August 27, 2010

Best of the Dark Side: 13 Voracious Vampire Sites

The "Vampire Lifestyle" pages was where I kept links to vampire FAQs, info on Elizabeth Bathory (probably not a vampire though) and Dracula, info on Bran Castle, vampire articles, and vampire portals and links pages.

1. Vampire Rave

I initially was going to overlook this site because I'm not a fan of webpages that brag about how they're the resource for a given topic. It sounds a bit arrogant, and usually if you have to claim yourself that your site is the best, well, usually that just happens on sites that aren't actually very good.

However, I just looked at Vampire Rave's resource database and it blew me away. Massive, immense amounts of vampire related data here. The users of this community have really done an amazing job contributing info to this database. There are entries on over 2000 books, there's pictures (and sourcing info) on almost 1000 vampire furniture/home decor items, 200 or more articles, 371 poems, plus tons of info on vampire TV, books, and games. You could browse here for weeks if you had the time and inclination. I'm impressed.

http://www.vampirerave.com/

2. The Vampire Church

Rather than your traditional blood-sucking type vampire, this site focuses on "bio energy vampirism." There are articles on psychic vampirism, elemental vampirism, vampire safety and shielding, and prana blood vampirism. The forum has subcategories for movies, music, chat, and news.

http://www.vampire-church.com/

3. Sanguinarius.Org

Probably the oldest high-quality vampire resource that I can remember. I don't want to use a cliche like "I tip my hat to them" but I really am proud of Sanguinarius for keeping his site going, active, relevant and useful for these many years.

http://www.sanguinarius.org/

4. Dracula, by Elizabeth Miller

Elizabeth Miller is probably the foremost Dracula scholar in the world. If you need to know anything about Dracula for a paper or for your own curiosity, here's where you go.

http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~emiller/

5. Vampyres Only

Unless this has changed hands over the years, this is another one of the older, most respected vampire information resources I can recall. It offers blogs, articles, movie reviews, info on vampire comics, quizzes, and a forum.

http://www.vampyres.com/

6. Silken Shadows Vampire Community

This community is currently undergoing a facelift and reconstruction (I know the feeling!) so the reason I'm showing it to you is the vampire forums. You'll likely see a lot of good changes here in the next month or two.

http://www.vampirecommunity.com/

7. Darkness Embraced

Long-standing, highly respected website that explores vampire, pagan, paranormal, spirituality and familiar culture. The blog posts here are really well thought out and you can tell someone took their time carefully crafting them. There's also a forum you can sign up to join.

http://www.darknessembraced.com/

8. Vampires and Slayers

A social network with groups and forums for like minded souls.

http://vampiresandslayers.ning.com/

9. Vampire News

A frequently updated blog with daily vampire movie, book and TV news.

http://www.vampirenews.com/

10. Vampire Loves

A good Twitter stream to follow if you're interested in vampire news throughout the day. And it's not all Twilight or True Blood!

http://twitter.com/vampireloves

11. Shroud Eater

Enormous site for European vampire research. Stories and accounts are sorted by country. The links and info might not have been updated in a while, it's hard to tell, but the country-specific tales are still valuable and interesting.

http://www.shroudeater.com/

12. Drink Deeply and Dream

This site has been around for over ten years. It's not updated much anymore, but you can still access archives of vampire fiction, vampire FAQs, and articles on vampirism. There's also a message forum that's still active.

http://www.drinkdeeplyanddream.com/

13. London Vampyre Group

This is a great example of real-world vampire networking. The London Vampire Group organizes meetings, events, and parties. The website also offers the usual forums, reviews, links and news.

http://www.revamped.co.uk/lvg/

--Carrie Carolin

Dark Side of the Net

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