silly answer #1; instead of figments of the vampire, you get a bunch of reflective vampire-shaped silhouettes or possibly standing mirrors (applies penalties to discern wtf you’re looking at & actually hit the vampire/anything past them). may also wrap the vampire in the reflective silhouette as well.
#2; instead reverses the appearance and sounds made by the vampire = if they’re a righty, it looks like they’re using their left hand, backwards speech, etc (bonus to attack rolls and increased difficulty counter spelling the vampire’s spellcasting)
#3; since a vampire being invisible in the mirror would show other observers, the result would be a bunch of copies of everyone else around the vampire, doing what those people would be doing = probably each observer would see themselves surrounded by a confusing array of themselves (a confusion effect that makes observers uncertain where they themselves are standing relative to the vampire)
#4; vampire seems to disappear, but now can only be observed via a mirror
I always thought pop culture must have that wrong; vampires have corporeal bodies so they would be visible in mirrors. It’s ghosts that would lack mirror images, because they’re just tricking your mind into thinking they’re there in the first place.
These are based on myths, so may have their roots in pre-modern optics.
We know that vision comes from light bouncing around and being detected by the eye.
But Al-Kindi in the 9th Century believed that “that everything in the world emits rays in every direction, which fill the whole world.”
Hero of Alexandria suggested that visual rays were produced from the eyes at great speed onto the the object seen and were reflected from smooth surfaces but could become trapped in the “porosities” of unpolished surfaces.
In Cartesian physics, light was the sensation of pressure emitted by surrounding objects that sought to move, as transmitted through the rotatory motion of material corpuscles.
This wasn’t firmly rebuked until the 17th Century. Although this was long before vampires became popular with Dracula, early vampire myths may have established this idea which got picked up without context.
I’ve heard the idea that because early mirrors were backed with silver and that because vampires are sometimes vulnerable to silver, species emitted by vampires are destroyed by contact with silver, so can’t be reflected by mirrors.
Some RPGs like Ars Magica rely on ideas like this. Imaginem magic in that game can create images, but not light or darkness. So an illusionary torch wouldn’t illuminate the area and an illusionary object wouldn’t cast a shadow.
Hello Ahdok. I noticed that your little goblin friend said “What happens if a vampire casts Mirror Image?” Does this mean that vampire’s illusions show in the mirror but the vampire not? Please clarify.
silly answer #1; instead of figments of the vampire, you get a bunch of reflective vampire-shaped silhouettes or possibly standing mirrors (applies penalties to discern wtf you’re looking at & actually hit the vampire/anything past them). may also wrap the vampire in the reflective silhouette as well.
#2; instead reverses the appearance and sounds made by the vampire = if they’re a righty, it looks like they’re using their left hand, backwards speech, etc (bonus to attack rolls and increased difficulty counter spelling the vampire’s spellcasting)
#3; since a vampire being invisible in the mirror would show other observers, the result would be a bunch of copies of everyone else around the vampire, doing what those people would be doing = probably each observer would see themselves surrounded by a confusing array of themselves (a confusion effect that makes observers uncertain where they themselves are standing relative to the vampire)
#4; vampire seems to disappear, but now can only be observed via a mirror
I always thought pop culture must have that wrong; vampires have corporeal bodies so they would be visible in mirrors. It’s ghosts that would lack mirror images, because they’re just tricking your mind into thinking they’re there in the first place.
These are based on myths, so may have their roots in pre-modern optics.
We know that vision comes from light bouncing around and being detected by the eye.
But Al-Kindi in the 9th Century believed that “that everything in the world emits rays in every direction, which fill the whole world.”
Hero of Alexandria suggested that visual rays were produced from the eyes at great speed onto the the object seen and were reflected from smooth surfaces but could become trapped in the “porosities” of unpolished surfaces.
In Cartesian physics, light was the sensation of pressure emitted by surrounding objects that sought to move, as transmitted through the rotatory motion of material corpuscles.
This wasn’t firmly rebuked until the 17th Century. Although this was long before vampires became popular with Dracula, early vampire myths may have established this idea which got picked up without context.
I’ve heard the idea that because early mirrors were backed with silver and that because vampires are sometimes vulnerable to silver, species emitted by vampires are destroyed by contact with silver, so can’t be reflected by mirrors.
Some RPGs like Ars Magica rely on ideas like this. Imaginem magic in that game can create images, but not light or darkness. So an illusionary torch wouldn’t illuminate the area and an illusionary object wouldn’t cast a shadow.
Hello Ahdok. I noticed that your little goblin friend said “What happens if a vampire casts Mirror Image?” Does this mean that vampire’s illusions show in the mirror but the vampire not? Please clarify.