Do Vampires need to feed other than to drain/gain essence? Do they need to drink blood daily, like for their daily nutritional needs?

I always thought that the blood was merely a symbolic component of the essence transfer, something that would bring out the emotional stress required. As far as I know, they don't need to eat or drink anything (and if they do, bad things happen: see Underworld Evolution, et al).

Underworld Evolution? Mind telling those of us who are fairly new and don't have the book?

It's a vampire action flick. You've probably heard of it.

In Underworld:Evolution the half-vamp/half-werewolf dude tries to sit down and have a nice solid cooked meal. The result is a lot of vomiting.

This is not the case in SR. Vampires have Immunity to Age, Pathogens, and Toxins. Neither of these immunities negate or reduce food-related lifestyle costs. They have to eat. Essence drain simply counteracts their Essence Loss, nothing more or less. However, it is important to remember that there are no starvation rules in SR. They wouldn't be effected by a lack of food because no one would be.

Ah, the movie Underworld. Yes, I've heard of it. Yes, it's on my list of movies to watch. No, I have not seen it yet.

So, that is a good question: I know that ghouls can't eat anything other than raw flesh, and a minute amount of the flesh had to have belonged to a metahuman at one point, but that they still have to eat and metabolize. Same goes for wendigos, I suppose. But vampires can't just survive on blood, can they? They have to have some sort of metabolism--there isn't any comment on them not showing up on thermo, so they have to be burning fuel of some sort. Hmmm...

Going to have to think on this a bit more; while HMHVV is a mystical virus, it's still a virus... and even zombies and shedim power their bodies via their mana natures, but there isn't any mention of that sort of thing with the vampires--they aren't flesh forms (I think) and somehow I doubt that there are many magicians in the world that can permanently--and unconsciously--sustain the Nutrition spell on themselves.

critters, Page 46

"VAMPIRE
Vampires are humans and metahumans infected with
HMHVV. They prey on sentient beings, absorbing the life
essence of their victims along with the victim’s blood. Some
vampires refuse to drain Essence from an unwilling subject;
others revel in their role as hunters and killers. Vampires will
become sick to their stomachs within an hour of consuming
anything but blood and have particularly bad reactions to
alcohol."

Underworld (2003)
Underworld Evolution (2006)

Not bad films to rent to pass an evening. Nothing earth-shattering, but having Kate Beckinsale to look at sure does earn a point or two

I can't see them stocking blood, seems they need a victim. As to whether they hunt nightly or not, it'd be personal preference. They are sentient, after all.

I remember there was a novel a while back, Terminus Experiment, that actually had people trying to make vampires that could subsist on regular food. If I remember correctly, they actually succeeded before the only new breed of vampire got firebombed to hell.

Ok, I'll try a bit differently.

Everyone agrees vampires need to drain essence at times to replace lost essence or they will die. Do vampires need to drink blood without taking essence just to eat comparable to how most creatures need to eat to survive? Or is essence the only nutritional requirement?

I'm going to stick by most of what I wrote earlier and say that vampires do have to eat even if it is just nutrient-enriched blood. So they would stockpile. It doesn't need to be metahuman blood and the donor does not have to be alive when the blood is consumed. That is just for essence drain.

Critters mentions other vampire variants that have non-essence dietary requirements, so that makes sense.

They feed on Essence. They don't need anything else and regular food is unpleasant to them. Stocking up on blood won't help them either because there would be no Essence to drain from it.

In one of my rare breaks with RAW, I have thrown out all of this stuff about vampires not needing to eat. I like a little pseudo-science in my fantasy and I demand that my vampires sit down for a good meal once a night. Of course they need the essence from blood drinking, too.

Just because they don't eat regular food doesn't mean their stomach never starts having those annoying hunger pangs.

Hunger pangs for a vampire is when their essence drops below six.


The real problem here I think is the rate of essence loss. In current rulings, they can live a very long time without feeding.

I've covered this before here, but this is the most relevant passage:

Vampires must feed, either by sexualizing women or by using their sexualized charms to lure poor, chaste, innocent men away from the path of virtue.

~J

There is nothing about them needing to ffed. The rules go out of their way to say they cannot eat or drink. blood is only symbolic of the exchange. It seems the changeto their biology means they do not/cannot take in food.

That's true. They do not have a dietary requirement of blood, drinking blood is simply their method of extracting essence, creating an empathic link.

The biggest argument I can see for "only have to eat once a month", is thus:

Assume they must eat thrice a day. Assume there are five vampires in the Barrens (just for kicks, say).

If they get a different victim every day, it's gonna be 5,475 victims (365 days/year * three meals/day * five vampires).

That's 5.5k cases of "dude, where'd you get that nasty bite?"

Sixty of those cases will either end up dead/a vampire (if a vampire snacks on a mook with Essence one or less) or feeling less like themselves after receiving this mysterious bite.

Now, if they made a new vampire, that's another mouth (ha!) to feed. And in their first month of existance, you know they'll want to get their fill. Assume an average Essence roll (2d6, so 7). That's either five people drained of one point, one person drained of five points, or whatever. That could very well be another five vampires made, or one, or however many based on number of mooks and Essence they have.

See where the math starts to increase fairly significantly?

Given those statistics, you'd think there'd be a really, really heavy bounty on vampires.

OR!

Paranoia! The vampires own several large blood banks. Most of the donations don't go to third world countries and areas in need of medical supplies, they go to the bloodsuckers themselves so they don't have to risk exposure by feeding on over 1,000 people per year, each.

So, sure, they might get hungry. So they just make sure to have some raw meat waiting, drip it, and guzzle the blood from it. After all, who'd suspect some pasty guy in a leather coat at the grocery store as being a vampire? He just looks like one of those freako trideo game players.

Dude, they can just buy blood from a fraggin' butcher shop. Heck, vampires don't have to feed off of metahumans at all. Everything alive has essence, even meat animals.

vampire cattle ranchers.