- - A guide to the supernatural creatures stalking Anne Rice's Immortal Universe

Jordan HoffmanNovember 9, 2025 at 10:30 PM

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David Gennard/AMC; Sophie Giraud/AMC; Skip Bolen/AMC

Laura Lake on 'Talamasca: The Secret Order'; Sam Reid on 'The Vampire Lestat'; Ted Levine on 'Mayfair Witches'

What if they made a spy series for goth kids? That question has been answered with Talamasca: The Secret Order, the latest branch in AMC's firmly rooted tree of Anne Rice adaptations.

The new series is part of the expanding Anne Rice's Immortal Universe, and the third show to launch following Interview With The Vampire and Mayfair Witches. (Additional series, Night Island and Memnoch the Devil, are in various states of development, but are not an official go yet.)

Talamasca stars Nicholas Denton as a new recruit into an agency (called Talamasca) that monitors the activities of the various supernatural beings that populate Rice's stories. Elizabeth McGovern, William Fichtner, and Maisie Richardson-Sellers fill out the cast.

David Gennard/AMC

Not a "creature" exactly, Nicholas Denton's Guy Anatole is a talented mind reader on 'Talamasca: The Secret Order'

Rice, of course, was the phenomenally successful New Orleans-based author of fantasy literature whose well-worn paperbacks still adorn every Airbnb you've ever stayed at, and whose diehard fans continue to grow in number despite her no longer being of mortal plane (though considering her subject matter, this does seem appropriate).

It's entirely possible that you've been itching for a Talamasca series ever since you first read the group mentioned by name in the 1988 best-seller Queen of the Damned (no doubt while playing Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me by the Cure in your dimly lit bedroom). Or you may be someone who always wanted to get into Anne Rice, but never picked up a book, saw any of the movie adaptations, and have slept on the previous AMC series. Is it possible for someone in this situation to jump in?

The answer, of course, is yes (and Denton's character Guy Anatole is your perfect audience surrogate to this hidden-in-plain-sight world.) But if you'd like a little cheat sheet for the mythical creatures that permeate Anne Rice's Immortal Universe, we are here for you.

Vampires

Sophie Giraud/AMC

Sam Reid stars as the titular bloodsucker on 'The Vampire Lestat' ('Interview with the Vampire' season 3)

Let's start with the beings that built Anne Rice into a household name: vampires. With Interview With a Vampire and The Vampire Lestat, Rice brought new life to the undead, presenting vampires as sympathetic, lonely outsiders dwelling in the shadows of world history. Sure, they need to feast on the blood of humans to survive from time to time, but who among us can claim to be entirely without sin?

With eternal life, Rice's vampires achieve a remarkable physical beauty, but also an ennui that have made these characters so richly loved by millions of readers. They don't transform into bats or other creatures and can see their reflection in mirrors, unlike other fictional vampires, and garlic and holy water don't trouble them. They have enhanced strength and speed, and sometimes can levitate, but are not particularly keen on sunlight or fire in general.

Spirits

Spirits are disembodied beings who are occasionally called upon to aid specific humans (usually witches), but can sometimes become harmful. Think of it like borrowing money from your pain-in-the-butt relative who will always want something back in return.

The origins of this species remains a little hazy, but it is believed that they are the souls of humans who have escaped from Hell. The journey and long spans of time, however, make their memories a bit untrustworthy. Others believe that spirits were never mortal beings.

Witches

Skip Bolen/AMC

Alexandra Daddario's Dr. Rowan Fielding is the central witch on 'Mayfair Witches'

Witches in Rice's world are humans born with special supernatural sensitivities, oftentimes extra sensory perceptions or the power of telekinesis. The ability to practice witchcraft is usually genetic, but not always.

Most witches are women, but there are some men, too, like Julien Mayfair. (Rice doesn't like sticking to preestablished rules, explaining much of her popularity.) Their powers are connected to specific spirits, whom they can manipulate to their advantage in a crutch, like to make a drastic change in weather or to help locate someone or something.

Mummies

We're basically getting into monster cereals territory here, but mummies play a big part in Rice's fiction. They aren't usually called mummies, though, but rather Immortals.

They first come up in The Vampire Chronicles as a legend — creatures impervious to death who aren't harmed by sunlight. Over time, we learn their origins are with the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses, who drank a stolen, magical elixir.

Rice awakened the Immortals (including Cleopatra) in the early 1900s. Oddly enough, it was the third book in this series about eternal life that Rice was working on when she passed away. (Her son Christopher Rice coauthored its published version.)

Taltos

Leigh Page/AMC

In season 2 of 'Mayfair Witches,' Jack Huston's Lasher meets his mate, Emaleth, another rare taltos

First introduced in 1990's The Witching Hour and given prime focus in Taltos four years later, the taltos are a species that, on first glance, look human, but are usually taller, thinner, and have bones mostly made of cartilage.

In ancient times, the taltos, who originated in the very north of today's Scotland, tended to be rather clumsy and childlike. Among their unusual abilities was that they matured rapidly after birth, and the females of the species can ovulate on demand.

In the modern era, the crossbreeding of witches can sometimes result in a taltos birth. The taltos have superior strength and an enhanced libido.

Werewolves

Rice wrote two werewolf books, and while the species did not directly crossover with the vampires of The Vampire Chronicles or the witches from Lives of the Mayfair Witches, they did interact with the Talamasca, giving them the connective tissue to the wider Rice universe. Though The Wolf Gift Chronicles sold well, they were poorly received by readers. (If you want to see some howling reviews, poke around on Reddit.) So the Talamasca television series may end up being just the right venue to redeem these characters in the expanding Immortal Universe.

Ghosts

Skip Bolen/AMC

Ted Levine plays ghost Julien Mayfair in season 2 of 'Mayfair Witches'

Ghosts are different from spirits. They are the souls of mortal beings who have died, but can become visible to witches (or other groups that have supernatural sensitivities). They can sometimes inhabit corporeal form, though it's not easy — and just temporary.

Ghosts aren't just humans — witches and taltos can die, and so can vampires (though it takes some extra effort) — so in a way, ghosts aren't really their own species. They are more of a "state of being," one could say, but their traits are altered by their beyond-the-grave status.

Angels and Demons

Angels are noncorporeal creatures who exist outside of typical time and space. They were created before there ever was time and matter, and they cannot be perceived by mortals. Their main gig is to perceive the Universe and remark upon its beauty.

One such angel, however, decided to rebel against this way of life. His name was Memnoch, though most of us know him as Satan or the Devil.

As is central to Rice's fiction, the fallen angel gets his day in court, presenting his perspective in what is considered by many to be the strangest entry in the corpus, Memnoch the Devil, which is either a thrilling dialogue about the nature of good and evil or a boring philosophy text, depending on your point of view.

Revenants

David Gennard/AMC

'Talamasca: The Secret Order' offers a how-to on the making of feral revenant vampires

This does not involve Leonardo DiCaprio trudging through the snow and eating buffalo hearts, but in Rice's world, revenants have it pretty rough.

They are mortals who are in the process of being turned into vampires ("The Dark Gift," it is called), but are buried, entombed, or prevented in some way from feeding for long enough that their evolution is prevented — and they go a little nutty. I mean, think about how upset you get when you skip lunch, now draw that out for a millennia or so.

The revenants in Anne Rice's Immortal Universe on AMC thus far have functioned essentially as "zombie vampires" — mindless, dangerous, and certainly gross.

Replimoids

Okay, here's where it gets really weird. Replimoids are extra-terrestrial golems created by beings from the planet Bravenna called "The Parents." They were dispatched to Earth to assassinate a rogue named Amel, a spirit who is actually the progenitor of the vampire race. The replimoids rebelled against their creators and have been hanging around ever since.

They are mortal but have extremely long lifespans, and can basically pass for human. They reproduce by severing a limb and growing a new replimoid from that limb and regrowing back their own missing body part — frugal and efficient!

Each generation of replimoid is a little less like the ones originally made by "The Parents" — you can kinda tell by how much gold is in their hair.

God

Another creation that appears in Rice's fiction is God. For it is He who created the angels, and thus Memnoch, a fallen angel, who God basically sees as the loyal opposition. There is a reason that Rice, who first renounced then rejoined her faith, often found her books banned.

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