Can someone help me grok Adaptable Palate from The Vamp? I understand why it’s where it is from a mechanical perspective, but fictionally it seems backwards to me that you need to give in and become horribly corrupt before you can stop eating people. Got some good thoughts on the underlying fiction to help me wrap my head around it?
Can someone help me grok Adaptable Palate from The Vamp?
Can someone help me grok Adaptable Palate from The Vamp?
Well, that sounds like something to ask your players, really. The answer will vary from play group to play group.
That said, my “if my players don’t care and it comes up” fallback position is that drinking inhuman blood dilutes the humanity of the vampire. Drink from rats, and one’s human social behaviors fade in favor of rat behaviors, for example.
Unless my players or I have a better idea that is. Stay fluid.
You don’t stop eating people. You just gain the option to benefit from drinking from other monsters-including other vampires. Remember those twisted Reaper vamps from Blade 2, who could feed off vampires? They went insane, and the other vampires hunted them down.
Think of it from an Urban Shadows perspective. Before the wolves were content knowing they were not prey, and their was an understanding vamps gained no benefit from hunting wolves. Suddenly they are on the menu? Some wolves will get scared, and then get angry-blood on the street as they attack this vamp who dares think of them as ‘kine’ or cattle. Maybe drinking from wizards enough, you steal part of their power-the Power faction can’t have that, so they try to scorch earth you from the plane.
Perhaps there are rules in vamp society, no feeding from supernaturals. Remember, it comes with side effects, says so in the move. Maybe it changes you physically if you feed off animals, so you resemble them more, like Nosferatu in Vampires: The Masquerade.
So yes you can eat from non-humans, but it should always come with it’s own costs-what has driven you to become desperate enough to try it? And how much wolf blood does it take to drink, before you gain these strange benefits (OOC gain enough corruption to buy the move)
Lon Sarver I’m actually coming at it from the perspective of a prospective Vamp player with no idea what to do with that advance, otherwise I’d be all over the ask the player angle, haha. That diluting humanity angle is really good, though, and it makes sense with Eternal Hunger’s effects since you soak up part of your victim’s thoughts. That’ll be my go-to answer too, thanks!
Chirag Asnani, the advance lets you feed off any creature, not just other supernaturals, so you could totally go to a no-people diet once you take it. The idea that it’s as much a social restriction as a (meta)physical one is good, though.
James Etheridge Oh you were wanting to Edward it up? Damn Veggie Vamps ;p
Well yeah take the diluting humanity aspect works. Or you could go with the idea that drinking non-human blood only sates the hunger, it’s not filling. Like eating nothing but lettuce, you will end up weaker than a normal vampire.
Imagine if the Twilight thing happened where your eyes turn golden without eating human blood/flesh/emotions. You would be signaling to all other Vampires that you are both defying their way of life (a bigger problem if there are side effects of eating animals, or if managing Kine territories is how vampires stay in control) and that you are weaker than normal. Someone in the Night faction is gonna act against you, so be prepared.
I feel like feeding of anything that isn’t human should have heavy consequences in a social, physical, and metaphysical sense. The consequence-free veggie vamp completely undermines the source of personal horror of the vampire. Even Louis eventually came around.
I understood it to mean “dwelling in a forest, feeding off deer and rabbits” can be seen as a Corrupted activity. Vamps are best suited to be enmeshed in human society, parasites that cluster in cities and accrue temporal power through influence and debts.
It provides greater flexibility, which is why it’s a advantageous power, but it’s not how they are “meant” to exist.
I personally have been taking supernatural ideas & turning them on their heads slightly , instead of the vampire concept of blood obsessed creatures which is all well & good, but I watch vids on you tube of a U.S playtest & adopted idea of Vampires feeding on emotions getting drunk with power , I also dispel the myth of sunlight ,
I think these creatures would have simply evolved to survive in the sun by now:
Vampire scientists I personally think have been investigating various genetic experiments for centuries & I think if your role playing in the modern “Day Walkers” do exist if you have the money to pay for it , it means going through a huge operation that could fry you alive but if your willing to undergo this procedure you can survive sunlight , “Day Walking”
Means you’re character suffers weaker penalty but its better than burning alive , another thing you could do if your struggling blood lust is have a serum similar to Blade. I see no reason vampires wouldn’t be devolping new technology to cope with their problems.
Interesting enough, sunlight is the product of pop culture more than myth. It isn’t really until Nosferatu that it becomes an issue. Of course, the modern vampire is more the product of Stoker and Polydori than myth anyway.
Again, Urban Shadows follows whatever mythology the PCs want. Chinese vampires stealing souls, African transforming vampires, skies the limit.
Well, I can think of a good explanation for Adaptable Palate, one that I would use. It’s along the lines of the Ordo Dracul from the nWoD. Basically, you have gone further in mastering the vampiric condition and are overcoming certain weaknesses, like a limited diet.
Skip I have only a few W.O.D including Vampire the requiem , is this classed as New?
This confuses me a little I know Masquerade was released a while back but the 90’s wasn’t that long ago
I’m only puppy really & at 37 I consider myself pretty new lol
Joe Coo Oh, you younglings… Vampire the Requiem is the new WoD. Sort of a continuation of VtM where the prophecies they feared came to pass.
VTM was early 90’s then it for revamped with the requiem , but surely the Onyx path stuff has got to be newer so what’s that’s classed as? Lol
I’m pretty sure they’re calling the latest line Chronicles of Darkness instead of World of Darkness, to prevent/aggravate the naming confusion.
OK not got into the Onyx Path stuff yet but no doubt I will at some point .
I would like the anniversary editions the brought out for VtM, but its a bit pricey.