Ways to Turn

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Proin nibh sapien, semper maximus arcu at, lobortis feugiat nisi. Donec fermentum ultrices suscipit. Phasellus id facilisis metus, nec viverra lacus. Nullam a sapien accumsan, ullamcorper nisi in, pellentesque nibh. Mauris suscipit consectetur venenatis. Class aptent taciti sociosqu ad litora torquent per conubia nostra, per inceptos himenaeos. Donec eu lorem et lacus tristique fermentum at eu sapien. Nullam mollis dignissim ultrices. Sed accumsan tellus massa, sed malesuada lectus lobortis eget. Etiam pulvinar eros nec nulla eleifend vehicula. Integer convallis ultricies rutrum. In sodales, nisl ut fermentum malesuada, mauris augue vehicula augue, sit amet pellentesque nisl velit at sapien. Phasellus ornare dui vitae mi aliquam, eu rhoncus magna pretium. Sed at massa id lorem sollicitudin ultricies et non turpis. Suspendisse turpis orci, ultricies vitae varius sit amet, pellentesque ac quam. In id lorem arcu.

No, that "spell" on yahoo asks will not do it; you won't become a vampire.

### Anemia

People who have anemia have alternately been suspected of being vampire or the victim of a vampire for most of time. The basic symptoms are chest pains, fatigue, exhaustion, feeling tired, general weakness, high heart rate, pale complexion, shortness of breath, and unusual bleeding.

### Animal Feed On Corpse

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

Generally allowing for burial rites, anything that deviates from those rites can cause the person to be suspected of becoming a vampire. With the exception of some Asian and South American traditions, an animal taking a bite out of a body definitely qualifies. Generally, wolves, bears, badgers, cats, **turles, (?)** and weasels are the ones you want to keep away from bodies if you want to prevent a vampire. Clean up the battlefield after your war guys.

### Animal Jumped Over the Corpse

* Place: Europe, UK, Japan, USA, China
* Sources and Citation:

The idea is that the body may be possessed or the soul can become confused if an animals shadow passes over or touches a dead body. Back before death was fully understood and comas were accepted as a thing there were traditions that stated it could take a soul up to a week to leave the body. To ensure the soul moved on all manor of death vigil traditions emerged, probably simply because the living were bored and needed something to do during their watch. Generally the Animals to keep well away were house cats, birds, roosters, crown/ravens and hunting dogs.

### Bad Birth

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

Any number of conditions can cause the infant to be suspected of having a not-so-nice destiny. It changes from one town to another and one decade to another, but some general examples are being being born with a caul, with teeth, with hair, high birth weight, low birth weight... anything out of the areas of normal.

### Be Excommunicated

* Place: Abrahamic Religions
* Sources and Citation:

If you get kicked out of your church/temple you'll probably become a vampire. Excommunication comes with a laundry list (personally I like to think of it as a greatest-hits list) of things that you are denies, any one of which can cause you to become a vampire. Denial of Death Rites, Denial of Memorial Prayers, denial of proper burial, your family can't attend your body, and denial of funeral rites. The worst ones are Russian Orthodoxy, closely followed by some hard line Catholics, then Greek Orthodox. Honorable mentions for auto-vampire are Muslim (hardliners), Italian, and Slavic.

### Blood Drink Remedy

* USA
* Sources and Citation:

A quack doctor sometime in the late 1850s began publishing ads for a new remedy and health tonic: Bottles of Ox Blood. He added a "measure" of either opium, laudanum or liquid cocaine depending on your complaint and recommended that women, especially, drink 2 wine glasses of blood a day. It didn't take long for those who tried it to become hooked and believing that all blood had these effects ... there are two cases of Blood Cure Addiction that I have found where the women drank the blood of boyfriends and husbands. The press had a field day, as far as I can tell. One ended in "accidental" death, the other the woman nearly starved herself to death after her husband divorced her.

### Born With Intact Caul

The amniotic membrane that surrounds an unborn child in the womb. It's seen in some places as extremely bad luck to be born with a "cap" or "veil". Sometimes this is seen as a sign that the baby will grow to be a living vampire, or is predestined to become undead after death. Sometimes it is not so bad, a sign that the baby is gifted with a second sight and is able to see the invisible -- ghosts and vampire and angels and is naturally suited to be a dhampir or hunter.

### Born With A Tail

* Place: mostly Slavic Lore
* Sources and Citation:

In tales that mention tails... yeah, a tail is bad. Anything even resembling a tail is bad. Not only will the child grow to be a living vampire, they will become a powerful undead after death who is able to control the rain and summon fearsome thunderstorms at will.

### Buried The Other Way

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

If the normal for an area is face up, then burying someone face down will cause a vampire. If people are suppose to face the sunrise then someone being buried with the head pointed at sunset will cause them to become a vampire. If the normal is a sky burial, then being buried in the ground will create a vampire. Chucked into a ditch when cemeteries are the thing? Vampire. Flushed cremains down the toilet? Sewer vampire.

### Curse

Any verbal appeal for injury, evil or death to befall a person, place, or thing. And it's also known as the easiest way to become a vampire. Just have your parent or guardian -- whoever raised you -- curse you to never rest and become a vampire. (Also under "Parental Curse.")

### Death By Vampire

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

A favorite in fiction, there are a handful of tolk tales that state being killed by a vampire will condemn you to become one. Mostly unheard of before the 16th century outside of plague vampires though.

### Death of a Relative

If a relative dies a "long" or prolonged and lingering death, such as illness, they may decide to take someone with them or grow so desperate that their soul leaves their body to drain the life of those around them.

### Dying/Death

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

Just don't do it. There are any number of ways your corpse can become a vampire.

### Died Before Baptism/Naming

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

Impure souls cannot enter the afterlife, whatever the local rites and religions might be. Any infant to die before being properly inducted into society has died "outside" of the normal group and might become undead.

### Drowning

* Place: UK, Europe
* Sources and Citation:

A sudden and very traumatic death that shocks the soul; it was once a common belief in many parts of Europe and the United Kingdom that death by drowning would almost certianly create a vampire. Particularly in cases where the body count be recovered. Such water-born vampires had an understandable fear of streams, rivers, and the sea and might be where the popular idea that vampires cannot cross water comes from.

### Eating a Sheep Killed by a Wolf

Sometimes limited to the sheep's brain, sometime the entire body. Mostly it has to do with the wolf's portrayal an as 'evil' animal and somehow spiritually tainting the meat. Sometimes it was a fear of rabies possibly infecting the meat.

### Eye Color

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

Another one of the causes that changes town from town, region from region and decade by decade. Whatever is out of the normal for the area could mark someone as a living vampire. For example: Having bright blue eyes in Greece marks you a potential vampire.

### Hair Color

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

Another one of the causes that changes town from town, region from region and decade by decade. Whatever is out of the normal for the area could mark someone as a living vampire. As an example: in some hardline Christian traditions Judas Iscariot was believed to have had red hair and due to his betrayal of Christ all who have red hair are marked as evil and a possible vampire once they die.

### Illegitimate Birth

* Place: Old Christian
* Sources and Citation:

Any child born out of wedlock was sure to become a vampire after his or her death because bastards cannot enter Heaven.

### Improper/No Burial

* Global
* Sources and Citation:

Sometimes leaving a corpse out just pisses off the dead guy. This combines animal predation generally, wolves, bears, badgers, cats, **turles (?)** and weasels are the ones you want to keep away from bodies if you want to prevent a vampire. It means that there are no death rites, no memorial prayers, your family can't attend your body, no funeral fites. No directions to the afterlife.

### May The Curse

* Place: Greece
* Sources and Citation:

This is largely featured in fiction, but it *may* come from traditions based around Kamarina, especially near to the area of the Passo Marinaro necropolis.

Saying this quietly during a funeral can cause someone to become a vampire: "May the earth not receive him. May the ground **no (?)** consume him. May the earth cast him out. May the black earth spew him up. May thou remain incorrupt. May the ground reject thee. May thou become like a log. May **though (?)** become after death in solidity."

### Murdered

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

Think of the movie *Crow* with Brandon Lee. There are an odd few tales where someone who is murdered and unavenged and return as a vampire to seek out justice.

### A Nun Steps Over Your Corpse

* Place: Christian Areas
* Sources and Citation:

I'm not entirely sure that I understand this one... You've mildly inconvenienced a Nun though no fault of your own, since you are dead, so you are eternally cursed to become undead. I think it might have something to do with a shadow falling over your corpse, or a Nun's virginal purity might confuse the soul with the light of the afterlife. I don't know.

### Parental Curse

Any verbal appeal for injury, evil or death to befall a person place or thing. And it's also known as the easiest way to become a vampire. Just have your parent or guardian -- whoever raised you -- curse you to never rest and become a vampire.

### Passing a Lit Candle over a Corpse

* Place: vaguely ascribed to "Asian", I've seen it most often in Eastern European tales.
* Sources and Citation:

During the watch, where living sit around a corpse to see if you'll wake up from a coma if someone passes a candle directly over the body they have just put the soul of the dead in grave risk of becoming a vampire. Both the light of the flame might be confused for the afterlife, and shadows have now touched the body.

### Peron

* Slovakia
* Sources and Citation:

Mostly described as another name for the god Perun, I've seen a couple write ups where it is used as an overall "cursed by god" type of thing. It's probably a relic from the Pagan/Christian battles where Christians equated the local Pagan traditions to the Devil.

### Porridge Curse

* Modern Malawi
* Sources and Citation:

Beginning at midnight January 12th and 13th of 2018, a text message spread like wildfire across the town and suburbs of Mangochi that any infant and young child who was not immediately woken up and fed freshly cooked, unsalted and sugar free porridge would be cursed and/or dead as soon as the sun rose. Supposedly, according the text, a newborn infant who only lived for one hour set the curse to take the lives of as many children as it could in order to return from death.

### Potentzio Se

* Place: Former Yugoslavia and Montenegro
* Sources and Citation:

By rumor, the Potentzio Se is a rite that has to be performed on the shore of the Adriatic Sea bordering Albania and can allow a living person to become a vampire. First described in Man A Monthly Record Of Anthropological Science. Vol.23 December, 1923. No. 121. By M. Edith.

### Seventh Child

* Central and South America (current), Europe and UK
* Sources and Citation:

A holdover or combination with werewolf lore. The seventh child in a row of the same sex -- 7 boys or 7 girls -- is cursed to either become a werewolf or vampire in death. Old European tales suggested that they would be a werewolf in life and a vampire in death.

### Shadow Touched Corpse

* Place: vaguely ascribed to "Asian", I've seen it most often in Eastern European tales.
* Sources and Citation:

During the watch, where living sit around a corpse to see if you'll wake up from a coma if someone's shadow passes directly over the body they have just put the soul of the dead in grave risk of becoming a vampire. Some tales suggest that this opens the corpse up to demonic possession, while others imply that this can confuse the soul on its travel to the afterlife.

### Sleepwalking

A handful of tales and stories tell us that sleepwalkers might be a living vampire who who doesn't know what they are, subconsciously wandering about and unknowingly feeding on either the psychic or life energies of theose around them.

### Sorcery/Witchcraft

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citation:

Impure souls, those outside of the majority of the population, can't ever into the afterlife. If you live outside of the local area (on the edge of the woods for example) you might be suspected of having an impure soul. Some Living Vampires believe they may achieve immortality through occult practices. Vampires can gain familiars through the occult and even work in concert with other magical beings.

### Soul-Hair

A single tail hair of certain cats, if used properly, will force the soul of a dead person back into his or her body. It is preferable that you dig them up before using the soul-hair. If the hair is used precisely, they will rise as a vampire.

### Soul-Recall/Trapping

An ability of evil magic users, and apparently, cats. Some dark practitioners claim the ability to steal, trap recall or otherwise enslave the soul of a dead person to create servants. The cat part comes to us from some translations of Chinese folktales. They can recall the soul of any one, human or animal, and does not kill the newly revived, the person may become a wandering dead.

### Stealing Coffin Ropes

* Place: Europe, Russia, the USA and the UK
* Sources and Citation:

Death can infect and curse you. The taboo of grave regalia and the fear of death are probably the ancient sources for this one. The the ropes were used to lower a coffin into the ground they have 'touched' death. Because you either have no fear of death or are such a thrifty person there are a series of taboos broken here such as greed and being outside the norm.

### Suckled after Weaning

* Place: Europe, Russia, the USA and the UK, some parts of the Middle East and Western China
* Sources and Citation:

Mothers who over-nurse their children are putting the kid in mortal danger. In modern times this has adapted to include giving the child a bottle after they are on solid food, have reached a certain age, or have grown teeth. Though though or justification for the vampire bit is that the child will grow accustomed to sucking things and may stop as an adult, but will rise as a vampire to resume old habits.

### Suicide

* Place: Christian Custom
* Sources and Citations:

The so-called "Act of Judas" -- in medieval times and through to the late 18th century and early 19th century it was believed that suicides were either acting as God or defying God and since they commited such heresy as defying God's will they died in a state of mortal sin. There were laws in Europe, the UK, and the USA that suicides were denied death rites, denied memorial prayers, denied proper burial and even funeral rites. The body was pierced with an iron spike and chucked into a ditch at the crossroads outside of town. Not all suicides were automatically thought of as vampires, some just became ghosts. Particularly interesting is that there are a number of convictions of "self-murder" where a suicide was actually put on trial for killing themself in the 17th century.

### To Raise a Vampire

* Place: Russia
* Sources and Citations:

A Russian superstition that was noted in a area of the Black Sea was that to pour warm blood on a grave could summon that person's ghost. If you feed the ghost more blood, over time, they will gradually become physical and soon enough a vampire will be standing there. Naturally, if you were found out you were excommunicated and doomed to become one yourself.

### Unibrow

* Place: Greece, Iceland, Denmark, Germany and some South Asian Islands
* Sources and Citations:

If you have one, shave it. It's said to be a sure sign of a living vampire. Should a dead body grow a unibrow, they are becoming a vampire.

### Werewolfry/Lycanthropy

* Place: Old UK and Old Europe
* Sources and Citations:

Mostly a story from the days of the Inquisition and some of the decades just following. Anyone who was a werewolf in life might return as a vampire in death, because he... why not?

### Wicked Life

* Place: Global
* Sources and Citations:

This one is more of a catch-all. Anyone who lives out side of society's normal to-do and standards could be suspected of being a living vampire, or might become a vampire after death.

### Wind Touched Corpse

* Place: Lower Russia and Mongolia
* Sources and Citations:

If a wind passes over or touches a corpse, it might breathe into them a second life.