Basic Trope: A supernatural creature Cannot Cross Running Water.
- Straight: Vorlak the Vampire can't cross running water, so the heroes dive into the river to elude him.
- Exaggerated:
- Vorlak can't come near an open water tap.
- Vorlack stops at apparently random and arbitrary lines. It turns out rivers deep underground also block him and bridges are useless to him.
- Downplayed: Vorlak can't swim. As long as he can walk, he's fine.
- Justified:
- Vorlak is hydrophobic.
- Vampires die when they touch running water.
- A parasite in the Cool, Clear Water running through a particular town makes vampires sick but has far less of an effect on humans.
- Soscina the pixie is so small that the current would carry her away.
- Vorlak never learned how to swim, either before becoming a vampire, or after.
- The water is ice cold and Vorlak is particularly vulnerable to hypothermia.
- Running water simply has magical purification properties in-universe, purging the unholy.
- Such creatures are an abomination to the River Gods; no such creature dare cross their sacred waters for fear of divine retribution.
- Amotep the mummy's body would dissolve and be unable to support its own weight if soaked.
- Inverted:
- Vorlak's Victim of the Week is hydrophobic.
- Vorlak can Walk on Water.
- Vorlak can only cross running water, and is thus bound to only traverse rivers and similar water ways.
- Subverted:
- Vorlak stops before a stream ... to take off his shoes and cape before crossing it.
- Vorlak points that the water is flowing so powerfully that it would wash anyone away.
- Double Subverted:
- But while in the water, Vorlak goes into a catatonic state and melts.
- The heroes retort the water only washes away the wicked.
- Parodied:
- Vorlak touches the water surface with his toes and retires his foot immediately, shrieking like a little girl.
- "And I would have feasted on them, if it wasn't for those meddling kids running over a little stream!"
- Zig-Zagged: Vorlak can cross some bodies of running water but not others.
- Averted: Vorlak crosses running water whenever he wants.
- Enforced: The author wants to stay true to old vampire lore.
- Lampshaded: "No wonder Vorlak smells so bad."
- Invoked: While being pursued by Vorlak, Dr. Van Helping sees a running stream and tells the others to cross it.
- Exploited: The group escapes from Vorlak by crossing a running stream.
- Defied: "What? You think one foot of water will stop me?"
- Discussed: "Ha! Of course Vorlak couldn't cross running water. Vampires never do."
- Conversed: "Isn't it weird that Vorlak can't even cross a little stream? Considering that we have seen him turn into a bat and fly, you know..."
- Implied:
- For some reason, Vorlak prefers to hunt where there is no running water.
- During winter, Vorkak attempts to cross over a river that is frozen in the surface. While non vampires manage just fine, he slips and ultimately decides to go back to the shore.
- Vorlak always takes baths instead of showers.
- Deconstructed: Vampires starve to death in the area after all settlements get water infrastructure.
- Reconstructed: Except for good ol' Vorlak, who sets an Inn of No Return deep in the woods and advertises it as a traditional experience without the shortcuts of modern life (such as no water source except for a well in the patio).
- Played for Laughs:
- After jumping over a little stream, Bob drops his pants and moons at the exasperated Vorlak.
- The meddling girls Alice and Cassie subdue Vorlak with a garden hose and then tie him up with it. Vorlak sulks over how meddling little girls beat him.
- Someone constructs an elaborate labyrinth out of sprinkler systems. Vorlak groans, "You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!"
- Charlie, a creature who can keep vampires as pets, decides to give Vorlak a shower. Vorlak acts like a protesting cat.
- In the throes of a Potty Emergency (that a wizard might have induced), Vorlak enters a public restroom and sits down on an automatic flushing toilet. When he gets up and it flushes, Vorlak leaps in surprise, clings to the ceiling, hisses, and scuttles away along the ceiling, accidentally mooning everyone else in the restroom.note
- Played for Drama:
- Vorlak cries that he used to be a world canoeing champion before being involuntarily turned into a vampire. Now he can't even touch a little stream.
- Friendly Neighbourhood Vampire Vorlak is chased and cornered on a running stream by the overzealous Dr. Van Helping.
- A sudden change in the course of a river isolates Vorlak in a small inlet in the middle, and dawn will come any minute...
- Played for Horror: It turns out it's not so much the flowing water Vorlak fears as what lives in it, and now the heroes are trapped in with it in the middle of crossing the river.
Back to Cannot Cross Running Water? Fine, I'll wait here.
