Post by MugiwaraBlair on Sept 26, 2013 4:43:55 GMT
Here's how I'm going with my vamps so far. Mostly realistic and grounded but with some vague hints of maybe mystical, maybe extremely "evolved" biology.
-> They have a bloodlust akin to addiction, of various severity between individuals, from basically just really liking it to being weakened by withdrawal and going mad(der). But regardless of the level of addiction, stronger vamps need/want more blood. Weak newly turned can be fine for a week with a small glass but ancients can have to drain several bodies.
-> The blood need not be human, what kind is better is a matter of taste. Some are also flesh eaters due to either preferring to eat blood saturated meat over draining it or just because they're wicked bastards like that.
-> Their bites marks are NOT pretty little holes and they don't "straw it" through their fangs. They rip through the throat and gorge on the resulting fountain. Unless they want the victim to survive for whatever reason, of course.
-> Their social status (among themselves) is tied to personal power and closeness to the "source", which overlap the vast majority of the time. Pureblooded are higher than Sired but being being closer to the source can prevail over that. For exemple being turned by an Elder would be better than being that Elder's grand children or somesuch, since it'd be Elder-you instead of Elder-elder children-elder grandchildren. Stronger with Age also applies, a centuries old Sired is stronger than a decades old Pureblooded.
Since they're (relatively) realistic, most traditional weaknesses don't apply.
-> Wooden stakes just hurt like another stab wound, there's no reason being stabbed by wood would work if being stabbed by metal doesn't.
-> Sunlight not only doesn't affect them, their regen prevents and retroactively repairs radiation damages, which is why they're pale and stay like that.
-> Silver is as useless as any other substance, no senseless folklore magical allergies there.
-> Likewise with garlic. Of course just because it's not lethally poisonous doesn't mean having one's mouth filled with garlic doesn't suck.
-> Salt won't stop them any more than it would stop you. Salt buckshot still fucking hurts though.
-> They can cross running just fine, it'd be just silly if they couldn't.
-> Blessed objects, holy water and crucifixes/crosses don't do jack either since religion is as much BS there as it is here.
-> Crossroads would even siller than running water.
-> Counting small objects sillier still.
-> They might ask permission to enter out of...manners I guess (or affability) but they certainly don't need it.
-> Fire works but it's not a "weakness" per se, but being turned to ash tends to kill pretty much anything so it works. More powerful ones burn slower, and some can heal from being ashes, though most of those ones need blood to do it.
-> Decapitation will insta-kill *most* of them. Some will need the head to be damaged further. Some will just "remote control" their body and re-attach it. The few more powerful ones are pretty much outright unkillable period.
They also don't have most of the telling signs, for the shared reason that they make zero sense.
-> They have reflections and shadows.
-> They have a heartbeat, a breath and brain activity, they're not undead.
-> Many of them are unaturally graceful and/or skilled. However here it's not caused by being a vampire exactly, it's due to having had a *lot* of practice. They walk gracefully because they've perfected walking, so to speak. And so on. A human vampire hunter isn't gonna match a centuries or millenia old warlord in a swordfight.
-> They have rare or unatural eye colors, like red, violet/purple, black, silver, gold, clear pale blue, etc
-> Their body temperature tends on the low side but they gain limited control over it as they "age". Severe exertion also raises it.
More miscellaneous traits :
-> Sired either start aging much slower or stop aging outright once they turned, depending on how thin spread the Sire was. PureBlooded mature and then stop aging when they reach around 18 to around 30, depending on the individual. How old they actually are when they reach those "ages" also varies.
-> Sired are 100% sterile, Pureblooded are kinda like Tolkien elves in that regard, more or less sterile in day-to-day practice but it's possible for them to breed, it's just hard and happens ver rarely from a short-lived perspective.
-> The reason vamps don't rule the world despite being a superior species by most if not all standards is because they'd need to constantly bolster their numbers to maintain dominance and too much vamps would eventually make everything else extinct, and no vamp food means no vamps sooner or later. They know that because they tried before.
-> Sires are always more powerful than their Sired since they're both older and by definition, closer to the source.
-> Some of the more perceptive animals, like dogs say, can sense something is wrong with them. Except if they're among those who have "kinship" with animals, those can be detected but animals won't "tell".
-> They can be semi-killed into a revivable state, provided they're at a certain level of power. For exemple lowlier ones with pole jammed through their hearts are staying down until someone removes it and gives them blood to kickstart the healing. Very strong ones who can survive being moderately cut to pieces/dismembered/beheaded but who can't do the "remote control" trick need to be put back together by someone else to rise again.
Powers & Abilities:
-> Super Strength
-> Super Speed
-> Super Reflexes
-> Super Toughness
-> Healing Factor and Resistance/Immunity to diseases and poisons
-> Super Senses/Night Vision
-> Slow Aging/Ageless
-> Clawed Fingernails
-> Wall Crawling (through a combination of strength, speed and claws)
-> Nigh (or not so nigh) invulnerability, details below.
-> Hypnosis/Emotional Control & Dream Weaving, only some Elders can do those.
Levels of Endurance to Injury : On the lowest level, they can be killed by anything that can kill humans, it just takes a bit (or a lot) more of it. Some can be shot and stabbed all you want and they'll survive so long as they can maintain a certain level of structural integrity. Some can re-attach limbs or even "stitch" their torn torsos or piece themselves back on if bisected. Then there's those who (barely) survive decapitation, then those who know the RC trick, then those who can come back from bloody chunks, then from gory salsa, then from even cellular death (like being burned to ashes), then from a single drop of blood, to From A Single Cell, then those who will only die from absolute physical annihilation, The Eldest. Then there's The Abysses, who just don't die, period, technically to a couple exceptions. Then there's the not-exactly-vampires/more-like precursors-or-progenitors :Naram-Sin, Enki, Ninurta/Ningirsu/Nergal, Bau and Morrigan/Ereshkigal. Names with / instead of a comma are the same "person", though they of course all have lots of names and appellations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found my note-sheet ^^ (slightly modified to accomodate it's new use)
NEWBLOODS-> the ones who are relatively recent, newly born or newly turned enough to be understandably unheard of within the vamp community at large.
YOUNGLINGS-> the newbloods who have been officially integrated into the community.
RIPENED-> comprises most of the vampire population
OLD ONES-> those who are respected by the ripened out of sheer age
ELDERS-> the wizened old ones, the perceived leaders are this
ANCESTRALS-> as a general rule, these are the ones Elders would remember from their Youngling days as already being very old back then
ANCIENTS-> they're so old that even some Ancestrals think they're just a myth
ABYSSALS-> those of such advanced age that Ancients consider contemplating it to be mind-boggling
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well Newbloods are literally new, either infant and young kids or the human age if they were just sired. Younglings just passed an induction ceremony so they're not really older than that. Ripened vary in-between about 70 years to a century of having been a vampire to 2-3 hundred years old. Old Ones average around half to 3/4 of a millenia old. Elders are basically the 1000 something years olds. Ancestrals are several millenia old. Ancients were alive in the mesolithic, ie. 10 to 20 thousand years ago. Abyssals were made into the 1st vampires from Hominini in the mid-neogene period.
And of course Naram-Sin, Enki, Ningirsu, Bau and Ereshkigal, those who made the Abyssals, are themselves much older than that.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mid-neogene means 6-7 million years ago, for those who aren't epic book nerds like me
Why earliest in parentheses ?
Also if you're wondering, those who should looks like cavemen (so to speak, hominini predate australopithecus, so not yet cavemen) have limited control over their physical structure, which is a fancy way to say they have a "One-Winged Angel" form and a side effect of that ability is that they can choose to look however they want so long as it's humanoid(ish).
And if you're also wondering how old the archaic named ones are, they waited for primeval goo to produce something they could "work with", ie. make vampires from. Furthermore, since this was planned, you can imagine they had decided to do that long before starting to wait. Since you don't plan to wait for hundreds of millions of years unless you're really sure of what you're doing. Unless you're so stupidly old that such a timeframe is trivial to you, in which case the previous argument is moot because they'd be silly ancient anyway.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Were/Wif/Waif Wolves time.
First thing, it's not actually "wolves" per se, it's more like a broader genus of "generic" predator, like hyenas or Miacoidea (the common ancestor of felines and canines) with dominant canine-like traits. This is mostly to explain why there's only "wolf" werebeasts and not other kinds. The (or one of the, may make a couple alternatives) scientific name for them is Menaplastos, roughly "remolded by the moon". It's caused by a sentient symbiotic hive-mind(ish) virus that reacts especially strongly to something in moonlight (probably something about the radiation wavelength or the like), said "something" is only present in that fictional world, most likely due to something on the moon's surface that was put there by whatever is responsible for the hive-mind symbiote. It's also hereditary, being infected is incurable since you essentially change species.
-------------------
Possible Forms :
-------------------
-> wolf-man : hairy human with smalls clawed nails and slightly longer canine teeth
-> wolf : self explanatory, it's just a wolf, though it retains the super toughness, regen and other powers if the individual has them
-> dire wolf : like a wolf but bigger and bulkier, kinda like a doogy-looking bear or a warg
-> werewolf : humanoid with a lupine-like head, like in skyrim or underworld
-> dire werewolf : like werewolf but on lightning bruiser mode and rabid/feral
-> multiple: a number of them can shift into more than one form, as a general rule those with the werewolf form can do the others too, bar the dire were form which is exclusive to those carrying an especially pure/undiluted strain. Those can assume any of the others and are overall much stronger but moonlight forcibly turns them Dire. A full moon isn't necessary, it's just faster since they get more "moonlight rads" the more full it is.
-----------------------------------
Condition For Transformation :
-----------------------------------
-> Every night : at 1st since the symbiote will seek moonlight to develop
-> Pain or Stress : the symbiote will force transformation to protect the carrier at least until it has developed enough
-> At Will : after some time, the exact amount depends but at least many many years barring exceptions like being infected with a very strong strain
-> Permanent : sometimes happens temporarily after the 1st transformation or when one is driven mad by the symbiote taking over
-------------------------
Level of Self-Control :
-------------------------
-> Hunger Crazed : mind only focused on eating flesh, will go to borderline suicidal lengths for it
-> Wolf Mind : self explanatory again, acts like a wild animal
-> human-like beast mind : like the wolf mind but with some human higher cognition and reasonability (or lack thereof, depends what the person is like)
-> beast-like human mind : their normal personality but with an animalistic influence
-> full control : another self explanatory
-> Ravenous Cunning : what Dire WereWolves are like, akin to hunger crazed but even more rabid and backed by cunning intellect matching the carrier's
----------------
Weaknesses :
----------------
-> Severe Wounds : how severe is needed depends on age and the purity of the carrier's strain, sometimes made harder by their healing factor. For exemple those who have reached the point of having the werewolf form have more or less movie!wolverine level regen, which gets better with age. And of course purer strain=faster regen.
-> Decapitation : though it's pretty hard to behead something with such a large neck that heals so fast, plus that their flesh gets tougher with age. Prehistoric-Old ones and Dire WereWolves can survive it, along with pretty much any amount and gravity of physical abuse.
-> Fire : burning to ashes is a pretty severe wound and it technically removes your head so it will kill (almost) any of them. Extremely pure (such as Dires) strains' virus cells are virtually unkillable and will revive, repair and regen the rest of the carrier.
---------------------------
Additional Information :
---------------------------
-> Since the virus is kind of a hive-mind, the longer one carries it the more develop a pack/family (nakama) mentality, especially while transformed, since the symbiote wants to protect it's kin. Though it's possible for willpower or strong personality to cancel this influence out.
-> Old enough ones can also gain limited telepathy with other carriers. One can "send" to another who hasn't developed it but this other cannot "reply".
-> Their healing factors is fueled by their eating, their metabolisms are extremely efficient when it comes to extracting nutrients and it keeps all ingested mass, ie. they regenerate instead of pooping.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*******************************************************************************
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------
Vampire Derivatives :
-------------------------
Proper Siring requires extensive fluid exchange (in the more scientific sense) since several kinds of vamp cells must be passed over. Injection of any type of vamp cells besides those in the blood merely results of complete cellular death of the human and vice-versa for the same kinds of human cells in a vampire, the human cells die. Blood exchange is different, because they're more versatile and biologically flexible. Humans blood into a vampire can dilute the vamp's starin and weaken it, unless the strain is strong enough relative to the quantity/concentration of invading human cells, then it'll just feed the vamp. Vampire blood cells in a human is where things get interesting.
-> Blood Slave/Zombie : Minute amounts (or concentrations, actually everytime I mention amounts in a context like that concentration applies too) of vamp
strain in a human's system will make it a seemingly hyperactive over-energized junkie. If the process is repeated at properly close intervals for a sufficient period it will turn the human into a slave devoid of self-determination.
-> Tainted : Larger but still small quantities of vamp blood results in these. They don't have subconscious physical limitations, their entire biology is aimed at satiating their bloodlust. Meaning all the stimulant glands are pumped to overclock, they all but ignore wounds up to the point of bodily failure and they have lesser regen relative to the vamp whose blood was used for infection.
-> Raised/Animated/Walking Dead : Potent enough vamp strain can wake the dead but most of the time barely to the point of re-activating the basest functions, ie. moving and eating. They cannot regenerate but since it's the strain sustaining them no amount of damage will "kill" them unless it's extremely severe. Destroying the spinal cord will only slow them since the strain cells can still carry bio-electrical signals and travel through the bloodstream. Then destroying the heart would make them pause for the moment it takes to switch to directly feeding tissues with released enzymes. Destroying the brain will down them if done quickly enough after raising, taking too long gives them time to cancer-like mutate back up organs which essentially make them unkillable up to chunky salsa level damage.
-> Devourer/Ghoul/Gargoyle : More potent still strains will produce a ghoul. They're basically fucked up uber zombie mutants with crazy regen that eat anything vaguely human or animal, even corpses. Possible mutations include longer limbs, bone spikes, elongated jaws, long and/or all sharp/pointed teeth, pointed ears, claws; retractable or not, sometimes a tail or even wings. Or any combination thereof. They're also nearly as strong, tough and fast as the source vampire. In fact if several vamps pooled for the infection it'll likely be more powerful than any of them. Their skin also usually turns "disgusting" colors like ashen gray, sickly yellow, putrid green or gory red.
-> They have a bloodlust akin to addiction, of various severity between individuals, from basically just really liking it to being weakened by withdrawal and going mad(der). But regardless of the level of addiction, stronger vamps need/want more blood. Weak newly turned can be fine for a week with a small glass but ancients can have to drain several bodies.
-> The blood need not be human, what kind is better is a matter of taste. Some are also flesh eaters due to either preferring to eat blood saturated meat over draining it or just because they're wicked bastards like that.
-> Their bites marks are NOT pretty little holes and they don't "straw it" through their fangs. They rip through the throat and gorge on the resulting fountain. Unless they want the victim to survive for whatever reason, of course.
-> Their social status (among themselves) is tied to personal power and closeness to the "source", which overlap the vast majority of the time. Pureblooded are higher than Sired but being being closer to the source can prevail over that. For exemple being turned by an Elder would be better than being that Elder's grand children or somesuch, since it'd be Elder-you instead of Elder-elder children-elder grandchildren. Stronger with Age also applies, a centuries old Sired is stronger than a decades old Pureblooded.
Since they're (relatively) realistic, most traditional weaknesses don't apply.
-> Wooden stakes just hurt like another stab wound, there's no reason being stabbed by wood would work if being stabbed by metal doesn't.
-> Sunlight not only doesn't affect them, their regen prevents and retroactively repairs radiation damages, which is why they're pale and stay like that.
-> Silver is as useless as any other substance, no senseless folklore magical allergies there.
-> Likewise with garlic. Of course just because it's not lethally poisonous doesn't mean having one's mouth filled with garlic doesn't suck.
-> Salt won't stop them any more than it would stop you. Salt buckshot still fucking hurts though.
-> They can cross running just fine, it'd be just silly if they couldn't.
-> Blessed objects, holy water and crucifixes/crosses don't do jack either since religion is as much BS there as it is here.
-> Crossroads would even siller than running water.
-> Counting small objects sillier still.
-> They might ask permission to enter out of...manners I guess (or affability) but they certainly don't need it.
-> Fire works but it's not a "weakness" per se, but being turned to ash tends to kill pretty much anything so it works. More powerful ones burn slower, and some can heal from being ashes, though most of those ones need blood to do it.
-> Decapitation will insta-kill *most* of them. Some will need the head to be damaged further. Some will just "remote control" their body and re-attach it. The few more powerful ones are pretty much outright unkillable period.
They also don't have most of the telling signs, for the shared reason that they make zero sense.
-> They have reflections and shadows.
-> They have a heartbeat, a breath and brain activity, they're not undead.
-> Many of them are unaturally graceful and/or skilled. However here it's not caused by being a vampire exactly, it's due to having had a *lot* of practice. They walk gracefully because they've perfected walking, so to speak. And so on. A human vampire hunter isn't gonna match a centuries or millenia old warlord in a swordfight.
-> They have rare or unatural eye colors, like red, violet/purple, black, silver, gold, clear pale blue, etc
-> Their body temperature tends on the low side but they gain limited control over it as they "age". Severe exertion also raises it.
More miscellaneous traits :
-> Sired either start aging much slower or stop aging outright once they turned, depending on how thin spread the Sire was. PureBlooded mature and then stop aging when they reach around 18 to around 30, depending on the individual. How old they actually are when they reach those "ages" also varies.
-> Sired are 100% sterile, Pureblooded are kinda like Tolkien elves in that regard, more or less sterile in day-to-day practice but it's possible for them to breed, it's just hard and happens ver rarely from a short-lived perspective.
-> The reason vamps don't rule the world despite being a superior species by most if not all standards is because they'd need to constantly bolster their numbers to maintain dominance and too much vamps would eventually make everything else extinct, and no vamp food means no vamps sooner or later. They know that because they tried before.
-> Sires are always more powerful than their Sired since they're both older and by definition, closer to the source.
-> Some of the more perceptive animals, like dogs say, can sense something is wrong with them. Except if they're among those who have "kinship" with animals, those can be detected but animals won't "tell".
-> They can be semi-killed into a revivable state, provided they're at a certain level of power. For exemple lowlier ones with pole jammed through their hearts are staying down until someone removes it and gives them blood to kickstart the healing. Very strong ones who can survive being moderately cut to pieces/dismembered/beheaded but who can't do the "remote control" trick need to be put back together by someone else to rise again.
Powers & Abilities:
-> Super Strength
-> Super Speed
-> Super Reflexes
-> Super Toughness
-> Healing Factor and Resistance/Immunity to diseases and poisons
-> Super Senses/Night Vision
-> Slow Aging/Ageless
-> Clawed Fingernails
-> Wall Crawling (through a combination of strength, speed and claws)
-> Nigh (or not so nigh) invulnerability, details below.
-> Hypnosis/Emotional Control & Dream Weaving, only some Elders can do those.
Levels of Endurance to Injury : On the lowest level, they can be killed by anything that can kill humans, it just takes a bit (or a lot) more of it. Some can be shot and stabbed all you want and they'll survive so long as they can maintain a certain level of structural integrity. Some can re-attach limbs or even "stitch" their torn torsos or piece themselves back on if bisected. Then there's those who (barely) survive decapitation, then those who know the RC trick, then those who can come back from bloody chunks, then from gory salsa, then from even cellular death (like being burned to ashes), then from a single drop of blood, to From A Single Cell, then those who will only die from absolute physical annihilation, The Eldest. Then there's The Abysses, who just don't die, period, technically to a couple exceptions. Then there's the not-exactly-vampires/more-like precursors-or-progenitors :Naram-Sin, Enki, Ninurta/Ningirsu/Nergal, Bau and Morrigan/Ereshkigal. Names with / instead of a comma are the same "person", though they of course all have lots of names and appellations.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I found my note-sheet ^^ (slightly modified to accomodate it's new use)
NEWBLOODS-> the ones who are relatively recent, newly born or newly turned enough to be understandably unheard of within the vamp community at large.
YOUNGLINGS-> the newbloods who have been officially integrated into the community.
RIPENED-> comprises most of the vampire population
OLD ONES-> those who are respected by the ripened out of sheer age
ELDERS-> the wizened old ones, the perceived leaders are this
ANCESTRALS-> as a general rule, these are the ones Elders would remember from their Youngling days as already being very old back then
ANCIENTS-> they're so old that even some Ancestrals think they're just a myth
ABYSSALS-> those of such advanced age that Ancients consider contemplating it to be mind-boggling
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Well Newbloods are literally new, either infant and young kids or the human age if they were just sired. Younglings just passed an induction ceremony so they're not really older than that. Ripened vary in-between about 70 years to a century of having been a vampire to 2-3 hundred years old. Old Ones average around half to 3/4 of a millenia old. Elders are basically the 1000 something years olds. Ancestrals are several millenia old. Ancients were alive in the mesolithic, ie. 10 to 20 thousand years ago. Abyssals were made into the 1st vampires from Hominini in the mid-neogene period.
And of course Naram-Sin, Enki, Ningirsu, Bau and Ereshkigal, those who made the Abyssals, are themselves much older than that.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mid-neogene means 6-7 million years ago, for those who aren't epic book nerds like me
Why earliest in parentheses ?
Also if you're wondering, those who should looks like cavemen (so to speak, hominini predate australopithecus, so not yet cavemen) have limited control over their physical structure, which is a fancy way to say they have a "One-Winged Angel" form and a side effect of that ability is that they can choose to look however they want so long as it's humanoid(ish).
And if you're also wondering how old the archaic named ones are, they waited for primeval goo to produce something they could "work with", ie. make vampires from. Furthermore, since this was planned, you can imagine they had decided to do that long before starting to wait. Since you don't plan to wait for hundreds of millions of years unless you're really sure of what you're doing. Unless you're so stupidly old that such a timeframe is trivial to you, in which case the previous argument is moot because they'd be silly ancient anyway.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*********************************************************************************
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Were/Wif/Waif Wolves time.
First thing, it's not actually "wolves" per se, it's more like a broader genus of "generic" predator, like hyenas or Miacoidea (the common ancestor of felines and canines) with dominant canine-like traits. This is mostly to explain why there's only "wolf" werebeasts and not other kinds. The (or one of the, may make a couple alternatives) scientific name for them is Menaplastos, roughly "remolded by the moon". It's caused by a sentient symbiotic hive-mind(ish) virus that reacts especially strongly to something in moonlight (probably something about the radiation wavelength or the like), said "something" is only present in that fictional world, most likely due to something on the moon's surface that was put there by whatever is responsible for the hive-mind symbiote. It's also hereditary, being infected is incurable since you essentially change species.
-------------------
Possible Forms :
-------------------
-> wolf-man : hairy human with smalls clawed nails and slightly longer canine teeth
-> wolf : self explanatory, it's just a wolf, though it retains the super toughness, regen and other powers if the individual has them
-> dire wolf : like a wolf but bigger and bulkier, kinda like a doogy-looking bear or a warg
-> werewolf : humanoid with a lupine-like head, like in skyrim or underworld
-> dire werewolf : like werewolf but on lightning bruiser mode and rabid/feral
-> multiple: a number of them can shift into more than one form, as a general rule those with the werewolf form can do the others too, bar the dire were form which is exclusive to those carrying an especially pure/undiluted strain. Those can assume any of the others and are overall much stronger but moonlight forcibly turns them Dire. A full moon isn't necessary, it's just faster since they get more "moonlight rads" the more full it is.
-----------------------------------
Condition For Transformation :
-----------------------------------
-> Every night : at 1st since the symbiote will seek moonlight to develop
-> Pain or Stress : the symbiote will force transformation to protect the carrier at least until it has developed enough
-> At Will : after some time, the exact amount depends but at least many many years barring exceptions like being infected with a very strong strain
-> Permanent : sometimes happens temporarily after the 1st transformation or when one is driven mad by the symbiote taking over
-------------------------
Level of Self-Control :
-------------------------
-> Hunger Crazed : mind only focused on eating flesh, will go to borderline suicidal lengths for it
-> Wolf Mind : self explanatory again, acts like a wild animal
-> human-like beast mind : like the wolf mind but with some human higher cognition and reasonability (or lack thereof, depends what the person is like)
-> beast-like human mind : their normal personality but with an animalistic influence
-> full control : another self explanatory
-> Ravenous Cunning : what Dire WereWolves are like, akin to hunger crazed but even more rabid and backed by cunning intellect matching the carrier's
----------------
Weaknesses :
----------------
-> Severe Wounds : how severe is needed depends on age and the purity of the carrier's strain, sometimes made harder by their healing factor. For exemple those who have reached the point of having the werewolf form have more or less movie!wolverine level regen, which gets better with age. And of course purer strain=faster regen.
-> Decapitation : though it's pretty hard to behead something with such a large neck that heals so fast, plus that their flesh gets tougher with age. Prehistoric-Old ones and Dire WereWolves can survive it, along with pretty much any amount and gravity of physical abuse.
-> Fire : burning to ashes is a pretty severe wound and it technically removes your head so it will kill (almost) any of them. Extremely pure (such as Dires) strains' virus cells are virtually unkillable and will revive, repair and regen the rest of the carrier.
---------------------------
Additional Information :
---------------------------
-> Since the virus is kind of a hive-mind, the longer one carries it the more develop a pack/family (nakama) mentality, especially while transformed, since the symbiote wants to protect it's kin. Though it's possible for willpower or strong personality to cancel this influence out.
-> Old enough ones can also gain limited telepathy with other carriers. One can "send" to another who hasn't developed it but this other cannot "reply".
-> Their healing factors is fueled by their eating, their metabolisms are extremely efficient when it comes to extracting nutrients and it keeps all ingested mass, ie. they regenerate instead of pooping.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
*******************************************************************************
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-------------------------
Vampire Derivatives :
-------------------------
Proper Siring requires extensive fluid exchange (in the more scientific sense) since several kinds of vamp cells must be passed over. Injection of any type of vamp cells besides those in the blood merely results of complete cellular death of the human and vice-versa for the same kinds of human cells in a vampire, the human cells die. Blood exchange is different, because they're more versatile and biologically flexible. Humans blood into a vampire can dilute the vamp's starin and weaken it, unless the strain is strong enough relative to the quantity/concentration of invading human cells, then it'll just feed the vamp. Vampire blood cells in a human is where things get interesting.
-> Blood Slave/Zombie : Minute amounts (or concentrations, actually everytime I mention amounts in a context like that concentration applies too) of vamp
strain in a human's system will make it a seemingly hyperactive over-energized junkie. If the process is repeated at properly close intervals for a sufficient period it will turn the human into a slave devoid of self-determination.
-> Tainted : Larger but still small quantities of vamp blood results in these. They don't have subconscious physical limitations, their entire biology is aimed at satiating their bloodlust. Meaning all the stimulant glands are pumped to overclock, they all but ignore wounds up to the point of bodily failure and they have lesser regen relative to the vamp whose blood was used for infection.
-> Raised/Animated/Walking Dead : Potent enough vamp strain can wake the dead but most of the time barely to the point of re-activating the basest functions, ie. moving and eating. They cannot regenerate but since it's the strain sustaining them no amount of damage will "kill" them unless it's extremely severe. Destroying the spinal cord will only slow them since the strain cells can still carry bio-electrical signals and travel through the bloodstream. Then destroying the heart would make them pause for the moment it takes to switch to directly feeding tissues with released enzymes. Destroying the brain will down them if done quickly enough after raising, taking too long gives them time to cancer-like mutate back up organs which essentially make them unkillable up to chunky salsa level damage.
-> Devourer/Ghoul/Gargoyle : More potent still strains will produce a ghoul. They're basically fucked up uber zombie mutants with crazy regen that eat anything vaguely human or animal, even corpses. Possible mutations include longer limbs, bone spikes, elongated jaws, long and/or all sharp/pointed teeth, pointed ears, claws; retractable or not, sometimes a tail or even wings. Or any combination thereof. They're also nearly as strong, tough and fast as the source vampire. In fact if several vamps pooled for the infection it'll likely be more powerful than any of them. Their skin also usually turns "disgusting" colors like ashen gray, sickly yellow, putrid green or gory red.
