Bram's Vampire Hunter Handbook

Chapter 9 - Getting started as a hunter

I know. I know. You are an aspiring vampire hunter, and a very eager one. You were expecting me to explain to you how to get started in hunting vampires on Chapter 1. You are probably mad at me that I made you wait until two thirds of this guide to finally spit it out. It was inevitable, though. A good hunter has to know their prey better than they knows themselves. When you are in the field, you might have less than a second to make a decision or die. The more you know, the higher your survival rates. It is also of utmost importance that you know the Amsterdam Treaties. Breaking the Treaties has caused as many causalities as packs of mad vampires, so pay attention.

If you started to read this handbook here, go and read the other chapters. I will wait.

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No, seriously, read them.

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I will continue for the sake of the others, but know that you are not deceiving anyone, Belmont.

The first step into becoming a vampire hunter is joining the Association and getting a hunting license. Joining is easy enough, just a matter of filling the paperwork.

The license is trickier. The requirements to have a license are: not being banned from getting one (as discussed on Chapter 8), having completed the Standard Training and the Institutional Training, and at least six months of Survival Training.

The Standard Training is a procedure that build the reflexes that every vampire hunter must have to survive for more than a few seconds in a fight against a vampire capable of super-speed. It also famously keeps a person from talking about vampires with anyone who does not also have the Standard Training.

It starts by getting the trainee hypnotized and conditioned to react to certain stimuli. Then, they will have to listen to a number of audio files while they sleep. If the trainee hears the files every night, they will have listened to everything in about three weeks, but there is no real time limit.

After all the audios are heard, the "calibration" starts. It consists in checking if the trainee have all the desired reflexes to aggressive vampires and correcting anything that might have gone wrong. This process can take a few weeks or a bunch of months, depending on how many corrections are necessary. The "calibration" have to be done by someone who knows what they are doing. Never let anyone "calibrate" you if they do not have a certificate from the Association.

The Institutional Training is just a fancy name for you getting educated on the works of the Association. Studying this handbook counts as Institutional Training, for instance. That kind of training is validated by an interview, when you apply for your license. The trainee has to answer some questions about vital points of hunting, such as the main points of the Amsterdam Treaties, or basic techniques or who does what in the Association. Yes, this "interview" is totally an oral exam and it is considered relatively difficult. How are you feeling about jumping those eight chapters, now?

Survival Training is where you will put the reflexes you built on the Standard Training to use. In this kind of training, the hunter learns the basic defence techniques, and they are subjected to simulations of high pressure situations, in which they have to make decisions in a short amount of time. There is no real end to Survival Training. After the hunter learns the basic survival techniques, they need to keep training so they are always sharp.

Getting your license does not mean that the hunter is ready to get to field. First, they have to join a team. If the new hunter does not have a team already, they will be assigned to the closest one. Hunting alone is strictly forbidden, both because it is too dangerous and because solitary hunters tend to become more aggressive with the time.