Invented Original Characters: Tick Vampires

Growing up my dream job was to be a comic book artist/writer. But with very little artistic talent that dream died pretty quickly. Now I do my best to bring my characters to life using apps like factory of heroes, swordmaker, armormaker, you doodle and photo cutout. They don't always turn out looking very good but I get more excited about the concepts and stories behind the characters than how well I can make the character look good. Sometimes my characters are from cultures I am not a part of because I think it fits their story or other aspects about them. I am not a cultural expert but at the very least I hope no one is upset by me using aspects of cultures I'm not a part of and find interesting. That said below is my idea for tick themed vampires.

Like all vampires, tick vampires were originally sorcerers who learned that drinking human blood made them more powerful and later realized that something about emulating blood drinking animals amplified their powers. Tick vampires first appeared in ancient times in what is now considered South America. They successfully hunted the humans there until a small group of humans became a new breed of vampires based off of finches who ate parasites and fed off the blood of larger birds. Before long most finch vampires were inherently more powerful than most tick vampires. Tired of being ruthlessly hunted most tick vampires fled and settled in North America where they were most densely populated in what is now called Canada.

The extreme cold winter months of much of Canada kept the tick vampires from thriving but it was still thought of as favourable to being nearer to their finch counterparts. They hunted the people of Canada rather successfully until a powerful sorcerer created the "curse of two" which aimed to give all types of vampires two weaknesses associated with the regions they were located in. This curse turned the tide for humans in North America as it let them use purple quahog shell and wild mint as powerful weapons against tick vampires. Conversely, finch vampires became weak to rainbow obsidian and peppers that could be found in South America. As this became known in the vampire world large numbers of tick vampires returned to South America where their weaknesses weren't common but the finches weaknesses were. Armed with Incan style weapons that used peppers and rainbow obsidian the tick vampires hunted the finch vampires to near extinction. However, as the threat of European bat vampires spread finch vampires and the tick vampires of North and South America went into hiding. Only to reemerge again when more contemporary vampire hunters greatly weakened the influence of bat vampires. At this time a young and talented vampire hunter named Jesse Lafontaine emerged and became the leading killer of tick vampires. Jesse has kept humans significantly safer from tick vampires by fighting them head on and arming the finch vampires with the right weapons to challenge the ticks in South America.

In addition to the wild mint and purple quahog shell most tick vampires are weaker in the cold and in the daytime. Almost all tick vampires can be easily identified as one or two types. Soft bodied tick vampires are typically blind and slower, heavier and easier to harm than then there armoured counterparts. but can still be quite deadly, especially if their prey is lacking weapons the ticks are weak to. Hard tick vampires are far more dangerous. As their name implies they are covered in a hard sometimes spiky armour making them hard to hurt even with wild mint or purple quahog shell. They typically are born with eyes or retain eyes if they were a human who has been turned by a tick vampire. Both types of tick vampires typically have a threepart tick like mouth with a barbed hypostome down the middle. They typically use their adept insect like senses to ambush prey near jungles, forests and caves. Jesse Lafontaine speculates that there may be even more powerful vampire tick types he's yet to encounter that influence the other ticks to bring them meals.