Metabolism of a Vampire, Does Kissing make you puke? Options

[Patrick Goodman]

Uhmm, they still do that. Matter of fact, the fluff text in RW is a 1:1 copy from Critters...

Yeah, I'd meant to tweak that aittle bit, but it (and time) got past me.

However, until RC, they had no Dietary Requirement. Throw that into the mix, and his objection to "vampires that look like elves" makes a bit more sense.

[toturi]

Now this is a topic I can get behind!

Can banshees swallow when giving blowjobs without becoming sick? Are they allergic to lactating MILFs? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

[Hamsnibit]

I confess I haven't given their condition this much thought. Then again, I'd promply suicide any character of mine that got Infected during the course of play as I consider the HMHVV Infected to be vermin that should be exterminated posthaste (especially those disgusting ghouls), and not viable as a PC "race" choice - but that's me.

The new ridiculously politically-correct treatment of them in SR4 annoys me to no end - they're monsters, not people. Hunt them down with fire and acid spells and wipe them from the face of the earth - it's a great public service for the whole world.

One thing which i really like about shadorun is that they took actual myths, legends and fairy tales and put them into a "realistic" (means following an internal logic) setting where things still obey their respective natural laws and magic is still bound to its own strange rules, expressions and drawbacks. For every conscient manipulation of mana there will be a natural counterreaction (known as drain) and thats why you cant just pop your magetower into the landscape. Magic and technology exist side by side - the matrix is a coherent world in its own, the meatspace is and so is the manaspace.
What i was going to say is : there are the myths (soul sucking, mindless bloodthirsty vampires hunting people in D and Z-Zones like feral predators (welcome to my corp world) and the (shadowrun) world of facts.

Vampires do not suffer mental drawbacks during their transformation and so they are fully aware of their condition and their actions.
The question which shadowrun raises is: people turn into something they dont fully understand, misinformed, misunderstood and not exactly knowing their new needs they wake up in a dark corner of a backalley, overwhelmed by a terrible thirst which drives them to the brink of madness (ever seen REALLY hungry/thirsty people? they do anything they have to) you know you have to kill or at least damage people irreparably in order to survive.

Image yourself this:
The society spurns you as a monster, your Joe Wageslave friends turn away from you one by one after you seeked them out for help. You know that you are still the old person just something terrible happened to you and nothing would be more comforting in getting some emotional warmth to solace you but everybody you knew just see your new appearance and is disgusted, you even can be happy if they dont call the cops who shoot you on sight if they are in the mood or after your bounty. Your family doesnt recognize you anymore and ostracise you. Your corp will fire you if they arent infected friendly AND have some use for you which does not consist of experimenting with you. You loose your SIN if your state doesnt belong to a handful of states who grant you a ciminal SIN at least.
You are fucked, god and the world spits on you and still keep kicking you while you lay on a pile of junk behind a rubbish container crying and begging for mercy or an end to your torture. And everything you get are two lowlife gangers from the local street gang who close in on you with their knifes drawn.

What you gonna do? What does the world with you? Where do you go and what will become of you?

This is a far far more interesting scenario than e.g. a D&D viewpoint where you just turn into something chaotic evil and stay compfortable with yourself and not the demons but the paladins are you new enemy and everything is fine and in order.

In shadowrun not even Jow Wageslaves corporate world is in order.

For me i prefer the more interesting and "realistic" scenario. The infected still keep their sapience and should be treated accordingly in my opinion, which goes in both directions. Of course there are the ones which went mad and live as feral predators but the question should be : why is this so? and not simply assume that they are "all just monsters"

Another case would be a character who would get his logic decreased below 1 (which is rulewise not possible but this should shatter their sapience quite well think of a mental handicapped person).

Thing is: political correctness and reality are two sepreate things ask an infected rights guy if he would send his child with a ghoul kid to school and await the answer. People tend to be hypocrites which counts double time for the shadowrun world. Being in the spotlight as a nice guy who promote rights for people may be a nice thing but so far there are just half a dozen nations which DONT have bountys on the head of infected and thats all. Megacorps a quite another thing they turn to everything which promises profit, sucking it dry and leave the rest to rot.

Now this is a topic I can get behind!

Can banshees swallow when giving blowjobs without becoming sick? Are they allergic to lactating MILFs? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

In order to start a serious thread i downtuned the case into simple kissing (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)
More pure and innocent ... hrhr
Those pointy teeths would things surely make interesting ...

I suspect only holding something in their mouth will not cause a vomit. Hitting the stomach however. And i suspect the larger amount, the more immediate the reaction.

Thinking about it, it may well be that the virus takes over the job of the mitochondria. And by doing so, changing the way the cells are powered (likely cause of the essence loss). This would also sharply reduce the need for oxygen and such, if i am reading the wikipedia article right.

Do you mind linking the article? I read through a few pages and im not sure if i got you right.

[Sengir]

Yeah, I'd meant to tweak that aittle bit, but it (and time) got past me.

So what exactly do you intend to "fix", then? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Patrick Goodman]

So what exactly do you intend to "fix", then? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

The part where they became hemovores all of a sudden. Don't know how I'm going to deal with that, or even if I am going to deal with that.

[Hamsnibit]

The part where they became hemovores all of a sudden. Don't know how I'm going to deal with that, or even if I am going to deal with that.

There are people like me out there who take joy in playing out their characters to great extent end really enjoy a compfortable and plausible setting and really appreciate your efforts.
Just dont stress yourself and take your time to find something nice and fitting if you like to do so since this whole thing is a rather fluffy matter (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Even if you dont want to pinpoint something concrete, ingame indications are still a great help in painting the whole picture.

[hobgoblin]

I think Hamsnibit just described a drug addict...

[3278]

It's not new to SR4, but it may be more in the forefront nowadays. "Monsters are people too," (as well as "people are monsters") has been in the game since SR1.

It's a science fiction standard: what are the limits of "humanity," as regards giving treatment and rights? Not long ago, statements like this...

The new ridiculously politically-correct treatment of them in SR4 annoys me to no end - they're monsters, not people. Hunt them down with fire and acid spells and wipe them from the face of the earth - it's a great public service for the whole world.

...were commonplace, in reference to such non-humans as Jews, gays, blacks, and native Americans. In the future, people will say things like this about chimps, apes, non-biological intelligences, and "lower" organisms raised to sapience. Science fiction asks these questions today, so we'll have answers when we get there tomorrow.

[NiL_FisK_Urd]

...were commonplace, in reference to such non-humans as Jews, gays, blacks, and native Americans.

Don't forget the gypsies ^^

[Irion]

why should the thermal image be different? i can't recall reading that sr vampires have a different body temperature than non-infected humans ^^

Nosferatu for example do not have any organs. So even if they have a body temperature it is most likely not a human destribution.

[Jhaiisiin]

Nosferatu for example do not have any organs. So even if they have a body temperature it is most likely not a human destribution.

Ummmm, what? Where did you read this? I don't think "purging their organs" in RC means they get rid of them. That's the only place in either RW or RC that says something like that, and I think they meant of blood/normal fluids. Little hard to consume anything (including regular food, like they're apparently supposed to be able to do) if you have no organs at all. Plus, Brain? Eyes? Skin? All organs. Without them, you're a skeleton with muscles, but you certainly aren't going anywhere without the help of a Shedim.

[Yerameyahu]

Presumably, it's just badsilly writing. 'Purging the organs' (like, literally) is a classic (undead) vampire thing, so someone put it in without thinking. (At least, I'm sure it's in Anne Rice, bleh). Clearly, it doesn't make sense in SR. Oh well. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) They're not for players to use anyway, ugh.

[Patrick Goodman]

Nosferatu for example do not have any organs. So even if they have a body temperature it is most likely not a human destribution.

Say what?

[CanRay]

Nosferatu for example do not have any organs. So even if they have a body temperature it is most likely not a human destribution.

Say what?

Only one way to solve this dilemma. We crack open a cold one.

Who's for Nos Hunting?

[Irion]

@Jhaiisiin
What should it mean?
All right, probably not brain, eyes, skin etc. But like Yerameyahu said, the classic vampire stuff.

@Patrick Goodman
What is your question?

@Yerameyahu
Well, thats is hard to tell. Beacause i doubt a vampire would survive a mana void...

[Yerameyahu]

I'm not sure what you're responding to, but that's possibly correct anyway. It kind of depends; a ghoul can lose its Magic score and still keep functioning (minus specific powers). This may or may not mean that they can exist without mana. It's hard to imagine, for example, that a vampire can *mundanely* get the energy it biologically needs from blood (notoriously bad nourishment), especially the small amounts I recall the books stipulating. So, presumably they're at least partially mana-fueled, even ignoring their Magic Powers.

Basically, the setting has magic, so the Infected *can* be anything. All we care about is making that choice, having it fit the setting reality, and then sticking to it. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) My gut says that Infected, even ghouls, require the constant functioning of the non-mundane virus throughout their body; that is, they should require mana in their environment. They shouldn't like Voids or Ebbs, and such a thing might even mess them up in extreme cases. For example, long-term exposure to a Void should probably make them get sick and die, as their magic-infused biological systems quit working. (This is all just me, off the cuff. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) )

[Irion]

@Yerameyahu

Presumably, it's just badsilly writing. 'Purging the organs' (like, literally) is a classic (undead) vampire thing, so someone put it in without thinking. (At least, I'm sure it's in Anne Rice, bleh). Clearly, it doesn't make sense in SR.

Just saying it makes actually the same sense like any other way to handle it. Just a choice the writer had to make.

[Yerameyahu]

Oh, I see. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) Well, I thought I heard someone say that Nosferatu *don't* have the Hemovore penalty, so therefore they do need guts. I don't deal with Infected much, and I was too lazy to find the book. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) If we were talking again about one of the actual Hemovores, then yes, see my last.

The books have, in some cases, attempted to differentiate between mana-powered effects (Pixie flight) and physical 'mundane' aspects that merely require a mana field to come into being in the first place (like, a centaur). If they did that in all cases, how lucky we would be. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) The question is also complicated by tying some 'mana-powered' things to a Magic score, and not others (IIRC, of course).

[3278]

Paranormal Animals of Europe - the first rules appearance of the Nosferatu, as far as I know - doesn't say anything about Nosferatu not having organs. Third Edition didn't get a full-length book on Critters [much less 2], it only got Critters, with the GM screen: its tiny description also doesn't include anything to that effect. Nor does Running Wild.

But of course Runner's Companion includes the phrase in relation to PC Nosferatu, but nowhere else that I can think of off the top of my head. Does anyone know how or why this addition to the canon idea of Nosferatu was made? [Vampires, too, to some degree, although the phrase is different: "internal transformation and purging," which seems more reasonable.]

[Patrick Goodman]

@Patrick Goodman
What is your question?

I thought it was pretty clear: What the heck are you talking about? Specifically, the bit about nosferatu not having organs.

[ShadowJackal]

Now this is a topic I can get behind!

Can banshees swallow when giving blowjobs without becoming sick? Are they allergic to lactating MILFs? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

Is this seriously what men think about? Color me jaded.

[Yerameyahu]

Why are you assuming it's not women? How heteronormative of you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[ShadowJackal]

Why are you assuming it's not women? How heteronormative of you. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Fine. Is this what... People (?) think of? Does people include Vampires too? Don't want to leave them out (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Paul]

Don't let them fool you. That's really what we men think about. Some of us are just better at pretending we're not thinking about it all the time. Now back on topic.

I can't recall off hand where the idea that Nosferatu purge internal organs comes from but man it sounds familiar. When I sober up I swear I'll pull some books off the shelf and look.

[CanRay]

Maybe from the origins of the Vampiric History?

I mean, the Japanese Vampire leaves it's body in a vat of vinegar and flies around just head and spinal cord. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)