Morbius the Living Vampire from Marvel

I’ve gone into the Dawn Fangs here before.  Here are the major physical and origin points:

1. Born from the Great Cataclysm, they are vampires that are still alive.  Pulse, create enough blood to avoid a coma, and fangs are there.
2. Each one has 3 powers that are ‘Body, Mind, and Aura’.  Makes them very unpredictable.
3. They do not have to kill when they feed.
4. While Old World Vampires lose their powers in sunlight, Dawn Fangs are usually unaffected.
5. You need to behead and destroy the heart to permanently kill a Dawn Fang. Only removing the head puts them into a slumber that can be ended by reattachment.  Only destroying or removing the heart only removes their sunlight immunity.

Now the Dawn Fangs have made a few cameos in Legends of Windemere.  Some in the background with a flash of the fangs.  Then there is the Old World Vampire in Prodigy of Rainbow Tower who pretended to be a Dawn Fang.  Though my favorite is still the gang that thought it would be smart to threaten Nyx’s friends while in an enclosed space with her.  That would The Compass Key and those vampires will not be missed.  Still they tend to stay out of worldly situations unless their civilization is drawn into the fray.  That is what happens in The Mercenary Prince and why the Dawn Fangs become a factor for at least this book.

You see, nobody is really sure if there was a plan behind the creation of the Dawn Fangs since they appear to be an accident.  At first, people believed it was to conquer Windemere like the Hejinn and Baron Kernaghan.  Instead, their progenitor decided that it was smarter to stay in their own city or live in peace among their food source.  The reason is because he noticed that those who try to conquer the world are inevitably met by a constant flow of chosen heroes. The whole mess sounded like a hassle, so the Dawn Fangs have strict rules about behavior with mortals.  Nearly all of these end with execution since the peace is always shaky.  Imagine a lion simply hanging out with a herd of zebra.  The moment he eats one is when everything falls apart.

What happens if a Dawn Fang breaks the rules and threatens the nation with a war?  A special agent named the Dark Mistress is sent to retrieve the criminal.  Dawn Fangs police their own, which is part of their global treaty.  They do understand when one of their kind becomes violent and is killed by mortals.  There’s only retribution when it is a senseless killing and that is typically only the death of the murderers.  The Dark Mistress does this too, but her main job is to handle the big problems.  If she can bring the person back alive then they are put on trial.  If they put up too much of a fight or she’s in a bad mood then she has the authority to execute on the spot.  Honestly, not many would argue with her and even those that would probably won’t get very far.

It’s this aspect of the Dawn Fangs that brings them into The Mercenary Prince and the Dark Mistress does cross paths with Delvin.  I look at the book as an introductory to the vampire world too.  That might be the next big series that I do, so this gives me an idea of what people think of the concept.  I can tweak down the line, but it doesn’t reveal the main protagonist, which could alter things.  Clyde is . . . something else entirely and cloaked in spoilers.  Yes, the progenitor of the Dawn Fangs is named Clyde.  As the Dark Mistress explains, nobody names their child with the expectation that they’ll become a blood-drinking, terrifying monster.