I do not think they can blend in at all. Their eyes glow yellow all the time, they are bat-faced, and even the sculpter woman in the Red Flagon knows the player for what they truly are. Stage 4 vampirism was removed to please the players who complained that they hated being attacked. By all means, in lore, I am quite sure villagers would not take kindly to a glowing-eyed, pale, fanged individual.

Movarth is of Cyrodiilic bloodline, that is a given. It was a developer oversight to add him in. Now, Sybille? I would like to believe she is a Cyrodiilic vampire, until Bethesda added glowing eyes to her. Then again, the vampires of Oblivion had a distinct look about them.

Truly, if these "Volkihar" where the Order, they would not be all hanging out in castles. Perhaps they would congregate there, but most of them would be dealing with the crumbling Empire, perhaps trying to find a way to destroy the Thalmor to facilitate Imperial control, which they took advantage at the start of the Third Era.

I'm not saying they are the Volkihar, but I don't believe they are The Order, or the clan itself. Harkon says they lived in the castle for centuries, far from the cares of the world. The Order are directly involved in worldly affairs; politics, nobility, aristocracy, etc. This was evident in Oblivion where the named NPC's all walked around towns masquerading as humans. And all of them had influence.

The "Volkihar" are the boogeymen who kidnap people and enthrall them, lock them up in cattle cells, and feed on them on tables. They have their own political court, and so share some similarities to The Order such as hatred of thin-blooded vampires, or pinning the blame on others using clever deception(as the player needs to put a note on the body of a victim under the guise of the Dawnguard, as Seridur blamed Roland for the murder of Relfina).

But what remains similar? The power of seduction. The power to become invisible. But gameplay-wise, the Cyrodiilic vampires have many more bonuses, but since we're talking about a lore standpoint, this means little. Of course, when Harkon says that they lived in the castle for centuries and far from the cares of the world, it could be the time that it took from Oblivion to Skyrim; two centuries ever since the Empire collapsed, which would make the Cyrodiilic vampires want to rethink their plans. It is implied they aren't native to Cyrodiil, but only took over when Tiber Septim unified Tamriel. Knowing Cyrodiil is a seat of an Empire, they simple took over it to gain access to whatever they wanted; coin for their coffers, better lifestyle, "diplomatic immunity" as in the case of Janus and the Mages Guild. By all means, they are the free-loading wealthy power-hungry nobility of the Empire, who's arrogance is increased by their immortality and vampirism.

At this point, I wish a developer who made the vampires in Skyrim would clarify.

I may not completely agree, but you do make a good argument (or perhaps better said, a good point). I like the way you think, Merari.

[Edit: fixed the quote tags]

I don't know much about the sculptor, but no one else ever thinks you're a vampire (except for the vigilants and other vampires, who should). They comment on your pale face and stuff just like NPCs did in Oblivion. I don't know what's up with the glowing eyes, but other NPCs don't seem to notice in either case. I already mentioned an exception for the bat-faced ones Dawnguard added.

Not all vampires are from Harkon's clan. But in either case, I'm mostly talking about the strain of vampirism that The Order has (in lieu of the name for the strain itself), not the actual political organization of The Order.

And the ability to walk undetected among people (by keeping well-fed, pre-Dawnguard). Compare Oblivion's vampirism with Morrowind's and Daggerfall's, then compare it with Skyrim's. The vampirism you get in Skyrim is much, much closer to Oblivion than it was to the other games.

What I believe is...

Harkon's Vampires are indeed the fabled Volkihar BUT they differ from the Lore friendly Volkihar due to Bethesda planning not to add Vampires until people demanded they be added, Bethesdas way of making up for it was giving them a makeover and their own DLC though I suppose that isn't enough for some people, some people demand they be able to phase through the ice and drag horkers down into the depths...lol

By the way someone earlier said there is only two types of Volkihar...which is false..there are three!

Pureblood, Half-blood, and Thin-blood.

I personally think every Vampire clan has their own set of Purebloods who lead their clans and have their own set of abilities, the Volkihar ability being the Vampire Lord form, you sort of ruin the balance by slaying the leader of the Volkihar and taking his place even though you're half blooded.

The Volkihar you find in the wilderness are the thin-blooded Volkihar, they kept the title Volkihar due to them knowing they were turned by a Half-blood Volkihar but since they weren't turned by a Pureblood that means they aren't able to turn into a Vampire Lord thus making them weaker than the Purebloods and Half-bloods...hence thin-blood.

I just think it's that they are the Volkihar.

Either they dropped the ball, or the book was wrong, or they didn't implement all the features.

They aren't going to be adding to this DLC. Why put a lie in the DLC to never reveal it was a lie?

It's like ending a game with something dramatic, and someone saying "oh by the way, the whole game was a dream"
And never having an official statement or sequel to back that up.

What's the point?

Next Vampire book in a future Elder Scrolls game is probably gonna make what they did to the Volkihar in Dawnguard the actual lore for them.

If anything that's what I'd expect. I don't really expect the Volkihar of now to be recorded in history in the next game saying that they weren't the real volkihar, theres not really anyone to say anything like that as the castle was wiped out if you go dawnguard side. All that'd be left really is Serana.

Castle Volihkar if you listen to Serana did not belong to vampires it was built by a human noble who her family/ clan took the castle from.

The author of the book Immortal Blood had some of his facts wrong so not everything he wrote was true. As seen by the warrior explaining how the Vaolkhir vampires could reach through the ice without breaking it.

Vampire blood can mutate over the centuries or Molag Bol could change their powers at a whim, so it could be over time the vampires change and mutate.

Harkon is a 1st generation vampire or pure blood which would make you the character a second generation vampire so your only one removed from being a pureblood anyway, but it would of been nice to be able to gain Harkons soul and become a pureblood yourself. Or maybe thats what happened when you kill him but Molag Bol never says anything to you.

The mod is nice but some of the writting has holes within it which can leave many questions unanswered but this has more to do with the fact its a open ended RPG so if Bethesda wrote everything down and made it lore it would leave us the players feeling a little confined. Much like DA2 did when it was released.

But people already feel that way seeing how almost all quests if not all of them, regardless of any choice end the same way lol

Maybe Bethesda should do away with the story lines and just add game mechanics then if thats how you feel.

I can't see how else they could end to be honest. Even as a vampire I agreed with Serana and her mother never Lord Harkon, I know some people wanted to be his pet and be allowed to live, but in all honesty the guy was a meglomaniac.

Eh I did not really care for his plans I wanted his throne and I was looking for a challenge a strong foe to crush beneth my boot. I did agree blocking out the sun forever is silly.

By adding a degree of choice

So many games have storylines with side storylines, both of which have different outcomes for different actions. Different people die, different people win, some people hate you, some love you, so on and so forth.

I don't think you can say the author had his facts wrong, he just didn't have all the facts. There's a major difference. Movarth didn't say anything about his information about the Volkihar being wrong, only that they had powers the author did not know about.

I agree Harkon was a megalomaniac but not because he fancied himself powerful and wasn't. He knew just how (immensely) powerful he was, and knew how to manipulate those powers to accomplish a great feat: Releasing all Vampires from the Tyranny of the Sun. It follows his character nicely....but I think we've been over that before so I'll not reiterate.

I also agree that more time should have been put into the story branches. There should have been, and could have been, different ways to achieve the same end with each ending slightly varied from the other. That at least would have made the whole DLC quest line feel more open and unique. I personally would have liked some more in-depth options which led to a few wildly different endings...but that might be asking a bit much. I'm still in the group who feels they got a bang for my buck with this DLC

Ultimately thought this would be my one major complaint. At download I was really hoping that I could go through as a villain and have a villain-type ending/reward. It made me a little sad to find out that it doesn't matter, I'm still forced to do "the right thing" even if it completely goes against my character's character.

Well to be fair, the right thing in this particular case made sense, humans/mer/beast-folk wanted to stop Harkon to protect themselves and the Vampire side wanted to do the same to keep their whole kind/species from being exterminated, granted the Vampire side has you do a couple more villainous things.

So regardless of the outcome you could think of the Vampire side justifiably as the Villain side since Vampires are naturally evil creatures..though they can be quite kind, noble, and hospitable but at the core all Vampires are evil (Its not their fault though), they were created that way and you are keeping them all from being wiped out, seems a pretty villainous thing to do.

Though it would have been cool to have blotted out the sun for good and instead of just the Dawnguard ambushing you, entire armies spawned in towns and slaughtered everyone as soon as you spawned into the town and were attacked.

I mean can you imagine the rage people would post in the forum if that happened and it would have to happen since the DLC tells you if the sun goes out for good entire armies would hunt Vampires to extinction.

I mean people rage that 1 Vampire and 2 Thralls can wipe out entire towns without them even knowing, vice versa with 3 Dawnguard when they hit you (it causes villagers to attack them)

I'd say they chose the best ending though everyone is entitled to their opinion.

You can still do the villan thing by going to a city with corrputed arrows and shooting at the sun with Auriels bow which will make the vampires attack everyone in the city during daytime. Problem is your going to kill off a lot of your population and quest givers.

I wouldn't go as far as to call vampires evil. Please, they have to eat otherwise they won''t survive in sunlight(this goes for other vampires).

The ending was the only thing that made any sense to me in the MQ. Almost all of the progression to the end doesn't make much sense at all if you play either side. Join the Dawnguard and hang out with a Vampire, escort her home and then have her end up being your buddy for life. There's never any option to tell her to get lost you want to figure it all out for yourself, and have no intention of tolerating her vampiristic state (you are a Vampire Hunter after all). Join the Vampires and run around doing jobs for Harkon even though Serana tells you he intends to kill you both...wtf? There's never any option to say 'Hang on, maybe we should stop doing what Harkon wants since he will probably kill us, and let's figure out a way to off him instead...'. The only stupid part about the ending is that doing what Harkon wants is inexplicably the same thing as getting a weapon to kill him... (So killing him is the only thing in the entire questline that made any sense to me).

Aye, calling vampires 'evil' is just a stereotype which then removes a whole lot of role play options and cuts off a lot of possible story directions, including the character that so many people like - Serana. I don't believe Janus Hassildor was the least bit evil, so to me that's enough evidence to say Vampires certainly have the ability to make individual moral choices and are not in a state of "they cannot help it [being evil]".

The way I see it, people are food, vampires are predators. There's nothing too it. Many creatures eat their prey while they are still alive, I.E, Praying Mantis, etc.

Same goes for werewolves, who are naturally bestial and cannot be called "evil".

Hell, you could go even further and say since Vampires can eat without killing they are less evil than those who kill creatures to eat them.

But as for lumping all Vampires into categories of either 'evil' or 'natural predator (so not evil)' - I think I prefer to think of all Vampire characters (NPCs and players) as individuals who are all capable of doing and being anything along the spectrum from good to evil. Giving characters the ability to be a variety of unique individuals makes for a better framework for a story, both the game's possible story and the player's self created story.

I don't believe in evil, so the conversation is void

Since the Volkihar npcs WILL attack you even if you are Lord of the Court, I take it as you are not a Volkihar vampire, nor are the rest of Harkons court. Why would the Volkihar Vampires across Skyrim attack you if you were their kin? And you don't share the known Volkihar powers. I see it as an obvious fact that Harkon's (your) clan just reside in a castle previously owned by the Volkihar clan.

Its not that strange, Lorzan.

I'm the leader of the Dark brotherhood and Dark brotherhood assassins still come after me from time to time.
I'm the leader of the Thieves Guild and I still get attacked by random thieves guild thieves on the road.

Its well noted from the radiant quests, Lorzan that the thin-bloods are resentful for not being as powerful as the Purebloods and Mixed bloods that turned them (They aren't allowed in the safety of the Castle) and are trying their hardest to make things difficult for the Vampires in Castle Volkihar which includes openly attacking, planning too turn random groups of bandits into Vampires in order to cause more problems...etc.

Vampires are largely territorial. Pay attention to their dialogue.

• "Pah, your blood is foul."
  
• "Let me show you how mortal you still are, vampire."
  
• "This is my hunting ground."
  
• "You should not have come here, vampire."
  
• "There's no blood here for you."
  
• "You've seen your last dawn. I bring the night."
  
• "The night eternal awaits."