Thread: Necromancer and Vampire Hunter costumes

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I've been having wicked fun planning a grand display for Halloween and devising all sorts of new characters for my mannequins to play. A few questions for the peanut gallery have arisen:

(1) I want to include a necromancer, but am not sure what symbols or props to use to make his (or more likely her) identity clear to the casual ToT - besides a corpse being reanimated, of course. Any recommendations?

(2) There will also be a vampire hunter. Well, the dismembered remains of one Originally I was going to go with a tweedy Rupert Giles type, but then I inherited an awesome sportsman's coat with tons of pockets to have props spilling out of, and that got me to thinking of a vampire hunter as a kind of big game hunter. I'm torn between the two conceptions. Any thoughts, or even suggestions for another tack to take?

I'm afraid I'm pulling a blank on ideas for the Necromancer, but I think I'm going with the rough and tumble version of the vampire hunter. While I envision classic characters like Van Helsing as professor-types, the sportsman's coat with the possibilities for having props peaking out of the pockets sounds great. I think you can tell more of a story with that. I can imagine a thrashed sportsman's coat with a crucifix and various other hunter props spilling out of the pockets, maybe with a bloody severed arm (or an attached one if the Vampire hunter wasn't ripped apart) still grasping an unused wooden stake.

I can't tell you how happy it makes me to hear a fellow haunter run with the idea of a rough and tumble vampire hunter in just the way I envisioned it.

The necromancer is going to be tough. I'm stuck on the idea of having one but don't feel I have a full grasp on it yet. I'm thinking that since a necromancer converses with the dead, I should have a spirit ball near the character, and I read something about a bone staff. (and bones generally) I have both of those items handy, at least. I'm thinking perhaps something recognizably a zombie too, especially now that another poster brought up the gorgeous one Design Toscano makes. Some concentric "circles of power" kind of stuff.

How about something along these lines: