Vampirism

ARTICLE PENDING REWORK, DO NOT USE FOR ANY NEW CANON

A vampire is an individual that has acquired biological immortality through a unique form of blood magic - vampirism, which grants them biological immortality and vampiric magic ability, but renders them vulnerable to faith magic and fire. Vampirism does not remove one’s need for food, sleep, water and other normal needs - only halt aging completely. Vampires do not lose their ability to have children - but their children are always born non-vampiric. In fact, children who are born to at least one parent who is already a vampire are immune to becoming a vampire themselves by refeeding, and if both parents are vampire, it is impossible to turn them into one through magical ritual either.

Vampires are still subject to a lot of mortal constraint - which means that poor vampires are just as likely to die of disease as fellow poor non-vampire, with only a slightly lower chance at a young age. Rich vampires however, often fade away from historical records or become reclusive, as surviving 400 years while being rich and in power without being overthrown is quite unlikely.

History of Vampirism

Vampirism’s history is unknown and muddled. The earliest recorded vampires were from the Imperial Court of Runra itself, recorded as originating from the first Runran Empire (in history, that is). The Empress of that time, Yu Heken, seeking immortality, devoted herself to study of blood magic as it was believed that aging is caused by decay of humor in the body, and worked together with a large amount of blood mage in her court. The Empress, using a special ritual, became the first vampire by imbuing her own blood with special property - which made her thirsty for blood, too.

The Empress’s children were in turn initiated to become children - so great was her love for her children that she initiated them all so they could live forever, and the cycle continued on for another fifty years, until those biologically immortal children revolted en masse against the Empress - discontent with the fact she would be ruling forever with none of them having a chance in their own immortal clan. The Empress fell in battle against her own children, and the Heken clan destroyed itself in civil war, scattering many of the vampires across the world who initiated and sired their own lineage. The survivors of the Heken clan changed their last name, as the new dynasty seeks to exterminate them, seeing them as abominations.

However, vampirism soon proved to be too tempting for any dynasty to resist for long, and so eventually the policy of total extermination was replaced with something gentler - forced retirement of rulers that have embraced vampirism and lived too long. It became ritualized in Runran society, with old vampires expected to make their way for the young. However, the cycle of vampirism’s cyclic surge and destruction continues in Runran society to this day - with rulers embracing it to lengthen their mortal life, only to realize aging is the least of their problem - and then their successor destroying vampirism as a great evil not to be touched again.

Outside of Runra, vampirism spread rapidly amongst the elites of all society, and became relatively common in urban centers, where vampires are less prone to being lynched, and could prove their value to society by transmitting knowledge down generations. As a result, vampirism is most prevalent and stable amongst the middle class, non-martial elites, while having very low occurrence in the lower class population. Vampirism is common amongst the upper class, martial elites, but are prone to suffering early, premature violent deaths.

However, with magic as an alternative to vampirism for longevity and considered much more benign - vampirism outside of Runra often finds itself persecuted and publicly known vampires tend to be ostracized - sometimes outright hunted down. There are no known vampiric rulers in the world of Ramul Ta - as they are likely to lose their position quickly, abhorred as abomination and denounced by faithfuls in their countries. However, lesser nobles and rulers have been known to be openly vampiric - and usually have to compensate very hard through just governance..and politicking against other non-vampiric nobles. Being a vampire is equal to painting a large target on your back, and when disaster strikes, local populace tends to blame vampires first and foremost.

Becoming a Vampire

A vampire becomes a vampire through what is known as “re-feeding”. A vampire-to-be is bitten by a vampire, and instead of sucking on their blood, the vampire activates their teeth such that as blood is sucked through one tooth, the other fang would inject the blood of their own into their vein. The process continues for a very, very long time, roughly 8 hours on average assuming the initiator and the recipient are of equal size, until the full volume of the victim’s blood has been exchanged somewhere between 4 - 6 times over. By that time, vampiric blood’s potency would overtake that of the recipient, and they become a full fledged, new vampire. This process is described as intensely pleasurable for both sides - and many vampiric cult consider an initiation to be a religious experience.

A vampire’s lineage however, is not inherited, and days after they become a newly fledgling vampire, vampires starts to experience intense hallucinatory dreams in their sleep, during which, vampires experience vision of themselves as the different lineages of vampirism available, and their choice in the dreams will determine the lineage they end up waking up as.

Feeding

A vampire needs to sustain itself on blood frequently, A vampire needs to drink about 500ml of blood from a sapient being per week, the volume being roughly equal to that of a regular blood donation. Being starved of blood for more than two weeks has the equivalent effect as normal starvation for the same period of time, and death can result in three weeks if starved of blood. The blood must be fresh and from an alive or very recently deceased being. In desperation, a vampire can choose to drink fresh blood from a normal animal. This multiplies the amount needed by ten times.

Alchemical replicant of blood is also available, made using stabilization of fresh animal blood, with the same satiation effect as normal animal blood, and costs 1 to 2 silver per liter in a major city that is vampire friendly, however, if the city is not vampire friendly, one may have to acquire it underground like illicit drugs for up to ten times the markup (At GM Discretion, if a vampire is not actively in a campaign, one can assume they’ve got their blood supply handled).

Devampirization

It is possible to have vampirism removed from one’s body through an elaborate process, using faith magic. The process is however, quite painful for the target and relatively expensive to undertake - and often reserved for forced victims of vampirism..or those rich enough. Interestingly, aging only resumes after the point of devampiritization - though there’s no good record of this happening, it is possible for a vampire initiated at age 20 with great mastery of magic to survive 1,000 years, and then be devampirized and die of old age after another 400 years.