BDE Info-Post #3: Hey, Hey, I Wanna Be A Vampire!

[thatsamilkshake]

Well, you probably didn't at the time, but c'est la morte, you are now. Here's some info on how the whole undead shebang works in the Buffyverse. (Obviously this applies to you survivors who have to deal with them too.)

So How You Gonna Do It?

Humans -- or, we're saying for the sake of FH, humanoid aliens -- can become Buffyverse vampires; animals can't. Here's how:

1. An existing vampire drains almost all of your blood from your body to the point of death.
2. The victim then ingests some of the vampire's blood. (This can be forced, voluntary, or accidental.)
3. The human(oid) body dies.
4. The human soul leaves the body and goes to wherever human souls go, lalala canon is deliberately ambiguous cakes
5. The body becomes inhabited by a demon.
6. Time - at least a couple of hours - passes. The body will look dead, dead deadski for that period. People who aren't Vampire Slayers won't know if the body's going to rise as a vampire or not. (Slayers, it's up to you how much of a feeling you have on that score.) One way to deal with a body that might rise again is to behead it or burn it before that can happen.
7. The new vampire awakes.
8. Profit!

It looks quite a lot like this, except usually with less forehead emo.

Q: If my mainstreamer jumps into a human, can they get vamped later?
A: Yep, but this will count as dying for your mainstreamer, and they'll be shunted home and wake up.
Q: Can I play the AU vampire after that?
A: Yup!

I'd Even Cut My Hair and Change My Name: The Inside Bits

As an awakened vampire you have:

• All the memories of the dead human and only those memories - it didn't have a separate existence as a demon before this.
• A hunger for blood and violence
• The propensity towards active evil, but it varies with the individual
• No conscience or morality
• The ability to feel emotions and love, however. Just usually in a twisted manner.
• Possible insanity depending on how easily shattered the original personality was. Really crazy vamps are fairly rare, though.
• A mindset that classifies non-vampires into a) dinner, b) can't eat it and it's not stronger than me: ignore it, maybe play kitten poker with it, c) can't eat it and it is stronger than me or has something I want: pay attention to it

All of the above applies if you are an actual vampire in the AU. If you're a mainstream crossover who jumps into a vampire, the demon will be asleep and you'll still be you - but you will have the physiological urges for blood and violence.

We All Stay Skinny 'Cause We Just Don't Eat: The Outside Bits

Congratulations! You:

• Have enhanced strength, sight, smell, speed, endurance, and nifty martial arts skills! (And you can usually tell by scent that someone isn't human.)
• Have two faces: human one, and a demonic one with a wrinkled forehead, yellow eyes, and fangs; you can switch back and forth at will. The slang term for the demonic look is 'Game face.'
• Need blood to survive. Human and living is preferred, but you can drink bagged human blood or animal blood (fresh or bagged) as well; it's just not as nourishing and it tastes like crap. If you don't get blood, you won't stop existing - you'll just waste away to a 'living' skeleton, and go completely bugnuts, if you weren't already.
• Can eat regular food, but it won't give you any nourishment, and it probably doesn't taste as good anymore. You can get drunk or high (though it'll take more than for a human) - including off a victim's blood alcohol content.
• Can do the dirty, yes, you dirty, dirty vampire, you
• Can't fly, but you can jump up to a second-story window ledge, no problem.
• Can be hurt and feel pain, but you heal fast, if you're not deprived of blood or kept continually in contact with one of your weaknesses.
• Can't be read telepathically! A clairvoyent or a magic user could know things about you, though.
• Don't reflect! You do appear on film and tape, though.
• Can't get into the dwelling space of a living person without being invited in by somone who lives there. No houses, no apartments, no long-term inabited hotel rooms, and for the purposes of this plot, you can't get into the dorm builing. Once you've been invited, though, you're always invited, unless someone does a very specific dis-invitation spell.

This applies to both "real" vampires and those with a mainstream FH-er in their skull.

This Life Hasn't Turned Out Quite The Way I Want It To Be: What Can Hurt Me?

• Direct sunlight: It burrrrrrrrrrns, Jim! You can survive a very brief exposure, but more than ten seconds or so and you'll catch on fire. That would be bad. Indirect sunlight (a room lit by it, etc.) is fine.
• Fire: You're highly flammable, more so than a human.
• Holy water: It burns when it touches you. So do bibles, crosses, communion wafers and recently consecrated ground. All of these things can be overcome if you can push past the pain. WALK IT OFF.
• Crosses and garlic: will also repel you. And again with the walking it off. Strength of will or high tolerance for pain will get you past it.
• Holy places: will pretty much just make you twitchy. You can totally invade the church.

This applies to both "real" vampires and those with a mainstream FH-er in their skull. (Yup, holy stuffs hurt you even when you've got a soul. Sucks, don't it.)

It's Like The Bottom of the Ninth and I'm Never Gonna Win: What Can Kill Me?

Probably not a spoiler to say that by the end of this plot, all the vampires shall be no more. You can get killed off along the way, or in the finale, but it's definitely going to happen! (If it happens at the end of the plot, though, your character won't have the 'OMG I died' trauma to contend with. They'll be safely whisked back home without having to deal with that.)

So how can you get that undead body permanently deadinated?

• A stake through the heart: or other sharp wooden object. It takes skill (or luck), but not a lot of strength -- a pencil can do it -- so even if you're normally invulnerable, you can still be staked.
• Direct sunlight: if you're exposed for longer than about 10 seconds.
• Beheading: This includes getting ripped apart, blown up or otherwise atomized, as well as the traditional method of head-removal.
• Fire: bad. Tree pretty. Unless it's on fire or pointy. Then avoid it.
• Holy water: if you drink it or have prolonged exposure. Don't go swimming in the baptismal font is what we're saying.
• A poison called the Killer of the Dead. They don't have any in Fandom. You're in the clear.

This applies to both "real" vampires and those with a mainstream FH-er in their skull.

ETA: And hey, here's a lovely compendium of almost every vampire ever dusted on Angel: the Series if you'd like some visual references!

So what happens when you bite it? *cough*

• Your body -- and your clothes: collapse into dust. *Poof!* Your skeleton is visible for a couple of seconds, and then it's dust too. The slang for killing vampires is in fact 'dusting' them. (Though 'killing' and 'slaying' work too.)
• The demon: goes off to whatever sort of afterlife such things have. It's ambiguous, but not pleasant-sounding.
• Your consciousness if you're a mainstream crossover: zooms home and wakes up in your real body, with all memories of what you experienced intact

"I Wanna Be Great Like Elvis: Can Haz My Powerz Still?

Yes! If you are a vampire, and had powers before you got vamped, you still have them, and Willow's spell doesn't affect them. (You still can't leave the island without Zoe's permission, though. AKA: effectively, no one is leaving the AU island for this plot.)

The two exceptions to keeping powers are anything that would give you an invulnerability to staking or to sunlight - those are important enough parts of the vampire demon that they'll override anything that came with the human.

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