[WIP] Belua Sanguinare Revisited

[MofoMojo]

OK,

 

So to me vampirism is pretty much a "stuck in time" at the state you transformed kind of thing. Without going into deep detail vampire's need blood to stay this way because it contains "Lifeforce". Being a partly PHYSICAL creature, with most of theirselves manifest in the "ASTRAL" or "ETHEREAL" plane requires that they gain this lifeforce by physical means.i.e. Blood. Which is why only the blood of living creatures can sustain them, as once you are dead, you have no lifeforce. The Vampire cannot generate their own. Metaphysics posits that the "Astral/Ethereal" planes are what shape our reality. That changes to those planes ultimately form the reality as we know it and that the physical body is just a vehicle for the Astral/Ethereal form to inhabit. But humans are SO closely tied to their physical bodies that when they die, their "souls" or "Astral/Ethereal" bodies go elsewhere. While the Vampire cannot generate it's own lifeforce it is this very absence of this capability that effectively freezes their Ethereal form in it's permanent state, thereby causing the vampire to appear not to age, as all things derive their physical shape from their ethereal form. As vampires age, they gain a better understanding of the nature of their Ethereal selves and are capable of becoming better and better at manipulating it at will. This is what ultimately allows vampire's to shape their bodies into other forms, take on mist like qualities, etc,.

 

Silver, is actually a rumored to damage the ethereal form, however for all other living beings there is a connection to their ethereal body and the physical, namely referred to as a "Silver Chord". If this chord is cut, which it is in Vampire's, the ability to regenerate parts of the damaged ethereal form is more difficult. Lore has it that mirrors reflect the soul and that the reason, in some lore, Vampire's have no reflection is because they have no soul. I would posit that the reason they have no reflection is because the link to their etheral bodies is severed and thus, there is nothing to reflect. The vampire is literally inhabitting their physical form as PURELY a vessel. Some metaphysicists/theosophists believe that the Ethereal form IS THE SOUL.

 

Vampire's in and of themselves are not Evil, the way they choose to live their lives is what determines whether they are evil, just like anyone else. I could go on and on, talk about how they get their strength, better sight, live forever, potentially fly, levitate, influence others, but this is already going to be a long post...I can tell. Point is, on a personal level I agree on a lot of these things. Like I said in a previous post, if I wanted to make a mod based purely upon my own thoughts (and the book I was writing 22 year ago), it probably wouldn't be that much fun.

 

As far as the Mod goes. Vampire's may or may not be "Evil" but they are most certainly feared. There are two major factions that are out to destroy them. The Silver Hand, and the Vigilants of Stendarr. They think Vampire's are evil, the people of Tamriel think that vampire's are evil, and in TES lore, they most assuredly ARE evil having been created that way. We are trying to stay somewhat lore friendly, although we've taken great liberties of our own, some of this to keep things interesting, some of this to keep things balanced.

 

So who knows, maybe we do REMOVE the Insta Kill at Sire, and instead add Insta Kill when you're full own starved regardless of your level. I can speak to Jakisthe's idea that the Sire is InstaKill for actually the very reason you mention Leeira, that at the point they've become a Sire (which means King for those that aren't sure) they have lost ALL humanity, wrapping themselves up in feeding and killing. Please note, our vampires REQUIRE killing to become higher levels. Managing whether or not the vampire chooses to only kill "Bad People" for the sake of keeping track of humanity is a little beyond scope. Although...I kinda like the idea. lol. There is a morality value associated with every actor....hmmm....ok, SCOPE CREEP!!!

 

-MM

Edited March 1, 2012 by MofoMojo

[phil11]

OK,

 

So to me vampirism is pretty much a "stuck in time" at the state you transformed kind of thing. Without going into deep detail vampire's need blood to stay this way because it contains "Lifeforce". Being a partly PHYSICAL creature, with most of theirselves manifest in the "ASTRAL" or "ETHEREAL" plane requires that they gain this lifeforce by physical means.i.e. Blood. Which is why only the blood of living creatures can sustain them, as once you are dead, you have no lifeforce. The Vampire cannot generate their own. Metaphysics posits that the "Astral/Ethereal" planes are what shape our reality. That changes to those planes ultimately form the reality as we know it and that the physical body is just a vehicle for the Astral/Ethereal form to inhabit. But humans are SO closely tied to their physical bodies that when they die, their "souls" or "Astral/Ethereal" bodies go elsewhere. While the Vampire cannot generate it's own lifeforce it is this very absence of this capability that effectively freezes their Ethereal form in it's permanent state, thereby causing the vampire to appear not to age, as all things derive their physical shape from their ethereal form. As vampires age, they gain a better understanding of the nature of their Ethereal selves and are capable of becoming better and better at manipulating it at will. This is what ultimately allows vampire's to shape their bodies into other forms, take on mist like qualities, etc,.

 

Silver, is actually a rumored to damage the ethereal form, however for all other living beings there is a connection to their ethereal body and the physical, namely referred to as a "Silver Chord". If this chord is cut, which it is in Vampire's, the ability to regenerate parts of the damaged ethereal form is more difficult. Lore has it that mirrors reflect the soul and that the reason, in some lore,they have no reflection is Vampire's have no reflection is because they have no soul. I would posit that the reason because the link to their etheral bodies is severed and thus, there is nothing to reflect. The vampire is literally inhabitting their physical form as PURELY a vessel. Some metaphysicists/theosophists believe that the Ethereal form IS THE SOUL.

 

Vampire's in and of themselves are not Evil, the way they choose to live their lives is what determines whether they are evil, just like anyone else. I could go on and on, talk about how they get their strength, better sight, live forever, potentially fly, levitate, influence others, but this is already going to be a long post...I can tell. Point is, on a personal level I agree on a lot of these things. Like I said in a previous post, if I wanted to make a mod based purely upon my own thoughts (and the book I was writing 22 year ago), it probably wouldn't be that much fun.

 

As far as the Mod goes. Vampire's may or may not be "Evil" but they are most certainly feared. There are two major factions that are out to destroy them. The Silver Hand, and the Vigilants of Stendarr. They think Vampire's are evil, the people of Tamriel think that vampire's are evil, and in TES lore, they most assuredly ARE evil having been created that way. We are trying to stay somewhat lore friendly, although we've taken great liberties of our own, some of this to keep things interesting, some of this to keep things balanced.

 

So who knows, maybe we do REMOVE the Insta Kill at Sire, and instead add Insta Kill when you're full own starved regardless of your level. I can speak to Jakisthe's idea that the Sire is InstaKill for actually the very reason you mention Leeira, that at the point they've become a Sire (which means King for those that aren't sure) they have lost ALL humanity, wrapping themselves up in feeding and killing. Please note, our vampires REQUIRE killing to become higher levels. Managing whether or not the vampire chooses to only kill "Bad People" for the sake of keeping track of humanity is a little beyond scope. Although...I kinda like the idea. lol. There is a morality value associated with every actor....hmmm....ok, SCOPE CREEP!!!

 

-MM

 

Very interesting. Well, I don't mean to derail the original modding intentions with a philosophy of vampire metaphysics, but I do have a few things to say about this. First, it seems to me that your position is strictly platonic in that there is some metaphysical 'realm of forms' that dictates all corporeal counterparts. Your view also seems to be that the ethereal form is indeed the soul (How could they be separate, unless there are multiple metaphysical identities superimposed?) and that the difference between vampires and humans is that humans' souls are bound to their bodies while vampires' are not; for vampires, the body is merely a vessel. However, you also imply that the ethereal/metaphysical self can change, which is contrary to the typical idea of a soul as an immutable entity. In this vein, I don't understand how not having a lifeforce would cause your metaphysical or ethereal self to be frozen in a permanent state, since it ought to always be in a permanent state a la the nature of the soul. Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding your position and your distinctions between the abstract, metaphysical, or ethereal and the corporeal, tangible, and actual.

This for example: "they gain a better understanding of the nature of their Ethereal selves and are capable of becoming better and better at manipulating it at will".

Don't you mean that by better understanding their ethereal selves they are better at manipulating their corporeal selves? They can change the vessel in which their souls inhabit, not their souls themselves..... right? Typically in most philosophy, the metaphysical is unchanging while the corporeal is changing. Anyway, sorry for pedantic nitpicking if it came across that way.

 

 

Another thing for all those who keep referring to vampires 'losing their humanity' as they progress up the ranks-- this is the idea I take issue with since I consider Vampires to be a separate species already. That is, unless I assume people are intending the phrase 'losing humanity' to be metaphorical rather than literal. (As in not less homo sapien, but merely less humane and moral.) After all, there wouldn't seem to be anything genetically different about a vampire from a Fledgling to a Sire, right? I don't view becoming an older, more experienced, more powerful vampire as necessarily losing morality either, let alone genetically distancing oneself from humanity any further than what happened from the outset of vampirism.

 

LOL @ scope creep. I can imagine trying to tag every NPC in the game with some number on a scale of moral righteousness. How many thousands of NPCs are there...?

Edited March 1, 2012 by phil11

[MofoMojo]

 

Very interesting. Well, I don't mean to derail the original modding intentions with a philosophy of vampire metaphysics, but I do have a few things to say about this. First, it seems to me that your position is strictly platonic in that there is some metaphysical 'realm of forms' that dictates all corporeal counterparts. Your view also seems to be that the ethereal form is indeed the soul (How could they be separate, unless there are multiple metaphysical identities superimposed?) and that the difference between vampires and humans is that humans' souls are bound to their bodies while vampires' are not; for vampires, the body is merely a vessel.

 

We're derailing. TRAIN WRECK AHEAD. lol. For starters these are based on theories I developed nearly 25 years ago, and then started to tie in with a book I began writing abount 3 years later that uses christianity, the nature of sin, and immortality to derive the first vampire. I don't really have the answer on the Soul. In those studies the Astral planes, the Ethereal Plane, and other planes of existence we all have our own bodies in seperate but characteristically joined together. The soul could be one of those on a higher plane, not necessarily. Quite honestly, I just like to pose the theory of vampire's reflections being a reflection of the soul related to the disconnection of the physical and astral/ethereal bodies because some think that those bodies are the soul. To me personally, the idea that a mirror reflects the soul is ludicrous, as molecular structures simply have no soul, and the mirror is just a reflection of light emitted bouncing off those objects and onto the mirrors surface.

 

However, you also imply that the ethereal/metaphysical self can change, which is contrary to the typical idea of a soul as an immutable entity. In this vein, I don't understand how not having a lifeforce would cause your metaphysical or ethereal self to be frozen in a permanent state, since it ought to always be in a permanent state a la the nature of the soul. Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding your position and your distinctions between the abstract, metaphysical, or ethereal and the corporeal, tangible, and actual.

 

The idea is that it's not a function of the soul to generate lifeforce, it's a function of the body and that as we age naturally, the astral and ethereal bodies tend to mirror our physical body. With a vampire, their physical body has lost that capacity, the chord broken, and the vampire's conciousness resides nearly 100% in the Astral body which would be locked at the state that the body was in at death (for a time). The Astral form is using the physical body as a vessel, for which it needs lifeforce to keep from decaying, reanimate, etc,. (in my book, vampire's actually have heartbeats, etc,. it's required to pump life throughout the body along with the force that keeps you alive). As the vampire grows older they began to gain a grasp of the "rules" of the Astral plane and understand that altering their astral form causes parallel shifts in the physical world.

 

This for example: "they gain a better understanding of the nature of their Ethereal selves and are capable of becoming better and better at manipulating it at will".

Don't you mean that by better understanding their ethereal selves they are better at manipulating their corporeal selves? They can change the vessel for their souls, not their souls themselves..... right?

 

That is right. But it is by manipulation of their ethereal/astral selves that the corporeal selves follow suit. I don't know what a soul is. I don't know if it can be changed in shape, if it has a shape, or if it's the Ethereal, the Astral, or other higher "body" so to speak. I left behind much of that study as I grew older. I learned that time was better spent on other things than understanding what others thought about those things.

 

Typically in most philosophy, the metaphysical is unchanging while the corporeal is changing. Anyway, sorry for pedantic nitpicking if it came across that way.

 

No apology needed! I enjoy the trips down memory lane. Realize a lot of this was formulated as an impressionable teenager aspiring to look for knowledge in all places.

 

Another thing for all those who keep referring to vampires 'losing their humanity' as they progress up the ranks-- this is the idea I take issue with since I consider Vampires to be a separate species already. That is, unless I assume people are intending the phrase 'losing humanity' to be metaphorical rather than literal. (As in not less homo sapien, but merely less humane and moral.) After all, there wouldn't seem to be anything genetically different about a vampire from a Fledgling to a Sire, right? I don't view becoming an older, more experienced, more powerful vampire as necessarily losing morality either, let alone genetically distancing oneself from humanity any further than what happened from the outset of vampirism.

 

Well, I think that depends on whether vampire's are considered to derive from human change. i.e. Was there ever a "Vampire Species" so to speak, vs. vampire's we're human that became vampires. I hate referring to old material but my heart returns to it always. There were certainly "vampire like" creatures in mythos. The very first female in Jewish mythology was not Eve, but Lillith. Unable to conceive of child she murdered and drank the blood of the children conceived between Adam and Eve. Having never tasted the Apple she still retained immortality, for it was eating of the fruit from the tree of knowledge that drove God to strike Adam and Eve and all descendants with mortality. However there's a loop hole...Yeah we're full on derailed at this point.

 

Here's where what my book posited (and this was written as a book of fiction, not fact). I hate even bringing up the idea here since I really like it and will one day finish it....

 

In Christianity we have Jesus whose very blood, he spoke, would grant ever lasting life. Yes, this was much just a metaphor, but let's take it at it's word. It is thought in some sects of Christianity that when Christ died on the cross, he did so to erase the Original sins of all of humanity alive at that exact moment in time. I was studying/researching with a group that was ...say...mystic christian, much like there are mystic Jews known as Qaballists to be quick about it. Jesus couldn't just erase their sin, he had to take it unto himself. This was the moment when christ had his doubt, and ...i forgot so editing this back in just now... the sun was blotted from the sky. When he died, he took Original Sin and the sins of humanity up to that point with him.They believed that he actually went to hell, because of those sins, for three days until he arose (again because of his immortal blood). During his time in hell, those sins were washed away.

 

Now recall, that legend has it that when Christ was on the cross he was pierced in the side, bleeding, and that his blood was actually collected in a vessel, we'll call "The Holy Grail". The problem with that blood, is that it was awash with Sin, and would quite literally bore anyone who drank of it, immortality, but it was stained....and.... we'll stop there.

 

There's a lot of various mythos we could pull from, Jewish mythos, Chinese, Russian, nearly every major ethnic mythology in humanity has some variation of Vampire, and I think as humans have "civilized" to some extant, so have the myths. We've humanized the idea Vampires, whether right or wrong. Not everyone will be happy about it.

 

-MM

Edited March 1, 2012 by MofoMojo

[MofoMojo]

Oh and Phil I thought you'd get a kick out this but didn't include it above..

 

LOL @ scope creep. I can imagine trying to tag every NPC in the game with some number on a scale of moral righteousness. How many thousands of NPCs are there...?

 

Outside of the ones that the game generates dynamically there are 5118 NPCs and 533 Levelled Actors.

 

And morality actually DOES play at least a small role in the game. The morality level of your companions dictates what they will do when commanded (Steal something small, steal something expensive, kill someone, etc,.)

 

-MM

[MofoMojo]

Ignoring all those walls of text, let's get back on track. If you have something interestign to say about the above, by all means do so, but I do want to try to keep this more about the mod, and not personal thoughts and beliefs (at least not my personal thoughts and beliefs).

 

As I mentioned above, I went ahead and created three additional spells to slow time by varying amounts. They all drain stamina at the exact same rate. To me the idea is you're exerting just as much to move quickly, but at lower levels you're just not that quick. So again for the record

 

Risen 10% slow

Master 20% slow

Progenitor 30% slow (the original)

Sire 40% slow

 

To take into consideration the idea that just beause you're older doesn't mean you should be recognized as a vampire by the general public... I can buy that but it will cost two things. 1) Jakisthe's approval and 2) Starving yourself will be a clear indicator that you're a vampire and you will be KOS in this state. I force "Detect Blood" on you when you're 75% starved or more. There's a VERY visual indicator that you better get your butt some food and soon, if you don't want to be KOS in the city. It is NOT that hard to feed. You can do it in combat if you're quick about and take the opportunity. This would also mean, that I may remove the idea of allowing Sire's to conceal themselves as "Vampires" which was originally the plan when Sire's meant instant KOS unless you were channelling or had the spell activated.

 

So with Jakisthe's approval you can have it one of two ways. I'll spell out both considerations again:

 

1) ONLY at Sire you were KOS but had a very reasonable toggleable spell (which drained mana slowly at 1/sec) that would conceal you. Or

2) You are KOS at ANY level in which you are starving (75% hungered or more)

 

The only challenge with #2 is it changes the dynamic of lowering levels. We wanted to have the ability to lower from Sire to Progenitor and while some don't like the idea and can, ultimately, mod that behavior on their own, we didn't want the idea of delevelling yourself to be a press "T" or "SLEEP" waiting game, which I think option #2 would influence people to do. Hmmm...maybe if we take #2 we still include the spell to conceal...hrmmmm...how does that fit....not well. Argh.

 

Thoughts? I need help on this one.

 

-MM

Edited March 1, 2012 by MofoMojo

[FranzLiszt]

Just want to say, I admire you guys' project greatly. The only reason I made an account on the forums was for this topic.

Anywho

I have been reading this topic with great interest

.

I was thinking, might it be a good idea to combine to KOS settings?

Maybe the KOS could apply to the different vampire levels at different rates such as:

At Fledgling KOS could apply when 98% starved

Risen: 90-80% starvation

Master: 75% starvation

Progenitor : 60% starvation

Sire: 40% starvation

 

Just a thought. I can not think of a way of demoting though, except maybe if you demoted based on how long you were in the KOS range. The reasoning could be that you devolved to avoid detection.

[Darksun45230]

Is it beyond the scope of this mod to introduce appearance changes with Vampires? For example, paler skin for non-beast races such as Imperial, Breton, Nord, and Elves, extended fangs or sharper claws for beast-races, and eye color effects.

[MofoMojo]

Just want to say, I admire you guys' project greatly. The only reason I made an account on the forums was for this topic.

Anywho

I have been reading this topic with great interest

.

I was thinking, might it be a good idea to combine to KOS settings?

Maybe the KOS could apply to the different vampire levels at different rates such as:

At Fledgling KOS could apply when 98% starved

Risen: 90-80% starvation

Master: 75% starvation

Progenitor : 60% starvation

Sire: 40% starvation

 

Just a thought. I can not think of a way of demoting though, except maybe if you demoted based on how long you were in the KOS range. The reasoning could be that you devolved to avoid detection.

 

Wow FranzLiszt, I'm honored that this topic triggered you to create an account. That means a lot to me. So, I can understand tiering the percentages. But maybe in reverse. i.e.

 

Risen: 60%

Master: 75%

Progenitor: 90%

Sire: 100%

 

If we did something along those routes, it would be an indicated that at higher levels perhaps you have more control. Although I could see it the other way around as perhaps craving blood more and more the older you get. Either way could work if we chose it. That being said, it doesn't fix the root problem of encouraging the player to simply "wait around" rather than play the game if they intend to starve themselves to lower levels. I really want them to not feel like being starved means they have to be a shut in while they wait it out to derank themselves. I won't them to play the game, not hit "T" or "SLEEP" it off. Jakisthe's idea's have centered around actually making starvation and progression a REALTIME mechanic, not GAMETIME and that's actually very doable so long as the game doesn't keep track of the time based on when you load your game save. But then I'm afraid that might put people off of it entirely.

 

So how do we balance starving, KOS, and the multiple levels without encouraging players to just hit "T" to derank? That brings us full circle to a suggestion Phill11 made earlier which is that it also requires a ritual/quest to complete to derank. Perhaps that's the answer.

 

Still open for debate.

 

-MM

Edited March 1, 2012 by MofoMojo

[MofoMojo]

Is it beyond the scope of this mod to introduce appearance changes with Vampires? For example, paler skin for non-beast races such as Imperial, Breton, Nord, and Elves, extended fangs or sharper claws for beast-races, and eye color effects.

 

You know I'd say it _WAS_ as it hasn't been discussed but in reality it's not necessarily out of reach. I have no modelling experience. The truth of it is that it's probably quite easy since your character is literally assigned a Vampire race equivalent to your original race. If you were an Imperial, you're now an VampireImperialRace. I imagine (but have not investigated) that there might be models already for each of those races that could be tweaked, or if they just reference the ImperialRace models we could replace them with our own modifications. I think Jakisthe wanted to get into some modelling, no pun intended.

 

So is it planned, not that I'm aware of in my discussions with Jakisthe. Is it out of scope? Quite literally, yes, simply because it hasn't been scoped. Is it out of reach? Not at all and is a wonderful idea for future implementation. I know you wanted to have some specific claw like attacks and other things if I remember a few pages back correctly.

 

-MM

 

Man I wish I could release a preview to you guys and get some raw feedback.

 

Edit:

Oh and another question for feedback. Do you think if an NPC has garlic on them you shouldn't be able to feed from them? I'm currently creating a side on plugin which modifies loot tables of various NPCs to provide a chance that they'll have Garlic on them. Up front are Silverhand and Vigilants of Stendarr which have a decent chance of carrying garlic. Garlic actually disables the attack bonuses you get against that NPC in an attempt to signify that garlic protects the person who is carrying it. What about ALSO disabling the ability to feed from people carrying it? What I don't know is if loot is determined WHEN the NPC is loaded, or WHEN the NPC is looted. If it's on looted, then...well, that will stink.

Edited March 1, 2012 by MofoMojo

[Darksun45230]

 

Edit:

Oh and another question for feedback. Do you think if an NPC has garlic on them you shouldn't be able to feed from them? I'm currently creating a side on plugin which modifies loot tables of various NPCs to provide a chance that they'll have Garlic on them. Up front are Silverhand and Vigilants of Stendarr which have a decent chance of carrying garlic. Garlic actually disables the attack bonuses you get against that NPC in an attempt to signify that garlic protects the person who is carrying it. What about ALSO disabling the ability to feed from people carrying it? What I don't know is if loot is determined WHEN the NPC is loaded, or WHEN the NPC is looted. If it's on looted, then...well, that will stink.

 

As long as I'm informed that an NPC has garlic on them, for example, a sentence in the left-hand corner saying, The person before you stinks of garlic then I have no problem with it. Just another opportunity for the player to react to an encounter.

 

That being said, how many Vigilants are vampires to encounter in our blood-lust? Do you plan to implement patrolling parties?