[Vampire: The Requiem] Kindred Physiology: Q&A

Out of Character (OOC):

Chronicle: Mage 2: The Dethroned Queen

Venue: Mage: The Awakening 2nd Edition

Chronicle Storyteller: Jerad Sayler

Assistant Storytellers: Hannah Nyland & Alex Van Belkum

Kindred Physiology: Q&A

The following is a rundown of vampires work in the most basic sense for the RPG game Vampire: The Requiem 2nd Edition, part of Onyx Path's Chronicles of Darkness (nWoD 2.0)

The following are things presented throughout the VtR source books that have nothing to do with stats or rules but are represented in the stories and excerpts that are found throughout. They are very real considerations that should always be kept in mind when playing or interacting with Kindred in the World of Darkness.

Question: Can vampires smoke?

Answer: Beyond the difficulty with fire, the truth is - some can, some can't, and most wouldn't.

The feigning of Humanity through the expenditure of Vitae lasts for an entire scene/hour - more than enough turns to finish a cigarette. But you would think it would also highly unlikely vampire would be interested in keeping this habit because its usually more uncomfortable and provides little enjoyment to their undead brains.

All the cool kids are doing it

Interestingly enough there are tons of Kindred who smoke for some very interesting reasons. Watching a vampire try to smoke, regardless of how much practice they have at it, is tense for everyone involved. Positioning the lighter, striking a match and then pulling it to the cigarette requires deep concentration and a lot of fear on the part of the Kindred smoker. Then, having the glowing end always nearby is deeply worrisome. The vampire's physiology doesn't respond to nicotine (unless drank in blood from someone who had just smoked), so why do they do it?

There are fire walkers of the Lancea et Sanctum that see smoking as a small dedication to God, who may choose to let this tiny bit of fire end them at any moment, a constant reminder of their curse. Some smoke for power, Kindred around him are so distracted by the fire involved they are caught off guard and easier to intimidate or control. Among the Ordo Dracul, smokers are using the habit as an exercise in willpower and might be used to help develop or learn Coils of the Dragon.


The reason vampires require blood expenditure to breathe should be obvious (part of the Blush of Life). The lungs of a vampire have atrophied and become desiccated due to physical death. The blood is needed to temporarily rejuvenate the lungs and make them pliable, flexible, and useful again, allowing the diaphragm to effectively pull air into the lungs. This quite naturally raised the question of how vampires can speak if they do not breathe. It was suggested by one individual that breathing was a simple muscular action, and since they believed that vampires still had the use of normal muscle function, they would therefore be able to breathe with ease.

This is not necessarily the case, however. It is quite possible to speak or make noise without pushing air past your vocal chords, but this is not the answer as to how vampires manage to communicate, however. The flow of air through a vampire's vocal apparatus is a natural function that has nothing to do with breathing. Nature abhors a vacuum, and air always moves to fill any area devoid of it in order to equalize gaseous pressure. The fact that a vampire does not inhale and exhale actually means that they can keep talking longer than a human being with ease. Consider this - does your voice weaken prior to needing a breath? Do you take another breath because your voice has died? Or is the normal flow of your speech interrupted by your lungs demanding air for the rest of your body? Try it - you will discover that you are able to maintain a precise volume and cadence in your voice right up to the time you begin to see spots for lack of air.

This is because speech is caused by air vibrating past the vocal chords and those sound waves being further shaped by the mouth and tongue - not by breathing past the vocal chords. As soon as a vampire speaks, a small amount of air leaves their mouth - true - but the sound wave vibrations they generate pass through the air, not with it. What little air they expend is replaced by air rushing in their nasal passages - since they are not breathing there is nothing to prevent this from happening - and air pressure is equalized. Since nature abhors a vacuum as we all know - there is a constant amount of air in the vampire's speech areas - the hollows of the mouth, nose, throat, and even the stomach. (Now that's an interesting thought - an overzealous vampire that feeds too quickly would burp, as trapped air in their throat and stomach rose to the surface of the vitae and escaped.)

There is no need to assume that vampires experience or utilize normal muscle function to move, walk, gesture, or any of it - this is a trap that is easy to fall into. Since the vampire's muscles are dead like the rest of their body - normal muscle function is an erroneous assumption to leap to. The cells of a vampire's muscles are dead - incapable of normal expansion and contraction - hence incapable of facilitating movement on their own without the Blush of Life.

Question: So then how does a vampire move?

Answer: Think hydraulics

Look to the plant world, and you will find the answer - systolic and systemic pressure. Plants move, twist, and bend daily, without the benefit of muscles, by varying the amount of fluid in the cells and arteries of various parts of their structure. Vampires would be able to do the same through a subconscious control over the blood in their system. Remove the blood from a muscle, and it contracts (exactly as muscular contraction in the dead causes them to curl up if their bodies are allowed to dry with desiccation). Flood a muscle with blood, and it relaxes and expands. This theory supports the fact that a staked vampire is paralyzed - the heart is the center of the systolic system and the magical center of the body - interrupting its function by driving a piece of material through it would render the vampire incapable of moving their blood - hence they would experience paralysis without unconsciousness if this theory is correct and the blood is the reason they can move in the first place.

In fact, it is interesting to theorize that the blood in a vampire's body takes the place of virtually every living systemic function of the human organism. The vitae of a vampire controls their nervous system, the means by which they move, the means by which they exist entirely. The dead human shell simply becomes the host for a magical creature that is only nominally dependent on the structure of the shell to sustain existence. This might explain why a lack of blood brings on torpor. It might also explain why damaging vital areas of a vampire's body does nothing more than structural injury. A bullet through the brain is only a limited impairment to the vampire, whereas a mortal in their place would only continue to live by a phenomenal miracle.

God I hope that's a Nos...

If some of the consciousness of the vampire is spread throughout their vitae, this ability to shrug off debilitating damage to the head is a little easier to understand. This would also explain why vampires are so malleable to the effects of their own Disciplines and Bloodlines, able to change shape, transform into other substances, and even merge with the earth. Nothing about them is particularly centralized or dependent on form for function - the blood permeates their body, and so too does their mind and spirit. The body can then be free to change at will, without harming any of the vampire's higher functions.

Most of this information on one's Requiem and systems are in the books, the scientific reasoning have to be reached for. I would like to point out one very crucial and key difference with my game from the books: Any large object driven through the heart causes Torpor, not just wooden objects. The act of having a pierced heart impairs blood flow and stops the Kindred in their tracks, it doesn't matter if its wood, steel, or a shaft of highly frozen bubblegum (or a pink slipper).

Question: Are vampires emotionally dead creatures? Are they cursed to walk the night with nothing but the memories and echoes of mortal loves to sustain them?

Answer: Perhaps.
If this is true, however, why do the myriad writings speak of the Kindred passions in the hunt, the embrace, the nightly Kiss that prolongs eternal life and brings ecstasy to victor and victim? Why are the Kindred described as feeling desire, remorse, lust, anger, hurt, jealousy, and a myriad of other emotional reactions? Obviously the death of the Vampire heart is somewhat a fiction, a lie perpetrated by the old upon the young to explain the ennui and failing humanity that comes with age and moral compromise as the Kindred marches further and further into eternal night, ever more distant from the memory of their mortal existence.

Vampires do suffer the cacophony of emotional turmoil - desire, anguish, lust, and heartbreak are all real companions on the endless dark road of the Embraced. Their bodies may no longer function the way they did in life, but the Vampire still feels almost as acutely as ever. Love, anger, hatred, lust, and even pleasure. Pleasure, the honeyed cup that passes to our lips in a plethora of forms, whether we are alive or undead. What is pleasure to the Vampire?

Question: Are carnal pleasures beyond the purvey of the undead?

Answer: Yes, and no.

Carnal desire and pleasure is largely a physiological response to stimuli, and is largely sub-conscious. What 'turns us on' varies from culture to culture and person to person, but the physical responses to stimulation are universal - arousal. This is true of every relatively functional human being alive. But Vampires are no longer human, and certainly no longer alive in the medical sense. Their bodies do not function, hormones are not produced, their physical responses are truly dead in any erotically relevant terms. In short, autonomic arousal is impossible for the Kindred.

It is possible for a Vampire to simulate arousal through an expenditure of precious vitae. The male can ready himself to perform through an act of will, and the female can be receptive through a similar moment of decision. Neither will respond involuntarily to any amount of physical or emotional stimuli, no Vampire will ever become physically 'turned on' unless they choose to seem to be. In the end, it will always be a simulation, and the coupling of their remembered mortality. The vampire body is cold and unyielding, stiff, dry and dead to the touch. Even more precious blood must be wasted for the Kindred to temporarily do away with these realities as well (1 Vitae per scene/hour).

Your average Vampire is reticent to waste so much vitae just to simulate an act which will never give them the pleasure they once felt. They are even less eager to pursue this pointless exercise when they compare fruitless act with intensity and enjoyment of blood and feeding.

The Kiss has been described by a Vampire himself in this fashion: '…drinking the finest champagne and the sensation of the most sensual lovemaking you've ever experienced. Overlay that with the rush the opium fiend feels as he takes that first hit on the pipe…' A powerful description, and undeniably one that paints an image of the heights of pleasure.

Question: Does this mean that feeding becomes the only pleasure in a Vampire's nightly existence?

Answer: No. Not necessarily.
Feeding may be the epitome of physical pleasure for the undead, but the realm of the physical is far from the summation of all things pleasurable. The mind and emotions play the largest part in what anyone responds to as erotica, and these faculties are still powerfully functional in every Kindred. The joy of success, the enjoyment of dominating political enemies or a victim.

What is enjoyable quickly becomes a game of the mind and heart for the undead. Feeding brings them life and pleasure, but the means by which they garner their prey can become a large part of their new erotica.

For some, the hunt becomes an intense rush of pursuit, capture, and sanguine possession. They stalk their potential victims carefully, admiring them, lusting after them, imagining the final moments far in advance, building themselves towards a frenzy of desire. They sweep down upon their intended meal and drag them into their arms, reveling in a viciously sensual coupling with an unwilling victim that is as ecstatic and erotic for the Vampire as any sexual release they had in life.

Others plan their feedings with deliberation, weaving elaborate seductions of the mind and heart that lead to the final willing - even eager - surrendering by their 'lover' of both body and blood. The Vampire builds herself into an icon of sensuality and passion in the eyes of her paramour, while elevating her victim on a pedestal of desire. The final Kiss becomes an emotional and physical apex of pleasure for both. Victims of these grand seductions are often helplessly enslaved to the passions and desires of their dark 'lover', while the Vampire becomes so intensely focused on her play of pleasure that she may come to love her mortal vessel, or at least believe she does.

There are many ways that this kind of substitute eroticism can be manifested, but beyond even this there are many ways for Vampires to be erotically active and sensual beings.
Beside the means and ways of feeding, there are other forms of erotica and gratification for the Kindred, each of them methods that reach to the mind and heart.

Many Vampires develop voyeurism of one type or another as they find their emotions piqued by visions of beauty (especially with powers like Auspex and Obfuscate). A Vampire does not need to be from the clan of Daeva to develop a fascination for beautiful things, and in the realm of the erotic it is possible for many Kindred to develop a taste for 'watching'. This voyeurism may take the form of peeping in windows of favorite victims or enraptured ghouls. In the more brazen it may take the form of staging erotic or sexual 'performances' from the romantic to the lurid that the Kindred oversees and watches openly. Or it may simply be long and sensual contemplation of a beautiful figure as he or she lounges before an admiring master.
A step beyond this voyeuristic pleasure is the vicarious enjoyment of sensuality with the intended victim or favored 'partner'. The Vampire gains their pleasure from watching the effect of their touch or caress on their paramour. This form of vicarious eroticism can take many guises, from the gentle and passionate to the sadistic or torturous. However it is accomplished, the Vampire participates only vicariously, drawing their own satisfaction from watching the emotional and physical heights of their thralls.

Vampires are not reduced to sexless and emotionless creatures by the death of their mortal bodies, they are simply redefined, and are still capable of living richly. The act of mere sex may no longer play a direct part in their requiems but this lack is by no means a death of sensuality, merely a change. And to some - even a refinement.

Without an emotional outlet the vampire becomes a craven thing reaching for mortal desires from which he/she can't indulge... a hollow longing thing, eventually filled with jealous and malice. There is also the complex relationships of slavery and bondage between Ghouls, Blood Bonds, Thralls and enslaved Vampires and even the Covenant interactions.


Question: If Kindred aren't really stronger or faster than they were as mortals (without supernatural powers), are they any tougher?

Answer: Oh definitely!
As stated in VtR 2.0, all mundane weapons that normally do Lethal damage automatically do Bashing damage instead. When a Kindred's health track is filled with Bashing damage they do not need to roll their Stamina dots to remain conscious even as the damage wraps to Lethal. They still take wound penalties but only drop into their death-like Torpor once once their Health track is full of Lethal damage. They can also expend Vitae with a trivial effort to repair their injuries in seconds. Disciplines like Resilience grant more health and help absorb even more damage.

So, what does this mean in practical terms? Slashes, cuts and bullets only do superficial damage to vampires. Bullets tear right through the body and leave holes, and while it hurts, does not seem to slow a vampire down much. The blood supernaturally can hold itself within the body, contrary to laws of fluid dynamics and no Vitae is lost from these injuries. Injuries from mortal weapons are easy to repair so the vampire can appear impervious unless a lot of concentrated fire is focused on them all at once.

It also means that the vampire keeps operating even with serious damage until they drop into Torpor. Now fire and sunlight are the true banes of the vampire. To a vampire they are the first supernatural weaknesses and even a small amount does horrible injury and burns to their bodies.

Question: Why Does Sunlight Kill Vampires?

Answer: Good question.

Well first let's take a very quick look at what a vampire really is. (I didn't really answer that question yet.) A vampire is really a supernatural animating force in the blood itself. The Blood really is the vampire in essence. The true origin is unknown, if it was Caine, Lilith, or Kali or some other ancient spirit that knowledge has been lost to time and the Kindred that still walk the earth. The beast that vampires talk about could be the spirit of the cursed blood to transforms them into an undead host for it.

If someone could find Vlad Dracula or Longinius, who were supposedly created without a sire we might be able to ask them how they became a vampires. There are rumors that there is a founder for each of the five clans, an ancient patriarch or matriarch with the purest blood of each of the clans. They lost their humanity and have slumbered for millennia. There is a ton of vampiric lore that no Kindred have pursued for centuries. Those that have learned something about it keep their mouths shut on the matter.


Whatever the start, a curse from God or an ancient Crone, the fact remains that the blood is a spiritual force which animates a dead body. And a result of this curse is that Fire and Sunlight, symbols of good and purification destroy the corruption of the vampire. That's the religious reason.

Question: So why is sunlight so detrimental?

Answer: Basically... we don't know.

Like a ginger.

Task Force Valkyrie (TFV) and The Cherion Group (TCG) have postulated that in scientific terminology it would appear that when exposed to sunlight or high intensity ultraviolet light the blood suffers a chemical reaction which causes it to combust violently. It breaks down the blood and burns the flesh horribly. Interestingly enough full Moonlight will won't give a vampire a tan. Black lights don't really give off enough to harm them either. Direct sunlight can kill most vampires extremely rapidly but they don't catch flame like they do when exposed to fire.

From a mystical standpoint, the spirit or spirits which found a way to possess the body might have been worshiped at night or have a Bane of sunlight for whatever reason. Most undead are harmed or loose all their powers during the daytime and that seems to be the case here. However it started, the spirit which holds power over the blood looses it's grip under the interfering and debilitating radiation from the sun. With the animating force in flux, the blood and its mystical essence/energy is violently released causing a lot rapid decomposition and scouring. The dried body burns like a shriveled husk and the blood is reduced to a tarry grease. This same tarry ash is seen outside the body anytime a Cruac blood ritual is used, giving this theory more credence.

Some mages believe that the curse of sunlight is the result of the spiritual symbol of the sun and powerful Shadow spirit Helios (spirit of the sun) hating the vampires and cursing them to walk in darkness. Luna (spirit of the moon), does not seem to have the same anonymity.