Vampires AND disease?

[Badger]

I got to thinking, what effect if any would HIV and diseases in blood have on a vampire when they drink blood of an infected person?

[Curufea]

I'd go with none. Vampires consist primarily of dead tissue. There's nothing for viruses or bacteria to work with. Nothing for them to digest or be sustained.

[Gadodel]

I'd go with none. Vampires consist primarily of dead tissue. There's nothing for viruses or bacteria to work with. Nothing for them to digest or be sustained.

Perhaps, being a rather mischievous game master; I'd say a mutation would occur. Something more sinister...

[Curufea]

Well, whatever magic that keeps the vampire in an animated state may cause the diseases to become undead too...

[Vondy]

At worst I'd think they would become a carrier for the disease, but not suffer from its effects. This is really more a question of what you want for feel as opposed to logic since vampires are, in of themselves, fantasy. On the other hand, some might feel - or simply prefer - that vampires cannot be a carrier (even if they consumed the blood) by way of a simple necrotic hand-wave. How exactly the blood sustains them is also a matter of person interpretation.

Summation:

1) Carrier.
2) Not a carrier.

But that's just my 2AP.

[steamteck]

I agree its really up to personal interpretation. I've always pretty much felt Vampires were pretty much immune to disease. Tech based Vampires might be different though. However,if they regenerate like crazy I always figured their body defenses for infection and disease worked at the same level though. Immortality and immunity to sickness always seemed to go together to me anyway. As to a carrier supernaturals maybe, certainly legendary precedent, tech vampires if immune probably no IMO.

[BobGreenwade]

Well, whatever magic that keeps the vampire in an animated state may cause the diseases to become undead too...Oh, an undead version of AIDS... that could be such a devious Champions plot twist! :D

[BlueBuddha]

I imagine vampires as having a body in much the state a body has after death, but before decomposition. None of the organs or tissue are alive or functioning, but instead animated by magic. As such, diseases have the same effect they'd have on any inanimate structure. A blood disease would stay alive as long as the blood drank by the vampire stays alive how long that is is up to you. In the vampire rpg, vamps use blood to power their supernatural abilities, at which point, it "goes away," and I've carried that idea into other vampire myths, myself. Drinking the infected blood of a vampire might infect you if drinking the blood of an infected human would. Otherwise, the vamp isn't "infected" itself, so it normally can't be transmitted by sneezing, coughing, etc.

And that would be my 2 AP.

[Lord Liaden]

One episode of the Forever Knight television show from some years back (short premise, vampire trying to "reform" for his past misdeeds) featured an experimental genetically-engineered virus designed to attack HIV, that got loose and proved to be the only disease that affected vampires. Lethally. It was threatening to spread and wipe them out, when one of them accidentally discovered the cure: drink HIV-infected blood.

[csyphrett]

I agree that it depends on the vampire. Lumley's vampires were scared of Leprosy, a disease over vampires don't worry about.
CES

[Kristopher]

Options:

1) Vampires are dead, and the disease organisms die.
2) Vampires' ability to heal includes destroying the microbes to die.
3) Vampires' supernatural state changes the microbes, causing the next plague.
4) It becomes a vampire-specific disease.
5) The vampire is a carrier without suffering from the disease.
6) The vampire suffers from the disease.
7) Etc.

Much of it simply comes down to the nature of vampirism in the setting.

[AliceTheOwl]

In my Via setting, vampirism is a curse, afflicting only two people, and neither of them are actually dead. A side effect of the curse is an immunity to diseases. So, if they got loose in the real world and drank blood from an HIV-infected host, nothing would happen.

If I'd built them differently, it might wind up differently, but I've heard a lot of vampire mythos that have vampires immune to disease. I think the idea is that they're merely ingesting the blood, not everything else with it.

[Kristopher]

In my Via setting, vampirism is a curse, afflicting only two people, and neither of them are actually dead. A side effect of the curse is an immunity to diseases. So, if they got loose in the real world and drank blood from an HIV-infected host, nothing would happen.

If I'd built them differently, it might wind up differently, but I've heard a lot of vampire mythos that have vampires immune to disease. I think the idea is that they're merely ingesting the blood, not everything else with it.

Maybe, but it's kinda hard to drink blood without getting all the little stuff that's in the blood.

[AliceTheOwl]

It is, but if it's not absorbed into the body, it would be discarded as waste. I suppose it implies a more advanced sorting mechanism for what's waste or what isn't, but these writers also imply vampirism is an advanced evolutionary step.

[Curufea]

I agree that it depends on the vampire. Lumley's vampires were scared of Leprosy, a disease over vampires don't worry about.
CES

Lumley's vampires weren't undead though, but parasitic mutants.

[Kristopher]

Even "undead" doesn't mean the same thing between different settings. Is it dead stuff that's up and moving? Is it coming back to life as something new? Is it in between? Neither?

[Gadodel]

5) The vampire is a carrier without suffering from the disease.
.

I like this option.

[Curufea]

On a side note, I've just started the 4th book in the Sookie Stackhouse series and she's raised some interesting questions on werewolves-
1) What happens when to weres mate while in animal form? Will they have humans or animals?
2) What happens to pregnant weres when they change form?

[Gadodel]

On a side note, I've just started the 4th book in the Sookie Stackhouse series and she's raised some interesting questions on werewolves-
1) What happens when to weres mate while in animal form? Will they have humans or animals?
2) What happens to pregnant weres when they change form?
1. I'd say that the offspring 'prefers' their animal form over their other forms. Essentially, a personality issue.
2. I'd say that the offspring will have greater control over their shapeshifting abilities as they mature. I'm not sure how I'd do this in terms of game mechanics, but I'd figure something out.

[Curufea]

It's more the fact that a pregnancy is nine months long, and the moon is full every month - does the baby change in the womb along with the mother?

[Doc Democracy]

OK, as pointed out when you begin looking scientifically at supernatural phenomena you can essentially say what you want and the supernaturalness of the situation covers everything.

One option for the vampire scenario that wasn't mentioned was that the infected blood does not provide the nutrition required or tastes bad or even gives the vampire an upset tummy. These all follow simple aspects of spoiled food. All of the other options are open as well - depending on how the GM wants things to play out.

As far as the werewolf thing goes, it would be possible to rule in a number of ways. Pregnancy could be a way of fixing form for the period of the pregnancy (evolution normally works these things out to allow survival of babies - or weeds out the things that do not!) and whatever form the baby was concieved in is the form in which it would be born (with or without the were features). You could rule that the shapechange infection is automatically transmitted to offspring and thus the foetus changes with the mother.

In evolutionary terms you could rule that the transmission of were genes is a new form of offspring generation and thus becoming a were either switches off gamete production and results in sterile forms that can only propogate by creating new weres or that shapechanging causes embryos or foetuses to be aborted.

Any of these could result in story potential.


Doc

[ZombiePope]

The vampire can't even be a carrier for the disease, since it needs nourishment to multiply, and cannot gain that from undead flesh.

[ZombiePope]

1. I'd say that the offspring 'prefers' their animal form over their other forms. Essentially, a personality issue.
2. I'd say that the offspring will have greater control over their shapeshifting abilities as they mature. I'm not sure how I'd do this in terms of game mechanics, but I'd figure something out.
This was done in Eberron, those descended from weres were called... something. Ic an't remember. They did have limited, yet moar controlled, shapeshifting.

[Kristopher]

The vampire can't even be a carrier for the disease, since it needs nourishment to multiply, and cannot gain that from undead flesh.

1) Being a carrier only requires that the microorganism be able to survive in the carrier and somehow spread to a new host from the carrier.

2) Depends on the nature of vampirism in the setting. Not all vampires are "walking dead flesh".

[Badger]

1) Being a carrier only requires that the microorganism be able to survive in the carrier and somehow spread to a new host from the carrier.

2) Depends on the nature of vampirism in the setting. Not all vampires are "walking dead flesh".



to further elaborate

1) Maybe HIV is out, but there would still be plenty of diseases that could be caught from dead bodies.


Note: For me, personally, I've always considered you typical fictional vampires to be somewhere between living and dead, in some way.

[Kristopher]

to further elaborate

1) Maybe HIV is out, but there would still be plenty of diseases that could be caught from dead bodies.


Note: For me, personally, I've always considered you typical fictional vampires to be somewhere between living and dead, in some way.

Hey, buddy, I'll have you know that I'm no typical fictional vampire!

[Badger]

Hey, buddy, I'll have you know that I'm no typical fictional vampire!



Yeah, yeah.......dawn already?!

*HISSS*


:rolleyes:

[Vondy]

Yeah, yeah.......dawn already?!

*HISSS*


:rolleyes:

Three words: John Carpenter's Vampires.

So many scenes were so obviously shot in broad daylight with a bad filtering effect, that its more a question of vampires being viewed through sunglasses than their actually being exposed to sunlight. When you remove the filter... then they burn.

"Oh my God! Vampires! We're dead meat!"

"Just take off your sunglasses, idiot!"

Sorry. You'd have to have a love of supernally bad horror flicks and a Mystery Science Theater 3000 sense of humor to get that, or find it funny...

[Badger]

Three words: John Carpenter's Vampires.

So many scenes were so obviously shot in broad daylight with a bad filtering effect, that its more a question of vampires being viewed through sunglasses than their actually being exposed to sunlight. When you remove the filter... then they burn.

"Oh my God! Vampires! We're dead meat!"

"Just take off your sunglasses, idiot!"

Sorry. You'd have to have a love of supernally bad horror flicks and a Mystery Science Theater 3000 sense of humor to get that, or find it funny...


*badger with sunglasses*

Badger: Here vampire, come get me.

*Vampire charges badger, badger waits till last possible second....and removes sunglasses*

Vampire: (flame bursting) RRROOOOOOORRRRRR

:eg:

[Kristopher]

Didn't mean to derail the thead. I was just making a joke based off of the typo of "...you typical fictional vampires..." instead of "...your typical fictional vampires".