Not having any experience in this matter I can't say for sure, but wouldn't the blood of 'ghetto bums' taste worse than that from healthy victims? Poor food, bad hygiene, cheap drugs, diseases, infestations... it all has to have an effect. If the food we eat is affected by what goes into it, surely it is the same for vampire food.

Or maybe it tastes better. Is it cheese, or spoiled milk?

Even 'stinky foot cheese' as my daughter used to call it is made from milk from healthy cows.

Historically, I doubt it. And what about that horrific casu marzu stuff? That's not really the point, anyway. You get the point.

With their specific and complicated transmission vector, not quite, unless you take meta reasoning and the current fangirling around them as a topic.


For the bums: works as long as it's not too conspicious; otherwise it might incite riots. Also, the bums in the Barrens usually are orcs, who have their own underground movement of sorts, to a degree that it would already pose a threat to the newly established Camarilla-in-all-but-name(-maybe).


And from every other corp upper class, because their mere existence is a threat to them (why would anyone want to live next to cannibals?). You COULD use ther regeneration treatment and a couple slaves for feeding, I guess, but the vampires really do not want to advertise this. It'S not just the supernatural factions they want to avoid pissing off. They'd be very cocnerned with covering themselves. Seekrit Super Mega Societies like an underground megacorp don't really fit into the picture there.


Biotech for the regeneration treatments? Maybe. Cloes? Not so much. And if they spy too much and sell what they know (not to mention get spies in place), they draw attention to themselves. Which is not what they want.

Ordo Maximus obviously has something to offer, although it's probably not something specific to infected. More like "the guys who stumbled upon something useful happen to be various Infected, oh well". The corps certainly don't care about the feeding habits of business partners as long as what they deliver is useful. And if they are no longer useful, there's still time for a little vampire hunt...

Sure, but the OP's point was that vampires deliver something by just being vampires, and I don't quite see that. Not saying specific vampires cannot have things to offer, but so can specific pixies, nagas, centaurs or merrow ...

They would /all/ have to be magicians, with the aura masking initiate power.

Because a Vampire's not that hard to spot using astral perception.

Yakuza and Mafia bosses aren't that hard to identify either, yet they manage to stick around.

Because they're not more than a bother and usually stay the hell otu of the big boys' way.

Mafia/Yak bosses aren't Dual Natured.

You can't screw them with a few judiciously placed Astral barriers.

Now now, be fair. Only the REALLY POWERFUL, INTELLIGENT AND MAGICALLY AWAKENED people in the world willingly join his magic groups that rob them of all free will.



I suppose most people would take issue with the whole 'soul-eating' dietary requirement.

And pattyhulez, you didn't even make it to page 2 before you pulled your patented 'reveal' that this will just be another way for you to attempt to ramp up the power on your already ridiculous spirit-inhabited-dragons-super-loyal-toxic-magical-group-taking-over-the-world routine.

Son, I am disappoint.

...and neither are vampires.

I occasionally made that mistake myself, misremembering and assigning vampires dual-natured status due to some cross-association with ghouls, but made a conscious effort not to the last time I realized my error.

Vampires aren't dual-natured. Neither are banshees, nosferatu, dzoo-noo-qua, goblins, or wendigo.

They still likely give off some "this ain't a normal human" vibe when assensed, no doubt, but it isn't a "they're dual-natured!" one, because, well, they aren't.

Vampires can do the same thing. Mob bosses make plenty of victims and plenty of enemies, yet they seem stable enough.

Also, suppose a vampire got a legal SIN from say, France, and became CEO of an AA corp which legalizes Infected employees. At that point the vampire has a relatively good legal protection. If some fanatic UCAS official starts harassing him, he can complain to the Corporate Court.

In a dystopian world, with evil corporations, I don't think most power players really care about the perversions of their colleagues; plenty of perfectly mundane corporate bigwigs engage in crimes just as nasty and get away with it.

Mob Bosses usually are not in the soul-eating and disease-spreading business. When a mob boss bites another person, that person turning into another mob boss is rather unlikely. Not to much with the infected.


Suppose a communist voodoo priest with a violent history and the hobbies of raping and eviscerating children and eating their livers becomes American president! When he goes on a rape-and-murder spree during a visit to another state, nobody can do anything about it!

Of course, him becoming president in the first place is not the most plausible assumption.


Not unless they threaten their own lives, which Vampires by nature do. In a dystopian world, people are amoral but not totally without self-preservation instincts.

No, they just sell drugs and BTLs to children, market snuff porn and forced prostitution of any kind imaginable, dump toxic waste, ruthlessly kill anyone who gets in their way, extort smaller corporations, blackmail corporate execs and dispose of corpses.

As for spreading Infection - why not just make sure they don't live to tell tales and spread diseases? After you drain the Essence, feed the body to the ghouls.



They don't have to threaten the lives of the people with power; they can just prey on the nobodies.

In a world where corporations get away with large-scale murder all the time, why would the other (equally evil) factions care all that how they're killed? The only important question is who is killed. If Blood Inc. can manage to stay out of the way of ToxiCorp, then ToxiCorp won't really care if Blood Inc. is run by vampires or not.

What would the Vampire Mafia live off? Sparkledust production? They'd do all that and then still live off peoples' souls and be an infectious disease.


Yeah, and they totally never ever lose control of their urges, especially when most come put of transformation as fully grown psychopaths.


Point is: they can't. They're producing psychopaths and disease carriers and let them loose.

The same things any corporation or criminal enterprise can profit from. Just because a corporation is run by vampires doesn't have to make it all that different from any other evil corporation.




I never claimed all vampires would do well for themselves. Obviously the ravening loonies aren't gonna be invited.



Why would you let them loose? Put them in the same landfill you put the corpses from the unethical human experiments in. Or feed them to ghouls.

Just because a corporation is run by bug spirits doesn't have to make it all that different from any other evil corporation.
Just because a corporation is run by the Horrors doesn't have to make it all that different from any other evil corporation.

Or does it?


Yeah, and since there is a loonie detector built in into any vampire they know who is dangerous and who isn't and everybody trusts them because they're vampires.


Because most crazy vampires do not care what becomes of their victims.

It's not the crazy maniac vampires that would set up a corporation. It's the smart and patient types, who want long-term payoffs and power.

And yet, the vast majority of people are not going to give them the chance to prove that they have control of their baser instincts, which are to Eat Souls... The vast majority are going to have the same reaction to a vampire that they have to a ghoul (or any other infected, for that matter), and that is to shoot first, keep shooting, and then burn the husk afterwards...

And because metahumanity is patient, tolerant and would rather accept 100 raving loonies than hurt an innocent cuddly Twilight vampire, everyone wiill give every vampire a chance to show their self-control.

It's really rare that I agree with TJ, but there you go.

The Azzies would like to have a word with you...

The Azzis kicked their maniacs out the door recently.

They replaced their raving madmen with more patient madmen. A good degree of sociopathy still seems to be mandatory to get a board seat.

How is this different then Renraku?

Being controlled by Vampires is one of the rumors about the mysterious Trans-Latvian investment company that owns a substantial chunk of NeoNET.

The Ordo Maximums is a Threat-type organisation controlled by Vampire.

That being said, the difference between Vampire the Masquerade and Shadowrun is simple: Vampire aren't all that strong, relatively speaking. They can't be as arrogant as White Wolf's vampires. The sixth world is full to the brim with people who can take a vampire head on AND the world knows they exist! That is a much weaker position to work from than what prevails in the world of darkness.

Just like to reinforce this. I know a lot of people are thinking dragons, megas, IE, etc but in Shadowrun a significant portion of the normal humans can shrug off shotgun blasts, control cars and machines with their mind, summon beings of pure fire, move at super speed, and everyone has access to basically military-grade firepower. Heck, VtM vamps have plenty of powers Shadowrun vamps would kill for and they wouldn't last five minutes in Glow City.

Agreed. The standard ork streetsam is, in pure fighting prowess, comparable to a Space Marine scout (put him in decent heavy MilSpec with some Extras and give him a decent weapon and he is quite on par). Not to even mention that a mage - which outnumber vampires at least 3 to 1 - can pretty much take a Vampire head-on, one on one, and has a good chance at winning.

Vampires in Shadowrun are middle-tier ion terms of strength and have nothing left to masquewrade. Even if they weren't majorly antisocial, the rest of the world would justz kick their Masquerade to pieces. And nobody would give a fuck about their beauty, immortality or other shit, because you can buy that at the Mall. Why become a monster if all it takes is a trip to the SpIn Clinic?


Yeah, but in actual canon, it's Immortal Elves (Sheila Blavatska, who most probably is Alachia, the oldest of them all); Trans-Latvia playing on the 4th world elf city Sereatha, City of Spires, which used to be where Riga is now.


It's also been destroyed as of Augmentation.

ATT Multifax used to be run by a Wendigo coven who was deep within the English druids, but that was purged by Twist the Stu. Austria's Freiheitliche Partei is run by another coven of Wendigos, though it seems they haven't quite made their way into international canon for sheer bizarreness, same with the Wendigo overlord of the Basle underworld. Another vampiric corp was Eastern Star Pharmaceuticals, which used to be run by Nosferati, but that also was taken over, purged, and swallowed by AG Chemie and then sold to ZIC.

4th Edition is not a good time for bloodsucker conspiracies, now that I look at it this way ...

4th ed is all about purging anything that looks out of place in middle class iphone consumerist paradise.

Anyway, all these vampires were purged, but that just proved they existed in the first place. And it doesn't prove that vampires are gone now; there might be many more of them, who happen to be better at hiding.

So yeah, I still think there are corps that are being run and used by vampires, but they're keeping that information very quiet, so it won't be obvious in a game, not until you get deep into the corporations' secret closets.

Yeah, but not in the way WoD makes this work. No Camarilla, no VampyCorp consisting entirely of vampires and sure as hell no massive Twilight-esque fan culture.

that single vampires or small groups of them may underminde smaller corps and governments is plausible. But so is them struggling to hide, and not to cause much noise. There surely will not be a vampire-owned AA consisting of vampires.

Vampire societies would be more on the level of small decadent gentleman's clubs and masonic lodges and such. Old Boys Networks which you only get to join if you've proven your sanity and discretion.



Certainly not. Only selected evil scientists, senior management and the legal department.

Is anybody else here starting to think of Wolfram and Hart?

NeoNet has cut all ties to them, which probably means several loose ends became snacks for Celedyr (what did you say about employees threatening their coworkers' lives, again?), but it doesn't say the whole Ordo got razed.

Dragons are special because the authors love them, see Ghostwalker. Gone are the days of Tom dowd where Dragons were awed and scared of modern air warfare technology.

Too bad, I say.

Again, page number please.


Terminating connections with the Ordo != destroying the entire leadership of the Ordo.

Ah, good to know. I am guessing this was in a novel?

Well, in the SR Novel Terminus the Ordo was also BIG into Gen-Tech.
Especially in terms of changing the HMHVV so it would lose all of its detrimental sides and only keep it' positive sides.
And on the way they tampered around with cybering up HMHVV Types.