Hey everyone, welcome to Mythology Explained. In today’s video, we’re going to discuss higher
vampires and, at the end, Unseen Elders, the most ancient and powerful higher vampires,
but before we do, we’re going to preface with a quick look at what witchers are and what the
conjunction of the spheres was, as this will - for those unfamiliar with The Wticher, either the
books or show - elucidate much of what this video discusses, and will explain where vampires - all
monsters, really - come from and how they came to be denizens of the same world as humans.
Let’s get into it.
Witchers are monster hunters. They’re constantly on the road, wandering from place to place,
journeying from town to town, accepting contracts to kill monsters as they go.
Unaugmented, untrained people would be no match for the monsters witchers come face to face with,
but witchers are taken as children and honed as weapons their entire lives.
They undergo continuous, extreme training; they endure the most severe conditioning imaginable,
both mental and physical; and they’re subjected to rituals and transformative processes
that cause the body to mutate, enhancing those who survive, increasing strength, speed,
staminal, durability, and greatly improving the senses, particularly, hearing, smell, and sight.
The Conjunction of the Spheres was a cataclysmic event that jumbled the whole multiverse,
transporting creatures from other worlds and other dimensions to other worlds. This is how dwarves,
elves, gnomes, humans, and all manner of monsters, including vampires, ended up on the same planet.
Higher vampires are among the rarest and most powerful monsters in the Witcher universe.
In appearance they’re nearly indistinguishable from humans and can be so unassuming
that they even avoid exciting witcher medallions, evading detection. (If you didn’t know, witcher
medallions are made of silver and are symbolic of the witcher profession, but more importantly,
they’re highly attuned to magic, which makes them vibrate, warning the wearer when magic is
near.) Beyond being extremely difficult to find and identify, higher vampires are endowed with
a broad array of abilities and talents that make them formidable foes. Indeed,
they’re so formidable that when a witcher pursues one it is unclear who is the hunter and who is the
prey. Witchers will even avoid contracts involving higher vampires, and it is said that those who
have fought them and survived are so few that they can be counted on one hand. Higher vampires have
incredible strength and speed, can shapeshift, and turn invisible. Animals are theirs to command,
they can manipulate and compel humans, and they’re intimidatingly intelligent. Also, unlike
their less sophisticated relations, other less powerful, more monstrous subgroups of vampire,
their survival does not depend on the consumption of blood; rather, to them, drinking blood, instead
of being a matter of subsistence, is analogous to the consumption of alcohol by humans. Because
their consumption of blood is optional, attitudes of higher vampires towards humanity vary, running
the whole gamut, from hatred to love. Some prey wantonly on humanity, but others are beneficent,
concealing their true natures and working altruistically towards the betterment of society.
Higher vampires are blessed with virtual immortality, meaning it is nearly impossible
for them to die, not only from the slow decay of time, which is of no consequence to them,
but from any conceivable means. The only way a higher vampire can be put to a permanent end is
at the hands of another higher vampire. Witchers, powerful magic, fire, explosions, dismemberment,
any of these, no matter how grievous the injury inflicted, will inevitably be followed by a
regenerative process that will culminate in the injured higher vampire making a full recovery.
The length of this process is contingent on the severity of the injuries suffered,
and can be protracted to the point of taking years, even decades.
However, healing can be greatly expedited if another higher vampire nurses the regenerating
vampire, at great personal sacrifice, by feeding them substantial amounts of their own blood.
There is yet another sub-tier in the vampire species hierarchy, which is the unseen Elders.
These are the most ancient of the higher vampires, so ancient that hundreds of years are but a short
time for them. They are few in number and seem to sequester themselves in solitude,
absolutely removing themselves from society, even from the company of other vampires;
at least, this is the case for the the Unseen Elder that features in the
“Blood and Wine” expansion for The Wild Hunt, the third Witcher game,
who lives deep within a network of hidden caves where he dwells in absolute silence;
it’s as if sound of any kind, even that of normal conversation, pains him. The cave in
which the Unseen Elder lives was where the portal opened up during the Conjunction of the Spheres,
meaning it was where the vampire species - the small number that were transported over, first
entered the main world on which the events of the Witcher series takes place. Though the portal is
closed, there is a sort of residue, the weakest of connections, that’s vaguely perceptible,
not unlike the faint smells and sounds that find their way underneath the crack of a closed door.
The Unseen Elder lives in a state of constant tantalization, enjoying the remnant or muted
trickle of his home world, guarding the portal, waiting and hoping for it to open once again.
Each Unseen Elder presides over vast territories in which they are the ultimate authority.
Higher vampires can seek audiences with unseen elders, but only in times of greatest necessity
and at their own peril. The powers of Unseen Elders dwarf those of other higher vampires
to a degree commensurate with how the powers of higher vampires dwarf those of humans.
Their speed is such that their movements are imperceptible to the human eye, even the keen,
greatly enhanced senses of witchers can’t track them, and their strength is on par with their
speed, combining into a potent combination that would be virtually impossible for any other
character or monster in the Witcher universe to overcome. Beyond their physical abilities, Unseen
Elders can also control other higher vampires, summoning them or putting them in stasis.
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