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Optional rules for vampires as PCs for Shadowrun II edition
by Giulio Ferro
One day I said:”Ehy, wouldn’t that be cool to play vampires in Shadowrun as playing characters?”. The idea sounded promising and I quickly went to the description of vampires in SRII, but that cooled me down a little: FASA’s description seemed to considered vampires simple critters, something for the GM to put in an adventure and for the players to kill as soon as possible: I felt it really lacked a background, a history, in a word a life of his own.
I realised then that if I wanted to prepare a set of rules for them I had to revise the entire thing from the beginning, and follow only loosely the “official” rules of FASA.
And here I am. To be honest I don’t really have an idea if FASA already did this in one of its supplements, or if did somebody else in the Net, but I hope that those who will read this will appreciate it.
Some of what is written here comes from my experience with the RPG “Vampire: the Masquerade”, although I felt free to leave out or change what I didn’t like and follow my own idea of these remarkable creatures.
NOTE: I’m not a native english speaker and I don’t care drek about ‘politically correct’. Throughout this text I will use ‘he’ or ‘his’ to mean ‘he/she’ or ‘his/her’, and I’ll make lotta mistakes, so you’re warned….
CHAPTER 1: ABOUT VAMPIRES AND THEIR NATURE.
Everybody who has had some experience in RPGs knows what vampires look like, what they do, their strenghts and weaknesses; but now the question arises: What REALLY is a vampire? That is: what is a vampire in the Shadowrun world?
Here I try to give an answer. Remember that this is MY answer, and this means that I find it plausible and reasonable, but I don’t ask anybody to agree with me. Any GM may still use this set of rules keeping his own ideas on the subject, and skip this chapter without remorse, clear?
Every live thing, from microbes to plants, animals and awakened races, gets born, lives for a certain time, reproduces itself in some way and then dies. All Life on Earth is a reflection of this concept; but this is not just a concept, this is a reality that exists in a pure form (kind of Plato’s World of Ideas) in the Metaplanes of Nature and Life.
Of course this is no news to shamans. The same applies also to Earth when considered as a physical object: the elements of which it’s made owe their existence to the pure essences on the Elemental Metaplanes. So both life forms and substances have links to extraplanar and timeless references by which they are what they are. We may call the first reality “The Realm of Nature” and the second “The Realm of Elements”. Obviously these two Realms interwind, since for example any animal or plant on Earth belogs to both these Realms.
This applies also to men, but Nature and Element are not the only Realms they are in touch with; in fact because of their superior mind they have opened links to other Realms.
a) The Realm of Reason. The curiosity of his mind compels man to explore the world around him for no reason that can be explained by survival or biological needs. He strives to penetrate the mysteries of the things, so to put them under his control.
The bulk of notions in Science and Technology that man has achieved is a reflection of the Realm of Reason.
b) The Realm of Hatred. Man has in himself the istincts of a predator who’s ready to fight and kill to preserve its ecological niche. This natural attitude has developed into something different: man now fights and kills to make his own Self prevail on everything else, and people who for whatever reason stand in his path are just an obstacle to be removed by any means. This unsatiable quest for power ultimately leads man to Hatred for all that exist, including himself. Wars, struggles, feuds, are all reflections of the Realm of Hatred.
c) The Realm of Love.The mammal istinct of protection of the offsprings developed into a need to love and to be loved by others. Trust, friendship, self-sacrifice are reflections of the Realm of Love.
d) The Realm of Mystery. There are things that man simply cannot hope to comprehend and nonetheless have always been part of his life. They have ruled many of his actions since he gave up being a monkey: religions, superstitions, rites, magic, all these are reflections of the Realm of Mystery, in which man aknowledges his dependence on realities that are beyond his reach.
It appears clear that these Realms often overlap, and the result is the multi-faceted reality of our life on Earth.
But what of vampires?
Obviously they are not part of the Realm of Life: they don’t get born, their body has no biological function whatsoever, they don’t grow, and, above all, they never die (although they can get destroyed).
To continue existing they must feed on life force of other humans (or m.h.), so we can say they are sort of predators. Yes, they are predators of human kind, and covet and hate in them what they have no more, their life. For these reasons vampires certainly belongs to the Realms of Hatred and Mystery, and rapresent the human most deep and ancestral fear towards Death considered as an evil and relentless being that preys on every step of the live. We can define this as the Realm of Hell (or Dread, or good many other names).
Some now may ask: “Did the man’s fear of Death create the vampires and other hellish beings or was it them who created man’s fear?”. This question simply can’t be answered just as any other questions on the multiverse like “did Man’s Metaplanes cause man to exist, or was it man who created the Man’s Metaplanes by his existence?”. In a word multiverse is beyond time and space, and therefore no cause-effect relationship can be found in it.
People who become vampires are truly the first victims of themselves: a chain of unlucky events, but we could say the Destiny, leads them to become unearthly creatures born from (or the cause of) the darkest and most hidden fears of mankind: they are forced to hunt the live to rape them of their life so to perpetuate their own, and the memory of what they were causes a feeling of guilt fierce enough to drive most of them mad.
But it would be incorrect to say that all vampires are evil; those of them who didn’t go mad (and that is all the playing-characters) still possess their memories and their free will by which they can prevent the “demonic nature” from taking over: this is a bitter struggle which cannot be won, but it is possible to reach the balance between the human and vampiric nature.
CHAPTER 2:THE CREATION OF VAMPIRE CHARACTERS
Strictly speaking the power of a vampire comes from his age, and by age we mean how many 50 year “periods” passed since his “death”. For example if a vampire “died” 30 years ago his age is 1, 80 years ago he’s at age 2, etc. Since I assume that vampires already existed before the Awakening (and the same holds true for magic), it is possible for players to create characters older than that, although the GM may want to restrict ages older than 1 for sake of game balance.
In the creation follow these steps:
a) Choose your vampire’s age. (in years and in “age”(1,2,3,…))
b) Determine his Essence as follows:
Essence = 6 + (1D6 per point of age)
E.g. a 30 year-old vamp will have a base of 6+1D6 Essence points, a 70 year-old 6+2D6, and so on.
c) Go to the table at pg. 47 of SRII and procede assigning priorities as usual (I suggest you to use the old system, where instead of the letters A,B,C,D,E the priorities were determined by the numbers 4,3,2,1,0 and the sum must yield 10; of course A=4, B=3, C=2, D=1, E=0); remember that if your character “died” before the Awakening, the only race available to you is human.
d) Divide the attributes points among the six attributes and then adjust according to your race. Add Essence to your Strenght.
e) Assign your vampire ONLY those skills that he might have known at the time of his “death”. (no computer, cybertechnology, etc. at this stage if he’s not age 1). As usual 6 is the maximum for an unconcentrated or unspecialised skill.
f) Increase Intelligence, Willpower, and Magic by 1 per every ten points of Essence the vampire has (1-9 = 1 , 10-19 = 2 , 20-29 = 3, …).
In this way all vampires have at least 1 point of Magic Rating; if Essence changes in the course of the game, this three stats should vary accordingly.
Add 1D6 to Initiative.
g) For every point of age he has, he’s got 20 additional skill points. He can divide these points among skills he already had at the time of his death, or for buying others. Remember that he gets the points for his current age ONLY if 25 years at least have passed since the beginning of it.
E.g.: Lucille “died” in 1820; her first age lasted from 1820 to 1870, her second age from 1870 to 1920, her third from 1920 to 1970, her fourth from 1970 to 2020; now she is in her fifth age. Let’s suppose that the current year is 2054; then 25 have already passed since 2020, so she gets the points for her fifth age. If she were “born” (as vampire) in 1830, 2030+25=2055 that is greater than 2054 so for a hair breadth she can forget about her last 20 points.
Bear in mind that with these 20 points he can ONLY buy skills referring to that 50-years period. In the example above, Lucille can use her first 20 points to buy skills that were used from 1820 to 1870, with her second 20 from 1870 to 1920, and so on. She would get all in all 100 additional skill points.
Every vampire must possess a Demonology skill. This skill encompasses the knowledge of the nature of Hell and its inhabitants. Demonology for a vampire doesn’t come from study, but from his experience in the Crypt (see later): its starting value is Age*2, but if the character so wishes he can spend more points on it.
h) If you spend 20.000 nu. for it you can be part of the underground society of vampire. The good of it is that you periodically get new identities, false documents and assistence as you need it. In this way you can settle down as a respectable citizen, have a SIN, properties, households, accounts and so on. (this does NOT mean you have them, only that you CAN have them, see the difference?) The bad of it is that you are known to them, you are costantly watched and if some “trouble” arises not too far from you, the first guy they’ll suspect is you; before you ask, yes, they’ve got the means to know the truth…
Of course you can go through the trouble of building an identity yourself, but that’s much more difficult and, well… expensive. Just put 200.000 bucks on the counter and you get it….
If you choose to spend money on neither of these, well, you are just in for the street, that is for the sewer; you can’t own anything you can’t carry and at best you share a hole somewhere with the rats. But don’t worry, vampires make nothing of cold and wet….
If your character has just become a vampire then don’t worry about this last point: what becomes of your wealth, your social life and your whereabouts will be a matter of role-playing.
i) Use your Essence to buy vampiric powers: the list of the powers is in the following chapter.
The vampire must divide his Essence rating among these 5 powers; remember that no power can be lower than 1 or higher than half his Essence.
Remember that if in the course of play the Essence is reduced, the sum of the power ratings must be lowered by the same amount.
Similary if the Essence rises, you can raise your powers so that their sum yields the new Essence rating.
j) Create for all vampires (even non-magicians) a Magic Pool equal to the highest between Willpower and Sorcery.
Of course non-magician vampires can only use their Magic Pool as Spell Defence.
k) Along with the other dice pools, create a Blood Pool whose value equals the Essence of the vampire. If the Essence varies, the BP doesn’t until he has spent it or fed.
Now your character is complete and ready to be played.
CHAPTER 3 THE POWERS OF VAMPIRES
When a vampire character is created he recieves certain powers (these powers have nothing to do with his being a magician or not).
Being in touch with the super-natural forces of Darkness, their powers are designed to spread fear and despair among the living (meta)humans, making the vampires real nightmares loose in the world.
These five powers are usually called ‘Disciplines’, but they are istinctive and require no study or training. Each of them should be recorded on the sheet as a skill with its rating. Remember that these Disciplines have NOTHING to do with spells: their use requires a Complex Action and no word or gesture is needed.
The vampire should declare what power he chooses to use, and to what effect; then he makes the roll and if it’s high enough he succedes in what he wanted to do.
Whether his roll comes off or not, he must spend a number of Blood Pool Points that is equal to the successes the power required to activate.
MIND CONTROL. The vampire is able to enter and control living minds (this means that the power doesn’t work on other vampires, or spirits). This is an opposed test: the vampire should roll:
Mind Control rating vs target’s Willpower+total essence cost of his headware
and count the successes
the victim should roll:
Willpower vs vampire’s Willpower
and count the successes
For the power to be effective the vampire must score at least one success more than his victim. The actual result depends on the net successes the vampire gets according to the following table:
Suggestion (1 succ): the vampire is able to instill a feeling or a need into his victim; this must be something very simple, like hunger, fear, trust, sleepiness, etc. Note that the victim is still able to think and act accordingly, but the vampire is able somewhat to oppose his actions if he so wishes: all victim’s roll suffer in this way a +1 penality per vampire’s success in this test. If the victim is subdued, the vampire has to use this power in order to drain his essence.
Compulsion (2 succ): the vampire now can cause his victim’s body to obey some very simple commands. Good examples are holding still, making him drop something, walking, dropping prone, not speaking, etc. Actions that require an active thought on the part of the victim like attacking someone,using some device, speak, etc, are not allowed at this level. This power can also be used to knock somebody unconscious (consider it a Deadly Stun) and/or making him forget all about the vampire.
Domination (3 succ): the victim is completely in the vampire’s hand, having lost his free will as long as the effect lasts. The vampire can give him an elaborate command and the victim will try to obey it at the best of his ability and knowledge, although if the command goes against his principles he is granted another opposed test at +1 (he must score more successes than the vampire).
While the victim is complying the orders he must keep in sight of the vampire, and the vampire must continue using this power. Otherwise the effect is lost and the victim collapses (Deadly Stun).
At the end of his duty the vampire can make him forget all he’s done, if he so wishes.
This power can also be used to provide the victim with false sensory inputs.
Mind link (4 succ): a permanent link is formed between the vampire and his victim, and he now has access to all his thoughts and memories, even sub-conscious ones. The effects are the same as in DOMINATION, but now he can remote-control him. Note that this link is astrally visible and can be traced back to the vampire (use the vampire’s current Willpower to calculate the Target Number Modifier). Once the orders are given the vampire doesn’t need using this power any more, until he wants to give new orders, and this can happen even years after: in this case he makes a new opposed test at -2, and must only score one success to enter and control his victim’s mind again. While the victim is not obeying the vampire’s orders he may know nothing of him, and while the vampire is not using his power he doesn’t know what his mind-linked victim is doing.
The link can be severed by the vampire or by sorcery (a specific spell is needed: Force of the spell vs. current Willpower).
The vampire can menage as many MIND LINK as half his Essence (round up)
Servitude (5 succ): as in MIND LINK, but now the victim is always aware of the vampire and wishes only to serve him faithfully for all his life. No thought or action of him is unknown to the vampire, and orders can be given from afar without need for further tests.
The SERVITUDE is obtained under two conditions: first the vampire must score at least 5 successes more than his victim, next he must make him drink a few drops of his blood, and this costs him one point of his Essence.
If the vampire is destroyed the victim should make a Willpower test vs his former master’s Essence: if no successes are achieved he dies on the spot; if less than three successes are scored he goes permanently mad. If he gets four or more successes he forgets EVERYTHING of the life while he was in his SERVITUDE, and he undergoes a deep existential crisis.
BODY CONTROL. The vampire is able to modify the structure of his body. To use this power he should roll a number of dice equal to his body control power against one of the following target number:
TN#4. Minor phisical modification. He can change some minor aspect of his body: examples of this are: shortening his canines, change the hue of his skin, having his hair a few inches shorter of longer, etc.
If someone is familiar with the true appearence of the vampire, he can recognise him with an Intelligence Check: the target number is double the number of successes the vampire scored, and only one success is needed to recognise him.
The vampire can also grow natural weapons and/or natural armor. For any success he gets, he can raise the power of his unarmed combat from the usual
“(Strenght)M Stun” to “(Strenght+succ)M Physical” for a maximum increase of 3. Also his reach increases by succ-1. This means that he can grow claws, spikes, blades, etc.
He can also get 1 point of armor (ballistic and impact) for any success he score: there is no limit to this increase. This kind of armor is cumulative with other external armors.
He can (wisely) choose to distribute his successes between body weapon and armor: for example if he gets 4 succ he can give 2 to weapon and 2 to armor. Natural weapons or armor don’t change the vampire’s appearence (he can still be recognised).
TN#6. Major physical modification. The number of successes determines the effect:
1 succ. The vampire can alter his apperence to resemble a completely different person of the same race. If he’s trying to imitate a specific individual, double the number of successes he scores in this test to get the Intelligence Test’s target number for those he wants to fool.
2 succ. If the vampire has already assensed whatever living being or if he has drained its essence at least once, using this power he can assume its appearence, its behaviour and its istincts (if it’s an animal). None will be able to tell difference (unless he can do aura-reading and the vampire is not doing aura-masking). Note that the vampire takes all the physical stats of the being, but not its memories, and he still retains his weaknesses. This power doesn’t work on dual beings, spirits or paranormal critters.
In this way a vampire could assense a tree and (after a successful roll) become one, turn into a cat after draining or assensing it, or into a troll, but not into a fire elemental or an harpy.
While he’s in this form the vampire cannot regenerate (see later), and if he gets maimed his Essence is reduced by the percentage of his body lost.
Remember that the equipment, normal or cyber, is NOT included in the tranformation: if he assenses a man with a cyber arm, he will turn in the same man but with a natural one.
3 succ. The vampire has a complete control over the assembling of the molecules of his body. He can dematerialize into a sort of gas, and can move at a rate equal to his Willpower in meters per turn, but even in this form he’s still vulnerable to sunlight.
With a successful roll he can also enter into solid objects (concrete, stone, metal, earth) and remain there. While there he must sustain this power spending Blood Points (see later), and if his Blood Pool goes to 0, he’s destroyed.
ANIMAL CONTROL. The vampire can call to his aid a certain number of animals whose essence he’s already assensed or drained.
He roll his ‘animal control’ against TN#4; for any success he gets 1 animal comes to him and obeys to his orders. Suitable animals include those that have an ominous an unpleasant place in the human imagination: rats, wolves, bats, cats and other nocturnal animals will do. The GM should decide how long it takes for them to come; of course if that kind of animal doesn’t dwell in the area where the vampire is, then simply it doesn’t come, regardless of his roll.
TELEKINESIS. The vampire can move things around with the force of his will. He makes a test with a target number that depends on the accuracy he wants to use. For any success he scores he can move 2^succ Kg for a meter per turn. This means that if he scores 4 successes he can move 16 Kg. in the air at a speed of 1 m/t, or he can move 8 Kg. at 2 m/t, or 4 Kg. at 4 m/t , etc. Of course if he can move his weight then he can fly.
The target number are:
TN#2. Just move the thing about: no manipulation. He can use this to power also to make ranged attacks with blasts of air.
The power of the attack is (No of succ)L Stun and should be resisted with impact armor. The area of this attack is the number of successes in meters.
The vampire can use this power also to restrain an individual (or he can divide his successes among many). The Quickness of the target is reduced by the successes the vampire gets; if it goes to 0 the target is immobilized.
TN#6. He can use Telekinesis to manipulate items from a distance; if this requires a test then he makes it using his skills with a +2 penality; each additional success reduces this by 1, up to 0.
Remember that Telekinesis only works LOS (line of sight).
ELEMENT CONTROL. The vampire has the ability of commanding the elements of the Earth and create natural phenomena.
The target number for this test is always 6 and the number of the successes determines the radius of the area involved in Kilometers and its effect:
1 succ. Minor weather change: e.g. moderate rain, moderate wind, fog, snow and other phenomena not too unusual for that region and season. (no rain in deserts, or snow on the rain forest).
Onset: 1D6x10 minutes.
3 succ. Major weather change: storm, sea storm, sandstorm, snowstorm. The event must be unusual but not impossible. It does minor damage to buildings, and makes air and sea-navigation impossible.
The onset of the phenomenum is quite sudden (1D6x5 minutes); once a storm has begun the vampire can cause a lightning to fall from the sky on a specific target, one every turn; it inflicts 20D damage, no armor counts (unless it offers some kind of electric protection). Of course the target must be in the open to be hit.
5 succ. Disaster. The possible choices are: major earthquakes, hurricanes, lava eruptions, tidal waves. Extensive damage to buildings, high number of casualties. Onset: 10 minutes.
All these power can be sustained: it costs a cumulative +1 to all the vampire’s tests. He can decide to use points from his Blood Pool to negate this penality by spending a number of Blood Pool Points equal to the number of successes he scored in activating that power.
E.g,
Carol uses her MIND CONTROL power to instill fear in her victim: she scores 5 successes and her victim 3; just doing this costs her 3+1=4 Blood Points, since activating the power required at least 4 success on Carol’s side. Her enemy proves harder than she thought. She decides to sustain her MIND CONTROL power spending 5 Blood Points negating thus the previos +1 penality. Now she tries to restrain him with TELEKINESIS scoring 3 successes, and now she must spend 1 more Blood Point, since only 1 BP was needed to restrain him to some degree; after this she can attack with a +1 penality, unless she wants to negate this too: this will cost her 3 additional Blood Points.
chapter 4:THE BIRTH OF VAMPIRES
A few things need to be said on the Passage from Life to Unlife that a character undergoes when he becomes a vampire.
a) At the moment he becomes a vampire NO cybergear works any more. Since his body changes radically the neural and muscolar connections that allowed cyber-equipment to operate disappear and the entire body becomes a sort of great “sponge” for blood.
This new body “expels” it all in a number of days equal to its Essence cost; this is a very painful experience and cost him 2 additional Blood Pool Points per day.
Lost or replaced parts of the body grow again according to the DNA pattern of the character.
b) Not only does the body of the vampire change, but his aura and astral presence change as well. For this reason ANY focus the character might have owned becomes competely useless after the Passage. For other issues on magic read later.
c) The appearence of the vampire (this means his look, his hair cut, his hair grow, his nails) remains unchangable from the time of the Passage on. For example if a vampire cuts his hair, they grow again exactly as they were at the time of the Passage the next night when he wakes.
This doesn’t include, as I’ve said, lost limbs of other parts of the body.
chapter 5:THE (UN)LIFE OF VAMPIRES
Here are some basic issues on vampires.
a) As everybody knows, vampires are nocturnal creatures. They always wake as soon as the Sun sets below the horizont, and get asleep when the Sun rises.
This is true even if they are underground: the vampire always knows the time of the night, and the time he’s left before dawn.
b) Every night that passes costs the vampire his Essence/10 (round up) Blood Pool Points, even if he does nothing. These points are taken as soon as he wakes.
c) A vampire can choose to be awake by day, although this costs him a great effort: he must pay the same Essence cost as in point b) every hour he keeps from sleeping.
This applies also if the character is attacked by day.
d) As appears clear from the previus points a vampire needs feeding, and his food is the blood of his victims, along with the psychic energy it carries.
(Meta)humans are the preferred preys of the vampire, since they can provide him with full 6 points of Essence; other non-awakened animals only supply 1 point of Essence.
For every point of Essence they drain, they get 1 Blood Pool Point, up to the maximum of twice the vampire’s Essence.
Remember that when vampires feed they can’t sustain any power or spell, and as SRII states they need to stay a few minutes indisturbed.
e) The Hunt. Since vampires need feeding every night or so, roleplaying every time this happens may become boring in the end. For this reason every vampire has a “Hunt” skill. The character simply declares the number of hours he wants to spend looking for his preys.
Then he should roll:
Hunt rating + hours spent hunting vs. 4 + modifier
As usual the Target Number can’t be less than 2.
For any success he scores, he gets 1 BP Point. Note that the vampire may choose to drain less Essence than he actually scored.
Use this table as a guideline to calculate the modifier:
Drains to death (*) -3
Highly populated area -1
Standard-sized city 0
Mid-sized town +1
Small village +3
Wilderness +4(not cumulative with Drains to death)
Drains only animals +3 (not cumulative with Wilderness and
Drains to death)
(*) Every time this is used impones a +1 the the Hunt roll of any vampire that hunts in that area in the future.
The GM should feel free to modify all this depending on the conditions of his game.
If the roll comes out with a number of 1 greater than his Hunt rating, the vampire has got himself into a potentially dangerous situation, and this should be roleplayed.
f) Vampires are dual-beings, and as such they possess a body in the material world and a counterpart in the Astral Space; but as I’ve already said vampires are not creatures of this world, so their true essence, which is called the Crypt, resides in the metaplane embodiment of all things that humankind fears, the Realm of Dread. There is always an astral link between the vampire and his Crypt, and this link can be traced back into the Realm of Dread: only an initiate can do this, and the task is Intelligence (6).
When a vampire sleeps by day, his true essence is in his Crypt; anyway because of the astral link he always know what his happening to his body, and in a complex action he can return to it. A vampire can come and go from his body to his Crypt at will as a complex action.
If the Crypt of a vampire is destroyed and he’s not there, then the vampire is destroyed too: to kill a vampire in this way an initiate must complete an Astral Quest in the Realm of Hell, and the rating is the vampire’s Essence. (see later for Quest in that metaplane). If the vampire is in his Crypt then he must be defeated in order to be destroyed.
Note that a vampire always knows when his Crypt is being attacked.
Whether the Quest is completed or not, all living magicians that have survived it should roll their Willpower (20); if they don’t score at least one success they go permanently mad: this plane is not meant for men to go, and its horrors are so fierce and unconcievable to unbalance the mage’s mind for ever. From the moment of his return the character will strive to pursue evil in all its manifestations, a puppet in the hands of the Powers of Hell. The GM now should decide whether take over the character.
After this the character can travel to the Hell easily, and there accomplish other Quests.
If the character accomplish a Quest there without any reason, its rating is 1D6.
For any Quest completed in the Hell, the character’s Demonology skill rises by 1.
g) Vampire vision: a vampire sees the world in a very different way from live creatures; being a creature of the Night he sees perfectly well in total Darkness, and he’s blind in full daylight (+8 TN). He also has no penalities for Minimal Light or Partial Light.
Mist, smoke, fog, rain don’t affect his vision.
Remember that since vampires are dual beings, they all can see astrally.
h) Blood Boost: the vampire can use up a number of BP points equal to his Essence/10 (round up) to buy dice to increase his powers, the power of his spells, the drain roll, the summoning roll or increase his Magic Pool in Spell Defence.
chapter 6: VAMPIRES AND DAMAGE
As written in the Shadowrun Handbook vampires have the power of regeneration. Here I suggest a way of making this power more realistic and also making life a little harder for vampires….
First of all there are two kind of damage for vampires: normal and aggravated.
Normal damage: includes just all that is not aggravated ;-)
Aggravated damage: this includes wounds from weapon foci (standard weapons with damaging manipulation anchored on them isn’t enough), spirits, astral combat, fire, holy water, exposure to sunbeams.
(Before you ask, holy water is standard water with a background count of 2 or greater due to holy influence: it causes (4+bc)M per half liter; use standard hand-trown granade rules).
When a vampire recieve a wound from normal damage, he only suffers the penalities but he’s not in danger of dying even if the wound is Deadly.
Spending 1 BP point on a complex action clears the damage monitor completely.
If the wound is aggravated, then by spending 1 BP point he only heals 1 box of damage. If the aggravated wound is Deadly, then he rolls 1D6 and follows the results in the SR Handbook.
The same holds true for Stun Damage: there is normal Stun damage and aggravated Stun damage, and these are regenerated in the same way as physical damage.
When the vampire Blood Pool goes to 0 he must drop any power of spell he was sustaining and collapses to the ground, completely helpless. The only way to revive him is giving him some blood (he can’t get it himself).
If the body of the vampire is destroyed, then the vampire is destroyed too.
chapter 7: THE WEAKNESSES OF VAMPIRES
a) A vampire can’t walk in the open sunlight; if he wants to do so he must make a Willpower (6) test, and then he suffers 6S aggravated damage per turn.
If he wants to stay in the open by day and the sky is overcast, he must make a Willpower(4) test and suffer 4L Stun normal damage per turn.
b) A vampire cannot enter holy ground (it means places with a background count due to divine influence). If he wants to do so he must first make a Willpower (6+bc) roll, and then suffers (6+bc)L aggravated Stun per turn.
c) A vampire cannot touch or wield holy items; he suffers the same damage as from holy water per turn.
chapter 8: VAMPIRES AND MAGIC
As stated in the SR Handbook all vampires have latent magical capabilities. This of course is true, but I don’t see any reason why all vampires should be magicians, as someone thinks: if a vampire doesn’t study magic, then he CAN’T cast spells, that’s all. Keep in mind that vampire powers have NOTHING to do with spells.
Let’s see now what happens to magicians when they become vampires:
Hermetic mages/hermetic adepts/Elemental adept
Since their ability to cast spells derives from study nothing changes for them, apart from the fact that at the time of the Passage their contact with astral forces is improved: non-initiates and 0 level initates all become level 1 initiates, and higher level initiates raise their level by 1. Adepts can study summoning and so summon all kind of spirits, and elemental adepts can cast any kind of spell (provided that they study them) and summon any kind of spirits. In a word all these become full magician initiates.
Physical adepts
Their powers derived from the contact with the living essence of their body: since their living body exists no more, they lose all their powers. Their former training anyway helps them to use their BODY CONTROL power more effectively than others when they make their body into natural weapons and armor: all these tests have a -2 bonus.
Shamans/adept shamans
Their supernatural powers derived from the contact with the living spirit of their Totem; vampires as such have lost all contacts with the Realms of Life, so they can’t contact their spirit any more: in a word they lose all their spells and powers.
But (you knew there was a but, don’t you) the deep knowledge of the spirit of their Totem gives them a hand when using their BODY CONTROL power to turn into the animal of the Totem, or when they use ANIMAL CONTROL to call that kind of animal; in these cases they have a -2 bonus to their roll. When turning into that animal, it has +2 to all his physical stats and recieves a +1D6 to his initiative.
What is important to say now is that ALL vampires can learn magic, even those who were just mundanes, because all vampires have a Magic rating.
When a vampire wants to learn a new spell, he uses the standard rules but instead of Karma points he spends BP points.
A few words must be spent on magical foci. As I already said a focus made for men is completely useless for vampires; anyway if a magician (human or vampire) wants to build a focus for vampires he can do so but bear in mind that:
a) The formula for a vampire focus is different from that for (meta)humans; in disigning it he uses (Magical Theory + Demonology)/2 (round down)
b) Once the enchanting test is passed, the enchanter must spend the Karma points required for that focus in Essence points.
If a vampire finds a vampire focus, he can bind it to him according to the standard rules, where instead of Karma points he spends Essence points.
Any character who has Demonology (vampire or not) can summon the creatures of Hell, the demons. The roll is (Conjuring+Demonology)/2.
I will extensively talk of demons in some other supplements.
chapter 8: VAMPIRES AND EXPERIENCE
In standard SRII rules a character who wants to improve his skills or his stats must get enough Karma points to do that; for vampires things are VERY different.
A vampire simply CANNOT get Karma points. Why this?
All live men feel a “spur” to learn new things, explore unknown places, delve into the nature of the universe; and it was this “spur” that has led the human kind from the savages that they were in prehistoric times to nowadays high-tech society. We could identify this “spur” with Karma.
But vampires are no human, and they don’t feel this “spur” at all. As their name suggest, they are a sort of parasitic creatures that survive only with the life force of humans, and it is only this life force that enable them to operate in this world. Consequently to learn new things (whatever they are) they need the life force of others.
There are two ways a vampire can improve a skill, and both of them require BP points.
a) Every time a vampire successfully use a skill in a non-training game situation, if he wants to improve it he makes a tick next to that skill and at the same time consumes 1 BP point.
b) If the vampire wants to train in a skill, he ticks it once per every four hours of training and consumes 1 BP point.
When the number of ticks next to a skill reaches the current value of that skill, he rolls current skill value vs. skill value+1 and if it yields at least one success the skill’s value goes up by 1.
Note that whether the roll is successful or not, the ticks and the BP points are lost.
E.g.
Michelle wants to raise her Firearm skill from 8 to 9. Then she must use it successfully at least 8 times in serius combat and spend 8 BP points, or she can train for 4*8=32 hours and spend the same, or a combination of both. Then she rolls 8 dice against a TN#9. If she succeeds her Firearm goes to 9.
How can vampires increase their Essence?
Only in a way: defeating astral foes. If a vampire kills someone in astral combat, he can drain his enemy’s Essence as it disperses in Astral Space: in order to add its rating to his Essence the vampire must bring the lost Essence to his Crypt. To do this the vampire must perform an Astral Quest in the Metaplane of Hell with a rating equal to the rating (or essence) of the defeated foe. The GM should roleplay this quest, but if he can’t he could use this system similar to that in the Grimoire:
1) Place of Strife
2) Place of Yoke
3) Place of Doom
4) Place of Horror
5) Place of Mystery
6) Place of Sorcery
7) Place of Demons
8) The Crypt
When a vampire (or other) enters the Hell he rolls 1D6, faces the Test of that place and move to another Place: follow in this the same rules as stated in the Grimoire.
Here is the description of the Places:
1) Place of Strife. A character uses his Unarmed skill to resist
(Quest rating) S physical damage.
A character may use natural weapons (this is the case of dual critters) or if he’s a vampire he may use before this test his BODY CONTROL power to grow them.
2) Place of Yoke. A character can use his MIND CONTROL power (if he’s a vampire), a spell that controls the mind of men, or default to Charisma (with a +4 penality), to resist
(Quest rating) M Stan
3) Place of Doom. A character should use his Hunt rating (if he’s a vampire), his Magic or his Essence (with a +4 penality) to resist
(Quest rating) S Stun
4) Place of Horror. A character should use his Willpower rating to resist (Quest rating) D Stun
5) Place of Mystery. A character should use his Demonology, or default his Magic Theory (+4 penality) to resist
(Quest rating) M Physical
6) Place of Sorcery. Use the character’s (Sorcery+Demonology)/2 (round down) or (Conjuring+Demonology)/2 (r.d.) to resist
(Quest rating) S Stun
7) Place of Demons. The character must defeat a demon whose rating equals the Quest rating. If the character wins then he goes directly to the Crypt. Treat the demons as spirits (for now, when I find the time I’ll describe them better).
In the Quest a character cannot use Magic Pool or regeneration, but a vampire may use Blood Boost. All the damage suffered here is aggravated.
When the character reaches the Crypt, he has accomplished the Quest.
If he underwent the Quest after winning an astral combat, then the Essence or the Rating of the opponent is added to the vampire’s Essence. If the Quest isn’t successful and the vampire survives, the Essence or Rating is subtracted from the vampire’s Essence. If the Essence goes to 0 or below, the vampire is destroyed.
This is the end of it. I’m aware that the number of the questions unanswered will probably be great, anyway I think I will add to this sooner or later. If you have any question, remark, critic, insult, you can
e_mail me.