Vampire

Do you suddenly find yourself vanting to zuck ze crew's blaad? Maybe you're a Vampire. Bleh!

In addition to regular objectives, vampires also have to acquire a certain amount of blood. This depends on the quantity the vampire has acquired in total, ignoring how much it has spend on spells throughout the entire round.

Vampire Abilities

Blood and Abilities

Vampires tie in with the blood mechanics. Doctoring may contain useful information for you.

First and foremost, vampires thrive on drinking blood. While you can go the entire round without drinking a single drop of blood, you won't unlock any of the more interesting and/or useful powers. You gain blood by:

• Using the Bite victim ability, explained further below.
• Using the Blood Steal ability, also explained below.
• Flying over someone in Bat Form, again explained below.
• Ingesting blood reagent, such by drinking it from a cup or taking a pill with blood in it. You'll only get a third of the amount of blood ingested, e.g. if a blood bag has 250 units of blood, you'll only gain about 83.3 units from it.

While you can ingest blood extracted from a monkey, you can only drain blood from humans or monkeys turned into humans, living or dead. It should also be noted that draining blood from the Chaplain through the first three methods is an extremely bad idea. The blood of a holy man will not only burn you quite badly, but also destroy some of the blood you already have! However, similar to monkey blood, extracting the Chaplain's blood (i.e. with a syringe or by stabbing them) has no ill effect aside from being inefficient.

Vampires gain a number of different abilities and spells as they accumulate more blood. Once unlocked, the vampire keeps the power for the rest of their unlife, even if their blood level dips under the point they unlocked it at. If they die, they lose all their blood and need to unlock their abilities again. None of these abilities can be used while unconscious, nor can they be cast while standing in the Chapel.

Unl.	Icon	Name	Cooldn.	Blood Cost	While stunned / cuffed?	Description
0		Bite victim	N/A	N/A	No	Slowly drain a nearby human victim's blood, indicated by a progress bar with a rather garish blood drop icon hovering above it and accompanied by appropriate sound clips that sound like you're actually sucking their blood through a straw like a milkshake. Cannot be used if the victim is wearing headgear or a mask, but unlike other servers, you don't have to be on Harm intent, grab the victim, or aim at the head area. You will earn 15 units of blood at a time if the victim is alive (30 when draining a fellow vampire), less if they are dead, even less so the more damaged they are. A healthy victim can provide up to ~260 units of blood. You will continue to suck blood until you use your hands, move away from the target, or have drained all you can. If your bite victim drops to 0 blood, they instantly die--perfect for an Enthrall! Biting also heals a little bit.
0		Blood Steal	45 seconds (from end, not start)	N/A	Yes	Continually drain blood from a human target anywhere within your sight, at a somewhat lower rate than Bite victim (10 vs 15 units at time), even less if the victim's dead. You have to stand still and so does your victim, and you can't be in a locker, Space Pod, or similar, but you can drain blood through walls or other obstacles between you and your bloodbag. Not particularly stealthy (though this applies to all blood gain abilities), because you make a chomping noise rather like someone eating lettuce, the victim gets a message along the lines of "Some blood is forced right out of your body!", and blood jets flow from the victim to you, pointing in your direction.
0		Blood tracking	N/A	N/A	N/A	Toggles blood gain/loss messages on or off.
0		Cancel stuns	1 second	0 blood	Yes	Replenishes stamina and removes all stun debuffs (specifically: Unconscious, Weakened, Knocked-Out, Disorient, Slowed, Stuttering, and Misstep), but deals 1 BRUTE damage for each second of debuff. People can tell you used this and did not simply recover naturally, because it plays a rather disturbing sound of bones crunching and produces a bold red message describing how unnatural it looks.
0		Glare	60 seconds	0 blood	Yes	Instantly drains a good chunk of the target's stamina and knocks them down to the floor for about thirty seconds, though still able to speak. Works from two tiles away and is blocked by eye protection (sunglasses etc). People nearby can tell you're not using a flash, because they'll see a bold red message about your eyes producing a blinding light and hear a clink similar to something hitting a drinking glass. It's a bad idea to use it on the Chaplain, but a good idea to combine it with Hypnotize, and an even better one to combine it with another stun weapon, especially on Bite targets.
0		Hypnotise	5 minutes	0 blood	Cuffed: Yes Stunned: No	Target is knocked down to the floor, unconscious and blinded for thirty seconds. This spell requires five seconds to take effect and isn't very stealthy, as an icon of a creepy eyelid appears over you as you use the ability, and there'll be a bold red message about you "glaring" at someone. Useless against the Chaplain.
30		Bat Form	N/A	N/A	Cuffed: No Stunned: Yes	If you toggle this on by clicking its icon, when you press and hold SHIFT, you become a lil' brown bat that's remarkably fast and hard to hit. You need to have at least 5 stamina to enter Bat Form, and you can't enter Bat Form while restrained, dead, or otherwise unable to sprint. As a bat, you drain a few units of blood every time you fly over someone, up to 5 if you hover over them for a while, much less if they're dead. You can also harmlessly squeeze through doors and firelocks, even if they're welded, bolted, and/or powered down, sometimes opening them in the process if possible. Being in Bat Form consumes stamina, more so when moving than floating in place, and if you run out of stamina or get hit, you morph back into human form. You still retain your equipment in any case.
30		Enthrall	30 seconds	100 blood	No?	When used on a dead human, it turns them into a thrall, an loyal, undead mindslave named "zombie [name]"--more on those in a later section. Unless that dead human was the Chaplain, in which case you simply revive them. They won't be enslaved. They probably will be pissed depending on who/what killed them. Dummy. When used someone who is already one of your thralls, it gives them 200 blood, restoring their max health buff and some of their speed.
30		Speak to Ghouls	0.1 seconds	0 blood	Yes	Telepathically speak to all your zombies/ghouls/thralls through GHOULSPEAK. Rival vampires and non-vamps cannot overhear these messages or eavesdrop, and being mute or gagged with a muzzle does not prevent you from using this.
300	N/A	Vampiric vision	N/A	N/A	N/A	You can spot people behind walls and through darkness and can see past cloaking devices.
300		Hide Coffin	60 seconds	0 blood	Yes	Designates a tile of your choosing as where you'll float to when you use the Coffin Escape ability.
300		Coffin Escape	60 seconds	400 blood	Yes	You become an intangible, barely visible orb that slowly drifts to the tile you designated with Hide Coffin, whereupon you materialize into a unique, ominous looking vampire coffin . If you haven't used Hide Coffin, your vamp coffin appears right where you're currently standing. In any case, as with all coffins, being in the coffin heals all your injuries, regenerates all your limbs, and can revive you if you still somehow die, though your blood level and unlocked powers are still reset. Uniquely, no one can open or close it except you, though others can destroy with a good bit of brute force (it has 80 HP) and still pull it around (and launch it into space).
600		Call Frost Bats	60 seconds	0 blood	Cuffed: Yes Stunned: No	Summons 4 frost bats that constantly orbit you. These bats block most bullets and energy projectiles and chill and knock back anybody who tries to hit you in melee, drastically slowing them down and giving you some room to escape. You can also *flip (Hotkey: R) to launch them in whatever direction they were previously moving, causing the same effect, with the added bonus of going through walls. If you go into Bat Form, use Coffin Escape, and enter a pod/locker/other "container" type item, the bats simply go away, without being launched.
600		Chiropteran screech	60 seconds	60 blood	Yes	Crowd control spell which confuses the movement of all nearby humans. It also shatters nearby windows and light fixtures. Blocked by ear protection (earmuffs etc) and has no effect on the Chaplain.
900		Bat Form MkII	N/A	N/A	Yes	Now, if you stand still in a dark tile with Bat Form active, you're completely invisible; you'll know because your sprite will disappear on your end too. Generally, you can hide in areas where the lights are off/broken. AIs, Cyborgs, people with thermals, and people with X-Ray Vision can still see you; in fact, you'll show up as a partially invisible bat.
1400		Chiropteran screech Mk2	60 seconds	60 blood	Yes	Same as previous version, but now it also disables almost all radio communication (minus machine talk) in a six tile radius for 30 seconds. The Chaplain is not immune to the radio jamming, but is still unaffected by the stun and confused moment.
1400		Diseased touch	180 seconds	50 blood	No	Infects someone with grave fever. Transmission mimics the Help intent shake. The Chaplain is immune to grave fever.
1800	N/A	Full power	N/A	N/A	N/A	Being in the Chapel no longer hurts you, though it still blocks your abilities.

Other Traits

While you can sleep in a bed like a mortal, it's much better to sleep in a coffin. Whenever you're in any coffin, whether it's the special one created by Coffin Escape, the regular ones in/near the Chapel, or the renamed one used for the Morgue Supplies crate, you regenerate your limbs and heal all damage extremely quickly. We're talking from critical condition to full health in under a minute, at most. If you somehow die/are dead, being in a coffin will even revive you! However, you still start your new unlife without any blood and will only have your starting powers (i.e. Bite, Blood Steal, Glare, Hypnotize, Cancel stuns & Blood tracking) until you drink enough blood for new ones.

Thanks to spooky undead shenanigans, you are immune to many of the ailments those human bloodbags suffer. You cannot be infected by Viruses or the pathogens created by Pathogen Research. You cannot enter shock, cardiac failure, or similar heart problems. Similarly, you cannot develop hypertension, hypotension, or clotting, and though you do spray blood when stabbed, you do not actually lose blood.

In addition, upgraded health scanners always indicate you have 500 units of blood, regardless of how much blood you've actually gained or currently have. If your Blood remaining is at 0, syringes or IV drips can't draw blood, or any reagents, from you. If it's above that, they will drain your Blood remaining stock.

On top of that, most blood-related chems have no effect on your undead circulatory system, or perhaps lack thereof. Filgrastim doesn't give you blood, heparin's overdose doesn't make you lose blood, and proconvertin doesn't reduce blood lost when draining a Chaplain or getting drained with a syringe or IV. Since you can't develop blood pressure or clotting problems, you also can't benefit from the latter two chems' other effects.

Thralls

Creation

By using the Enthrall ability on a dead body, a vampire can revive the corpse as an loyal undead minion bound to their will and their will alone. They are variously called (vamp)thralls (based on the name of the ability and the name used in the end of round reports), ghouls (based on their exclusive GHOULSPEAK chat channel), and zombies (based on the zombie [name] that appears when these minions are moused over). Whatever you call them, they can commit as much grief as their master wants them to, in accordance to Rule 1, and are bound to the special mindslave rules.

The Craving: Thralls & Blood

Like their master, thralls/ghouls/zombies need blood. Unlike their master, their blood levels constantly deplete, and they can only regain blood by:

• Having a vampire to use Enthrall on them to transfer the vamp's own blood to them. This grants 200 blood for the thrall/ghoul/zombie.
• Using their Bite victim ability to drain someone's blood. It works similarly to the vampire's Bite victim, but does not heal.
• Drinking, injecting or otherwise ingesting blood reagent. Only a quarter of the amount of blood ingested is actually gained.

Taking filgrastim doesn't add blood.

Using an upgraded health analyzer on a ghoul will show them as having 500 units of blood, regardless of how much blood they really have.

Blood is especially important for thralls/ghouls/zombies because it determines their maximum health. The ratio of blood to health is 2:1, i.e. max health is half of total blood, and it goes both ways. At high blood levels, they have more health than regular spacehumans ( e.g. 800 blood means 400 HP), but conversely, at low blood levels, they have a lot less (e.g. 80 blood means 40 HP.) When they're at 0 to 20 blood, they have a measly 20 HP.

They also become slower as they lose blood, and unlike their health, it's always below average. Even at the highest blood levels, they're still slightly slower than normal.

Undead & Not Quite Loving It: Other Traits

Besides the aforementioned weaker version of the Bite victim ability, thralls/ghouls/zombies also get Speak. This ability lets them communicate through GHOULSPEAK, a special channel accessible only by their vampire master and their fellow undead minions.

Because of their undead strength, thralls/ghouls/zombies/whatevers have an extra 100 max stamina. Among many other things, this lets them dish out more melee & special attacks, sprint more often, especially during combat, and, most importantly, absorb more stamina damage, thus making them harder to knock out.

It's usually pretty obvious if someone is one of these undead humans. Their skin is undeathly grey, and if you were to see them unclothed, you'd noticed how thin and gaunt they are from their neverending thirst for blood, droplets of which occasionally spill out of them onto the floor. Their eyes are a lifeless yellow-white, and their mouth is wide agape with a rather ominous red smear. When a scream erupts from these walking corpses, it comes out as a deep groan. If you somehow still thought you dealing with a regular spaceperson, putting your cursor over them or examining them shows them as "zombie (name)". It's no surprise silicons don't consider them Human, and the Secbots, GuardBuddies, and sec scanners consider them threats to the station.

Thralls/ghouls/zombies do not take extra damage from being in Space. While the Chapel does not harm them, standing in the Chapel does prevent them from using their abilities. Speaking of holy things, holy water and the bible don't harm them.

These undead beings are otherwise affected by the same things living humans are. They're controlled by actual players, are fully affected by chemicals and stun weapons, and can die and suffer brute, burn, tox, brain etc. damage. Perhaps most notably, cloning them results in a regular human, albeit one with the name "zombie (name)", which naturally leads to some very awkward confrontations.

Vampire Weaknesses

What would a vampire be without really shitty and bizarre weaknesses? Read Twilight if you want the answer. Or better yet, don't.

Vampires are unholy beings and as such are weak to holy things. Merely being in the Chapel slowly burns them, gradually causing more and more damage until they die. The Chapel's aura also prevents the vampire from using their abilities on holy ground. If you're being harassed by one, you could try to seek refuge there. The vampire will likely stop chasing you unless it has attained full power, in which case finding a safe spot is probably the least of your worries.

Another holy thing is the good Chaplain. The chaplain is immune to most of the vampire's methods of disabling prey. They deflect Glare right back at the vamp, and Hypnotize, Diseased touch and Chiropteran screech have no effect, though Chiropteran screech Mk2 still disables their radios. As previously mentioned, vampires who try to suck the chaplain's blood take quite a lot of burn damage and lose blood, and while Enthrall still revives them, they won't become enslaved to the vampire. Beyond that, however, they can still be slowed down and knocked back with Call Frost Bats and can't see a vamp going invisible with Bat Form MkII.

Also, splashing holy water onto a vampire will cause it to act like acid, horribly burning them. It does nothing to non-vampires, so this is a good way of finding out bloodsuckers among the crew. One bottle of holy water is guaranteed to spawn in the Religious supplies locker in the Chapel Office, and on many maps, there's another bottle sitting on a desk in the same area. More can be mixed fairly easily or extracted from garlic.

In addition, the Holy Bible is a bane to vampires. Being beaten with the good book hurts for a fair 10 BURN, and while it's rather hard to force, vampires who try to pick up a bible have their hands burst into flames and will keel over in stunned agony for a very long time.

The last weakness of SS13 vampires is sunlight or, more accurately, starlight. Vampires cannot safely venture out into Space, even when properly equipped. Though they are undead, they still cannot breathe in space, and, more importantly, the light of the stars burns them incredibly quickly, much faster than standing in the chapel will. This essentially means vampires are confined to the station and anywhere a shuttle can take them. They could probably survive very quick leaps across space, but not on a regular basis.

In the unlikely scenario that security has managed to capture a vampire alive, using a blindfold and muzzle as restraints will remove their ability to use some of their nastiest powers.

Vampire Strategy

• You start with a job and all the access it comes with. Being A Better Traitor may have some useful tips for you.
• If you haven't unlocked Chiropteran screech Mk2 yet, Hypnotize your victims after Glareing them. Glare knocks people down, but they can still speak and will start screaming for help once they realize what you are. Hypnotize renders them unconscious and thus unable to call for help.
  • However, because it takes a bit more time to fully drain a healthy human (about 33 seconds, not counting you getting ready to bite them) than the Glare & Hypnotize stun lasts (30 seconds both, but their knockdown effects stack up to only 30 seconds), the victim can still wake up during biting. This actually usually isn't a problem, since you have lots of escape tools (e.g. Bat Form, Call Frost Bats, Coffin Escape, etc.) in case your victim or an interloper tries to fight back or call for aid.
  • If you really want to keep them down, try a stun weapon, like a taser, or, for reasons, listed below, putting them in grabhold.
• Again, you don't need to aggressively grab your victims to drain their blood, but it's usually good idea to anyways. If you knock them out and then grab them, they'll have a harder time escaping when the stun wears off, and if you start biting right away, they'll usually be in/near critical condition due to bloodloss when they wake up, making escape even more difficult.
• You don't have to kill (fully drain) your victims. If they live and get healed up, that's more blood for you to drain!
• Redistribute the coffins throughout the station, ideally to places only you have access to, so you have one nearby to heal up in wherever you go. Unless you're on the NSS Destiny, the coffins are usually in an maintenance area or semi-public place near the Chapel, allowing you to take them without touching holy ground.
• Enthralling the Captain or HoS can provide you with prisoners and access to guns without raising much suspicion, repaying the blood cost many times over. They also have AI Upload access, which is great because...
• The AI and Cyborgs will mark you as non-human if they see you draining a human or using your vamp powers and will try to ruin your day if given the opportunity. Access to its upload is therefore desirable.
  • It's fairly easy to do the job yourself if you have Bat Form unlocked. Simply enter Bat Form to fly through all the doors leading to the AI Upload and/or AI Module Storage, grab the relevant module, exit Bat Form in some place safe, and configure your module. Then, enter Bat Form again and upload it onto the upload computer. If you get shot by stun turrets, you can fall back on Cancel stuns.
  • If you're lazy/busy, send one of your thralls/zombies/ghouls to subvert the silicons, especially if one of them actually has AI Upload access.
• Darkness is your ally. If you start with a job without maintenance access, rush to the Head of Personnel before he disappears and beg for an upgrade. With a blunt object you can smash lights in hallways, making your Bat Form MkII's cloak of darkness more effective. Replacing light tubes is a huge pain, so few will ever bother. Watch out for people carrying flashlights and other portable light sources.
• Use Bat Form MkII's cloak of darkness only when you need it, since it may tip off the AI and anyone with thermals as to what you are. The Detective and Head of Security have access to a pair of those each, and so can see through your cloak. The detective's .38 revolver, when loaded with lethal rounds, also does straight-up brute damage instead of a stun you can resist, and since you have to stand still to use the effect, you become a sitting duck.

Supplementary Video

Mild content warning: death

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