Vampire Q&A

It is a tall order to address ‘how a vampire works’ and WW has dutifully tried to answer this in their WoD series. However, I believe that a vampire is a hunter, its prey is a human, and in order to blend in with its prey it must work in the environment. To this I will address this thread is a FAQ for vemperical mechanics, we need to understand how they work so we know what happens and when.

Old Body Parts
Every Vampire must look the part, and in that case it means using body parts that were once functional, but no longer needed. It is true that the older the vampire is, the less likely these parts work even to the point where it makes one extremely ill. This illness is taken in the same extreme as food poisoning. Other parts, like lungs, are used frequently, especially to talk so everything about them continues to work and be preserved through its constant use. This would allow a vampire to smoke if he/she so chose too. In this thought younger vampires still try to eat, or drink, to help them retain humanity. Often the path of humanity means this is still an instinctive component to living, so one will attempt it.
The digestive tract remains, so food does travel down, but it is not digested and it is not sustaining or as delectable as it used to be. Vampires have no taste for fat as we do, so food often is a disgusting endeavor, but one can force the process to work by spending a blood point to begin the movement of the intestines. So it can be done. Those with the Effective Digestion merit can eat without as much effort and the embraced somehow retains use of this system despite their transformation.
Any vampire can drink. This means water, alcohol, or any variation, but again sugar offers no satisfaction to the pallet. Alcohol will continue to effect the vampire in the same manner as it did when they were mortal, and liquids (as long as they are soluble in the blood) need no effort to be consumed. Water is important to a vampire, as they can become dehydrated through typical evaporation. Water is a component of blood and is very necessary but it doesn’t need to be consumed. Consuming blood very often is a good enough to ignore this need.
This does bring one important fact, impurities. Substances can taint ones blood, change its flavor, and even make the vampire ill. Tremere have ways of purifying the blood but constant imbibing of non-blood compounds are kept in the body as there is no natural way to process these elements. This means a vampire stays drunk longer and will vomit a bloody concoction of tainted materials to dilute the impurities. Any vampire remembers their transition and warnings, some refused to believe and felt this sickness first hand.
This is why vampires take blood from others, as it has already taken from the body what it needs as the stomach has already filtered out most of what makes a vampire ill.

Vampirical Hygene
You do need to brush your teeth. The human mouth is an extremely dirty, bacteria riddled area and for a vampire this is no exception. The WoD books point out that a dirty vamperic mouth will infect a bite even if it has been licked (healed) leaving no visible trace. Blood infections can spread from bite to bite as can other diseases. A vampire is always on the prowl, and the defense in this thought.
A good sire will tell you how to take care of yourself and how to select prey based on their own purity. This brings back the old ‘virgin’ clause in vamperical society. They are almost always pure, so it is assumed. However, diseases can hide themselves and a vampire can fall victim.
Viruses do not effect a vampire, but they can transmit them through the bite. Luckily, a cold will not last in the vamperical body as the cells offer no place for them to reproduce. Meaning all viruses die over time. This means all viruses, but luckily AIDS is not a current pandemic.
Unfortunately, bacterial infections are another story. Typhoid fever showed the vamperical society how they can unintentionally transmit disease through the bite and be unaffected by the bacteria. This caused an outbreak of infected vampires the world over who were burned to death as their only cure. Plague Bearers are a sign of a tainted underworld and there is no cure outside of the final death for these condemned souls.

Body Parts
The eyes, mouth, fingers, and other regions, have body parts that will work when needed. A vampire cries, but cries tears, until they become older, then they cry blood. Most body parts take liquid from the blood and create needed organic fluids to make the body work. The eyes are the best example of this. We do not use blood to create that mucus membrane over the eye so we can blink. These parts continue to work as they did taking from the blood what they need.
Spit is another example, but as it is created as an expressed reaction to hunger, only blood causes the increased production (ergo salivating). A vampire spits spit, but if they force it they spit blood, and the older they are the more blood they produce naturally from these organs.
Sex is a different story. Even though the female components filter fluids to work, she does not constantly menstruate for sex, again with the exception of older vampires. Also, males do not ejaculate, at all, and the orgasm becomes a distant past for both sexes. Sex can still be achieved but it is not what it used to be and only the embrace causes similar emotional thrills despite ones efforts.
To create a child under these circumstances is an old myth, but has never been duplicated. A female would need a human partner to instigate, but her eggs are tainted with the curse and often do not allow the process to begin, meaning she is sterile. However, there are reported cases of vamperical stillbirths and females have given large amounts of blood to help the process. Unfortunately for the child the mother consumes the fetus’s blood as a natural element of her body digesting it slowly. She has no choice in this matter and cannot control it no better than we can control the acid in our stomach. This endeavor is labeled as a taboo, but it is not enforced or punished as the very act is punishment enough for those daring to try.
Pregnant women are another sin, don’t embrace a pregnant woman or the abomination that comes forth from her womb will surely kill her. Giving birth to an animalistic, non growing child is a lesson of the damned non soon shall forget. Only take it as a warning, and remember it well, for the horrors that come of it will be yours to live.

Er...im confused. I thought its stated in the core rulebook that vampires use the curse of caine to hold time at bay, effectively being immortal unless given final death. Also vampires vomit up mortal food/drink near instantly, their skin is at room temperature and they essentially look like pale versions of normal humans(unless you have low humanity/frenzy too many times/etc).

There are several books addressing this issue produced by WW. Their visage is immortal but in truth they are not. Their bodies change with time, but it is a change of function, not look. The older the vampire the more prone they are to certain acts, such as voluntary torper, or what they would consider prolonged sleep.

The argument over food & drink has never been completely addressed (outside of food=vomit), but one thing is certain; vampires do not enjoy or prefer the act. High humanities show that one is able to eat and drink without vomiting immediately. In treating eating like an act of food poisoning there is a lot of vomiting and uneasy feelings as the body rejects the ingested food as if it were a poison. But again, not always immediately. And blood will congeal or dry out without water. Most often blood soluble elements will not react with the body as harshly, and a vampire can drink water to help survive in the desert to only stay the natural loss of blood and it does not work as well as consuming blood. It’s an extremist survival method and will not prevent a frenzy.

The skin is at room temperature (whatever room temperature is), and the pale reaction is from the lack of blood flow. The heart doesn't beat but it can be made to if the need arises, again with the expenditure of a blood point. This does not raise the body temperature (consuming blood will, but only briefly) and artificially causing these parts to work is costly and work for short durations (as in a combat round).

Humanity is an interesting cover-all for the philosophy of being a vampire. There is no system for forcing one to eat food, and there is no system for changing a way to make one work, just a theory. In the nWoD system, humanity is ones attachment to being human, and removing points from that is moving oneself away from the old life into a new one. Low humanities is by no means a bad thing, it simply means ones ability to live as a vampire. Once humanity reaches 0 one has a choice; regain Humanity, or learn a new path. A new path might be more beneficial to the operations of ones life choices, but in short, Humanity is the short answer to many of these questions. Such as, do you still breathe. There is no need, but autonomic functions still work as the brain is not altered and is where these functions originate from. So, in short; High humanity, one is more likely to breath unnecessarily. Low humanity, one doesn’t bother.

You must remember that a vampire does not have 2 bodies, they have 1. Its simply changing, and most of the change occurs over time, with the most drastic change happening immediately.

Well i expect normal rules for a human body dont function with a vampire . Yea, normal human blood needs water or it dries up. That doesnt really work with vampire blood that can close wounds with a mere thought .