Vampirism

Vampirism is a curse placed upon the victim by a necromancer, which manifests as a physical condition.

Causes

The exact procedure for creating vampires is not known, except to those criminal necromancers who have attained the dark knowledge required.  However, what is known is that those who create vampires do so to obtain souls for Koraris (which empowers the arcane power of the necromancer) without giving him their own.  The moment the dark rituals are complete the soul of the victim is sent to the void, to Koraris, leaving the victim still animated, but not strictly alive, since they are now without their soul.  Once this has occurred, the victim is now a vampire.  Why this is preferable to necromancers over simply sacrificing their victim to Koraris is unknown, but it must be of some benefit to them, as it takes considerably more effort and requires a much greater mastery of dark arcana.

Symptoms

A vampire ceases to have, or require, any of the normal processes associated with life, and becomes 'undead', or 'il-firin' - meaning 'with death' in elven.  Aging stops, as does the heartbeat, and the vampire no longer needs to eat, drink, sleep or breathe, although they are capable of consuming food for social reasons if they wish.  Instead of these, the sufferer must consume the blood of other living beings to sustain their semi-living state.  A side effect of 'living' without a soul, the sufferer is compelled to live off the tiny fragments of soul found in the blood of others who are still fully living.  This is not a choice.  The longer the sufferer is without this sustenance, the more compelled they will be to seek it out, until eventually full insanity takes over until it has been acquired.  Those in this unfortunate state are sometimes referred to as feral vampires to distinguish them from those in full control of their own mind and personality.  Feral vampires return to non-feral state after they are satiated, with full memory of whatever assaults or even murders they may have committed during their loss of mind.
Contrary to some mythology and legends, vampirism is not contagious.  It is thought that this belief came about because some necromancers voluntarily turn themselves into vampires to cease aging and achieve functional immortality, but then continue to afflict others, thus in a roundabout way becoming vampires which vampirise others.  It is worth noting that the immortality gained from vampirism is not total: the vampire can still be killed by destroying the body in any normal way.  They simply cannot die by starvation, old age, blood loss, suffocation, disease, etc., since none of the life processes those conditions obstruct are necessary for the vampire's continued existence.

Treatment

The only treatment for vampirism, a form of undeath, is death.  If the afflicted person is resurrected in some way after death however, they will be resurrected living, and not as a vampire.  Since the person has not been alive since the moment they became a vampire, the resurrection spell used must be effective on someone who has been dead for however long they have been afflicted.

Type

Supernatural

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired

Rarity

Extremely Rare