Dragonchris, the information was procured or given to the vampiric hunter by a hinted member of The Order, the most civilised and knowledgeable of the vampires.
An ordinary vampire could not perform an ice shout without proper training from the Greybeards, like any person. And I get the feeling they'd be reluctant to that wish.

The 'skeleton dogs' of Shivering Isles were mended into being through the supposed fifth school of magic, flesh. I suspect by Relmyna Verenim's experiments.
As well, a flaming skeleton horse running through Skyrim would be one of the most obnoxious and noticeable features of the landscape, if I may say so myself.
If villagers don't come out of their houses and start chasing you with pitchforks, torches, as well as their hounds, I'd say it's Bethesda betraying their own lore.

Also: Shadowmere should not be mentioned in response to this. The horse's only oddity is it's eyes, but that could easily be explained away in an hostile encounter.
Taking an undead horse in tow is like summoning a bonewalker in a Morrowind funeral procession. People should resent you or otherwise not open their shops to you.

It could also be misdirection and deception on behalf of the writer. Obviously there is some truth in it, but because of the very fact it is written by an inhabitant of Nirn means that it is not 100% set in stone.

Thats the liberty Bethesda has when it comes to book-lore in the Elder Scrolls. The only thing 100% set is actual events of the game. and even then they can play around with it like they did with the whole dragon break incident of Daggerfall.

Scholars and authors of Nirn are not infallible. That is the thing to remeber.

Post your theories on how it actualy works... Because Much of it looks likes it could simply be a few horror movie ideas thrown together. Many concepts (Volkihar Castles, Bats with vampires, Vampire Lord Tranformations, PFZH , Good looking Vampire leader, Elder scrolls blocking out the sun , Vampires considering only the dawnguard as a threat , Etc) Much of this either Clashes with already existing lore or Simply doesn't work when put down in it's most basic form. Furthermore some of us actualy care about the game's story. There are ways to explain these and this thread is for ideas on how to do so.

Not to tell people that bethesda can do what they want because it's their story and that books written earlier (such as immortal blood) are invalid because they get in the way of sparkly vampires. How would you feel if All the Nords weren't actualy people but rather khajit wearing fancy clothes.Or if skyrim became a hot desert for every subsequent Tes game. Or if the Jedi didn't have the force. Or if 2+2=4.481 . None of the lore in question negatively effects gameplay and most require either different dialogue or new books. Stuff like " Vampires use bats as part of illusion magic" is much better than "vampires have bats because we watched a movie and the vampires had bats and we thought that you would think it was cool because reasons." and things like "elder scroll makes sun go dark" are stupid whilst using an elder scroll to change the speed of the moons in such a way that they are always eclipsing the sun might be very clever. I still don't know how to justify the Purple flamed zombie horse.

The Volkihar vampires in game don't act how they are described in the book though. Why? Because the author has used poetic license to make everything seem more interesting and sell more books. It makes sense to base the book on an actual figure as well, because then it seems more real for the audience and therefore exciting and scary.

I can't think of an explanation for why the author chose to remain anonymous. Who do you think the author was? My guess is an acquaintance of Movarth who thought he could make money from selling the story, but was afraid of Morvarth if the vampire had known he had written the book.

-snip-

The volkihar vampires in game don't act how they are described in the book because Bethesda are an infinitely uncreative (or undaring?) developer waiting for a profit.
Spending payroll budget on ursusthropy or volkihar vampirism is useless when one can spend it on an already made concept which has been successful.
One knows that developers research typical populace interest before exploring a sales pitch to investors. This is seen as an assurance to both them and the investors.

Civilised vampires over barbaric vampires (Dracula vs Nosferatu) often comes out with civilised ones as the winner, so as they often appear in place of the other.
Why is this? because society (or more humans) relate to things which are more similar to themselves. Not a two foot tall ogre getting bullied by a horde of gremlins.
Other game developers buy into this concept too often. Like Bioware with their recent projects, Dragon Age II, Star Wars: The Old Republic or the Mass Effect franchise.

That is really why we don't see volkihar vampires true to the image of Immortal Blood. No, what we get first is Twilight vampires, now we're getting a taste of Underworld: Evolution's Marcus or Van Helsing's Dracula. Which I'm surprised has not been caught up in an copyright lawsuit- hell for they look deeply reminiscent.

The volkihar vampires in game don't act how they are described in the book because Bethesda are an infinitely uncreative (or undaring?) developer waiting for a profit.
Spending payroll budget on ursusthropy or volkihar vampirism is useless when one can spend it on an already made concept which has been successful.
One knows that developers research typical populace interest before exploring a sales pitch to investors. This is seen as an assurance to both them and the investors.

Source?

Hmmm.. good question.

I can describe the first source, although I can't directly remember the exact link. As it's been some time.
The source was from an ex-bioware developer whom wished to work his way up the ladder, get a game concept pitch in and get his game out.
However, himself and one of the heads there, after much research, found that there was just not much interest in the idea he was pitching for.

I believe the ex-developer went on to become an indie developer (untill his reserves ran out) to have freedom with his ideas without any marketing constraints.

The second source was my own direct observation of evolution of gaming avatars from the days of dungeons & dragons in 1974 to present day.
Marketing has followed a scheme from creativity in the late 80s, 90s and slowly died down in the past ten years. For our general society as a whole has suffered
from several recessions, budget cuts and crashes in the economy. Which in turn has affected several 'leisure' hobbies, the arts medium would be the greatest one.

Certain companies or individuals can avoid this problem through whatever means they have at their disposal, but still.. so many people fall through the cracks.

Developers who haven't got massive budgets reverted to simpler, more safe concepts to make sure they have a staple supply or flow of cash in their sales, to not go bankrupt. Bethesda is the opposite however, for after the huge success of Skyrim they should have enough cash to fix a few problems or lore inaccuracies.

2- pretty sure the majority of vampires are not civilized. They live in caves, maul random travelers and alot of them are in the advanced stages so they lost their human look. Their for the most part animals. If you were to join any vampire faction they would have to be civilized enough to take in new memebers which is why they made the volkin more civilized than the average vampire. For the most part since oblivion barbaric vampires won and most people did not seem to like this kind.

A book written by a vampire (Well known for deception and misdirection) is not necessarily a credible source =P
Written lore can be contradicted because of the fact that it is written by 'people' within the game. These people are not all knowing gods, so therefore they may have things wrong, or written from a biased point of view.

Think about the book that claimed Alduin was the same as akatosh. We all know now that this was simply a scholar's mistake.

Everyone seems to be fretting over a flaming undead horse, although, if you think about it, how do you explain Shadowmere?

I do not think it will be volkahir that is the vampires. They were all slain by Movarth Piquine and the oly things that pointed towards volkahir was a dragon diving into a frozen lake. I think it is a cult of vampires that is ruled by Molag Bal who have had som connections with vampires in the past.

A flaming undead horse from the Soul Cairn can be banished, it can be killed, it'd also provoke to those nearby of your allegiance.
As in that you are a self-loving daedra worshipper who takes part in terrible acts of necromancy on Kynareth's natural kingdom.
Which is basically like going around the star ship enterprise wearing a red shirt- you're an open target to everyone.

I didn't think about this one. You'd think they'd, yknow, be more concerned with royally ticking off Azura for forever banishing both Dawn and Dusk, instead of worrying about some two-bit stronghold of mortal knights.

I expect Bethesda to pull out the "Harkon is the son of Lamae Beolfag."

Maybe that explains his Dracula-esque appearance.

Elder scrolls don't "do anything" they simply control time.

To me it seems that you're forcibly trying to find ways to make the story seem lore-breaking. Not to say that your points are not valid though, but I'd think commoners would naturally fear a demon-steed riding vampire. Perhaps some more religious faction (like the Vigilants) would try to hunt you down. Of course the AI of Skyrim is not that advanced to create dynamic responses from NPCs regarding your choices and actions.

There is btw also Barbas, a daedric being that could exist on Tamriel long periods of time, so a summoned horse would not be an impossibility.