Of Blood - Feeding, Blood Bond, Embrace, Diablerie

[Zyraen]

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[Zyraen]

BLOOD LIMITATIONS

All blood that has left the body of a supernatural being reverts to ordinary blood within seconds, unless some rituals are invoked etc. This avoids a lot of shenanigans, regarding blood and Blood Bond, and many many others.

There is only one exception - blood from a vampire of a lower generation can be used to stir a vampire from torpor, and will have a Blood Bond effect on the torpored vampire. This blood is otherwise ordinary to all others, both when examined and when imbibed.

GENERATION PENALTY

Any references to Generation Penalty below refers to if the target / victim that is being drained is of a lower generation than the attacker / biting vampire. In this case, the generation penalty means the difference between their generations applied to the result of the saving throw.

RISING FOR THE EVENING

Every vampire uses up 1 BP when they rise for the first time every evening. This means that a Gen 10 Vampire can start with a max of BP 12 (out of his Bloodpool 13) when he rises after his slumber.

A vampire that falls asleep prior to the dawn without any BP falls into torpor at the start of the next evening, when he must consume 1 BP but does not have any. A vampire that falls asleep with BP 1 wakes up in a hunger frenzy as he has no blood when he rises. The frenzy subsides after some time, assuming he is not able to find a suitable target to drain (and usually kill).

HUNTING HUMANS

This is basically the nightly / bi-nightly feeding activity for most vampires.

Generally speaking, you can hunt once per night along with normal interactions. If you forgo meeting, you can hunt twice per night. A full night though might leave no time to hunt, especially if the task is a early evening meeting followed by a late night affair.

How you hunt determines what Skill Check you make. There are too many to list here, but almost all Stats can reasonably be used to hunt (except arguably Endurance). Note that depending on your state of being, certain ways of hunting is simply impossible.
eg. if you are visibly injured (bloodied) or your max HP is less than what it should be due to taking aggravated damage, then most Charisma related skills would probably not be effective.

Passing a Med DC generally means 1 human, which means gaining 2 BP safely (without killing the target).
Failing an Easy DC or rolling natural 1-2 means something disastrous has happened (possibly without your knowledge), and may or may not be RPed out, but almost always has potential consequences.

FEEDING DURING COMBAT

In order for a vampire to feed on an openly hostile target, the vampire must first grab the target. This is a Physique vs Fort attack that deals no damage.

The vampire must then spend a separate standard action during his next turn (cannot be in the same turn) to bite the target, provided the target is still grabbed. This is a Physique vs AC attack, and Willpower cannot be used for this bite attack. If the bite attack hits, it deals no damage apart from that dealt by feeding. As such, Slaying damage may never be added to damage from the bite nor feeding.

Once his bite succeeds, all stances that the vampire has immediately end. The feeding vampire is treated as dazed while feeding and can only use a Std action to sustain the feed. This dazed status cannot end without ending the bite. Only one vampire can bite/feed one target.

If the feeding vampire or the target takes damage (other than from the feeding), the bite immediately ends. Note also that if ever the grab ends, the bite ends as well. Unlike other games, attack penalties do not apply to escape checks.

A target that is bitten is treated as restrained by the grab bite, but can still act normally, subject to limits below.

Note that willing and unconscious targets never need to be grabbed. The vampire may immediately bite and start feeding with a single Std action.

FEEDING ON HUMANS

A vampire can feed on a human at the rate of 1 BP per turn. For each BP lost, the target takes lethal damage equal to his VIT, ie 25% HP damage. This damage applies even if in a non-combat situation.

Generally speaking, a human so caught is unlikely to be able to resist the bite itself, without supreme willpower. He may not make an escape action to end the grab, but he can still attack at -2 penalty (due to restrained). He can only attack the feeding vampire if there are no other targets.

Note that an injured human also loses BP at the same rate. Ie a bloodied human has lost at least 2 BP of blood. Healing does not restore BP lost. Note that this loss is more symbolic than a complete loss of blood, and applies even when defeated by Psychic attacks etc.

An adult human has about 6 BP worth of blood, hence an unconscious human has a max of 2 BP left in his body. Draining this BP from such an unconscious human will certainly kill him. Note that a smaller/younger human will probably have less BP in them.

Humans that are reduced to 0 hp after being drained of over 2 BP will certainly die unless receiving proper medical attention. In modern nights, such humans must be stabilized, and then receive proper medical attention within an hour. In the dark ages, such healing is beyond the means of humans.

FEEDING ON VAMPIRES

A vampire can feed on another vampire at the rate of 1 BP per turn. For each BP lost, the target takes lethal damage equal to half his VIT, ie about 12.5% HP damage.

Edit/Inserted: Even older vampires may take damage representative of their actual Blood Pool. In general, the damage taken is about 1 / ( Blood Pool x 2/3)

In combat, a bitten vampire can escape the grab normally and attack normally (albeit at -2 if restrained by a bite). If he cannot, he can still make a saving throw at the end of his turn to end the bite. Bitten vampires of a lower generation can automatically end the bite as a move action, if they so choose, if they are conscious.

Vampire blood is delectable, and can addict the drinker, especially if the bitten vampire is lower generation. When trying to end the bite, the drinker must make a save, failing which he carries on feeding. If he has tasted the target's blood before, and is grabbing the target at the start of his turn, he must make a save at the start of his turn, failing which he immediately makes a bite attack. Generation Penalty applies to both the above saves.

The above limitations also apply when drinking from allies/ party members, even outside of combat. Note that drinking blood from another vampire progresses the Blood Bond (see below), and draining a vampire of blood does not kill him and will only send him into torpor.

BLOOD VOLUME (INFO ONLY)

This is not a rule section, just for info and governing RP.

The original VtM had 10 BP per human, each about 1 pint. Adult human males have 10-12 pints, and adult human females have 8-10 pints. This altered version collapses 2 BP into 1 BP, and since 2 pints approx 1 liter, that means that 1 BP is about 1 liter.

Note that vampires dont have more volume of blood in their bodies, but they do have more "concentrated" blood and better mastery in keeping it in based on generation (this also explains their resistance to Bashing damage). This limitation is reflexive and also affects them when letting out blood, eg by cutting themselves to fill a cup.

Bloodpool indicates the number of BP they have when at 6 liters of blood. While draining 1 BP from a human is about 1 liter, draining 1 BP from a Gen 10 vampire with bloodpool 13 is slightly less than half a liter. Draining 1 BP from a Gen 06 elder with bloodpool 30 is about 0.2 liters.

Very old, low-generation and experienced vampires may allow more than 1 BP to be drained per turn. This may help quickly vitalize allies and/or create the impression that they are less old and potent than they actually are. This is common when offering blood through a receptacle, since their potent blood quickly becomes "ordinary".

09 May 17: edits in bold

[Zyraen]

COMMITING DIABLERIE

Diablerie involves not merely killing the target, but absorbing and destroying the target's soul. This is more than merely draining blood from the target.

After the victim's blood is completely drained, the attacker must focus to completely draw out his essence. The attacker is treated as unconscious during this period for purpose of being attacked while he focuses on diablerizing the target. This is a Sec Trait vs Will (without feat/implement bonuses and defensive penalties) attack made over multiple turns, requiring 2 hits plus 1 for difference in generation if the target is a lower generation vampire.

Willpower cannot be spent for extra attacks per turn, and if the attacker rolls a natural 1 or 2, or takes damage, the attempt automatically ends in failure. Upon failure, the target's corpse crumbles to ashes, having met Final Death, but the soul of the target is not consumed and the diablerie is unsuccessful. If diablerie is successful, and one who has successfully diablerized before must make a Frenzy check in order not to attack the nearest vampire in a frenzied bloodlust.

Diablerie is highly addictive, and a vampire that has ever successfully diablerized must make a Frenzy check in order not to diablerize a non-allied vampire that is unconscious. If the diablerist has drank the potential target's blood before, and the target is of a lower generation, the Frenzy check is subject to Generation Penalty. If he is already feeding on the target while making this save, he must roll twice to pass the save. Failure means he attempts to diablerize the target.

DIABLERIE AS A TEACHER

* - Learning a New Discipline does NOT automatically grant you any Dots in it. You still have to spend XP to get that Dot, or spend the other Dot from Diablerie to gain it.

- All benefits gained from Diablerie has to be specially recorded down in your Character Sheet by the ST.

- When you Diablerize a Vampire of an equal (or higher generation) than you, you gain 1 Dot in a Discipline (specifics - you gain either extra Move or Attack, and your RP dot is treated as 1 higher than its usual prior to diablerie) that the victim has more Dots in than you. This increase is temporary, until the end of the Story, or possibly the next Story.
You can forgo this increase to instead learn a New Discipline* that the diablerized vampire knows.
The new Discipline still costs 3 XP to learn, whether Common or Uncommon.
Hence there is no benefit for Common, except you do not need a teacher. However for Uncommon, you save 3 XP.

- When you Diablerize a Vampire of a lower generation than you, your Generation is permanently lowered by 1. You also gain +2 in any Discipline (for each plus, you can Permanently increase either M or A for that Discipline) in which the victim has more Dots than you, and in fact both Dots can be added to the same Discipline.
One (and only ONE) of these 2 Dots can be used to learn a New Discipline*.
You can also convert either or both Dots into 4 XP each, to be spent as you wish.

- If you learn a new Discipline in this way, you can learn up to 1 RP Dot (ie M1 and A1). To learn more than that, the victim must have had 5 Dots in the Discipline (and therefore counts as an appropriate Teacher...), whereupon you can develop the Discipline to 2 RP Dots (ie M2 and A2), then develop freely from there.

Note that the (or higher generation) is written in brackets, since at ST discretion, there may not be any XP or Dots to be gained from picking on Vampires significantly weaker than the Players.

[Zyraen]

THE EMBRACE

The Embrace, ie turning another into a vampire, involves draining a mortal of blood until almost dead, then feeding him vampiric blood.

For purpose of the game, doing so involves permanently reducing your Willpower (WP) by 1. This is separate and apart from other costs of educating and possibly maintaining the new vampire, ie the Childe.

The Sire can "reclaim the Blood" by diablerizing the Childe to regain the 1 expended WP. If done so, the regaining of WP is the only benefit gained from the diablerie, and the regained WP cannot bring the Sire to more WP than what he had just before the Embrace. All drawbacks of diablerie still apply.

Alternatively, the Willpower(WP) expenditure can be restored by spending XP per usual.

BLOOD BOND

Drinking a vampire's blood causes the drinker to fall under the sway of the one providing the blood, causing the drinker to have an emotional reliance on the vampire. The drink who is bonded is called the thrall, and the one whose blood is drank and benefits from the blood bond is called the regnant. Three drinks of the vampire's blood progressively strengthens the blood bond, until the third drink completes the bond. Note that the three drinks must be made on three separate different nights, and further drinks in a single night does not progress the blood bond.

For gameplay purposes, all sips above require the regnant to have at least 1 BP drained, though the actual imbibed amount may be less, and the thrall may or may not gain 1 BP from drinking. As above under Limitations, all blood that has left the body of the vampire in question simply becomes normal blood and does not strengthen the Blood Bond.

For the game purpose, blood bond for the purpose of ghouling requires spending 1 WP (not permanently) per sip administered. Then each sip to maintain the intensity of the blood bond later on is another 1 WP.

The first sip makes the regnant feel like a familiar friend of the thrall, as if the thrall had known him known for quite a long time.

The second sip makes the thrall effectively in love and enamoured with the regnant. Note that vampires cannot have sex and such feelings can be simply very affectionate.

The third sip completes the blood bond, and the regnant is effectively under the sway of the thrall. He will do almost anything for the regnant, and is effectively a loyal, unswerving slave. Note that the thrall still has free will, and will still have his own initiative, though it is extremely difficult for the thrall to think of doing anything that might remotely distress the regnant.

The Blood Bond does not wipe out memories, and the thrall will be able to remember what the regnant does to him. However, the emotional dissonance it creates - as if a dearly beloved had done impossibly vile things to oneself - can create distress innate to the memory, causing it to be psychologically blotted out. Less extreme actions on the part of the regnant might be rationalized or reasoned away by the thrall.

Even at the lowest level - the first sip - the blood bond does not interfere significantly with the thrall's feelings towards the regnant, but magnifies the feeling to a great level. This feeling may be magnified but rarely ever moves towards violence or removal of the person.

If the thrall does not meet or interact with the regnant for an extended period of time, the blood bond tends to slowly fade and lose its potency. This extended period is typically at least a year or so, then the next step down takes a decade. This is normally very much further complicated by the thrall seeking out the regnant, and possibly vice versa as well.

The precise effects of the blood bond if the regnant dies is unknown. Accounts vary sufficiently that there is no meaningful conclusion on the matter.

There may from time to time be vampires that need to drink vampire blood to get by. Such vampires are totally immune to the Blood Bond, unless they drink from another of lower generation than themselves.