berzerker lore and the rituals of preparation thereof.

Claws: A type of gauntlet that Cats use. Claws are a pair of metal hands held to the palms by thick leather straps. They arc out like a second skeletal system from there, ending in sharp talons that cap the fingers. You can climb a tree with them and they are gruesome in a fight if you use them right. They come in a blade and a talon version.

The Crocodile: A Grog artillery weapon from St. Louis. The surface has a rough texture and is a dark green color. It possesses a "tug tower" that protrudes like an eye. It fires a shell known as a 'rail car', because of the sound made as they roared overhead. The actual calibre of the gun is roughly equivalent to a WW2 battleship main gun, the actual shells being in the 14-16 inch range.

Dau'wa: "Forward-thinkers"; the minority of Lifeweavers (mostly concentrated on the planet Kur), who used vital aura to become immortal, i.e., vampires.

Dau'weem: "Backwards-thinkers"; the majority of Lifeweavers, who eschewed use of vital aura to become immortal.

Glow bulb: A tiny, pyramid-shaped crystal that gives off a light that will last for weeks if you leave it in the sun to charge for an afternoon.

Golden Ones: A Grog variant, higher up on the evolutionary ladder than the more common "grey ones" The Golden ones have not only mastered verbal communication, but have shown the ability for advanced thought and skill rivaling humanity as the cleverest race encountered/created by the Kurians. Fawn-colored fur on their shoulders blends to white on their bellies.

Gray Ones: The most common kind of Grog, an apish humanoid with thick plates of gray skin. Marginally intelligent, though quick to adapt to human tools and weapons.

Grogs: Any of the multitude of creations the Kurians have designed or enhanced to help subjugate man. The term Grog is in general use for introduced lifeforms, but properly belongs just to humanoid variants. Grogs come in many shapes and sizes; some are intelligent enough to use weapons.

Gros-bon-ange: The spirit that enters the body at conception. It animates you.

Harpies: An ugly, snaggletoothed, bowlegged, and leathery winged version of a Grog. They were given the name Harpies because they resemble the ancient Greek mythological creature.

Hunters: Human beings who have been enhanced by the Lifeweavers to cope with the spawn of Kur.

Interworld Tree: An ancient network of portals between the stars, the doors of which allow instantaneous transportation across light-years.

Kur: One of the nine planets of the Interworld Tree. A great storehouse of touchstones was found here; it was a center of Lifeweaver science and learning. Later it became a renegade world when the Kurian Lifeweavers began to use vital aura to extend their lives, touching off a civil war that has spilled over to Earth.

Kurians: Lifeweavers from the planet Kur who learned how to indefinitely lengthen their lives by absorbing vital aura. They are the true vampires of the New Order.

Kurian Zone or KZ: The area one or more Kurian Lords control.

Legworms: A type of Grog like a giant centipede, usually around thirty feet in length, with a probing maw ringed with catfish whiskers. They slink along with each individual limb moving faster than the eye can follow. The brain of a legworm is buried in the middle of its body. Legworms can be ridden by Gray Ones.

Lifesign: Energy given off by any living thing in proportion to its size and sentience. The Reapers use it, in addition to their normal senses, to track their human prey. Hunters are trained to suppress their lifesign, giving them their one and only advantage over the Reapers.

Lifeweavers: The ancient race who discovered the old Pre-Entity Gates between the Nine Worlds. Lifeweavers can appear in almost any shape or form. But, in the presence of humans they usually look like a very beautiful human.

Man: One definition of man: a biped who is ungrateful.

The Once-ler: A character from a book by Dr. Seuss. The Once-ler is the name The Kurians have given to Papa Legba.

Parang: The type of knife the Wolves use for general purposes and for beheading reapers. Smoke describes David Valentine's parang as a cotton chopper. It's similar to a short machete or a bolo.

Pre-Entities: The Old Ones, a vampire race that died out long before man walked the Earth. From their knowledge, the Kur learned how to become vampires by living off of vital aura.

Q-file: A file Southern Command keeps on each of its soldiers and staff.

Quickwood: A type of tree that looks similar to a Pine, but with needles like thorns. There is a variant that grows into thorny hedges. Quickwood has chemicals in the sap and pockets in the thorns that act as a catalyst that, when brought into contact with a Reaper's blood, will prove lethal. It is most effective if the wood is still living or recently cut. But even wood that is older, as long as it has some residue, it is still effective.

Quislings: Humans who assist the Kurians in running the New Order. Most Quislings serve out of fear, but some have been misled by the Universal Church into thinking that life under the New Order is better than the life we had before the Kurians.

Ratbits: Genetic creations found on The Ranch. The Ranch was once a Kurian experiment station, now in ruins. The Ratbits are like a cross between a jackrabbit and rat the size of a raccoon. They are intelligent, and thought to have been created for their auras. The Ratbits are what is left of Batch Fifteen.

Ravies: A virus the Kurians distributed to break up the social order of man, allowing them to take over more easily. "Ravers" are easily identified by their wild behavior and zombie-like expressions.

Reapers: The Praetorian Guard of the New Order, the Reapers are avatars animated by their Master Vampire. They permit the reclusive Kurians to interact with humans and others, and more importantly, absorb the vital aura through a psychic connection with the avatar without physical risk. They are pale-skinned, yellow-eyed, black-fanged, have hinged jaws like a snake and a foot long barbed tongue which they use to puncture their victims with, usually in the neck. Reapers live off the blood of the victim, while the aura sustains the Master Kurian. They are also known colloquially as Capos, Governors, Hissers, Hoods, Rigs, Skulls, Scowls, Tongue-Tong, Creeps, Hooded Ones, Whisperers, and Vampires. Reapers are instruments that are built to last. Cable-like muscles are fixed to a skeleton as light as ceramic and as strong as high-tensile steel. They're strong enough to take a car apart without tools, and can run faster than a horse from dusk 'til dawn. Nothing that isn't engine-powered moves as fast as a Reaper. They wear heavy robes and cowls of bullet-absorbing material. Daylight is not deadly to either them or the Kurians, though it interferes with the link between puppet and master, and obscures lifesign, the ethereal emanations created by vital aura that the avatars use to home in on prey. Therefore, the Reapers restrict their dark purposes to the sunless hours.

The Sharkfin: A World War II submarine that Boul has as a secret weapon. He uses it to sneak attack the Thunderbolt. Captain Saunders later uses it to try and take back his ship. It is destroyed when the Thunderbolt rams it, snapping it in two.

Soviet PPD-40: A type of Russian submachine gun. Tank Bourne sent a Soviet PPD-40 to David Valentine.

The Thunderbolt: She didn't live up to her name. She was just a swaybacked old icebreaker with a new coat of paint and polished fittings. Her convert|230|ft|m|sing=on length has a high prow, a deep well deck, and her castle amidships. Just below the bridge in the bow was the five-inch (127 mm) gun, her main armament. On the other side of the castle, a twenty-millimeter Oerlikon looked like an avant-garde sculpture under its protective cover. Her four 7.62-millimeter machine guns lay ready to be placed in the mounts on either side of the ship, more or less at the corners of the upper deck of the square main cabin.

Touchstones: Cryptically carved stones, usually triangular, which pass their knowledge to one who touches them in a flash. This instantaneous transfer of knowledge and concepts damage minds of both humans and lifeweavers due to them having been created by beings who were dissimilar to both humanity and Lifeweavers. Touchstones can hold anything from knowledge to memories, to spiritual concepts. It has been mentioned that some touchstones might have minds encased in them. A touchstone could be compared to the Repository of the Ancients in the Stargate universe without as massive of an information download, yet more variety of information available.

The Universal Church: A Kurian run religion that indoctrinates its followers with this message: "Our planet was dying. War. Overpopulation. Pollution. Disease out of control. Mother Earth had a cancer called the human race. The Kurians came in and restored the balance, brought order to the chaos. Kur did for us what we couldn't do for ourselves. Over half the population now has proper food, shelter and health care; everyone in care has access to the doctor."

Valentingle: David Valentine's ability to sense Reapers. It works only if the Reapers are active, but if they're asleep, then nothing. Ryu said that in ages past, a great many modifications were tried on humans. Some the Lifeweavers shouldn't have tried. Vestiges of those live on. It could be that or David might be a genetic wildcard, a leap in natural selection brought on by the new stresses on the human species. The "valentingle" could be compared to Spider-Man's spidey sense, one of his spider-like powers.

Vital Aura: An energy field created by a living creature. Aura can be affected by the physiological as well as mental changes. Emotions are known to colour auras, the kurians consider a human's emotional state at the time of death to be the flavour of their meal. Aura is also augmented by intelligence, and size. Intelligence being the most potent modifier.

Voudou: It's a bit of everything, even the Pope did it - he just didn't know he was. People think voudou is all fear and hate, but there is love and healing in it. There is a bad side - like anything, it can be used to destroy. Those who work their magic with both hands can cause such sadness. They create zombies by taking the gros-bon-ange out of the body, leaving the poor person standing there, with no chance to even run.

Wolves: The most numerous caste of the Hunters. Their patrols watch the no-man's-land between the Kurian Zone and the Free Territories. They also act as guerrilla fighters, couriers, and scouts.