House: A group of likeminded individuals with common goals toward the betterment of the entire community who gather together to discuss said goals.

General Definition for now as couldn't figure out another.

Generally amongst vampire communities, and often with some form of formal etiquette involved in it, or so has been mentioned somewhere.

That's about all I got for now :S

basically a house is like a vampire coven?

It was mentioned somewhere that a Vampire House can be like a Coven, but not as strict and not just to vampires.

I've gotta finish reading a book before can explain further, as I'm not an expert yet.

I've seen the words coven and house used for the same thing. It's hard to make a perfect definition though since each house and coven has their own set of rules. Some are very open to outsiders, while others close themselves off completely.

Basically it's something like wiccan covens, people with similar interests or backgrounds gathering together. In the past they were physical houses, many of them still are but more and more of these houses also appear online. As far as I know all of them do have occasional gettogethers for the members who are willing, so there still is a physical element involved.

There are many vampire houses on the internet such House Of Eclipse and House Of Kheperu. From what I understand, Kheperu is the 'original' as it were. Many of the others are founded on the principles of this one. Kheperu have also produced a book called The Psychic Vampire's Codex, which basically explains the many questions surrounding vampirism. It is an interesting read. It also ountilines there caste system that many of the houses uphold. It it so that ech person in the community has a role to play. I think it is quite a good premise. If you do have time to check out House Of Kheperu, I personally would like to follow The Counsellor Path... it is quite appealing! My boyfriend and I were going to create a House for vampire and otherkin in our area but not surprisingly couldn't find enough participants!

Heh, Cool. I'm reading a book akin to the one you're reading, called Vampires in their own words: An anthology by Michelle Belanger and two or three lost haven members give their own testimonials in it. They are good at what they gave you brief presentation to in the book.

You should read it if you haven't, good so far, I just gotta get through it, but work, holidays and all that.

Heh, Zan, whereever I read the definition, that was almost word for word, the second half of what you said.

so it would be something like a vampire bloodline then?

Well House Kheperu, where I used to dwell around a few years back beliefs they all share similar past lives. These lives date from back to ancient Egypt and the earlier psychic vampires on earth. They generally don't accept anyone as a house member unless there is enough reason to believe those people were also a part of their cult in ancient egypt. So that is one house that does fall back on a sort of bloodline, be it a reincarnation line.

House Kheperu does act like an open house though and has surrounded itself with all sorts of people. Sympathisants, psychic vampires, magic dabblers, etc. Just because you're not an actual house member doesn't mean they don't allow you around .. though I do think they have rituals and things only house members get to be a part of.

*Nods* From what I've read on few links to some vampire info, some of the houses do fall back on rituals, though more modern vampires are trying to at least, get out of like hierarchy and stuff like that.

They like some of the rules and some they don't. Depending on what house you belong to, they may be exclusive, inclusive, rules, non-rules, but all vampire houses no matter what do have a code of etiquette they must follow. Each one differs, but it's mostly about trying to respect others beliefs and different things.

As I said, I'm no expert, got some reading to do to even be able to explain without adding 'and stuff', but there are links on LostHaven as well as House Kheperu and any legit vampire house to some explanations or people you can ask about it till we get experts on the grove : )