Blood Traits

Saying that vampires need blood to survive is an understatement on the level of telling a person facing a tidal wave that they are about to experience moisture. For vampires in the world of 2840, the necessity of drinking blood is so consuming that it drives many to madness. In short, unless a vampire is completely filled to the brim with blood like a bloated tick, they perceive themselves as starving. It is only a vampire’s lingering humanity, or an ethical code of morality known as their “Path,” that keeps them from experiencing the Wassail—a state of being where the vampire is reduced to a murderous killing machine incapable of rational thought.

When a vampire drinks warm mammalian blood (human or animal will suffice) it is processed in their body into a blood-like substance known as Vitae. Vampires metabolize this Vitae to fuel their powers, heal their wounds, and hold the entropic powers of aging and death at bay—granting them immortality. When a vampire drinks blood, approximately one pint or 16 fluid ounces of mammalian blood is converted into one Blood Trait of Vitae. This distinction is important because Vitae becomes compressed within a vampire’s body. While an average human body contains roughly ten pints of blood, vampires with particularly potent blood can store twenty or more Blood Traits of Vitae in their system.

Vampires use the measure of their blood potency to establish a pecking order within their society. Whenever a vampire turns a human into another vampire, the new vampire always has a weaker level of blood potency than their parent (vernacular: Sire). Since this weaking of the Vitae is universal with each passing generation, vampires categorize themselves based on how many generations removed they are from a mythical first vampire. Vampires that are closer in generation to the primordial first vampire (sometimes referred to as Cain) can metabolize their blood more effectively and contain more Blood Traits in their body at a time. Use the following generation chart to discern how many blood traits a particular vampire can metabolize in a single turn.

Generation	Blood Pool Size	Blood Traits Per Turn
1-5	???	???
6	20	5
7	20	3
8	15	3
9	14	2
10	13	2
11	12	1
12	11	1
13	10	1
14	10	1

Using Blood

When a vampire metabolizes their blood (sometimes referred to as rousing the blood) a Blood Trait is converted into energy that the vampire may use to perform supernatural feats. The following feats are available to all vampires when they rouse their blood.

Healing.

• Vampires may use their blood to heal injuries to their body so long as they remain completely still while their body mends itself. The more serious the injury, the more effort and blood required to heal it. For bashing levels of damage, a single Blood Trait can heal 3 levels of damage if the vampire is completely at rest. For lethal levels of damage, a single Blood Trait can heal one level of damage. For aggravated levels of damage (the most severe form of damage) a vampire must metabolize 3 blood traits and get a full day’s sleep to heal the wound. Barring the use of advanced healing disciplines like Valerian or Resistance, only one level of aggravated damage may be healed per day.
  
  Cost: Variable depending on the severity of the damage being healed.

Increasing Physical Attributes.

• Vampires may rouse their blood to temporarily increase their physical attributes for 15 minutes. Each blood trait spent in this way equals +1 trait to either Strength, or Dexterity, or Stamina (the player chooses which attribute to increase when the Blood Trait is spent). In addition to increasing the number of dice available in a character’s dice pool, temporarily increasing physical stats also improves base power ratings pertaining to the character. If Strength is increased the player adds additional dice to damage rolls involving brawl and melee attacks. They may also lift heavier objects without needing a dice roll at all. If Dexterity is increased, the character’s base movement speed increases +10ft. per round, and their Difficulty to Hit rating increases by +1 per point of temporary dexterity added. If Stamina is increased, the character experiences a -1 (bonus) to their difficulty to Resist Damage rating and they add additional dice to their initiative dice pools when they are in the last stages of a combat (Round +6) per point of temporary stamina added.
  
  Cost: 1 Blood Trait per Attribute level increased.

Fueling a Discipline

• The most common use for Blood traits is to fuel vampiric magical powers; called Disciplines. There is no upper limit to the number of Disciplines a vampire may cast during a night so long as they are able to afford the Blood Trait cost for each Discipline they cast. A vampire may only cast one Discipline per round (every 6 seconds) even if they have enough reserve Blood Traits to cast multiple powers.
  
  Cost: Variable depending on activation cost of the Discipline. If a discipline’s activation cost equals more blood traits than the character’s generation allows them to spend in a round, the power does not launch until the player has spent the necessary amount of blood over the course of several rounds. If the player is interrupted from spending a discipline’s activation cost over consecutive rounds, the spent blood is considered lost, and the discipline fails to launch.

Flush of Life

• A vampire may spend a Blood Trait to reinvigorate their undead body and pass as a living human for 15 minutes. While experiencing a flush of life, the vampire has a weak heartbeat, can breathe without conscious effort, and can eat food (though their stomach will never be able to digest anything other than blood). A vampire may even engage in mundane romantic couplings while under a Flush of Life though such physical dalliances pale in comparison to the vampire’s experience of actually drinking blood. In any case, a sexually active vampire cannot produce mortal children through the flush of life power as their bodies were rendered sterile when they became vampires.
  
  Cost: 1 Blood Trait per 15 minutes of simulated human life.

Innate Vampire Powers

• Grow / Retract Fangs: A Vampire can grow out their fangs and cause deadly aggravated wounds upon a successful bite attack.


• Ecstatic Bite: A Vampire's bite can create a sense of euphoria for a victim similar to the high created by using potent narcotics.


• Enthralling Vitae: A Vampire's blood can bind and enslave other creatures (even other vampires) who drink too much of it.


• Lick Wounds: A Vampire may lick any bite wound they have caused and heal the damage. This only heals the injury, it does not replace any blood lost by the victim.