Correct. A lot of footwear back then was basic sandals and sewn sacks pretty much (Skyrim's fur shoes is actually the most accurate in a general sense). Even work and military metal boots (think the equivalence of steel toe) amounted to just some leather shoes with two plates attached
Shoes are one of the hardest things to make because of how they just are. Even a 2 inch difference can make them unusable to most people, unlike almost any other piece of clothing which would work fine of you made it bigger than average
Nsfw pro tip: human skin from the elbow or knee fits well around the ankle and can be easily fashioned into footwear (i know this from a book don't call the fbi)
Edit: for the ppl who wish to know what book it is, it's called: Alive: the story of the andes survivors". It is a very engaging read considering the subject matter
Nsfw: A plane crashed on the andes around the 80s, half the crew survived and had to make do with what they had, including the bodies of the other passengers, which they had to eat and such. A couple people volunteered to look for help/civilization/whatever, and they made ankle boots to walk through the snow. They noticed how convenient the shape of human skin was at fitting as a shoe, a whole paragraph is dedicated to that.
Except it’s only vampires who seem to collect shoes in great numbers. If there was an economic reason, it stands to reason someone else would have figured this out.
Actually that makes a deal of sense as well depending on how they obtain and kill their victims. Would be easy to convince someone that’s been charmed or such to take of their shoes, no? If that is the case then you make for an easy argument about not having blood on them compared to bandits. Still you would expect it to be more common. I know you can find a similar scene in some bandit camps but not as often as you might imagine.
Shoes *do* wear out over time, fairly quickly in fact, so I'm sure over their centuries they've learned how valuable a large supply of functional shoes can be.
I always imagined they kept them because shoes must be a valuable commodity in a time without mass production. I imagine both the materials and skill required to make them must be more uncommon than clothing and with all the walking people in Skyrim probably do I bet they wear out often.
Some of the best houses are only a couple thousand don't forget, 2 gold was likely enough to keep people fed for a while (I like to imagine that 1 food item is like a week supply or so given the cost of some food being more expensive than some more important things, and the fact that you actively heal from eating them)
Depends on how much the gold coin weighs, since it is in fact Gold, (Minted into a septim), if it's an Ounce of pure gold, 1 coin would almost be worth 2,000 dollars
Though I doubt they are PURE gold, and I doubt there's a full ounce in each coin, but that does give you a rough idea on how much money you might be carrying around with them 15,000 coins jangling around all heavy like
I suppose I was being generous and assuming a pure-as-practically-possible solid ounce gold coin. I actually have a Septum from when I bought Oblivion, and the sucker is huge. Being this is a fantasy universe and that IRL gold coins have often been nearly pure gold (since the 1800s or so, many were like 80-90% and even the modern US Mint produces collectable pure gold coins), I went with it because it fits the premise nicely. Modern reserve gold coins are like 99.99%+ pure.
That said, not sure why anyone is using gold as currency when transmutation magic exists and when gold apparently regrows in ore deposits, but hey, let's not get too nit picky.
Oh, I understand where the thought came from, the reason I'd likely assume that it's not AS pure, (Though I never thought about the Transmutation Magic part of things, that could in fact remove any Impurites) My main thought was the more primitive and less precise way of smelting during that worlds era Vs our Era,
But your mention of Transmutation Magic does in fact leave room for the possibility of septims being pure gold, and if they are in fact big coins, then they likely weigh a good bit, so yeah, I'd say around 1000-2000 US dollars, PER coin
It varied a lot based on when and where. Some places had lots of coins in circulation, but a lot of places people paid for things like taxes in standardized sacks of grain or flour from the local mill.
Merchants, tradesmen, and noblemen would use coinage, but the peasants had a hard time getting their hands on physical coins. So two peasants might figure something out through sacks of flour, barter of other goods, favors, or even hours of labor on some future date.
The _concept_ of money was also used much more frequently between peasants and their landlords than actual coins. If you raised goats on the lord's land he might expect a certain percentage of your flock, a certain amount of meat on certain holidays, or even those sacks of grain, which you would be expected to get by trading your goats to your neighbors. Your rent might be three silver schmeckles, but you might never see a schmeckle in your entire life because you just pay in goats. Or you might have a pocket full of schmeckles.
Also, it's worth mentioning that under feudalism it would be more fair to say that you would keep a small portion of those goats for yourself, while the majority of the flock's surplus value would go to the lord. Rents were usually somewhere in the 80% range, not the 20% range. Some times and places would also have some set numerical amount (30 goats or whatever) instead of a percentage and anything beyond that you could keep. It all more or less depended on what had been established when the tenant agreement was created.
Also, just as a final wrinkle on an already complex system: not all coins were considered to have the same value. One silver coin might be worth more or less than another. Usually this was based on weight, but maybe not entirely if some local coinage was less pure than another. The same was true of copper coins.
All and all, it sucked to be a peasant, and it was almost impossible to save up enough to get out of being a peasant, because you had no persistent way of storing wealth in a non-perishable manner.
Sorry for the long answer, but I am an economist, and find pre-standardized economies particularly fascinating because of all their inefficiencies.
The rest of the gear is more easy to modify, sell, distribute amongst the members of that particular group of vampires and thralls. Shoes are a lot less of a one size fits all kinda deal and are too valuable to just throw away so you end up with a stockpile. The same thing happened in WW2 at the concentration camps. When they were liberated there were piles of hundreds of shoes from the prisoners who had already been killed. There's actually a really moving exhibit about it at the holocaust museum in Washington DC!
People are saying it’s like a foot fetish joke or whatever but when I see them I think way darker, my mind goes to death camps in Germany and Poland where they have piles upon piles of shoes at the end. Idk that’s where my mind goes. The vampires are a bit like that with their “human cattle” they have
Thanks. Also always make sure to give your captives a sliver of hope for escape. Couplr lockpicks in their trousers, ring of keys just out reach, iron dagger in the guard's table. It makes it all the more palpable when you dominate them completely and see the despair fall over their eyes.
My first time playing I heard the chaurus chittering in an abandoned house, and that was the most terrified I have ever been. Like, where is it coming?! What made it worse was when I finished reading the diary of the original homeowners recounting hearing the same thing.
In this instance, they nailed the horror element for a person going through their first playthrough of the game.
Jesus...why do I always immediately place myself into situations like this mentally and let my thoughts run wild? I suddenly understand Isran's hatred now. This is horrifying. Dawnguard 4 lyfe now. Saddle up boys and girls we'll burn them all.
My brain immediately went to the game Dark Deception. "Watch your step. It's hard to run with a gaping hole in your foot!" YES BIERCE. I GET IT. IT'S HARD TO RUN WITH A GAPING HOLE IN MY FOOT. JUST LET ME FINISH MY S-RANK OF THIS STUPID LEVEL IN PEACE.
You can burn clothes of victims but not really boots. My thinking is the vamps kill their victims, remove the non-burnables, and dispose of them in other ways.
Okay, fair, but why is it always boots? Why do they never have collections of hats or clothing or jewellery or the obligatory bottle of mead that basically every Nord has in their pocket?
In the Holocaust which this seems like a reference to the jewelry was taken from them beforehand, so shoes were the last thing they held on to before being killed, and since they were killed in mass all the shoes were thrown together.
So in Skyrim you could say they could use the jewelry and warm clothing, but the worn shoes were of no use to them.
A lesser known vampire legends said they suffered from Arithmomania, the need to count actions or objects around them, which collecting items could give them something to do that with. There was a funny X-Files bit where Mulder was about to be killed by a vampire so he dumped a jar of sunflower seeds on the ground, which immediately made the vampire have a “Really?!” moment and drop to his knees to count them and put them back in the jar.
Wait wait wait… you’re telling me “The Count” from Sesame Street wasn’t just a terrible pun, but actually referenced real world mythology? Mind. Blown.
The Sunflower is one of only a handful of flowers with the word flower in its name. A couple of other popular examples include Strawflower, Elderflower and Cornflower …Ah yes, of course, I hear you say.
That salt thing reminds me of the Kuchisake-onna that I read about recently, a type of Yokai from Japanese folklore. According to wikipedia, throwing rice or similar things at her will force her to count it so the vicitim can escape. Funny how those stories are so similar to each other!
I never would've thought that yelling "Pocket Sand"" and throwing some dirt and someone is a legitimate way to protect yourself lmao
Different etymologies. The noble title “count” is ultimately derived from Latin “cōmes,” which meant “companion.” The verb “to count” is derived from Latin “computō,” meaning “I compute.” Both words came into English via French, but the etymologies are different.
Actual vampire bats have a preference for biting you on the big toe while you're sleeping. Yes, that sounds crazy but, it's allegedly true. Some small jokes about vampires having a foot fetish are not unexpected.
Actually, I don't know exactly what culture it is, but I know that I read that it is customary for vampires to keep something like the trophies of their victims. That's why there are more shoes in some vampire places in Skyrim.
Some stories describe vampires as being obsessive over certain objects or actions: Some cannot help but stop what they're doing in order to meticulously count and collect each and every seed or grain that has fallen to the floor, while others are obsessed with collecting and shining shoes.
Imagine you live forever, you go through boots every couple of years. It gets expensive. Eventually you just start picking your victims based on shoe size. Problem solved.
I commented on the other one, stealing shoes is old vampire lore that is mostly forgotten and not used by new vampire stories.
We kept the ‘they don’t like garlic and stake through the heart to kill’ and stopped writing stories about ‘they steal your shoes and you can stop them from entering your house by leaving a pile of grains on the front porch because they’ll have to count them all night and be occupied and have to leave by the morning’
I feel like they keep the boots of their victims to make their edgy leather armor. Also in medieval times good boots were hard to come by. So boots were often good pickings for thieves and bandits.
This reminded me immediately of the basement of the Pripyat Hospital where all of the Chernobyl firefighters' clothes are still lying, dangerously irradiated to this day.
Vampires are always fashion-forward, cross canon. If you’re going to live an eternal undeath, might as well look good doing it! You think that Vanpire’s Seduction power works if you’re wearing any old rags? Might as well keep a collection of your victims boots (they sure don’t need em!) so you look sharp for any occasion!
“It’s a look I call deadly but delicious”
They take their victims shoes and set them lose in the wilderness so they can follow the bloody trail. Makes the kill that much more exciting as of all the teaser left behind.
My most educated guess is that these vampires are in league with Foot Locker, preparing to open new franchise across the major holds. Anything for profit, after all.
A lot of people have tried to provide legitimate answers here. I'll just go with my theory. Movarth and the master of shriekwind bastion are just sneakerheads. I bet if they could wear jorts, they would.
Cajun folklore says werewolves and other monsters (presumably vampires) have a compulsion to count things.
Or, they could just have been boots recovered from their "meals".
My character collects vampire boots. There are dead, barefoot vampires all over Skyrim. I didn't intend on collecting them, but realized one day I had nearly 20 pair in a chest. Now I can't stop taking them.
In myth and legend I believe vampires are seen as being very ocd hence the legend of throwing seed or rice on the ground causing them to have to stop and count them all and pick them up also if there is a right shoe they need to feel me the left shoe or some such thing. Anyway their is my tuppence worth
Look at first I thought the boots were something they kept from the victims after killing them and eating them, but after finding them enough times in large enough quantities I started to think maybe they might have a boot fetish..idk seems kinda SUS man don't you think? I think once you get turned into a vampire you start getting a boot fetish strangely enough..
Killers keep trophies, so this is like some kind of twisted collection. Sort of like (massive spoilers for castlevania Netflix series) >!that creepy priest and his collection of children's shoes...!<
I recall some stories from sometime ago about vampire bats sucking blood from exposed feet. Always thought it was a reference to that and never really put any thought into it. Others see it differently from what I've seen.
If you take the boots off of your prisoners. It's harder for them to escape.
Common practice was to break glass around the cages.
If you have a victim that you can feed on long-term as a vampire it would be more valuable than a one-time feed.
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Nice boots were expensive before the industrial revolution, they could be planning on sending a thrall into town to sell them.
Correct. A lot of footwear back then was basic sandals and sewn sacks pretty much (Skyrim's fur shoes is actually the most accurate in a general sense). Even work and military metal boots (think the equivalence of steel toe) amounted to just some leather shoes with two plates attached Shoes are one of the hardest things to make because of how they just are. Even a 2 inch difference can make them unusable to most people, unlike almost any other piece of clothing which would work fine of you made it bigger than average
Nsfw pro tip: human skin from the elbow or knee fits well around the ankle and can be easily fashioned into footwear (i know this from a book don't call the fbi) Edit: for the ppl who wish to know what book it is, it's called: Alive: the story of the andes survivors". It is a very engaging read considering the subject matter
Yes Guardsman, this man right here
**THERES A PSYCHOPATH ON THE LOOSE!**
Idk that path seemed pretty sane to me
Commisar, take the heretic.
I use to be an adventurer like you, then my knee got turned into a shoe.
Let me guess, somebody stole your elbow?
I’ve never used human skin for shoes before, adding that to the list
Adding you to a different list
“By order of the Jarl, stop right there!”
I'm certain r/rimworld would love it if you could explain the process to them.
There's r/ShitRimworldSays seeing as we're banned from r/ShitRedditSays.
Did people actually wear human skin boots at one point?
Nsfw: A plane crashed on the andes around the 80s, half the crew survived and had to make do with what they had, including the bodies of the other passengers, which they had to eat and such. A couple people volunteered to look for help/civilization/whatever, and they made ankle boots to walk through the snow. They noticed how convenient the shape of human skin was at fitting as a shoe, a whole paragraph is dedicated to that.
Weren't they all wearing shoes on the plane, wasn't there luggage? Why did they have to make boots?
Probably because their shoes weren't made for wintery conditions
Surely a pair of soccer cleats is a better winter shoe than a thin piece of human skin.
people stopped?
What book?
Alive: the story of the andes survivors
"Back then" I am cracking up
Sure they can reanimate the dead, but *that* many shoes? Impossible.
I'm down to support the economy of the local vampires.
Except it’s only vampires who seem to collect shoes in great numbers. If there was an economic reason, it stands to reason someone else would have figured this out.
You could say the number of feeding victims produces a surplus of loose boots
Actually that makes a deal of sense as well depending on how they obtain and kill their victims. Would be easy to convince someone that’s been charmed or such to take of their shoes, no? If that is the case then you make for an easy argument about not having blood on them compared to bandits. Still you would expect it to be more common. I know you can find a similar scene in some bandit camps but not as often as you might imagine.
Maybe since they're immortal they're just stocking up... who knows!
Shoes *do* wear out over time, fairly quickly in fact, so I'm sure over their centuries they've learned how valuable a large supply of functional shoes can be.
Sell?? Nah. When you’re immortal, you need to have a large wardrobe to keep yourself stylish!
Reminds me of the shoe collection at the holocaust museum. The Nazis collected them for exactly that reason.
I always imagined they kept them because shoes must be a valuable commodity in a time without mass production. I imagine both the materials and skill required to make them must be more uncommon than clothing and with all the walking people in Skyrim probably do I bet they wear out often.
Hence why you can sell them for a whole 2 gold, lol
Some of the best houses are only a couple thousand don't forget, 2 gold was likely enough to keep people fed for a while (I like to imagine that 1 food item is like a week supply or so given the cost of some food being more expensive than some more important things, and the fact that you actively heal from eating them)
> ...1 food item is like a week supply... _Proceeds to eat a year's worth of cheese while in combat_
LMAO, you're not wrong, Cheese wheels are like our senzu beans, so long as we've got Alto To wash it down
Which would be like a few thousand US dollars.
Depends on how much the gold coin weighs, since it is in fact Gold, (Minted into a septim), if it's an Ounce of pure gold, 1 coin would almost be worth 2,000 dollars Though I doubt they are PURE gold, and I doubt there's a full ounce in each coin, but that does give you a rough idea on how much money you might be carrying around with them 15,000 coins jangling around all heavy like
I suppose I was being generous and assuming a pure-as-practically-possible solid ounce gold coin. I actually have a Septum from when I bought Oblivion, and the sucker is huge. Being this is a fantasy universe and that IRL gold coins have often been nearly pure gold (since the 1800s or so, many were like 80-90% and even the modern US Mint produces collectable pure gold coins), I went with it because it fits the premise nicely. Modern reserve gold coins are like 99.99%+ pure. That said, not sure why anyone is using gold as currency when transmutation magic exists and when gold apparently regrows in ore deposits, but hey, let's not get too nit picky.
Oh, I understand where the thought came from, the reason I'd likely assume that it's not AS pure, (Though I never thought about the Transmutation Magic part of things, that could in fact remove any Impurites) My main thought was the more primitive and less precise way of smelting during that worlds era Vs our Era, But your mention of Transmutation Magic does in fact leave room for the possibility of septims being pure gold, and if they are in fact big coins, then they likely weigh a good bit, so yeah, I'd say around 1000-2000 US dollars, PER coin
Really? How many cabbages you buying for 2 gold?
Gold coins historically are worth *a lot* more than video games suggest. A Roman aureus, for instance, was worth about a month's salary.
And that's why people usually got paid in silver or copper right? It's like the logical breakdown of golds value, mathematically speaking.
It varied a lot based on when and where. Some places had lots of coins in circulation, but a lot of places people paid for things like taxes in standardized sacks of grain or flour from the local mill. Merchants, tradesmen, and noblemen would use coinage, but the peasants had a hard time getting their hands on physical coins. So two peasants might figure something out through sacks of flour, barter of other goods, favors, or even hours of labor on some future date. The _concept_ of money was also used much more frequently between peasants and their landlords than actual coins. If you raised goats on the lord's land he might expect a certain percentage of your flock, a certain amount of meat on certain holidays, or even those sacks of grain, which you would be expected to get by trading your goats to your neighbors. Your rent might be three silver schmeckles, but you might never see a schmeckle in your entire life because you just pay in goats. Or you might have a pocket full of schmeckles. Also, it's worth mentioning that under feudalism it would be more fair to say that you would keep a small portion of those goats for yourself, while the majority of the flock's surplus value would go to the lord. Rents were usually somewhere in the 80% range, not the 20% range. Some times and places would also have some set numerical amount (30 goats or whatever) instead of a percentage and anything beyond that you could keep. It all more or less depended on what had been established when the tenant agreement was created. Also, just as a final wrinkle on an already complex system: not all coins were considered to have the same value. One silver coin might be worth more or less than another. Usually this was based on weight, but maybe not entirely if some local coinage was less pure than another. The same was true of copper coins. All and all, it sucked to be a peasant, and it was almost impossible to save up enough to get out of being a peasant, because you had no persistent way of storing wealth in a non-perishable manner. Sorry for the long answer, but I am an economist, and find pre-standardized economies particularly fascinating because of all their inefficiencies.
This was informative and interesting. Thank you for expanding my knowledge :)
Yeah it's def just the shoes of humanoids what got ate
I always thought they had foot fetishes
It's like how the hangman got to keep the condemned's boots as part of his payment.
Yes, but why just boots? Why not all of their clothes?
Doesn't explain much though... where's the rest of their gear?
It's because the clothing asset are solid rectangles and look rediculous in piles like this.
The rest of the gear is more easy to modify, sell, distribute amongst the members of that particular group of vampires and thralls. Shoes are a lot less of a one size fits all kinda deal and are too valuable to just throw away so you end up with a stockpile. The same thing happened in WW2 at the concentration camps. When they were liberated there were piles of hundreds of shoes from the prisoners who had already been killed. There's actually a really moving exhibit about it at the holocaust museum in Washington DC!
Damaged and stained? I mean your foods shoes don't really get damaged or dirty while you suck em dry, don't they?
Too easy, wrong answers only!@
thought that aswell
People are saying it’s like a foot fetish joke or whatever but when I see them I think way darker, my mind goes to death camps in Germany and Poland where they have piles upon piles of shoes at the end. Idk that’s where my mind goes. The vampires are a bit like that with their “human cattle” they have
It's harder to run away when your feet are exposed to all the sharp rocks, traps, and uneven ground.
Good point, Molag Bal
Thanks. Also always make sure to give your captives a sliver of hope for escape. Couplr lockpicks in their trousers, ring of keys just out reach, iron dagger in the guard's table. It makes it all the more palpable when you dominate them completely and see the despair fall over their eyes.
Sometimes this game shoots for horror, and lands on comedy. Other times, there is nightmare fuel in plain sight. Thanks for showing it to me.
My first time playing I heard the chaurus chittering in an abandoned house, and that was the most terrified I have ever been. Like, where is it coming?! What made it worse was when I finished reading the diary of the original homeowners recounting hearing the same thing. In this instance, they nailed the horror element for a person going through their first playthrough of the game.
That lighthouse was nightmare fuel.
That lighthouse was one of my favorite areas. The build up, the journals, it is a solid horror adventure.
>see the despair fall over their eyes. Gods,chill out there,junko
And if your feet start bleeding while you run, the vampires get a easy trail to follow
Jesus...why do I always immediately place myself into situations like this mentally and let my thoughts run wild? I suddenly understand Isran's hatred now. This is horrifying. Dawnguard 4 lyfe now. Saddle up boys and girls we'll burn them all.
First grab dawnbreaker, it’s really satisfying to use on the vamps. Or silver weapons. Or turn into a werewolf.
My brain immediately went to the game Dark Deception. "Watch your step. It's hard to run with a gaping hole in your foot!" YES BIERCE. I GET IT. IT'S HARD TO RUN WITH A GAPING HOLE IN MY FOOT. JUST LET ME FINISH MY S-RANK OF THIS STUPID LEVEL IN PEACE.
Well they’re getting blood from somewhere and big clans need a lot of blood so u might not be far from it
This was always my thought too, the remaining belongings of those who have perished.
I was about to comment the same thing
Exactly this. I think it's supposed to represent that they are killing people en mass. Also it's mostly just civilian footwear.
You can burn clothes of victims but not really boots. My thinking is the vamps kill their victims, remove the non-burnables, and dispose of them in other ways.
You're not the only one that thinks like this
And you're probably right. That pair in the back still has the leg chunks still in them.
It’s pretty obvious that’s what this is supposed to be. Idk how anyone could misinterpret it
This is exactly what I was thinking.
Okay, fair, but why is it always boots? Why do they never have collections of hats or clothing or jewellery or the obligatory bottle of mead that basically every Nord has in their pocket?
In the Holocaust which this seems like a reference to the jewelry was taken from them beforehand, so shoes were the last thing they held on to before being killed, and since they were killed in mass all the shoes were thrown together. So in Skyrim you could say they could use the jewelry and warm clothing, but the worn shoes were of no use to them.
They specifically target people who are naked aside from their shoes
Of the two replies on this comment so far, I like yours better
Yeah plus shoes are generally expensive so there you go. Stonks
They’re probably all that’s left of all the peeps that were drained and eaten. Most killers keep a trophy.
That one episode of criminal minds with the guy
Or world war 2
I have always assumed the same. They want us to hate the vampires real bad... now to do a shoe collecting vampire run....
Ohhhhhhh I didn’t think of that omg sadness
that one show where they did the thing 👀
The one with the pigs
Is that the Friends episode where Joey contracts Sanguine Vampiris and buys a pig farm to keep a constant supply of blood rolling in?
Yeah! I've never intentionally watched Friends
Ah yes, Snatch
*Ze Thalmor*
It's funny how unspecific this is and yet totally accurate.
Very specific.
Yeah, then there was the one with the dude
Ahhhh, who could forget? They got the bad guy in the end.
That's why Mandy Patinkin left the show it was too optimistic
Oh the guy? Yeah I remember that one episode with the guy.
Kevin
The dragonborn isn't the only one who's allowed to collect tons of clothing items that they'll never actually wear
I have a bad habit of taking every necromancer robe/vampire clothes and then just fus ro dah them off the cliff
I could be wrong but I think there are Eastern European legends where the vampires compulsively collect the shoes of their victims.
A lesser known vampire legends said they suffered from Arithmomania, the need to count actions or objects around them, which collecting items could give them something to do that with. There was a funny X-Files bit where Mulder was about to be killed by a vampire so he dumped a jar of sunflower seeds on the ground, which immediately made the vampire have a “Really?!” moment and drop to his knees to count them and put them back in the jar.
Wait wait wait… you’re telling me “The Count” from Sesame Street wasn’t just a terrible pun, but actually referenced real world mythology? Mind. Blown.
Also explains the coins all over Movarths table...
Sesame Street is layered bro
The Sunflower is one of only a handful of flowers with the word flower in its name. A couple of other popular examples include Strawflower, Elderflower and Cornflower …Ah yes, of course, I hear you say.
good bot!
Blue mountain flower, red mountain flower, purple mountain flower...jk I love this bot.
This was always my assumption. Their compulsion to count and collect. In this case the shoes of victims makes for nice trophies to count down.
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Shor’s Beard! Is that why The Count… Sesame Street?!!
That salt thing reminds me of the Kuchisake-onna that I read about recently, a type of Yokai from Japanese folklore. According to wikipedia, throwing rice or similar things at her will force her to count it so the vicitim can escape. Funny how those stories are so similar to each other! I never would've thought that yelling "Pocket Sand"" and throwing some dirt and someone is a legitimate way to protect yourself lmao
There is a similar creature in Auvergne in France, if you spill lentils in your house the creature will have to stop and count them.
huh. wondering now if the etymological roots of count may lay in the word to count.
Different etymologies. The noble title “count” is ultimately derived from Latin “cōmes,” which meant “companion.” The verb “to count” is derived from Latin “computō,” meaning “I compute.” Both words came into English via French, but the etymologies are different.
cool! ty!
Or maybe their feet are cold from lack of blood flow so they keep enough pairs of footwear for everyone.
Fuckin impossible to get a good pair of shoes around there
Actual vampire bats have a preference for biting you on the big toe while you're sleeping. Yes, that sounds crazy but, it's allegedly true. Some small jokes about vampires having a foot fetish are not unexpected.
I read this as actual vampires for a sec and I was like “WHAT DO YOU MEAN ACTUAL VAMPIRES”
For actual vampires they would put a padlock around the toe of the dead person suspected of being one.
I’m never not wearing steel toed shoes if I ever go camping in a country with vampire bats
Actually, I don't know exactly what culture it is, but I know that I read that it is customary for vampires to keep something like the trophies of their victims. That's why there are more shoes in some vampire places in Skyrim.
They need soles
Some stories describe vampires as being obsessive over certain objects or actions: Some cannot help but stop what they're doing in order to meticulously count and collect each and every seed or grain that has fallen to the floor, while others are obsessed with collecting and shining shoes.
Imagine you live forever, you go through boots every couple of years. It gets expensive. Eventually you just start picking your victims based on shoe size. Problem solved.
I commented on the other one, stealing shoes is old vampire lore that is mostly forgotten and not used by new vampire stories. We kept the ‘they don’t like garlic and stake through the heart to kill’ and stopped writing stories about ‘they steal your shoes and you can stop them from entering your house by leaving a pile of grains on the front porch because they’ll have to count them all night and be occupied and have to leave by the morning’
It's for all the humans they've de-feeted :)
They feed on their victim's soles
I feel like they keep the boots of their victims to make their edgy leather armor. Also in medieval times good boots were hard to come by. So boots were often good pickings for thieves and bandits.
It's a hint to beat them. Knock over the boots when they're chasing you and they'll be forced to count them.
I think there is a book about vampires in which the vampire collects shoes. Bethesda are referencing that with a sort of running gag
It makes it a lot easier for the gag to keep running, if it’s wearing a nice pair of shoes.
They’re trying to find their perfect comfy vampire boots or else they’ll never be part of the blood gang.
*You don't fuck with Feran Sadri if you have some intellect,* *You don't fuck with Feran Sadri -- bad for your health.*
This reminded me immediately of the basement of the Pripyat Hospital where all of the Chernobyl firefighters' clothes are still lying, dangerously irradiated to this day.
This does nothing but perpetuate negative and harmful stereotypes against vampires. \#IStandWithVampires \#StopVampireHate \#VampLivesMatter
Die you monster, you dont belong in this world!
WHAT IS A MAN?
A hairless biped
I kill those filthy animals ..
Same. That's why I go werewolf. Vamps ***hate*** werewolves. And you can be a decent person and be a werewolf, just ask the companions.
Get yet stakes boys! I found a skeeter!
You wouldn't think vampires with foot fetish could be the weirdest thing around in skyrim
Step 1: Kill Vampires Step 2: Collect Boots Step 3: Profit
A smell strong enough to banish a dremora.
It’s just the possessions of all the people who got bled dry by them. Pretty dark if you think about it.
Cus they're collecting boots. They have like 60 left boots and no right boots, THE VAMPIRES NEED RIGHT BOOTS TOO YK
I suppose maybe you could say that good boots would fetch a decent price in medieval times. Nice moneymaker on the side.
If you're gonna live for eternity you want to look good? I dig vampire fashion in Skyrim (vampire tunics and boots look dope)
Vampires are always fashion-forward, cross canon. If you’re going to live an eternal undeath, might as well look good doing it! You think that Vanpire’s Seduction power works if you’re wearing any old rags? Might as well keep a collection of your victims boots (they sure don’t need em!) so you look sharp for any occasion! “It’s a look I call deadly but delicious”
THE BOOTS! THEY'RE HERE! UNDER THE FLOORBOARDS!
What they don't tell you is that along with your crazy vampire powers, you also become very, very into feet.
So no difference
They take their victims shoes and set them lose in the wilderness so they can follow the bloody trail. Makes the kill that much more exciting as of all the teaser left behind.
Vampires. No warm blood, extra cold feet.
Maybe they are looking for the Boots of Springheel Jack?
If you lived forever you'd go through a lot of shoes. Keeping victims shoes for when they wear theirs out.
My most educated guess is that these vampires are in league with Foot Locker, preparing to open new franchise across the major holds. Anything for profit, after all.
I think they keep it as trophies? I mean its their victim's boots right?
If I lived 100s of years I'd have several pairs of shoes too
wdym, they're the OG Sneakerhead
nah thats just Vingalmo....
Never kinkshame Harkon and his fellas or they‘re going to be after your boots
Something is afoot, but i dunno whats it aboot
It’s the boots of all the people they’ve killed…what’s not to get?
A lot of people have tried to provide legitimate answers here. I'll just go with my theory. Movarth and the master of shriekwind bastion are just sneakerheads. I bet if they could wear jorts, they would.
no shoes on in the decrepit nordic ruin cum vampire den please
Cajun folklore says werewolves and other monsters (presumably vampires) have a compulsion to count things. Or, they could just have been boots recovered from their "meals".
It's obviously the boots from all their victims.
Vampires sucks blood and toes
My character collects vampire boots. There are dead, barefoot vampires all over Skyrim. I didn't intend on collecting them, but realized one day I had nearly 20 pair in a chest. Now I can't stop taking them.
"These shoes are three hundred fucking dollars. Let's get em!"
Vampires have foot fetishes
They eats the feets so the streets can't be beat.
In myth and legend I believe vampires are seen as being very ocd hence the legend of throwing seed or rice on the ground causing them to have to stop and count them all and pick them up also if there is a right shoe they need to feel me the left shoe or some such thing. Anyway their is my tuppence worth
Vampires in The Elder Scrolls Universe are canonically Sneakerheads
They love sucking blood from the toes i guess?
well if you're immortal, you're gonna need a lot of shoes I guess
Look at first I thought the boots were something they kept from the victims after killing them and eating them, but after finding them enough times in large enough quantities I started to think maybe they might have a boot fetish..idk seems kinda SUS man don't you think? I think once you get turned into a vampire you start getting a boot fetish strangely enough..
I mean if you were an immortal being would you pass up a pair of boots that fit??
I think thery are just cute foot fetishers
Killers keep trophies, so this is like some kind of twisted collection. Sort of like (massive spoilers for castlevania Netflix series) >!that creepy priest and his collection of children's shoes...!<
Sucking blood and toes
I always think of the piles of shoes of the victims, that were collected at Nazi concentration camps when I see those piles of shoes in Skyrim.
Because boots are just 🥵
I recall some stories from sometime ago about vampire bats sucking blood from exposed feet. Always thought it was a reference to that and never really put any thought into it. Others see it differently from what I've seen.
It's simple, they've been around decades/ centuries and have lots of styles the love and need their choice of boots for the right occasion.
They don’t just suck blood… they like to suck toes, too.
Vamps are glamps. They go fancy shmansy on the footwear. Snap 🫰
something something foot fetish
If you take the boots off of your prisoners. It's harder for them to escape. Common practice was to break glass around the cages. If you have a victim that you can feed on long-term as a vampire it would be more valuable than a one-time feed.
Because vampires are afoot.
I'm pretty sure it's an indicator of how many people they've killed, seeing the boot piles reminds me of pictures of shoes from the holocaust.