Vampire Revamp 5.0... Again.

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MonMarty

MonMarty

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"Sanguines, Sanguines everywhere! Purge with Holy Flame!"
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Vampirism has been rewritten a number of times, simplified, complicated, re-simplified, re-simplified and combined. Originally there was no intention to rewrite Vampirism, but we want to give organic city progression a try through Vampirism. Vampirism was once 30% of the intake of new players on the server, and have since almost completely disappeared from the playing field. Now, we are reworking Vampirism, but instead of just Revamping the same old design, tossing it overboard and going in an entirely new direction. The new core theory here, is the so called "Mutators" System that expands upon the Proficiency System. Vampires is the first test of such a Mutator System. Witchblood, Silven, Dragonblood (along with a rewrite for Dragonblood) and other such blood curses will follow if this one succeeds. So without further ado:

Main Content:
  • Unionist Aspects removed from lore (anyone relying on Aspect of Knowledge needs to modify their Proficiency points but does not need to ask for a re-review).
  • Void Worship removed from lore. (if any questions arise how this affects your character, please ask on this thread with an @MonMarty tag)
  • Vampirism completely rewritten: https://wiki.massivecraft.com/Vampirism
Vampirism Changes:
  • Vampirism bite infection rate increased from 15% to 100%.
  • Vampirism curing fundamentally changed and made longer, but also have something to do every day and give healing charters a reason to have a dank Vampire healing fungeon.
  • Some new anti Vampire weapons added. Changed the way how sun damage works a bit.
  • Added Mutations for Vampires, a unique point buying system like Proficiency for Vampires.
  • Made Vampires long-living. Added some cool Vampire abilities.
  • Reworked Vampire mentalities a bit.
  • Added massive Vampire History.
  • New Vampire Art.
  • Infection Process simplified and expanded.
  • Changed up the infectable races to reflect more modern Dragon protections lore.
  • Changed up the Trivia for additional misc information.
What should a player do:
  • If your character was a Vampire, consider changing up the character based on the new lore. Old Vampires should still largely be compatible, but definitely look at the abilities and skills. The many "dreadwielding" and "Blood dancing" abilities no longer exist or in many cases need to be bought with Vampire Points. So, in summary, old vamps are probably lore compliant, just educate yourself on the new characteristics.
  • If your character had a Unionist Aspect, see if removing them from your app would mean a re-review. In most cases it does not, since removing 10 Proficiency points does not require a rewrite.
  • If your character was a Void Worshiper, consider reworking that. Void Worship is not gone, we just didn't want to keep the powers for Void Worship and decided to purge the whole document to save us the problem of having to detach the powers from the lore. Void Worship is still just "generic" Void Worship in lore.
Have fun feeding!

EDIT: Curing of non fully infected people has been modified to be as simple as a tonic ingestion, dispensed at most alchemist healing outlets.
EDIT2: Added Vampire Brood Paragraph. For some reason this was omitted in the publication, but it is in place now.
EDIT2: Added Vampire Protection Paragraph. It's a nice compromise I feel. An initial protection to make sure players don't get turned at the wrong point in time for them, but still offer only a temporary cooldown of protection to ensure "the other side" gets another shot at it.
EDIT3:
  • Sped up regular curing from 5 days to 2 days and a morning, congested 4 days into half days instead.
  • Varlord still require full 5 day curing process.
  • Changed some of the wording to allow for blood transfusions to be time skipped if no Url are present.
  • Changed some of the wording to allow for the hungering phase to be time skipped if no one is present to rp with the person strapped to a bed.
 
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Are the Unionist Aspects are retconned and if so, does the Spirit still give powers now?
 
"Vampires who have been turned by one specific Vampire will often refer to them as father or mother, and be called son or daughter in return, forming Covens."

Literally everyone is going to start calling you daddy. @Dardy

I'm also excited to try out this lore.
 
@MonMarty Curious, as I did not see any mention of it on the page, but what about the magic spell Pervei from Celestial magic? Is this spell no longer going to be able to cure vampires? If so, will the spell be reworked, seeing as curing vamprisim seemed to be a major "selling point" for that spell (As I don't think I've ever seen anyone roleplay out bloodborne diseases and Blood curse)?

I don't think I really have any grounds to make suggestions here, but perhaps it could be reworked into a method of curing those who haven't fully turned? Or replaced. I suppose I'm somewhat biased here as I had that spell in my lineup for my current character.
 
THANK YOU FOR GETTING RID OF VOID WORSHIP POWERS
 
We pretend they never existed. And they probably will not come back. Maybe at some point in the future we can do something with living herons, but not for a long while.
 
Look forward to seeing more sanguines around again, sure has been a while.
 
Are the effects of Warmaster temporary or permanent?
Additionally: How strong/fast are Varghuls and Varlords in comparison to humans?
 
MonMarty said:
Misuse. It was intended to follow a religious narrative. The vast staggeringly shocking amount of players used it purely as point padding without actually having a religious narrative.
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If this was the case, would it not have been better to simply remove the unionist aspect responsible for this situation? And with no religious object of note attached to the trait, alongside its more general and tame presentation, was this not the expected result of the particular trait? I enjoy the additions, but am very sad to see the unionist aspects removed altogether, as I had hoped personally that some religious cult narrative was going to be presented as stated in the threads warning people specifically not to take the trait purely to pad points.
 
Honestly, the skill tree and mutations look great and it's a fantastic idea.

However, I personally feel like having a 100% infection rate is insane, especially when the curing process is too demanding and long. I know it's not the case for everyone but I get a bit woozy when it comes to blood, and even just reading the curing process made me feel this way. I can't imagine ever wanting to go through that roleplay.

I also feel like the strict and dictating mental traits are too demanding, and in the end there's just going to be a shit ton of vampires with the same personality and same goals all over the place, especially with the 100% infection rate. The whole part with these specific mental traits completely puts all work put into a Life Story totally useless, as they go from whoever they might have been, to just another generic vampire in the course of 5 days.

I know it's all up to the lore staff in the end, but I feel like this is something that should've been taken to the community to see if it was something most wanted. A vote, or a poll would've been appreciated.
 
A shame. I loved rping with visions and stuff in public. Wrote an entire lore-story that is now entirely devoid of any use. May as well delete it now.
 
Mistles said:
Honestly, the skill tree and mutations look great and it's a fantastic idea.

However, I personally feel like having a 100% infection rate is insane, especially when the curing process is too demanding and long. I know it's not the case for everyone but I get a bit woozy when it comes to blood, and even just reading the curing process made me feel this way. I can't imagine ever wanting to go through that roleplay.

I also feel like the strict and dictating mental traits are too demanding, and in the end there's just going to be a shit ton of vampires with the same personality and same goals all over the place, especially with the 100% infection rate. The whole part with these specific mental traits completely puts all work put into a Life Story totally useless, as they go from whoever they might have been, to just another generic vampire in the course of 5 days.

I know it's all up to the lore staff in the end, but I feel like this is something that should've been taken to the community to see if it was something most wanted. A vote, or a poll would've been appreciated.
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I agree with this. The change to vampirism also invalidates my character's turn to void worship, due to guard cruelty she saw as uncalled for. (She was cured from vampirism and beaten for being angry instead of grateful, causing her to go into a downward spiral.) This gives her no valid reason for anger, as she would have been an animal in the eyes of the guards instead of a scared 15-year-old.
 
Mistles said:
Honestly, the skill tree and mutations look great and it's a fantastic idea.

However, I personally feel like having a 100% infection rate is insane, especially when the curing process is too demanding and long. I know it's not the case for everyone but I get a bit woozy when it comes to blood, and even just reading the curing process made me feel this way. I can't imagine ever wanting to go through that roleplay.

I also feel like the strict and dictating mental traits are too demanding, and in the end there's just going to be a shit ton of vampires with the same personality and same goals all over the place, especially with the 100% infection rate. The whole part with these specific mental traits completely puts all work put into a Life Story totally useless, as they go from whoever they might have been, to just another generic vampire in the course of 5 days.

I know it's all up to the lore staff in the end, but I feel like this is something that should've been taken to the community to see if it was something most wanted. A vote, or a poll would've been appreciated.
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100% right, I think since it's already been stated there are mutations, assuming that all vampires are affected the same way mentally makes no sense, and denies the player basic aspects of a character. I think some sort of wiggle room, or different emotions affected would make more sense, but the way it's set up mentally seems rigid and inorganic, which kind of defeats the purpose of the revamp.
 
Sad to see all Unionist Aspects removed because of the misuse of one.
 
Mistles said:
Honestly, the skill tree and mutations look great and it's a fantastic idea.

However, I personally feel like having a 100% infection rate is insane, especially when the curing process is too demanding and long. I know it's not the case for everyone but I get a bit woozy when it comes to blood, and even just reading the curing process made me feel this way. I can't imagine ever wanting to go through that roleplay.

I also feel like the strict and dictating mental traits are too demanding, and in the end there's just going to be a shit ton of vampires with the same personality and same goals all over the place, especially with the 100% infection rate. The whole part with these specific mental traits completely puts all work put into a Life Story totally useless, as they go from whoever they might have been, to just another generic vampire in the course of 5 days.

I know it's all up to the lore staff in the end, but I feel like this is something that should've been taken to the community to see if it was something most wanted. A vote, or a poll would've been appreciated.
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Preach dude, preach ^^^
 
"Only when feeding, or when about to feed, Vampire pupils turn crimson red and their eye whites turn black, and remain so while they have blood in their mouth, or otherwise specified when using abilities."

Does this mean a vampire's eye color would be "normal" when they are not feeding? @MonMarty
 
Can I get a concise explanation on how Vampire kill/maim perms work? I've heard several things and would like to get word from the horse's mouth so to speak. Through various threads of chatter, I read that a vampire can attack to feed as they're wont to do, but they cannot be killed for this because they're acting out of a nature that isn't really their own? Similarly, does curing a Vampire give them maim/kill perms against you?

Not trying to start rumours here, rather I'd like to end them and make sure everyone's on the same page.
 
Well.
There goes all of that development for vampires who became friend or fell in love with people.
 
Mistles said:
Honestly, the skill tree and mutations look great and it's a fantastic idea.

However, I personally feel like having a 100% infection rate is insane, especially when the curing process is too demanding and long. I know it's not the case for everyone but I get a bit woozy when it comes to blood, and even just reading the curing process made me feel this way. I can't imagine ever wanting to go through that roleplay.

I also feel like the strict and dictating mental traits are too demanding, and in the end there's just going to be a shit ton of vampires with the same personality and same goals all over the place, especially with the 100% infection rate. The whole part with these specific mental traits completely puts all work put into a Life Story totally useless, as they go from whoever they might have been, to just another generic vampire in the course of 5 days.

I know it's all up to the lore staff in the end, but I feel like this is something that should've been taken to the community to see if it was something most wanted. A vote, or a poll would've been appreciated.
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I really really agree with this. I love the idea and the fact that this was made to make RPs more realistic and immersive but I feel like it just dictates way too much about a character and I mean this in the most respectful and polite of ways.

I mean there's now an 100% infection right and no perms in place to protect a character. That just feels a little unfair. I mean essentially a person is bitten and immediately has to change into a vampire and on top of that change everything that their character is to be lore compliant with all the mental changes in place. It's asking to change who and what a character is, change their motivations, make their loved ones and relationships void, and force them to become violent. I really personally do not like that whatsoever. And with how hard and lengthy the curing process is it just feels really hard to cure your character. And on top of that even if your character is cured, since there's no perms to protect the character they could just keep getting changed.

I understand like avoiding vampires and stuff but I had an experience the other day IC where a band of nine vampires attacked my character and his family inside their own home. In the city. They just picked a lock and came through the windows. Therefore. Anyone who wants to disassociate from this is still at risk. I understand this is about RP immersion and all that and reality but it's really a lot and feels kind of forced. No offense at all! I'm simply stating my opinion. Most of it looks fantastic but it also just causes a lot of problems I feel like too.
 
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Narrju said:
"Only when feeding, or when about to feed, Vampire pupils turn crimson red and their eye whites turn black, and remain so while they have blood in their mouth, or otherwise specified when using abilities."

Does this mean a vampire's eye color would be "normal" when they are not feeding? @MonMarty
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Normal to an extent. There still is the redness around the eyes and the hungered look that is always present. Think of it this way, the eyes are normal based on iris color and the whites, but the eye itself would appear more frenzied. Pairing that with the redness, the visual appearance is less flamboyant, but still gives away a Vampire if you consider everything else.
 
Pleased that Dracula can finally exist.
 
Feral and Skeletal vampires are mentioned in the mutation chart -- what are they? I don't think they're mentioned anywhere else. I can figure Feral out fairly easily - is Skeletal just a really blood-deprived Vampire?
 
Maybe specify how the mental changes from vampirism are only side effects and a guideline to keep in mind, since it might be interpreted as more of a personality or a race template rather than like a drug: side effects + the characters personality = result. I understand this is just like how you create a personality for a race from what would be their cultures effect on them, but this is more of an affliction. If my Varran was a vampire he would be startled, confused and estranged by his lack of love for his family but he would still be used to being a father. If would feel like he'd suddenly gone cold, but he wouldn't turn into someone who abandons his family.
 
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Mistles said:
However, I personally feel like having a 100% infection rate is insane, especially when the curing process is too demanding and long.
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I agree with this. I think 15% was much too low as it was originally, but 100% is insane, especially considering that I can guarantee Vamprism is not everyone's preferred flavor of roleplay- It certainly is not mine. I understand it is a progression related change, but progression should not be forced on people. Don't get me wrong- I love all the progressions and I enjoy the thrills they give, but if I don't have an opt out.. I don't want to even roleplay.

If you are going to have a 100% infection rate, the curing process should be a little more forgiving than what it is not. Certainly don't make it easy-peasy, but not the complicated process it is now. Make it more draining on the one performing the process, like how it was supposed to be when magic was used- Long and taxing, to the point where you couldn't do it in one go and it even risked the casters life. Like curing a Marken with Aeleiv, it should be damned well risky and need a ton of people to be done safely- A group effort to catch and restrain that mofo for curing can generate just as much roleplay I'd say.
 
ItsAnother said:
If this was the case, would it not have been better to simply remove the unionist aspect responsible for this situation?
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You misunderstand. The problem relies on the narrative behind it, not the individual Unionist aspect. It was a consistent problem across nearly all Unionist roleplayers. Aspects were intended to cause conflict and strife among Unionists, but it didn't. It just allowed them all to have a unified plethora of Unionist special abilities that in many cases were simply tacked on with only lip service offered to Devout Unionism, a precondition to Aspects.
TheatreCake said:
invalidates my character's turn
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I don't understand what part of the lore invalidates this story. None of the circumstantial treatments have changed. She was still seen as a feral animal before the lore change, the only thing that got slightly more complicated was curing.

Mistles said:
However
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The 100% infection rate is staying, but I do think you're partially right about the curing process for people who hadn't fully turned yet. I hadn't honestly thought too long about it, and when it was time to press for release it was sort of a case of "but how do I deal with them". I will probably slightly amend it and turn curing a person who hasn't fully turned yet into a single day "Drink a tonic and have some seizures" or something and then call it a day. The rest though, is not that extreme at all, and underlines a big problem for vampirism, in that the current setup is too open ended. All disease and negative side effect for character development is ignored to the riduclous degree of a case a few weeks back where a player cussed at staff when being told that slapping someone in roleplay isn't a maim perm and that you don't need kill perms for impacting any negative consequence on someone else's life. Nerfing them to non existence so players can just ignore the Vampire epidemic when it flares up, just results in everyone else who participates in it feeling extremely deflated and shoving another fun story line down the drain because some people built magical walls around them to deny any wrong to happen in their IC lives. It's balancing one way or the other. We'll probably implement some protections against Vampirism in the near future, but I am not nerfing it into the ground again to the point where every other player can just ignore it and say "no" and walk away from good roleplay, or more specifically, allowing the opposite side to win for once.

Farryn said:
here goes all of that development for vampires who became friend or fell in love with people.
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TheHufflePug said:
It's asking to change who and what a character is, change their motivations, make their loved ones and relationships void, and force them to become violen
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I don't understand. Dissosiative personality disorder has been part of Vampire lore since 2014. Is it only a problem now that your character /might/ become one?
 
MonMarty said:
You misunderstand. The problem relies on the narrative behind it, not the individual Unionist aspect. It was a consistent problem across nearly all Unionist roleplayers. Aspects were intended to cause conflict and strife among Unionists, but it didn't. It just allowed them all to have a unified plethora of Unionist special abilities that in many cases were simply tacked on with only lip service offered to Devout Unionism, a precondition to Aspects.

I don't understand what part of the lore invalidates this story. None of the circumstantial treatments have changed. She was still seen as a feral animal before the lore change, the only thing that got slightly more complicated was curing.


The 100% infection rate is staying, but I do think you're partially right about the curing process for people who hadn't fully turned yet. I hadn't honestly thought too long about it, and when it was time to press for release it was sort of a case of "but how do I deal with them". I will probably slightly amend it and turn curing a person who hasn't fully turned yet into a single day "Drink a tonic and have some seizures" or something and then call it a day. The rest though, is not that extreme at all, and underlines a big problem for vampirism, in that the current setup is too open ended. All disease and negative side effect for character development is ignored to the riduclous degree of a case a few weeks back where a player cussed at staff when being told that slapping someone in roleplay isn't a maim perm and that you don't need kill perms for impacting any negative consequence on someone else's life. Nerfing them to non existence so players can just ignore the Vampire epidemic when it flares up, just results in everyone else who participates in it feeling extremely deflated and shoving another fun story line down the drain because some people built magical walls around them to deny any wrong to happen in their IC lives. It's balancing one way or the other. We'll probably implement some protections against Vampirism in the near future, but I am not nerfing it into the ground again to the point where every other player can just ignore it and say "no" and walk away from good roleplay, or more specifically, allowing the opposite side to win for once.



I don't understand. Dissosiative personality disorder has been part of Vampire lore since 2014. Is it only a problem now that your character /might/ become one?
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Yeah I understand your point as well! I just don't remember it being like... as intense maybe? I RP with a few vampires and they love and have friends and such not to the point of like disgust around other people I suppose, perhaps that's where I misunderstood. Again, I didn't intend to sound rude in my opinion!
 
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MonMarty said:
I don't understand what part of the lore invalidates this story. None of the circumstantial treatments have changed. She was still seen as a feral animal before the lore change, the only thing that got slightly more complicated was curing.
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For your reply to me, I think I may have been unclear. I mean she would likely have held less of a grudge against Unionism— and may have even reformed— if she had legitimately been a feral animal (which she wasn't—this is why she holds a grudge.)


For your replies to Farryn and TheHufflePug, there was no clear mention of disassociation from one's emotion or personality in the previous lore. In fact, I remember it being stated that one's personality was unaffected, other than the desire to turn others and aversion to curing. I may have misunderstood this.

Thank you for taking our concerns seriously.
Sincerely,
Sif le Fay
 
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TheHufflePug said:
Yeah I understand your point as well! I just don't remember it being like... as intense maybe? I RP with a few vampires and they love and have friends and such not to the point of like disgust around other people I suppose. Perhaps that's where I misunderstood. Again I didn't intend to sound rude in my opinion!
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That's fine, but in all likelihood those people didn't ever really read into the lore or just decided that they didn't like it so they paid no heed to it. I think there's definitely a nuance possible in dissosiative personality disorder where you can still feel the feelings a regular person has, but for different reasons. It's like suddenly wanting to take a joy ride and having a parent disapprove of it. They are still your parent, and it sucks they disapprove, but it would be 10x more fun if they did it with you.

This kind of brain workings where love, from unconditional protective and trusting turns to more possessive and objective, is nuanced and requires a bit of thinking, but it's not impossible, and for many actually provides a really powerful change to character development so that love and friendship isn't just a constant unrealistic forever lasting thing, but something that has low's and high's, and provides more realistic nuance.

TheatreCake said:
For your reply to me, I think I may have been unclear. I mean she would likely have held less of a grudge against Unionism— and may have even reformed— if she had legitimately been a feral animal (which she wasn't—this is why she holds a grudge.)
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How long was she a vampire for until she was cured and did she only feed on animals, not people?
 
MonMarty said:
How long was she a vampire for until she was cured and did she only feed on animals, not people?
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She was a vampire for several years, and fed opportunistically. For her time spent in Regalia, she fed mainly on animals to avoid the eyes of the law.
 
DelendaEst said:
Can I get a concise explanation on how Vampire kill/maim perms work? I've heard several things and would like to get word from the horse's mouth so to speak. Through various threads of chatter, I read that a vampire can attack to feed as they're wont to do, but they cannot be killed for this because they're acting out of a nature that isn't really their own? Similarly, does curing a Vampire give them maim/kill perms against you?

Not trying to start rumours here, rather I'd like to end them and make sure everyone's on the same page.
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  • Vampires are not by default kill or maim perms.
  • Vampires who are feeding neither give, nor need, kill or maim perms.
  • Varlord give maim perms by default.
  • Varghul are always kill perm by default when in their Varghul form.
  • Curing a Vampire does not grant maim or kill perms.
  • Imprisoning a Vampire does not grant maim or kill perms.
A storyline where someone is super anti Vampire I.E a Vampire hunter and gets turned into one and then cured.. might have kill perms on the person who turned them into a Vampire. I think that case relies strongly on the situation, and should definitely be discussed with the Vampire in question so that everyone is happy with the outcome.
 
MonMarty said:
That's fine, but in all likelihood those people didn't ever really read into the lore or just decided that they didn't like it so they paid no heed to it. I think there's definitely a nuance possible in dissosiative personality disorder where you can still feel the feelings a regular person has, but for different reasons. It's like suddenly wanting to take a joy ride and having a parent disapprove of it. They are still your parent, and it sucks they disapprove, but it would be 10x more fun if they did it with you.

This kind of brain workings where love, from unconditional protective and trusting turns to more possessive and objective, is nuanced and requires a bit of thinking, but it's not impossible, and for many actually provides a really powerful change to character development so that love and friendship isn't just a constant unrealistic forever lasting thing, but something that has low's and high's, and provides more realistic nuance.


How long was she a vampire for until she was cured and did she only feed on animals, not people?
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Ah okay! I see now! Thank you for the explanation!
 
TheatreCake said:
She was a vampire for several years, and fed opportunistically. For her time spent in Regalia, she fed mainly on animals to avoid the eyes of the law.
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There might be a way to solve this. What if, an Isldar took pity on her, finding her starving behind her house, and decided to feed her by allowing the character to nibble on her arm, and kept her fed until the point in time when she was cured shortly after the old isldar lady died of old age? Isldar cannot be infected with Vampirism but they can still be fed on. I see that you're trying to take the non evil vampire route, but I think you can do that even when drinking from people without it being forced or evil. There are plenty of Vampire sympathizers who believe that feeding and then curing is the solution, who are very willing to feed Vampires.
 
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