I'm currently running a low-level campaign for two players right now (one cokehead ork and a drunkard Ron Jeremy look-a-like..), and I thought that I'd give 'em something different to handle in the next scenario.. Would It be possible to use a vampire as the PCs' next employee (mentor, trainer and finally as a contact) ? I don't have Critters around here so I can't dig up the vampires' stats or behavioral info up right now...

The vampire himself would be a former criminal syndicate member (yakuza probably) and is planning a revenge on the abusive Oyabun (not death necessarily...) whose orders and selfishness lead to (insert cool name) THE VAMPIRE's death (just made this up...). He plans to use the PC's as henchmen to cause some mayhem in the syndicate (PC's are currently working for the yakuza)... The main point in the first scenario is to make the PC's decide whether they'll work for their current employer or the prince of all darkness and coolness matrix-style vampire (sorry..been reading manga lately..).

Finally, how do you GM your vampires? Buffy style (*shudder*), or the more elegant WoD style? Any other ideas? Thanks in advance!

The way vampires work in SR, it could really be done any way you like. The best canon soultion is to make him a Nosferatu. If I were sure it wasn't against some forum rule/copyright agreement, I'd give the stats, but suffice to say, they get signifigant bonuses to both their physical AND their mental attributes, not to mention their critter powers, making them truly fearsome opponents.

Mostly, I GM vampires as semi-regular folk in casual interactions. Deep down, they've got various emotional issues relating to being dead and having to eat souls to live -- some people just suppress those thoughts or shrug them off, others power-trip on it, and others are weirded out by it and try to ignore it. But all of these people have only been vamps for a few years at most, if not since only last week, so they're still acting much like their old selves -- especially if their old selves were kind of dark, night-stalkers to begin with.

The ancient 4th-world been-around-forever vampire Cabals I just avoid in my game, mainly because I can't stand pretentious Anne-Rice-style woe-is-my-vampiric-self whining.

--K

As an interesting twist, they may not know he's a vamp.

It's not like a lot of runners venture out during the day _anyway_.

And since the Awakening, metahumans with allergies to sunlight are not unheard of...

-Siege

Make him how you want. Humans with the HMHVV look normal, except for pale skin, too much time inside, need to get out more, and pronounced eyeteeth, you can learn to cover these, trust me.

So what sort of person was the person before he was turned? Well that's what he's like as a vampire. Stats are pretty easy- intell, willpower are normal, physical traits are his human levels plus essence. Essence can be up to 12. they regenerate damage as normal and can turn to mist. so they are faster adn stornger than people and get stronger if they drain a victim. What skills did he have before he was turned? Imagine a martial arts expert who has a strength and quickness of 9!

The essence drain power in SR is different that most "standard" visions of vampires. The SR rules specify that essence drain is very difficult from a resisting target. Draining is facilitated by strong emotions aimed at the vampire directly, this leaves a few options of which two are the most obvious.

1) Fear, the vampires scares the B'Jesus out of his/her target and the target, out of fear, surrenders.

2) Passion, the vampire seduces the B'Jesus out of his/her target, out of boom boom chicky chicky bow wow, the target surrenders.

First, decide what kind of vampire you're dealing with, if it's going to be a Johnson, might I suggest the seduction route?

Which would mean, for all intents and purposes, your vampire Johnson is a probably a mage, a very wealthy businessman who gets his essence from willing targets (a stable of lovers of even only his 1 true love, whatever) or he uses complete strangers and seduces them as he gets hungry.

Bottom line is, you can go Nosfetaru, whole hog on the fear "Look at me I'm evil" or you can go smooth and be the kind of vampire who doesn't kill to feed.

Sunday

How quickly does a victim regain the lost essence after a vampire has drained them? Never, as the vampire loses it, faster than the vampire loses it? This is the one thing I've never been clear on and I'm not sure the critter book ever answered my question on it.

Never, Ever.

Once a victim is drained of essence it is gone forever to the victim, the essence drain is permanent. It is also Euphoric and can be strongly addictive.

That's kind of what I thought, but wasn't sure about. Although that sort of makes it impossible for a vampire to keep a few people around as permanent food supply...

Vampires that want to be "hands-off" to the killing can just get their Essence from other vampires and essence-draining beings. Those beings are a renewable resource, and the primary vamp doesn't need to get his hands dirty or be directly responsible for death/soul-decay.

Of course, such a view would be completely ignoring the indirect deaths that feed the vamp, but this is not so different from how many people eat hamburgers today. Most people would be very uncomfortable witnessing the slaughter and processing of a cow, let alone doing it themselves, but in the form of ground beef, it's just a hamburger and they can forget about it. The vamp may have a similar view of things -- a sort of cultivated ignorance.

Hell, maybe he even "buys organic" and only drains from other vamp Essence-vendors who promise "safe and humane draining" of their stock of metahumans.

--K

(dont mind the typing...i have one arm in a sling...)

personally, i hate the "permanent" essence drain...it just seems retarded and without any canonical background in the actual game...why do they just "lose" essence in an unrecoiverable way exactly? so i sayt it does recover, but at a slow rate...1 point per month or even slower.

not like it comes up often, but that's my view on it.

Because Dragoonkin it is absolutely canon that in Shadowrun Essenece never, ever recovers. Get cyberware removed? That essence never comes back, Get Drained by a Vamp? that essence never comes back. Lose essence from drug use? Than essence never comes back. NOTHING EVER brings back essence, that IS the canon fact of SR. It's the entire basis of the essence system.

That IS the canonical background of EVERY type of essence loss, doing it otherwise would be against canon. By canon no essence ever recovers for any reason.

There is ONE circumstance that I know of where essence comes back and that is the critter power "Essence drain: emporary" which alsmot nothing has. Your essence in that case is never actually lost, it's just borrowed.

thats what i trade out on vamps for...a longer-term version o9f temp essence loss

i dunno, its a style thingf and really inconsequential toi pretty much anyones game...and i doubt anyone inmy game will ever really run across the whys and hows of vamp drain, so its kind of moot

but we all have opinions

Sure, lemmie run home. The bartender's in the San Fran section of Neo-Anarchist's Guide to North America, I remember that much. I think his bar's called 'The Crypt'.

I'll dig up the other vamps when I get home.

some clarifications.

first, there are two types of essence drain critter power. they can be found in the Critters book, which comes with the SR GM screen. the first is essence drain; this one is permanent. if a critter with this power drains your essence, you lose that essence forever. the second is essence drain (temporary), which is much rarer. this essence recovers at a set rate--i think it's one per day, or maybe one per hour.

all vampires except nosferatu have the first type, the permanent type. if you are drained by any vampire except a nosferatu, your essence is permanently drained. nosferatu need much less essence than normal vampires, and only drain essence temporarily.

another thing. vampires are not undead, in SR. they're perfectly healthy, viable, living organisms with exceptional dietary needs. vampires are not sensual and sexy and seductive by nature; they're not demonic, evil, baby-eating bastards by nature. they're people who happen to be infected by a life-changing illness. it's like AIDS, except people with AIDS don't normally have a hellish appetite for your soul. maybe more like lawyers with AIDS.

Actually if you think about it It's like AIDS' evil twin, but the exact opposite. It makes your immune system almost perfect. You are immune to everything, even to physical trauma practically.

mfb had it mostly right - the only correction I will make is that Nosferatu posses both the normal and temporary forms of Essense Drain.

Vampires who feed "humanely" only take from willing victims, and will generally only feed on an individual donor once.

As far as roleplaying them, they are normal people who suddenly have superhuman abilities (super-strength, super-fast healing) but also have to drain other people's Essense to survive. Some will adjust as best they can to it and retain their old personality (mostly). Some will mentally deteriorate, or go on a big power trip, or turn psychotic, or mope and angst about it. But you can have them run the gamut from misunderstood hero to ordinary Joe to ruthless villain.

You know, in SR Companion there's that table to see how much mind a person retains after Ghoul transformation. You could use the same table to roll randomly to see how much of a person's personality remains intact after becoming a vampire, and how much they become taken over by their new identity.

--K

Has anybody seen Snow Fox during the day ?

Yeah, the ghoul table is exclusively for ghouls -- I just meant that if you want to simulate mind-changes due to HMHVV at all, the ghoul table gives an idea of the degree of change effected by the infection. For ghouls, the change is toward becoming a flesh-hungry beast. For vampires, perhaps the change is toward becoming a soulful dark wanderer or whatever. It's just a "degree of effect from Infection" guideline, I guess.

Regarding what vampires do with their time.... I would note that a lot of people don't choose their job strictly from a survival perspective. I mean, in Samoa, a regular person can lay around on the beach, graze on the fruit trees that grow wild, and do absolutely nothing related to survival. A larger proportion of people there do just that. However, still 60% or more of the population goes out and pursues jobs for a few reasons -- the finer luxuries in life, personal growth, a sense of fulfillment, etc. I imagine many vampires would have jobs -- at the least, they would certainly have personal projects and small businesses. I could see them filling up those jobs that are fulfilling spiritually but pay little -- artist, musician, massage therapist, etc.

--K

Is part of the confusion about feeding due to what exactly they are taking?

I play my vampires as having to consume blood daily as a nutritional requirement. The blood can come from whatever source, but the further removed it is from the human neck, such as refrigerated cows blood, the less tasty it is.

The vampire IMG still needs to maintain its essence, but that feeding is not required nearly as often. ( A vamp could be at 12 essence and go almost a year before having to drain a victim or 2.)

I remember reading once, I forget which book, about a story of a guy who's friend was once "kissed" by a Vampire. Said he later went out hunting to get that feeling again, and never came back.

Sounds like the feel is addicting to me, and would go along with most myths and legends about how much new Vampires love getting the bite. Another myth is that "Essence-sharing" between two Vampires (both biting each other at the same time) is supposed to be incredibly sensual to them. Don't know how much of this would be canon, but a lot of it sounds right.

More likely the kiss was one hell of a hickey! The touch isn't addictive but the bite, drawing one's life out, is incredibly pleasurable- it helps keep the prey from fighting back. Like any drug, it can be addicitive if you're not able to resist and that's what happened to the friend. He'd gotten the rush and wanted more.

I swear there were printed rules following the addiction formula for the bite. I don't think it was in a main book

I was keeping in character, the rules are That if drained of essence you have to make a will power throw of 4 to avoid becoming adicted. Obvousily a mindless bimbo/dumb jock is going to be the favorite prey of vamps looking to have someone bound to them. A mage would be too much of a struggle.

Plus, the Mage would just go "Psha, Vampire? How about a Fireball for lunch?"

Of course, the Vamp might then just use his insane Spell Resistance (equal to Essence, correct?), then rip the Mage apart from head to toe, but, hey, what a way to go, neh? Oh, and at least you didn't lose any Essence (excepting that whole being killed bit).

Actually I don't think vampires have any particular spell resistance IIRC. that's about the only good thing to fighting one. Your mage can hurt him. He'll be perfect again in 3 seconds or less, but you made him say "ow" before he rips your spine out your ass with his bare hands.

Hm, that's Dzoo Noo Qua, sorry. Magical Guard is the power. Gives them Spell Defence equal to Essence. Bye-bye Mages...

Of course, once a vampire actually drains a mage's essence, that will negatively impact their magic rating right?

Vamp's regeration make them tough enough without magical resistance too.You think it's down and it pops back up again.
I know one player who just kept firing into a downed vamp until the GM said it's head exploded, then she cut off the head.

Heh. We always say it's dead by it going to dust. Yeah, mythical background, but it works for us. Had to repeatedly slam the butt of my rifle into one for it to even notice anything.

If you have ever seen the opening eposide of The Tick live action show you would have a damn funny visual to do w

Could a humane vampire subsist on draining essence from cows or other mammals? (how much essence do cats and small hyper dogs have?) I can just imagine a vampire who is the owner of a slaughterhouse who's always at 12 essence.

Now that's creepy- vampire bovines roaming the barrens.

I could be wrong, but IIRC he could drain it from any sentient creature.

Actually, just to frag with your players:

A vampire mage who's gone around the bend and is living "Bram Stoker"'s book.

"Aaargh, devil rats!"

"No vampire can summon devil rats!"

"AAaarggh, ouch! Grrrr. Tell him that! Who's got the flame thrower?"

-Siege