How They Compare: Carmilla

 

Countess Mircalla Karstein otherwise known by her pseudonym Carmilla is the primary antagonist of the horror novella Carmilla, predating Dracula as a vampire novel by 25 years (Dracula came out in 1897, Carmilla in 1872.) Once there lived the beautiful and beloved Countess Mircala Karstein. In her time a Moravian noblemen was much in love with her. The Countess however died of mysterious illness at a youthful age, being fed upon by a vampire. The noblemen did not believe in the superstitions of vampirism. In an effort to prevent the common folk from destroying her remains and prevent her rising the nobleman moved her tomb and destroyed any signs of where it was located. Mircala rose from the grave, as beautiful as ever on the outside, but with something wholly different within her. 

The now Vampiric Mircalla began to feed upon locals, taking on the guise of a poor injured young woman as she infiltrated homes and fed off young women. She would take on several identities, the last of which being Carmilla. When she infiltrated the home of Laura, the protagonist of the story, Carmilla would begin her feeding, while at the same time falling in love with the lovely young woman, her predations and seductions of the young woman being hard to tell apart. 

While it's not nearly to the extent of some vampire stories, Carmilla does seem to have enhanced physical stats. In terms of strength, she seems to consistently overpower grown men. It's stated that the grip of her hand is like a vice of steel suggesting some level of superhuman physical strength. In terms of speed there are two scenes where Carmilla seems to demonstrate superhuman speed enough to blitz humans at close range, literally just appearing somewhere else in the room, though this is somewhat complicated by the fact that she also seems to have teleportation which means it's unclear when she is moving fast and when she is teleporting.

Carmilla can shapeshift into a black cat which is gigantic, described as 4-5 feet in length. This would make her about the size of a Clouded Leopard which supports having superhuman level stats as the Clouded Leopard's speeds can reach nearly 18 meters per second and have a bite force of 334.2 Newtons with a normal human bite having a bite force of 70-150 Newtons.

What's more impressive about Carmilla are her other abilities, which are potent for her tier. On a basic level Carmilla has the vampiric traits of fangs and the ability to turn someone into a vampire by feeding on them. However her fangs are quite subtle with only someone experienced in dentistry noticing and seems to have some ability to render her bite marks invisible early into her feeding. Unlike most modern vampires, she also has a pulse, a rosy complexion after she has recently fed, and does not die in sunlight, though as mentioned later it does weaken her. Moreover she has a rather extreme form of immortality, where in order to kill a vampire like her it requires her head to be removed, their bodies burned to ashes, then those ashes thrown into a moving river. Otherwise they will return, though the timeframe is unknown.

One of the main things Carmilla is known for is her beauty. All the characters, especially Laura, comment regularly on her beauty that seems to hypnotize and lets her manipulate people. This hypnosis is so strong that despite Laura feel pangs of repulsion and horror at Carmilla, she nonetheless thinks of her new friend as irresistibly charming and grows to find the notion of dying to not be unpleasant under Carmilla's sway. She seems to use this to aid her manipulation regularly. She also potentially seems to have a form of dream manipulation as Laura had strange dreams when Carmilla was around and even when Laura was six she had a dream of Carmilla feeding on her before they met. 

In terms of combat abilities Carmilla has the ability to phase intangible. She simply passes through locked doors and it's remarked that vampires escape their tombs underground in a manner that scientists have no answer for. She can also teleport. As mentioned before she seems to disappear and reappear from direct eyesight and when Laura enters a room while searching for Carmilla in the night, Carmilla was able to disappear from it despite the chamber leading out having people there looking for her. Finally Carmilla's touch has the ability to sap the strength from people, which it is stated they recover from slowly or never recover at all. 

Carmilla is an experienced manipulator and killer who's over 170 years old. She shows good ability to manipulate people especially in conjunction with her beauty and hypnosis which she uses to get people to just accept her into their homes despite her strange and mysterious ways. She speaks German and French so well that people can't tell what her native tongue is, described as very intelligent and knowledgeable about the world by Laura, and takes precautions to keep her sleeping body's location secret. 

In terms of weaknesses, Carmilla's biggest is that Sunlight makes her highly weak and tired with it being described that she can only walk as far as a three year old before getting exhausted in the daytime. She is also highly pained and hurt by holy things with the sound of a hymn seriously hurting her and driving her into an angry uncomposed state for the first time in the story, though most anti-vampire banes don't work on her and she scoffs at the notion of an "anti-vampire charm" as she wears one. Carmilla is speculated to have a rather strange weakness that any of her pseudonyms must be an anagram of her true name. It's also expressed in Carmilla that Vampires are creatures of obsessions, described as having a engrossing vehemence that resembles the passion of love speculated to be born from the desire for sympathy and the end of loneliness. 

Name: Carmilla, Countess Mircalla Karstein, Millarca 

Origin: Carmilla

Powers and Abilities: Vampiric Physiology, Immortality, Shapeshifting, Corruption (can turn others into Vampires), Enhanced Beauty, Hypnosis, Potential Dream Manipulation, Phasing, Teleportation, Strength-Draining Touch

Weaknesses: Sunlight weakens her and tires her, Holy Things, Pseudonyms are Anagrams of her Real Name, Obsessive Personality

Destructive Capacity: Superhuman (Hands are like steel vices, can turn into a large cat with a powerful bite force)

Range: At least several meters with teleportation

Speed: Likely Superhuman (Seems to blitz normal humans at close range. Can turn into a large cat)

Durability: Superhuman

Stamina: Low during Daytime, at least Normal otherwise

Standard Equipment: Amulet against Vampires 

Intelligence: Likely Brilliant. Is a Predatory Killer with over a century of experience, described as highly intelligent and manipulative. Can control people and has wide knowledge of the world. 

So how would Carmilla do if she infiltrated other worlds?

In the DCU Carmilla would best fit in Earth-43, the Vampire World. Her raw stat level on Earth-43 would be on the lower end but fairly normal for a Vampire with many of them able to break cement, bash in doors and fly fast enough to keep up with cars. While most Vampires in this setting have the advantage of broadly more combat capable of abilities, Carmilla would have the advantage of both much better manipulation of the degenerated vampires and the ability to turn intangible which only some Vampires in the setting have and teleportation which none really do. This would give her a clear niche as a tricksy manipulator who would no longer have to hide being a vampire and can rally numerous vampires into packs to grow her power.

The big risk would be if any of the Vampiric Justice League notice her and decide they don't want her there, no amount of vampire allies can really help. Even Vampire Batman can basically tank any amount of vampires attacking him with his ability to also turn to mist and can resist hypnosis stronger than Carmilla's. So she would do well so long as she lays low. 

In the Marvel Multiverse, Carmilla would best fit in Earth-26320 which is the Earth the Blade Film Series was set on. In this would Carmilla would have physical stats akin to most vampires but far better abilities. Not only does she have immortality on a level far beyond what most of them do, her passive charisma and ability to phase intangible as well as teleport would make her almost impossible for anyone but the high tiers to get a hit on. She would also have an advantage in that she is technically a Daywalker, a vampiric individual who can walk in the daylight. Even if it does weaken her substantially, the ability would give her some credit among other vampires. 

Against Higher Tiers it would be a bit harder. Drake who was stronger than Blade but not so much stronger than Blade and other Reaper Tier Vampires slammed Blade into concrete, cratering it which is a power gap likely hundreds or thousands of times compared to Carmilla and the characters have the reaction speed to bullet-time, albeit their actual movement speed feats are similar to what Carmilla could do with appearing someone else in a room untracked by human eye. In a direct fight Carmilla has the advantages of better immortality albeit over an unknown timeframe, and teleportation/phasing, at the expensive of combat skill, power, and reaction time meaning anytime she's not phased she would be in immediate peril. It's possible she could eventually take down someone like Jared or Drake via strength-draining touch or outlasting them until the Sun comes up, though someone Deacon would easily defeat her with the soul absorption he used against the Vampire Elders. As a side note Earth-26320 seems to really like biological forms of attack and it seems like many of these would work on Carmilla as she still retains some elements of biological functioning let alone Daystar Virus or Reaper Virus which works on completely dead vampires. So overall Carmilla would be in the same tier as high tiers due to abilities even with her middling stats for the verse. 

The verse you were probably all thinking of, how would Carmilla do against in the world's most famous vampire story, coming out around the same time. Well unfortunately Dracula vs Carmilla is a stomp pretty clearly. Carmilla is essentially a normal vampire and flees from confrontation with large groups of humans even at nighttime. Dracula is the leader of a Vampiric Family, taught dark magic at Scholomance by the Devil, and only runs from similar groups of humans during the daytime. Dracula has the same physical feats during daytime Carmilla has at night and has relative or better versions of practically all her abilities. 

A much more interesting version would be a matchup of Carmilla vs Vampire Lucy or one of the Weird Sisters (called the Brides of Dracula in most versions.) This pits the basic vampire abilities of both verses against each other and are much more balanced. Dracula-verse vampires scale to a boatload of abilities and weaknesses due to a chapter basically just being an explanation of the properties of vampires, while Carmilla has no equivalent. Comparing the two Carmilla has stronger immortality (requiring decapitation, burning to ashes, and being scattered into a moving river vs. decapitation then a stake through the heart), both having standard vampiric abilities including similar stats and the ability to change into a large mammal (large cat vs wolf), and surprisingly both have teleportation. Carmilla has a passive hypnotic beauty while the Weird Sisters have passive fear aura enough to scare horses to death. Carmilla's only other ability advantage is her strength-draining touch while the Dracula-verse vampires have way more combat abilities including element manipulation, commanding the creatures of the night, levitation and more. On the other hand Carmilla has far less weaknesses. While she can't exploit their weakness to holy items or their similar weakness to sunlight, she has no notable weakness to running water, can enter abodes without permission, and can use garlic or the wild rose to repel them or trap them in their coffins. It's quite plausible the anti-vampire amulet Carmilla laughed at would genuinely work on the Dracula-verse vampires. 

I think it's pretty fair to say Carmilla could pretty easily beat Lucy as she has vastly more experience than Lucy as a vampire. The Weird Sisters much less is known about, but so long as it's one of them at a time, it seems pretty reasonable to say Carmilla could defeat them, especially if she manipulates them into thinking she's just interested in becoming one of them. 

In Vampire: The Masquerade Carmilla would be a fairly normal member of the Kindred in most ways. Her powers and intellect are roughly equivalent to that of a young Vampire, maybe 11th or 12th generation, above the Thinbloods but far below the more ancient Kindred. She would have the equivalent of 1-2 dots in Celerity, Fortitude, Potence and Presence with 3 Dots in Protean to represent her abilities pretty well. This would make her fairly well rounded for a young Kindred aided by having over a century of experience. She would be particularly notable for her much stronger resistance to Sunlight then most of the Kindred who typically catch fire in the open Sun and can get burns even from prolonged exposure to moonlight (reflected Sunlight.)

The big question is whether or not she can survive in the extended politicking of the Kindred society. Granted as a Countess and a good manipulator even without usage of her hypnosis than the Kindred would be resistant to, she should be able to do at least decently, though once again she'd certainly be outclassed by older vampire generations. This means she'd fit in pretty normally into the verse and would basically not be much different than normal there, much weaker than that universe's version of her. 

Finally, what would happen if Carmilla crossed paths with another Old Vampire from the same region, Count Orlok. The two would be fairly similar in strength (Count Orlok's best being easily carrying coffins) with Carmilla arguably having the speed advantage. Both have similar mental powers though Orlok's seemed to be focusing on causing madness, fear, or sleep while Carmilla's on enticement, persuasion, and dream manipulation. Neither would be particularly resistant to the other's powers though Carmilla's wouldn't be moreso manipulation Orlok into not seeing her as a threat while Orlok's would be much more powerful over Carmilla. That said Orlok would be at a disadvantage in that he would have no idea how difficult it is to kill Carmilla and even if he was able to brainwash her, he'd probably just send her out into the day and stop thinking about her, giving her a chance to strike back. 

Beyond that both have the ability to phase intangible with Orlok having the ability to turn into a shadow as well. This would nullify other forms of trying to physically harm each other such as Nosferatu sending a swarm of rats at her, using his quite powerful telekinesis that might have maintained his entire castle, or powerful gusts of wind strong enough to move a ship. It would likely prevent Carmilla from trying to drain Orlok with her touch or trying to kill him conventionally as he lacks her immortality. 

Count Orlok's powers are definitely much more overt but his big weakness in contrast is daytime. Orlok was the first vampire to outright die to sunlight which is how he is killed. He must sleep during the day. As such a fight between them depends on time and mindsight. Orlok has much more overt powers and can use stealth and magic that Carmilla has no direct counters to. That said Carmilla's phasing and moreover her immortality means that Orlok might think he has beaten her when he hasn't, especially if she does her usual gambit of playing the part of the innocent hurt young woman Orlok likes to feed on and can potentially counterattack when he's not suspecting, either killing him through conventional means or outlasting him until the Sun comes up. 

If the fight takes place right after Sundown and Orlok wants to kill Carmilla as a fellow vampire in his territory, he can turn into a shadow and exert his power over her without her being able to do much outside maybe manipulating him, and once she's in his power can force her into revealing how to kill her before doing that very thing. If they cross paths with no knowledge near Sunrise, Orlok would likely be transfixed and Carmilla can likely manipulate him with the Sun rising and killing Orlok. If it's right after sundown but they have no knowledge, it broadly depends how long Carmilla can stall Orlok for and how attentive he is to her lack of demise from things he would presume would kill her or if she can catch him off guard and cut his throat out. If it takes places near sunrise but Orlok is determined to kill her quickly is the most tense scenario as it depends entirely on if Orlok can do something to prevent Carmilla from killing him as soon as the Sun rises such as just opening his coffin such as crumpling her body with telekinesis.