Mind's Eye Theatre - Vampire The Requiem.pdf - RoseRed

other sources of damage • chemicals • electricity chapter • pressure one: society and of temperature
the damned 247
ELECTRICITY
By itself, electricity does little harm to the undead. Electrocution doesn’t stop a Kindred’s
heart from beating, because it doesn’t beat in the fi rst place. Electricity doesn’t interfere with
brain function or nerve impulses, because vampire bodies work mystically. The heat generated
by lightning or high-tension electric current can cause internal burns, however.
If a Kindred suffers some electric shock that could wound or kill a mortal, ask the player to
draw the character’s Stamina + Resilience. If the draw succeeds, the character suffers no damage
at all unless the electricity is supernatural in origin. If the draw fails or if the electricity is
supernatural, the electricity infl icts bashing damage. Assess the damage based on the strength
of the current or at random. So many factors can infl uence the lethality of an electric shock,
from the soles of a character’s shoes to the humidity in the air, that any attempt to provide a
“realistic” system is futile. Only in the rarest of circumstances, such as with certain magical attacks
or overwhelming amounts of electricity, does a shock result in lethal or aggravated damage.
These circumstances, when not detailed by specifi c rules, are determined by the Storyteller.
Kindred remain subject to the muscle-locking effect of electrocution, though, just like
mortals. Use the system for pulling free from electrocution presented on p. 244 the Mind’s
Eye Theatre rulebook.
EXTREME PRESSURES AND TEMPERATURES
Since vampires do not actually live, they suffer only minor discomfort from temperature
and pressure extremes that would kill a mortal. For instance, Kindred cannot suffer from
hypothermia or heat prostration. Being dead, they do not need to maintain a steady body
temperature. Kindred can descend deep underwater and return to the surface quickly without
worrying about decompression sickness (“the bends”). Gas bubbles in a Kindred’s blood
might cause a few aches and twinges, but they do not really harm his undead fl esh. Altitude
sickness means nothing to creatures that don’t need to breathe.
In some of the most extreme cases, Storytellers might impose penalties of some sort for the
most extreme conditions. Temperatures over 200°F might count as feeble fi re (or at least set the
panic of Rötschreck crawling in a character’s mind). Then again, mortals routinely stick their
hands into 400°F ovens without the hot air burning their skin. Prolonged exposure to freezing
temperatures might force a character to expend a Vitae or two to avoid frostbite (-1 or more to
Dexterity-based draws). In the most extreme case, a Kindred could freeze solid and immobile
— not harmful in itself, but eventually the character starves into torpor if she doesn’t burn from
exposure to daylight. The pressure at the bottom of a deep-sea trench (what sort of chronicle are
you playing, anyway?) might crush an unfortunate vampire who lacks Resilience to endure it.
Some fi sh live in those awful depths, but they have evolved to adapt to those conditions. Total
vacuum (good God, what sort of chronicle is this?) could infl ict bashing or, at most, a few points
of lethal damage as blood vessels rupture. Since the undead don’t need to breathe, a character
could survive in a vacuum indefi nitely once the pressure within his tissues drops.
DISEASE AND THE KINDRED
No mundane disease can affect the Kindred in any way. From cancer to the common
cold, undeath “cures” them all and renders a character immune forever after. Kindred
don’t get allergies, infections or ulcers.
The Kindred do care about disease, though. A Kindred can still spread a disease from
one mortal to another. A vampire drinks from an infected mortal, and like a mosquito
carrying malaria or yellow fever, he injects the disease organism into anyone he feeds
upon afterward. Diseases that are normally carried by contact between body fl uids,
such as HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases, prove especially likely to take