In honor of the upcoming rules for PC HMHVV-Infected, the following topic:

Just how much is going to be noticeable and recognizable a SR vampire, either by plain mundane observation, technological specialized equipment, Aura scanning, or other magical means ? Since most vampires are supposed to be Awakened, let's assume the vampire in question is a mystic adept.

Wendigoes and ghouls are notoriously rather noticeable, unless masked by appropriate magical or technological disguise.

It's covered in the chapter. I try to be inclusive and comprehensive when possible.

Unless we come here looking for spoilers on upcoming books...you evil, evil man

it's why you're such a well liked person *g*

I'll say that, as a GM, how obvious a vampire is would depend on how healthy and strong it is (again, this being in my games, so not canon). A vampire with lots of essence will appear healthy, perhaps even super-healthy, and may be able to hide its disease from the astral (although it'll look suspicious no matter what it does, until it learns masking). Similarly, its heat will change. High essence means it'll be burning more hot, low essence means it's getting closer to death and is cooler.

Not canon, but just a thought.

Will there be vampire clans too?

If there are I will be forced to shoot someone. Groups of vampires who have played one too many White Wolf games a hang around together calling themselves a clan, on the other hand, are perfectly acceptable.

hmm, better prep a troll with a flamer then...

you could count the Ordo as a clan, right?

No, they lack the 'r' factor of V:tM clans.

I didn't write any clans. Don't get me wrong, I played and GMed as much oWoD as the next guy, but the whole clan structure was pretty damn silly even for their universe, and it would make absolutely no sense in SR. Sure, you can go the whole way with "bloodlines" and crappola, but in SR that's just line of transmission for a disease. It doesn't make you a special little gothic butterfly who suddenly gains access to a legacy and culture centuries old.

Your basic Essence-draining Infected is a predator with a human's need to socialize who can trace their disease back to some particularly unlucky SOB in 2011, and that's the best scenario. At worst the virus ate half your brain away and what's left of you isn't very pretty to look at. Sure you get powers-but hey, newsflash, everybody else like you gets the same powers. To most vampires, other vampires are the competition, not soul mates. Two vampires together is like a mated pair of cannibal serial killers and about as pretty. No vampire in their right mind would try to craft a "childe" out of whatever little emo freak thinks vampires of sexy. Most predators do not like to share-and any bloodsucker with half a brain would realize they have to fend with someone as powerful as themselves and who might well hold a grudge when they find out being a vampire isn't all brooding in shadows and contemplating how ageless and perfect you've become (well, except maybe nosferatu and those guys are freaks). And you can forget all the while-away-the-century stuff, your average vampire is looking to make it through the week looking pink and healthy. Even the poor guy that was 117 when the virus expressed in him in 2011 is only 176 and faces the distinct possibility of eternity wearing Depends™.

Let us not forget that vampires are one of the nice options. Still recognizably metahuman, most of their marbles rolling around, can tap a bag of plasma and drink their blood out of plastic cup and pretend it's claret or tomato juice or a Masai blood drink or something, and even if they're life-sucking abominations they get some kick-ass powers. Some of the other Infected make the Sasquatch look like a nine-foot tall teddy bear by comparison, and on top of falling off the top of the fugly tree and hitting every branch down, they don't get to live forever or turn into mist or drink a pint of brake fluid in the morning and shrug it off without a hangover. How much fun do you think it would be to be a ghoul that dies of dysentery because somebody left the meat lying out a little too long?

Don't even get me started on dhampirs. I want to step on the whiny little people that ask about dhampirs. Like the little frickin' dung beetles they are, coming out to roll shit into balls and then scurry out of the light with their treasure. "Oh, look how special I am! I have these special powers and my parents are oh so special people so I'm special too! But I'm not a vampire so I don't have to be allergic to the sun or anything like that!" NO GO. happy little gothic butterfly person. Whoever your mother drummed the back of her heels on, no dhampirs, none. Virus! This isn't like breeding frickin' cats! You want to play with that particular fire, go play with some of the dirty needles the Ordo Maximus throws out and trust that fate likes your happy shiny little gothic butterfly person ass. Maybe the GM will feel kind.

But I hope not.

Why all the dhampir hate? We never done anything to you... Seriously though, I agree that the possibility of such a union would not be likely. I don't see a wolf making out with a sheep instead of ripping out its throat and devouring its soul.

This reminds me of the Sega Gensis Shadowrun game... when random people walk up to you and turn out to be vampires. Then they attack you.


Seattle is a rough place.

Dhampirs are symptomatic of gene pool fantasy, that ancient and bastard trope that started out with demigods and nephilim and gave rise to half-elves, and half-orcs, and eventually totally unnecessary speculation into the conjugal and development habits of centaurs and werewolves. Its some quirk of the human race that probably started way back when our primitive-but-not-stupid ancestors had to deal with neanderthals and various other upright hominids shuffling about and the inevitable crossbreeding, or that came about when man started domesticating critters and realizing the potential of mixing stock and eugenics. I'm not going to sit here and tell you it's the same racial mindset that gave us terms like quadroon and octoroon, but you can bloody well see that the general idea of mixing is a double-edged sword in fantasy, from the powerful and beautiful half-elves in Tolkein to the degenerate inhabitants of Innsmouth in Lovecraft's fiction.

Gene pool fantasy gets more pronounced when it becomes married with either point-whoring or I'm So Special Look At Me! syndrome, which sometimes go hand in hand. Suddenly people want to combine the best traits and craft some kind of ubermensch, either for mechanical advantage or just to bathe in the utter glory of being such an incredibly rare, improbable cross which makes their backstory read like the kind of fanfiction that authors regret ever writing the disparate sources of. The fact that you always seem to get at least three of the same rare, improbable cross in any convention who sit quietly as they relate their improbably close backhistories. I mean, really, if these people had any imagination they wouldn't be playing a half-storm dragon/half-faery hybrid descended from royal lines on both sides to begin with, they'd be playing characters with names they can pronounce that have a well-thought out backstory, a history they can sum up in a paragraph, and a couple terrible bastards they've raised up and put down in their time to talk about over a beer.

See, Shadowrun goes against the trope. Where in other games you've got magical whoozits that let's everybody screw everything else in whatever clean fashion lets you leave out rape but gives you scores of weird hybrid half-species roaming the land, SR says NO. You can't be a half-elf, or a half-ork, or a half-anything like that. It doesn't work that way, you don't inherit. You want to be a half-Irish, quarter-Caribbean, quarter-Japanese teenaged elf girl, fine, more power to you, but you're not going to be a half-giant/half-gnome. The genetics don't work out like that, and we don't have to worry about gamers trying to point-whore their way to some master race that would alternately give Nazi eugenicists wet dreams and nightmares.

And the same goes for dhampirs. Double, actually, because ever since Blade and Underworld the science fantasy root of the Vampire Virus has created an inbred bastard spawn of gene pool fantasy-the Bug Chasers. People that have their characters go out of their way to get Infected with the "best" strain of the virus. And aren't dhampirs the best? Supernatural abilities without any of that mucky sucking on the entrails to get the last drops out? WEAK. If you want to play a prissy little supernatural elfin thing with an unusual lineage and a penchant for the darker side of life, be an elf pimp. You probably already have a wardrobe picked out that's appropriate and everything.

::blinks::
so many quotes I have to copy now.
best rant of the year.

let me go get the fire extinguisher first.

I've always wondered why no Half-dwarf, -gnome, or -halfling for that matter??

The funny thing is that in Underworld the half-vampire half-werewolf hybrid sucked horribly, proving that a dork with all of their strengths and none of their weaknesses is still a dork. The regular vampire is substantially more baddass and ends up slaying the primary villains of both films in the series and doing all of the cool stuff.

given that said underworld vampire is a female in skintight leather its not wonder she kicks ass...

sometimes i wonder if thats why half the people out there get into the goth scene, in the hopes of hooking up with someone like her...

oh, and AH, would it be redundant to invoke godwin?

*reads through AH's rantings*
i wish to learn more and i want to subscribe to your newsletter ^^
seriously, i may be a bit on the goth side, but most of that stuff in the vampire fiction is going way too far for my taste . .
i actually like the SR way of dealing with vampirism more than that other over romanticized stuff out there, for exactly the reasons detailed by our dear aunty ancient *g*

I think the two films were different editions. Clearly the rule set had been changed from the first film, which ended with the hybrid being super-powerful and the second film with the hybrid getting beaten up a lot. But your missing the essential message of all Hollywood films which is that Physical Beauty (Kate Beckinsale) beats any amount of actual ability (the hybrid) and / or experience (the ancient vampire).

laws of fiction, really:
small and beautyfull/sexy/cute will win against big and bad evry time . .

and if its anime, its the small and cute ones that packs the biggest weapon or special attack...

or as megatokyo say: ph34r t3h cute ones

i know, i got my girlfriend one of those . . and then i ran like hell *g*
http://www.abcb.com/laws/index.htm

vampires biggest clues, beyond dietary-"no thaks I'm not hungry" is going to get old fast, is pale skin- geez man you ever get out in the sun? you got prisaon pallor, and the fact their flesh is cold to the touch. In the evening this is less of an issue but suppose they have a day meeting, shielded from sun light, they are still going to stand out.

it's the damn hills. make people cranky-that's the reasdon they drink all the coffee, they need the energy to get up the hills

Hmm, I understand and approve pretty much everything of what you are trying to do here. I too find the goth emo angle of vampirism beyond annoying. However, there is another angle I have been burning to explore with rules for PC vampires/nosferatu/wendigoes. Someone that makes a cold-blooded, amoral callous risk/reward assessment of the situation and decides that Eternal Life + Some Cool Powers + (quite possibly) Awakening - Blood/Flesh Diet - Essence Addiction - Some Nasty Allergies = Good Deal and proceeds to track down a HMHVV-I or Bruckner-Langer carrier and get them to share by force, dealing, tricking, persuasion, seduction, whatever ? Someone that goes into vampirism or wendigoism knowingly and well aware of the facts of the situation (I guess there's plenty of Matrix sources that can give a pretty accurate view of the Infected lifestyle, if one cares to look at them), but decides that the package suits him or her "£$%& the victims, I want to live forever/Awaken/get the powers".

And on a related angle, yeah, your case for what most Infected don't want additional competition around makes sense, but there's always exceptions. I'm persuaded that there's going to be some business-minded Infected somewhere in the Sixth World that doesn't mind sharing the virus with someone that can offer a good deal or price and looks like he won't make a fuss afterwards since they got a wildly-unaccurate picture of the Infected lifestyle.

Last but not least, sure, most predators do not like to share. But most predators also like to mate, and the lucky brands of the Infected, where HMHVV strains do not harm the intellect and sanity, may still retain the need for companionship, and if one finds out someone that looks life a good long-term companion, is agreeable and looks like can adapt to the Infected lifestyle, and is of the right metatype, why not ?

The Sixth World is big, and surely has plenty to go before it can exaust its capability to sustain the Infected.

I would like to inquire two things, one, whether the new rules still uphold the strong possibility that HMHVV may activate or create magical potential in the subject (I find it a very useful setting bit, that a proven semi-reliable way does exist to induce the Awakening in those who otherwise lack the potential), and whether anything in the backhistory of HMHVV spread in the Sixth World invalidates my own pet theory that HMHVV virus (and the nosferatu variant) are the result of partially-successful transhuman magical/genetic experiments back in the Fourth World.

as for the awakening part, i'd probably just rule it so that anybody who has the late awakening quality gets instant magic in the same way that he who infected him had . . if he who infected you had none? you still get to wait untill your GM tells you that you wake up to find yourself having grown some additional senses . . if the infecter is hermetic magician, bam, you're now one too . . and so on . . if you did not have the late awakening? well tough, you don't get no shiney magic from being bitten and getting the awakened flu . .

as for people willingly letting themselves become infected:
read Terminus Experiment . . i don't have any idea how that novel was titles in english . .
if you ignore the cybered up vampires etc. running around in hordes like in resident evil, you get the mafia family who is into getting it up with vampires from ordo maximus . .

The vast majority of your arguments against dhampirs are quite sensible. However, I feel like I have a break a lance in favor of Bug Chasers. Given the science fantasy premises of vampirism as a magical virus, IC it perfectly makes sense for some characters and groups to pursue magigenetic research to develop a super-version of HMHVV, or try and exploit those who do so. The Ordo Maximus is something that I'd really expect to arise. Now, if some characters were to be hired or purposefully try on their own to break into some OM lab and steal some experimental strain, and they decide like infecting themselves would be a good idea, I assume that a decent Karma bill and a reasonable powers/weaknesses package for the super-HMHVV character upgrading can be negotiated.

What the Ordo Maximus is trying to do makes so much sense, in fact, that this is how I believe HMHVV actually arose in the first place, back in the Fourth World.

Isn't making Latent Awakening part of the package that HMHVV grants, a much better way of dealing with this ?

Diseases, however, don't. Actually, aside from vampirofetishism along the lines of Anne Rice, I can't think of any reason why the Infected should be able (or willing) to engage in sex at all. It's an artifact. They reproduce by sucking the life force out of victims and have them turned into a glorified zombie. Not by regular mating-and-birthing like metahumans do.

Well, save for ghouls maybe, who'd spread the disease that way ... but who wants to screw ghouls?


I think that is what Ancient meant when he wrote:

As a GM, I'd introduce such players to the door and kindly ask them to use it without further discussion. No way such a craptastic thing will ever be played in my campaigns. YMMV, as always, of course.

hmm . . yeah, maybe you're right . . wanderer

Says who? Vampires in SR are infected with a disease. A magical one, certainly, but I've never seen anything in SR say that they can't reproduce naturally. One of the great qualities of SR is the way the setting reinvents so many things. I think the image of the PCs being thrown about the room by a beautiful, pregnant vampire is just too good not to use.

It's going to make the phrase "eating for two" take on a whole new level of significance.

This discussion has spawned a hideous new villain: the wagemage's daughter who always wanted to be magical and never developed a talent, and tracked down a vampire and forced them to infect her that she might gain that power. And she didn't. And now she has an eternity to find it.

This too is addressed in Runner's Companion.

That's kinda old since Angel, Season 3.

New to me as I don't know 'Angel.'

And mine will be better, anyway.

Notice that there is no reason why HMHVV should destroy the reproductive abilities of its hosts. The vast majority of infectious diseases that do not target the reproductive organs, don't. Pretty much none destroys the sex drive. The Infected are people with a chronic Awakened virus that got integrated in their DNA, not corpses animated by magic. It is perfectly possible that the genetic changes caused by the virus make the host sterile with regular metahumans, as it is quite possible that they do not, but so far there is no reason whatsoever why they should not be able and willing to engage in sex regularly.



Who gets a kick from being pissed upon ? Some do.



Indeed. At the spur of the moment, this is how I would build a template for an enhanced HMHVV strain:

Powers: Enhanced Senses (Hearing, Smell, Low-Light Vision, Thermographic Vision, Visual Acuity), Essence Drain, Fear, Immunity (Age, Pathogens, Toxins),
Infection, Influence, Mist Form, Mystic Adept, Natural Weapon (Bite/Claw: DV 5P, AP 0), Regeneration.

Weaknesses: Allergy (Ferrous Metals, Moderate), Allergy (Sunlight, Mild), Allergy (Wood,
Moderate), Dietary Requirement (Blood or Metahuman Flesh), Essence Loss, Induced Dormancy (Lack of Air), Reduced Buoyancy.

Research has been moderately successful on this experimental strain, allowing it to manifest an advantageous combination of the traits it previously developed in humans and orks, and to dampen out some of the drawbacks.



She ought to have tracked down a nosferatu, instead. So much for sloppy research.

Well I hope you didn't rule it out. One of the nice things about the vampires in SR is that they are different.

Dru was pretty hardcore already. Personally, I'd recommend wood chip loaqded street sweepers for dealing with her. Little she cn do about that, really, unless she also wears a custom-made military suite of armour for pregnant women.


Actually, many diseases (pretty much all serious ones that may end lethally) cancel the sex drive. Sex is very low on your priority list if you face organ failures or crippling pain or serious exhaustion due to very high fever.

Additionally, the HMHVV is not 'integrated into the host's DNA'. It wouldn't be easily detected (as a Virus, at least) then. It would also be unable to go on infecting other hosts (jumping genes are essentially malfunctioning viruses, not active ones). A Virus essentially is parasitic DNA using foreign cells to propagate itself, but does NOT integrate into the host DNA usually, it prefers to stay separate.

Now, this HMHVV has a magical compound to, which is propably what keeps the corpse that is the infected by the standard strain going (and causes minor to major changes in physiology), since it has to be 'fed' with mana gained from draining other creatures' life force.

I seriously doupt somethinga s deformed as a Dzoo-Noo-Qua, Goblin, Nosferatu or Mutaqua has intact sexual organs, when all else about the Infected has been drastically changed. This may not go for banshees and Vampires and Wendigos, but still, as there is no need for them to have sex, and there is a need to conserve energy (being an essence sink and all), it makes perfect sense that vampires and other infected are sterile.

No Anne Rice-y BDSM vampire sex orgies. D'awww.


Sure, and it's quite easy, you find them in the Romanian commcode registry, usually ...

After reading Ancient History's commentary I have this sudden urge on making a Hasidic rabbi vampire from Brooklyn. Yes I am being sarcastic.

Shadowruns Vampire's in Brooklyn . . damn, i would pay for that O.o

True, but HMHVV is not that kind of disease. Vampires, nosferatu and wendigoes that keep a suffiicent diet of Essence and blood/flesh are in top-notch physical condition (Immunity to diseases, poisons, and regeneration) and can expect to remain so for a very, very long time. So they aren't going to experience any symptom that could mute theri sex drive.



Virii that do integrate with the host's DNA also keep re-expressing themselves in the host's tissues and body fuilds, so you have both the integrated and the free-floating virus around.

Anyway, if you prefer, I can state that HMHVV rewrites the host's DNA instead. No way it couldn't perform all the kinds of changes it creates otherwise.



YMMY in your game's verion of SR, but otheriwse I feel the need to invoke Occam's razor and state the consistently genetic basis for magic and magical bodily creatures in SR makes the Infected being persons with a chronic viral Awakened disease who has rewritten their DNA (and as an Awakened virus, its genetic code has astrally-active shadows that channel mana to power all sorts of permanent changes in the body, just like metagenes), not animated corpses. SR magic does not work that way. You want an animated corpse, you need a spirit animating it, just like shedim. Since everything so far indicates that vampires & co. are peopel with a chronic magical flu, and not possessed corpses, the assumption they are the latter should be rejected. Really I do not understand the fixation to make all possible versions of the vampiric archetype, a magically-animated corpse.



As it concerns nosferatu, last time I checked, loss of body hair, pale skin, and enlarged canines were far from representing a severe deformation which would justify losing sexual organs, too. Repeat with me, the Infected are not corpses, so they ought not to be expected to lose their genitals.



Dude, I have no strict need to have sex either, but prolonged deprivation can surely make me quite grumpy.

Please do not make up rules on the fly to sustain your point. Sex an "essence sink" ??? Funny, I totally missed the part of the rulebook where it tells you risk to lose Essence every time you do the horizontal dance.



Finding vanilla vampires isn't that much easier. Legwork is legwork. Obviously she was so sloppy in her research that she missed the fact that many, probably most vampires are magically active, whereas all nosferatu are.

certain STD's like HMHVV for example?
Addiction, sex, burnout?

No one that I'm aware of cause loss of Essence.



Sexual addiction is not represented in SR and if it were, it would be most likely construed as a psychological compulsion, and not akin to the physical drug addictions, which cause Essence loss by wasting the holistic integrity of the body.

I had sex addiction in my adventure Zero Sum Game. Then again, that was probably the least of the odd things in that adventure.

I don't think many Nosfaratu list their subspecies or their magical status on their census forms. The same would probably be true for vampires. The available sample sizes aren't enough to do conclusive research.


As for sex addiction, there is no such thing. There are only people who like to have sex, more commonly known as normal human beings. What is precieved as sex addiction is usually an imbalance between the sex drives of two partners which makes the more sexual partner seem compulsive in the eyes of the fridgid partner and which can lead to Onanism, infidelity, or, ideally, polygamy. This is, of course, well within the normal range of human sexual behaviors. Anyone who tells you differently is either a liar or a damned liar.


Yeah, vampires would be into teh sechs. In particular, many would enjoy seducing lovely mortal lads and wenches if for no other reason than the simple fact that essence drain requires a willing (or restrained) partner and strong emotions. Sexual passion nicely provides both necessities.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4302347/

-Siege

Oh, by the way, D&D has(had?) this. But since elves are the most played char. race off all time (i hate to admit it but look at any fantasy game and see the 500 sub races of elves and there eternal glory) and half-orcs let a player play the, i am good but everyone hates me char (which now has taken over by drows and their two swords). From what i remember the human dwarf hybrid was ugly, stupid and sterile. Talk about about double standard.

The problem with that article, other than that the study is incomplete and thus meaningless, is that the archtypical "sex addicts" aren't. The Reverend is just a guy with a normal sex drive who is screwed up by his adherence to a particular interpretation of Christian morality. He doesn't need therapy to control his sexual desires; he needs therapy to change his religious beliefs. The woman, on the other hand, was raped by her parents and thus never learned how to sustain loving platonic relationships. Her basic human need for platonic friendship thus led her to have casual sex with a long series of assholes in the hopes that it would bloom into real friendship while her adherence to Christian morality made her feel like crap for doing it. Again, not sex addiction but instead poor friendship maintenance skills combined with a shame-centric morality.

Dr. Patrick Carnes may believe his own bullshit, but it is bullshit nonetheless.


Back on topic, humans are social predators. We hunt and kill in groups, with few exceptions. Even these days, when we don't have to take down a mastodon with flint-tipped spears, hunting is a team sport. I see no reason for vampires to not be equally social or for them to prefer to hunt alone. A single uncybered metahuman can feed six vampires for a month. It isn't like prey is that scarce.

If you notice, the quote supports your position - specifically "Yet despite growing interest in such research, there are still some who do not believe it is a true addiction. The American Psychiatric Association's diagnostic manual, for example, does not list sex addiction as a disorder."

Emphasis mine.

I listed the article as a reference point for the quote.

-Siege