Vampires? Nope!

Epic Meepo · November 15, 2006, 09:38:15 PM

In D&D, "immortality" is the name of a special quality possessed by creatures with divine ranks (Deities and Demigods). A creature with immortality doesn't die of old age and cannot be magically aged, but can otherwise be injured or killed normally.

CYMRO · November 15, 2006, 09:41:49 PM

Quote from: Epic MeepoIn D&D, "immortality" is the name of a special quality possessed by creatures with divine ranks (Deities and Demigods). A creature with immortality doesn't die of old age and cannot be magically aged, but can otherwise be injured or killed normally.

So, you are blaming WotC for institutional subliteracy. I can concur with that.

Epic Meepo · November 15, 2006, 09:58:00 PM

@Cymro: I was actually just pointing out some game mechanics, though I do not challenge your assertion regarding WotC.

On the other hand, the "immortality = eternal life" definition only applies in some world views. For example, from what I understand, the Chinese gods could have their immortality removed in an alchemical furnace. The immortality itself did represent eternal life in and of itself, but there was no garauntee that it would stay with the same creature forever. (In one myth, the gods conspired to kill Monkey, who had stolen immortality from the gods. Monkey tampered with their alchemical efforts and ended up getting extra immortality instead of losing his own.)

SDragon · November 15, 2006, 10:09:04 PM

Quote from: CYMRO ARBITER BRASSICI
Quote from: Epic MeepoIn D&D, "immortality" is the name of a special quality possessed by creatures with divine ranks (Deities and Demigods). A creature with immortality doesn't die of old age and cannot be magically aged, but can otherwise be injured or killed normally.

So, you are blaming WotC for institutional subliteracy. I can concur with that.

youre kiiding me, right? surely everybody knows "critical" means "top 5%".

that and, of course, "level" has MANY definitions (none of which have anything to do with being even).

DeeL · November 16, 2006, 12:10:06 AM

The discussion on immortality, edifying though it may be, is a bit of a digression. Let us suppose, for a moment, that vampires as described in the folklore are immortal in the sense of being unkillable. This doesn't make any difference, because of this equation: Staked/decapitated/burned to ash with a mouthful of holy wafers = helpless/inert/incapable of killing or acting as a vector for the disease that is vampirism.

So for the purposes of this thread, it is convenient to speak of vampires as unaging and resilient. The use of the word immortal for this description is okay.

Then again, I'm tired. Maybe I'm taking this all... a little too seriously.

beejazz · November 16, 2006, 12:30:52 AM

Can we just say "decay immune" and be done with it?! The legend says they're dead already. As in they died. Past tense. All mortal. Unless you wanna go all "undeath as illness of the living." Or whatever.

SDragon · November 16, 2006, 09:16:47 AM

well so far, our vampires are mortal (in that, they can die; at this point, we only really need one way to die, but i would settle for two: sunlight and stake through the heart), and require an Embrace to become vampires. they feed on blood, but a bite doesn't nesseccarily equal a new vampire.

the only attempt to disprove vampires thus far relied on those two tidbits to be untrue.

DeeL · November 16, 2006, 08:40:16 PM

Becoming a vampire requires what - a combination of circumstances that we can refer to as 'random chance', or an act of will - perhaps some sort of ritual, typically referred to as The Embrace - on the part of the biting vampire?

Tangential · November 16, 2006, 09:58:29 PM

http://www.physics.ucf.edu/~costas/Personal/brief-cv.html

There he is in all of his undead glory. Am I the only one who thinks he look positively vampiric?

beejazz · November 16, 2006, 09:59:17 PM

I've seen it said that you gotta bite it. I could be wrong.

SDragon · November 16, 2006, 10:14:19 PM

@jearc: is that the same dude that tried to disprove them? that would explain a thing or two...

"no, we're not... i mean, they're not real! here, watch me disprove our.... i mean, their existance!"

come to think of it, that could explain how a high number of vampire believers would qualify as "dangerous"...

@Deel: we could go with random chance, but personally, i'm more comfortable with going with willing ritual, as "embrace". we don't have to go into just what the ritual is, do we? and if so, do we have to do that quite yet?

DeeL · November 17, 2006, 08:11:13 PM

Sdragon, we kind of do have to go into the details of the embrace, for a subtle reason.

Assuming all vampires are created by an act of volition on the part of an older vampire, every vampire who chooses to perform an embrace must select a subject based on criteria measured against the difficulty of the embrace. If the embrace is as simple as saying 'Hey, your a vampire!' while biting a subject, vampirism will tend to spread fairly rapidly, and vampire populations will have only indirect forms of quality control. Given that vampires have successfully concealed themselves from observation by any known scientific organizations, we can assume there are few truly stupid vampires. From this, we can deduce that there is some kind of quality control regarding who is embraced. This might be external, perhaps simply organizational, or it might be implicit in the process of the embrace itself.

If the embrace requires a risk or sacrifice, you're not going to do it to just anyone. If it requires some form of exertion or quality of the subject, it simply won't work on everyone. So the details on the embrace are in fact the first thing that require our attention.

SDragon · November 17, 2006, 09:48:41 PM

ok, i see that. my thoughts were that both the vampire and the victim had to willingly partake in the Embrace. as far as this goes, i'm running on the Anne Rice model (both vamp and victim must willingly partake in embrace, victim-turn-vampire is psychologically drawn to the elder during the early "apprentice" stage, etc.).

that said, i think the only details we neccessarily need to go into would be the ones regarding quality control (which is somewhat implied in a mutually willing Embrace). in other words, while we may need to say that the Embrace is mutually willing, we don't need to go so far as to use the exact Embrace ritual used in Interview with a Vampire.

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Vampires? Nope!

Epic Meepo

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SDragon

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SDragon