Full Version: Live and Let Die
I was watching a documentary on Vlad Dracula and while in the vampiric frame of mind wondered if Detect Life would work on vampires? Does it matter whether or not one believes the character dies upon becoming a vampire or the condition is just a disease? Is there an undead Detect Life would not detect? Should there be TN modifiers?
Detect Life detects living creatures, and Essence is a measure of "life force". Vampires have it (they just get it from other people.) I've never seen a line in an SR book that refers to vamps as undead or implies they are not living creatures. If anything, I think cyberzombies would get Detect Life to go all screwy. A fully fed vampire with his 12 Ess would actually ping higher than a Unicorn (not that spell can tell the difference, only if Essence measures life, vampires can have a lot of it. Pre-Owned of course.)
Of course, my HMHVV hunters always took the Detect Vampire spell, so the point was moot for them.
Of course, my HMHVV hunters always took the Detect Vampire spell, so the point was moot for them.
I always figured that since the process to infect someone with Vampirism involves draining their essence to 0 (dead) then they are undead.
Detect Life should still work though.
Detect Life should still work though.
I think SR has been very careful to avoid the term 'undead.'
| QUOTE (Vermithrax) |
| I always figured that since the process to infect someone with Vampirism involves draining their essence to 0 (dead) then they are undead. Detect Life should still work though. |
By that definition though, anyone who has had a "near-death" experience would be Undead.
| QUOTE (Mercer) |
| By that definition though, anyone who has had a "near-death" experience would be Undead. |
Huh? I always figured a "near-death" experiences involved going into physical damage overflow to near max (body)
You can never come back from 0 essence, at least not naturally.
while we're sliding in that direction . . what would happen to a cyber-zombie if one took out the cyber and got his essence back to positive with that gene treatment? (yes, i realize that that is 4th stuff, i'm just curious somehow O.o)
| QUOTE (Vermithrax) |
| Huh? I always figured a "near-death" experiences involved going into physical damage overflow to near max (body) You can never come back from 0 essence, at least not naturally. |
For whatever reason, the real-world medical establishment has been sort of quiet on what your Essence does when you're clinically dead. There was a good line about death, about medical certainty really, that said the only sure sign of death is putrefaction. Well, the ghouls have managed to mess even that up.
Well personally I figure that the bad Mojo involved with becoming a Cyber-Zombie is a one way street, you can't go back.
I can see it now. SR "undead", not vampires or spirits, but previously unknown sanity-destroying necronomicon stuff. And the only hope for the world is an immortal cleric who has been alive since medieval times, like the knight from the end of "Indiana Jones And The Last Crusade". And he has Turn and Destroy Undead! ZOMG D&D! 
Seriously. If you let the MS people know of that idea I sent my runners your way, with rather special greetings. They might like that...
No!
No!
I see "undead" being a meaningless term in SR, a derogatory term for HMHVVer's, but not much else. In an odd bit of serendipity, I was glancing over my old Smuggler's Havens to get a little info on New Orleans, and this aspect was covered in the decker commentary. The long and short of it being, some people use the term, but its seen as an unenlightened thing. (I'm paraphrasing,
I mean, there are probably some HMHVV-infected people that go all Bela Lugosi and think they're the dark prince (or enjoy making other people think they're the dark prince), and there are some HMHVV-infected people who just work night jobs. I don't see the word "undead" turning up in a CDC report or a medical journal. I could see a guy who really gets off on the idea of being a vampire calling himself an "Undead American" or whatever, but other than that I don't see what difference it would make.
I mean, there are probably some HMHVV-infected people that go all Bela Lugosi and think they're the dark prince (or enjoy making other people think they're the dark prince), and there are some HMHVV-infected people who just work night jobs. I don't see the word "undead" turning up in a CDC report or a medical journal. I could see a guy who really gets off on the idea of being a vampire calling himself an "Undead American" or whatever, but other than that I don't see what difference it would make.
| QUOTE (Mercer) |
| I see "undead" being a meaningless term in SR, a derogatory term for HMHVVer's, but not much else. |
Or used by the great unwashed masses in reference to cases of Shedim possession.
Grande zombies. Corps cadavres.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.