memes

That and we are fairly well accostumated to any european cryptid (which is a modern concept) to the point of seeing them as a regular character in tales and legends, games and rpg alike. But, to tell you the truth, the original stories of those creatures were scary. Now we think of witches in a more positive light, a witch in a folk tale is one of the most dangerous entities out there. Werewolves...vampires were not fictional either.

Example:

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/lazzaretto-nuovo

Analysis on the skull discovered with a brick wedged in the mouth revealed that it once belonged to a woman between 61 and 71 years old. Although her exact story is likely never to be known, it was thought that she must have been believed to be a “Shroud Eater,” a type of vampire associated particularly with Germany and related territories.

The Shroud Eater is a different sort of vampire, not found biting the necks of voluptuous victims, but instead found still in their grave. Believed to>!!< be a sort of undead corpse, they were known for making hideous chewing sounds and were thought to cause death and destruction from a distance. There are several theories about how this particular myth came to be, but it seems to be particularly prevalent in times of plague or disease, when one death eventually leads to many more, often of friends and family members.

If you were a regular person in the late 1500's this would keep yoy awake at night. And it wasn't fiction than. But then again we took these old myths and got past their scare fators as they became simple ideas. Vampires are not scary today, they wear fancy clothes and take part of teen dramas. Or just become ancient aztec deities of fitness. Whatever we want them to be. But if you look at the quoted description, well, I wouln't want that thing. I'd rather fight a rake barehanded.