Canon Q&A With Storytellers

[Myk]

I don't see why either of those would be a problem, assuming the wraith is coherent enough to pass along that knowledge. It would also depend largely on the wraith's history. A person turned and killed shortly thereafter wouldn't have much knowledge of their path.

Awesome, grazie!

My only real caveat is that they obviously wouldn't unlock a person's path the way a wraith guide does, as wraith guides are exceptionally powerful wraiths. Otherwise, go for it.

It never even occurred to me that I could be implying such a thing, my apologies.

I literally meant that, saying the Wraith knew they were once an Allurist Vampire before their death, that they could tell someone that they were once an Allurist Vampire.

[Azraeth]

My only real caveat is that they obviously wouldn't unlock a person's path the way a wraith guide does, as wraith guides are exceptionally powerful wraiths. Otherwise, go for it.

It never even occurred to me that I could be implying such a thing, my apologies.

I literally meant that, saying the Wraith knew they were once an Allurist Vampire before their death, that they could tell someone that they were once an Allurist Vampire.

I didn't think so, but I wanted to establish precedent in case that got asked in the future.

And that would be fine!

[Caligrace]

So, I was talking to a few friends, trying to come up with some plots - and a question arose.

How far can you go in a turning? Like, could you rip out the throat/heart of the human pre-blood exchange, and they would live, or would that be taking it too far? I know some turnings are brutal, but that also lead me to think of a second thought: Could a vampire survive without their heart? I know that heart wounds, on grid, are considered critical. So, say, someone ripped out Caligrace's heart and kept it for whatever reason. Would she be weaker for the rest of eternity? Would she ever heal without it? Or would she need it?

[Roderic]

Actually. I wondered that too. Say ric stabs someone in the brain as a human...that's a pretty critical move there. What then? I would think brain injury would make things kind of hard to progress fowards with the whole blood exchange.

[Maddra]

Good question! It would be nice to know 'cannon-wise' what is too far; and what is still possible.

In that respect, a bit more information on the curse of 'turning someone from a feeding' would be helpful too.

What is, per cannon, supposed to be believable vs ridiculous?

[Ambrose Acheron]

Barring the immortal wound curse and a few others, vampiric scarring, and psychosomatic something something (too lazy to look) anything done to a vampire body heals. Even complete annihilation.

Heart removal has been RP'd out in quite a few Acheron turning threads (every 2nd gen and at least 1 3rd gen character) with the vampires splitting their forearms to get their own blood flowing out and then cutting open the victim and removing the heart. The vampire blood enters the bloodstream through both the soft absorbent tissue of the innards and through the wound itself resulting in the human dying and then being reborn as a vampire. Originally the concept was to be more ritualistic with all members being involved in every turning or at least a good number of them. It was going to be sort of an initiation into the lineage but the concept never took hold.

Nifty fact: Without a heart, the human brain continues to function for about 4 minutes though that much trauma to the body results in a state of shock. It took less than thirty seconds for an Aztec priest to actually reach in, locate the heart and tear it loose barehanded. The entire ordeal lasted 4 1/2 minutes for the poor victim.

[Caligrace]

Yeah, I heard about that - but David has his own insight on how lore/things should work, so that's why we were asking him/Josh for their input before continuing with ideas that are forming.

[Amalea]

If it helps, I believe that's one of the things he plans on adding to the Wiki while he's updating RP articles?

[Caligrace]

That does! I keep forgetting he's doing that. ><;

[Azraeth]

So, I was talking to a few friends, trying to come up with some plots - and a question arose.

How far can you go in a turning? Like, could you rip out the throat/heart of the human pre-blood exchange, and they would live, or would that be taking it too far? I know some turnings are brutal, but that also lead me to think of a second thought: Could a vampire survive without their heart? I know that heart wounds, on grid, are considered critical. So, say, someone ripped out Caligrace's heart and kept it for whatever reason. Would she be weaker for the rest of eternity? Would she ever heal without it? Or would she need it?

I have plans to flesh out the turning a little bit more later down the road. I doubt it is going to be terribly intricate, because a lot of turnings have already been played out and I wouldn't want to spoil someone's fun.

However, a few basics:

• The human needs to be bled out. Not necessarily completely drained, (though very very very close) enough for them to be substantially weak and nearing death. The vampire drinking their blood is actually not a requirement.
• The human needs to ingest vampire blood, or somehow otherwise absorb it into their system.
• The human then dies.
• They rise as a vampire, or ghost made flesh*

*This is the tricky part. The length of time, for one. I've seen it roleplayed as instantaneous, but it really shouldn't be, I don't think. And I know a lot of people write the vampire basically coming back in the human body they left behind, but that's not necessarily the case. For one thing, vampires really aren't animated corpses, or they would be zombies. This is also why vampire limbs turn to ash when severed rather than rotting, etc. They aren't really 'real' in the sense that the bodies aren't made out of skin and bone and lasting organic matter. I'd honestly prefer people leave the turning after human death a little hazy until David and I hammer something out. I know he's specifically mentioned having some thoughts on the matter, so I'll want to pick his brain later.

So long as the human does not die prior to getting the vampire blood in their system, it shouldn't be too much of a problem. Once they die though, that's it. The end.

If a character has an organ removed, that organ will turn to ash (or whatever their path equivalent of the same is), and then the organ will regrow in the body. They'd probably be grievously wounded for a while, mind you, but it'd come back.