I was recently in a discussion about the sun being blocked out and how it will affect the human race and the topic of blood came up. So, the PC doesn't NEED blood but it helps to walk around in daylight. However, it does say you are a 'blood-starved' vampire and this, lore-wise, must have some affects to other vampires. Does anyone know if vampires in the ES universe truly need blood to survive?

Well i never saw anything about it in the game seeing has they can survive without blood until the end of days

See: Oblivion.

A vampire who goes too long without blood enters into a sort of torpor.

From now on I will never drink blood again

...Cool?

Why am I supposed to care?

The Clan in Cyrodiil is different to the Clan in Skyrim. They differ drastically so the laws applied to the Cyrodiilic clan don't necessarily apply to those in Skyrim.

Both clans feed on blood, and become blood starved when they do not. I maintain that the comparison is valid.

It's not valid though, they're essentially two completely different species.

Different species, same genus. Feeding on blood is a universal constant.

It doesn't mean the desire stems from the same need. Nor does it mean that the outcome from deprivation is going to be the same.

Considering how similar the mechanics are between Oblivion and Skyrim, I'd say that there is more to support my claim than there is yours. UNless you care to argue otherwise, in which case I'm open to the possibility.

Mechanics are a little sketchy to use as an argument, as they were different in Morrowind as well. I'm basing my argument on the fact that within the lore of TES, the Vampire clans are vastly difference in habit, appearance and lifestyle.
There is usually a good reason that entities adopt the traits they do, and if they all had the same necessities then it's kind of logical that they would all have similar habits and traits, which isn't the case.

The way I see it, the mechanics are meant to represent the habits of the clan, and are simply done so in an imperfect fashion. Kind of how numbers are used to represent measurement, but are an imperfect system (see: Zeno's Paradoxes). Therefore, by examining how similar they are between games, I think it's a valid comparison.


But they're so similar as to be almost exact. The only major mechanical difference between vanilla vampirism in Skyrim and Oblivion is how the sunlight damages them, which can be chalked up to a number of things, including changes Bethesda made based on user feedback.

My point about mechanics, is illustrated perfectly by your last line of text. If the Vampric variation is down to the mechanical depiction of it then there is no difference. But that 100% contradicts everything stated within the lore found within the very same games.

The fact that the mechanics change and the lore doesn't, makes one of them an unreliable source.

Why in gods name did this get moved to the spoiler section?

But not a source that can be completely ignored, either. Again, the system is not perfect, but that does not make the mechanics invalid when compared to lore.


Due to the imperfect nature of the system, though, I don't think either of our arguments can be conclusively proven. Even if you are right and I am wrong, however, I maintain that because not drinking blood seems to have long term consequences for the Cyrodiilic strain, and because blood vampires are supposed to be dependant on blood in general, blotting out the sun would have unforseen negative consequences for the Volkihar clan.

iirc people,plants,animals do not need the sun to survive on nirn,someone please tell me if im wrong.

You are correct, for most plants anyway. Its stated somewhere that most plants on nirn can survive on magical energies and dont need sunlight. I do not remeber where the proof is however, hopefully someone knows.

Lore wise they go insane if they have a lack of blood (Grey Prince's dad) and if they continue not to feed they enter a coma like state (Count hassildors wife) so yes..they do need blood to function correctly.


...and if they are in the coma for too long they die.