Vampire

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

Vhat is a vampire? A Vampire is an undead creature that gains powers by drinking people's blood. Built for escape and evasion, these creatures of the night are hard to pin down and can enlist loyal undead minions to do their bidding. However, vampires are poor in combat, horribly lacking in stealth, and quite vulnerable to holy things such as Bibles, the Chapel and holy water.

Vampire Abilities

Vampires And Blood

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

First and foremost, vampires gain power by 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 abilities. 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, monkeys controlled by players, 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.

Drinking blood does not carry reagents of the person you're drinking over. If your victim had a lot of poison in them, for example, none of it will go into you, and if someone happened to have drank a whole lot of holy water before getting drank by you, you won't ingest a single drop of holy water.

Powers

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 or player monkey victim's blood. You don't have to be on Harm intent, grab the victim, or aim at the head area, but certain masks and hats block it. Basically, if it would logically prevent you from touching their neck, like a space helmet, it blocks biting. 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. This ability is not very stealthy. During the process, a progress bar with a rather garish blood drop icon hovers above you, and there are appropriate sound clips that sound like you're actually sucking their blood through a straw like a milkshake.
0		Blood Steal	45 seconds (from end, not start)	N/A	Yes	Continually drain blood from a human or player monkey 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. Most importantly, highly visible blood globs/orbs float around you during and after the process, practically screaming to everyone around you that you're a vampire, and you can't do much to make them go away faster.
0		Toggle 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 it outputs a bold red message in the chat along the lines of "[name] stares into [victim]". Does nothing against the Chaplain. This is also, logically, doesn't work if you or your victim is blind for any reason (e.g. a blindfold). If you try this while you're blind, people nearby get a message in the chat about how "There's something odd about [your name]'s eyes"
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 a human or player monkey, 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	Making thralls: Varies Giving thralls blood: 200 blood	No	When used on a dead human, it fully heals them and turns them into a thrall, an loyal, undead minion -- more on those in a later section. The blood costs for this varies. Enthralling your first corpse costs 200 blood, and the cost goes up by 100 for each thrall you have, e.g. if you have two thralls, making a third will cost 400 blood. If a thrall dies, it lowers the blood costs. When used on a dead human who was the Chaplain, you simply heal and revive them. They won't be a thrall. They probably will be pissed depending on who/what killed them. For your part, you will receive 30 damage, get knocked down for 5 seconds, and actually scream from realizing your mistake. 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. This always costs 200 blood points, even when the cost of making thralls rises.
30		Speak to Thralls	0.1 seconds	0 blood	Yes	Telepathically speak to all your thralls through THRALLSPEAK. 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 if somebody who isn't the Chaplain tries hit you in melee, they'll be chilled and knocked back, 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 and has a 50% chance to also make them drop whatever they were holding. It also shatters nearby windows and light fixtures. Blocked by ear protection (earmuffs etc) and has no effect on the Chaplain.
900		Bat Form Mk2	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.
900		Diseased Touch	60 seconds	30 blood	No	Infects someone with grave fever, a disease that causes worsening TOX and stuns. Transmission mimics the Help intent shake. The Chaplain is immune to grave fever.
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.
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.

Coffins And You

Ever noticed how vampires in movies sometimes sit inside coffins? It's the same here. 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. It heals organ damage too and removes a small portion of all chemicals in your system, so while it might get rid of your combat drugs, it can also remove any poisons in you.

That's not all. 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 & Toggle blood tracking) until you drink enough blood for new ones.

Other Traits

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

By using the Enthrall ability on a dead body, a vampire can revive the corpse as a Thrall, a loyal undead minion bound to their will and their will alone. Thralls are slow and do not have much in the way of supernatural powers, but the amount of stamina they have is unholy, and if they feast on enough blood, they can take quite a beating.

They are variously called vampthralls (that "vamp" part is short for vampire), ghouls (because the THRALLSPEAK chat channel used to be named GHOULSPEAK), and zombies (because the game used to say "zombie [name]" when mousing over them).

Whatever you call them, it is very easy to recognize a thrall. Their skin is undeathly grey, their eyes are pitch black, and their mouth is stuck agape. They speak in gurgles, their words seeming to trail off... When a scream erupts from these walking corpses, it comes out as a deep groan.

The Craving: Thralls & Blood

Like their master, thralls need blood. Unlike their master, their blood levels are constantly depleting. Thralls lose 0.5 units of blood every few seconds; on the RP servers this is halved to just 0.25 units. 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.
• Using their Bite Victim ability to drain someone's blood. It works similarly to the vampire's Bite Victim, but with two differences: 1) it does not heal and 2) dead bodies can provide as much blood as live ones, but if they have a bit of rot in them, you get less blood.
• 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 thrall will show them as having 500 units of blood, regardless of how much blood they really have.

Blood is especially important for thralls because it determines their maximum health. The ratio of blood to health is 1.5:1, i.e. max health is three-quarters of total blood. It goes both ways: at high blood levels, they have more health than regular spacehumans (e.g. 800 blood means 600 HP), but conversely, at low blood levels, they have a lot less (e.g. 80 blood means 60 HP.) Luckily, they always have a minimum of 40 HP, so at 0 blood, they can still weather a few hits instead of going down like wet tissue paper.

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 also get Speak. This ability lets them communicate through THRALLSPEAK, a special channel accessible only by their vampire master and their fellow undead minions.

Because of their undead strength, thralls 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.

Silicons don't consider them Human, and the Secbots, GuardBuddies, and sec scanners consider them threats to the station.

While the bible and holy water don't hurt thralls, the Chapel does. Standing on the Chapel's sacred ground not only prevents them from using their abilities, but it also causes them to take 5 BURN and lose 5 blood every few seconds. Likewise with Space and Seafloor, though to a lesser extent: being exposed to the starlight in those areas causes 2.5 BURN and the loss of 2.5 blood every few second, but they can still use their abilities.

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.

While it is quite unlikely, thralls are immune to mindhack implants (including its deluxe version). The mindhack cloning module still works, though it's more due to losing their thrall status when dying (an necessary condition for cloning) than anything.

Rules Surrounding Thralls

Vampire thralls are considered Antagonists. That means they can commit as much Grief as their master wants them to, in accordance to Rule 1. However, that also means killing them or attacking them simply for being an antagonist is also allowed, though on the roleplay servers, RP Rules restrict this behavior.

Thralls fall under the Mindhack Rules. Unlike AI Laws, there isn't any room for technicalities, pedanticness, or loopholes, and you're supposed to follow the spirit of the law, not the letter.

• You should not reveal the identity of your vampire master. You can mention it in mentorhelps and adminhelp conversations when it's relevant (e.g. "Carmilla my vampire master has died, what do I do now?"), but otherwise, this rule is pretty airtight. Radio, PDAs, emotes, writing, labelers, whatever the medium, you shouldn't use it to expose who the vampire who thralled you is unless they're fine with being revealed.
• You should not kill or harm the vampire you are loyal to. You don't have to physically touch them to rule afoul of this rule. If you throw them in a room with a deadly trap or order someone to kill them, you'd still be violating it. Because of this rule, you should also be careful with detonating bombs and such when your vampire is nearby.
• You are bound to the vampire's will and should follow their every order. The exception is if said order would violate the rules, e.g. they ask you to do something that's creepy/gross. Since you're an Antagonist though, orders to do Grief are fine.
  • If your vampire dies, you should continue carrying out whatever orders they gave before dying. It'd be in your interests to try to revive them.
  • If they've been dead for a long time, and there's no way to revive them, it's usually considered alright to just do your own thing. Putting a vampire in a coffin brings them back to life, so this usually comes to play if they got gibbed by an explosion or died some other death that left no remains.

Basically, as the popup says, you shouldn't try to work against the interests of the vampire who made you a thrall.

Once you are no longer a vampire thrall, e.g. you died and got cloned or became a Cyborg, these rules do not apply.

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.

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.

The Chapel

Vampires are unholy beings and as such are weak to holy things. Merely being in the Chapel prevents vampires from using their abilities. In addition, unless they have reached full power, the sanctuary's holy ground causes vampires to suffer 5 BURN and lose 5 blood every few seconds. Therefore, if you're being harassed by a vampire, 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.

The Chaplain

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, Call Frost Bats, 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't see a vamp going invisible with Bat Form MkII.

Holy Water

Also, splashing holy water onto a vampire will cause it to act like acid, horribly burning them. Same happens if they try to ingest some, though this doesn't apply when they drain blood, so you can't drink a lot of holy water and bait the vampire into sucking you like in those movies. 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.

The Bible

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.

Starlight

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, for every few seconds they stay in there, the light of the stars burns them for 2.5 BURN (on top of the normal BURN if applicable) and deprives of 2.5 units of blood. 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. The same principles also apply to the Seafloor of ocean-based maps like Oshan.

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 or Donut 3, where the coffins are inside the chapel, they 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 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.

Playing it Pacifist

Somehow, you can play Vampire (mostly) pacifist! Thanks to the existence of blood bags, found in Medbay's blood supply fridge, you are able to obtain blood units without having to drain a fidgety human! Slice the bag open with a scalpel, transfer to a beaker, then transfer the beaker to a glass (or pitcher for chugging!) and drink up! Playing this way may be slower (and involve a lot of chugging in dark alleyways), but it's better than being caught drinking someone's blood like a Capri-Sun and getting thrown out an airlock.

Another way to play pacifist is to burst into genetics and annoy the folk there into giving you monkeys turned human to eat in peace, but beware as they will easily guess that you are a vampire, and might alert security.

A Fortune at the Blood Bank: Vampire Objectives

In addition to regular objectives, Vampires also get a unique objective exclusive to the role. As with most objectives, it is purely optional and more of a suggestion. You won't get banned from the Vampire role or whatever if you disregard it, and there is no in-game punishment for not fulfilling it, though there is a reward for completing it for the first time.

Accumulate at least [number] units of blood in total.

This counts how much blood you've collected so far, not how much you actually have available, so you can use your blood-powers as much as you'd like without having to worry about failing this objective. Also, it doesn't matter how you get the blood; you can fulfill this by using both Bite Victim and Bat Form, solely drinking blood from a wineglass, whatever methods above suit your needs. You do have to actually consume it though, so it won't work if you try to be a smart-aleck and carry a bunch of (medical) blood bags.

The precise number of units you need to collect depends, not on server population, but on the type of server. If you're on the Classic servers, it's a multiple of ten between 600 and 1000. If you're on the Roleplay servers, it's multiple of ten between 400 to 800.

When you complete this objective for the first time, you get the Dracula Jr. medal. It lets you turn certain coats into a "strange vampire outfit" that's a reference to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Phantom Blood.

Supplementary Video

Mild content warning: death

Gallery