Mythology
The world of Mystic Falls and New Orleans
Vampires, witches, werewolves, hybrids and everything you need to know about the rules of the universe.
Mystic Falls
The small Virginia town was founded by the Salvatore, Gilbert, Lockwood, Forbes and Fell families. A secret founders’ council has known about vampires since the Civil War and fights them with vervain and tradition – from the Founders’ Ball to the Miss Mystic pageant.
The Salvatore boarding house
The Salvatore family’s old house is headquarters, living room and battleground for the gang, with a bar full of bourbon and a cellar where many a vampire has been locked up. Later it becomes the Salvatore School.
The Originals
The Mikaelson family – Finn, Elijah, Niklaus, Kol and Rebekah – were made the first vampires more than a thousand years ago by a spell of their mother Esther. All vampires descend from them; if an Original dies, every vampire of their bloodline dies too. Only a stake of white oak can kill them.
Vampires
Anyone who dies with vampire blood in their system wakes in transition and must drink human blood within a day. Vampires can compel humans, can’t stand vervain and burn in sunlight – unless they wear a daylight ring. A vampire can “switch off” their humanity and then feels nothing at all.
Vervain
The plant protects humans from vampire compulsion and burns vampires on contact. In Mystic Falls those in the know drink it in tea or wear it in jewellery.
Daylight rings
Rings or jewellery with a lapis lazuli, enchanted by a witch, let vampires walk in the sun. Stefan, Damon and later many others wear them; losing one is dangerous.
Doppelgängers
Nature keeps creating copies of Silas and Amara, the first immortal couple: Katherine and Elena of the Petrova line, and Stefan and Tom Avery on the other side. Their blood has special power and is valuable for powerful spells.
The Bennett witches
One of the most powerful lines of witches, reaching back to Qetsiyah. In 1864 Emily Bennett protected the vampires in the tomb; her descendant Bonnie becomes the show’s most important witch.
The werewolf curse
In certain families such as the Lockwoods the curse only activates when you kill a human. After that you transform painfully into a wolf at every full moon. A werewolf bite is fatal to vampires – only Klaus’s blood can heal it.
Hybrids
Klaus is half vampire, half werewolf. Once his curse is broken he can create hybrids himself – using a doppelgänger’s blood. His hybrids are loyal to him through a sire bond.
The Other Side
An afterlife for supernatural beings, created by Qetsiyah. Bonnie becomes its anchor before the Other Side collapses in season 5.
The cure
A potion that makes an immortal human again. The hunt for it shapes season 4; later Elena, Katherine, Damon and Rebekah, among others, take it.
Prison worlds
The Gemini coven locks dangerous members inside magical prison worlds where the same day repeats forever. Kai Parker is stuck in a world where it is always May 10, 1994.
The Gemini coven
A coven in which twins must merge at the age of 22; the stronger one survives and becomes leader. Later the same fate hangs over Lizzie and Josie.
Heretics
Siphoner witches who became vampires and draw their magic from their own vampirism. Lily Salvatore gathered them around her in a prison world.
New Orleans and the French Quarter
The Mikaelsons once helped shape the city. In the French Quarter vampires, witches, werewolves and humans struggle for power – a fragile balance that Klaus’s return upsets.
The white oak
The tree that gave the Originals their immortality, and so the only wood that can kill them. Stakes carved from it are the most dangerous weapon in the universe.
The Salvatore School
The “Salvatore School for the Young and Gifted” in the old boarding house offers young witches, vampires and werewolves a safe place. It is run by Alaric and was founded with Caroline.
Malivore
A magical abyss that swallows supernatural beings and makes the world forget them. In Legacies the monsters of the week rise from it.
Tribrid
Hope Mikaelson is the only tribrid: a witch through Esther’s line, a werewolf through Klaus and Hayley, and a vampire once she dies and completes the transition.