Blood and Health

Besides the four Traits already mentioned, vampires are measured via two other criteria: Blood Levels and Health Levels.

Blood

Vampires can use ingested blood to perform various supernatural feats.

Characters have 10 Blood Levels, representing the different stages of satiation. Vampires spend Blood Levels to power Disciplines, boost Physical Traits, and heal wounds. They regain Blood Levels by feeding on mortals.

Each night, when a vampire awakens, she expends a Blood Level. She may expend additional Blood Levels to perform supernatural feats.

A vampire may spend blood to heal wounds. Each Health Level healed costs one Blood Level. Healing takes one full turn of concentration to perform.

Each use of a Basic Discipline costs one Blood Level.

Each use of an Advanced Discipline costs two Blood Levels, unless stipulated otherwise.

A vampire may spend blood to imbue herself with superhuman strength and vitality. To add a single point to the Physical Trait costs one Blood Level. Extra points may be added, but each additional point costs one one cumulative Blood Level (the second Physical dot costs two Blood Levels, the third dot three, etc.). Thus, a vampire seeking to increase her Physical Trait by +3 would have to spend six Blood Levels (1 + 2 + 3).

A vampire with no more Blood Levels in her body enters torpor (see below).

Vampires regain blood by feeding on humans. Each turn, a vampire may suck one Blood Level from a human. Humans have 10 Blood Levels in their bodies. When a human is reduced to five or fewer Blood Levels, he is in need of hospitalization. If all blood is drained from him, he dies. More merciful vampires try to restrict themselves to one or two Blood Levels from a given victim.

Hunger: When a vampire has five or fewer Blood Levels, she is hungry. If she sees or smells blood, she must make a frenzy check to avoid immediately seeking to feed. A vampire at two or fewer Blood Levels is ravenous; merely being in the proximity of a blood source (i.e., a human) is cause for a frenzy check, and actually seeing or smelling blood increases the difficulty of the check by one.

Other Creatures: Vampires may feed from animals, but this is unsatisfying. Animal blood is not nearly so nourishing as human blood. Assume that a cow (or similar-sized creature) has five Blood Levels, a dog two, and a cat one.

Vampires may drink from other vampires, and even drain them outright. This is called diablerie, and it is the greatest crime a vampire can commit - at least among Camarilla vampires. It is rumored that if a vampire drinks the blood of an elder vampire, she gains all his power. And, of course, the Methuselahs are known for being able to feed only on other vampires.

Health

Vampires have seven Health Levels, representing various stages of wounding. These are: Light, Light, Medium, Medium, Serious, Serious, and Critical. As wounds are accumulated, check off the wound boxes on the character sheet. Blood Levels may be spent to heal wounds. When all Health Levels are gone, the character goes into torpor (see below).

Pain

Though undead, vampires do feel pain. When a vampire reaches the Medium Health Level, she suffers -1 die to all actions. When she falls to the Serious Health Level, she suffers -2 dice to all actions. A minimum of one die is always rolled, no matter how wounded a vampire is. Vampires in frenzy (or Brujah in the throes of Blood Rage) may ignore pain penalties.

Torpor and Final Death

When a vampire has lost all her Health and/or Blood Levels, she enters a state called torpor. She is still "alive," but is effectively catatonic, incapable of movement or action. To recover from torpor, a vampire must be fed at least one Blood Level.

If a vampire falls into torpor and takes one more injury from an aggravated wound (fire, sunlight, claws, etc.), she dies again - this time permanently. This is called the Final Death, and no vampire may come back from it. A vampire may also be sent to Final Death if, after entering torpor, the vampire is dismembered (decapitated, limbs chopped off, body hacked into pieces, etc.). Dismemberment takes five turns to accomplish.

A character who has been sent to Final Death is out of the game forever; the player must create a new character.