Seems strange to me that a vampire would grow more powerful the less they fed. Seems to me that feeding would be more of an incentive if it provided you with said powers and not feeding made you weaker to fire, sun, and you lose your powers. Argument can be made for Oblivion as well. Feeding should be something that helps you blend in more while being powerful. It should be something to rejuvenate you not limit your powers. Just my 2 cents. Nothing else for now. Loving the game so far.

Dont forget the fact they can go into sunlight and just sparkle now

Skyrim's Vampire overall are screwed up contradicting many things that they should not be able to do but lore goes out the window when simplicity arrives.

Wait, wait, wait right there... vampires sparkle?

A starved animal is more dangerous than one that just fed.

They don't sparkle, they got more powerful. They're high daylight walkers now, to an extent. The longer you wait between feeding, though, the more penalties sunlight brings.

However, while I looked forward to vamps at first, the fact that there's no questline makes me sad. At least werewolves got a questline.

Yeah I've heard that argument but that doesn't mean it becomes any faster or stronger because of its hunger.

Yes.
I imagine that an animal who have gone 6 months without food is extremely bloodthirsty compared to the one that feeds thrice a day, and has JUST missed breakfast AND dinner, and is searching for his supper...

You're right, it won't become stronger or faster - It simply becomes desperate.

This. It makes sense for vampires to have evolved to be more stable but less powerful when they were well fed, seeing as they'd just chowed down and no longer required the strength it took to nab themselves a meal. A hungry vampire would go into desperation mode, its body going into overdrive to lend it the power needed to take down its victim. If it went too long without nourishment, its system would reverse its strategy and simply shut down until blood was available again. Seems logical to me.

What's even more backwards is how Falmor look like vampires while vampires are just people with red eyes.

No it doesn't make any sense. Being more desperate for food doesn't make you stronger. Try going to the gym and lifting after you are well fed and then do it after not eating for 3 or so days. Won't work.

Vampirism in TES lore isn't like regular vampirism. The way they are in TES is the result of a pact between Molag Bal and Clavicus Vile and has nothing to do with the way you normally think of vamps. It isn't undeath as much as it's a curse in TES.

sort of a balancing issue.

Don't feed and gain X amount of power/perks/hp
Feed, don't die during daytime, and keep speechcraft the same... when you don't feed and hit stage 2-4 nobody will want to talk to you.



@ Davil, i'll have to look for that, not too familiar with the specific lore of vampirism for TES.

Yeah, sure, that's how it works for most creatures, including humans, but vampires are another species entirely. Skyrim's vamps may have a completely different physiology from us and react differently under survival-related stress.

Although if you looked at the true Vampire stories, Vampires were never a hybrid. The only time that they were even close to a human hybrid was if they infected another human, however if that human didn't feed he/she would fall deeper into the curse and turn into the true vampire form, not this twilight stuff you've been watching.

You aren't magical, vampires are

It was a disease in Morrowind, though?

I don't really care as none of that is really specified in the lore. It's just a bad game mechanic.



Not a good reason other than "just cause i say so."



Sorry but you don't know what you are talking about. Considering i'm actually Romanian where much of the original vampire lore today is based off of, where I grew up with stories of Strigoi it's funny you accuse me of 'watching twilight.' In our folklore the Strigoi were actually people who made a pact with the devil in hell and rose to be alive. And they were more like a ghost than a zombie sort of vampire which is more popularly used. You also had Strigoi come into existence if you didn't kill a werewolf in the proper manner.



Doesn't change the fact that it makes more sense that you get more powers from feeding, and that it actually plays into the whole role of the vampire.

I raised my eyebrow slightly at it as well to start with, but after playing a vampire character a lot I can imagine certain scenarios that make sense (mostly when considering other works) especially when considering TES vampires aren't the vampires of Buffy/Hellsing/Underworld/Twilight/Dracula/etc Probably not all that satisfactory, but eh, I have had fun thinking about it.

Plenty of vampire fiction shows a vampire appearing more alive, more human, after they drink blood (some, like WOD and NWOD actually have it as something a vampire can use blood for - the flush of life). The longer without blood the less they are able to hide their true nature. So in this context it works. A vampire drinking regularly can interact with people fine, one that goes without blood for a little while appears as a monster to everyone.

As for getting more powerful - not as much support in fiction for this but it is a supernatural gift/curse/transformation - think about the context. Magic, gods etc - people get strong without obvious physical connections. Much of fiction has vampiric powers fueled by blood. They drink if they want to use there cool powers and because they are starving. Here maybe blood simply serves as a means of suppressing the supernatural aspect of the vampire. Like splattering chicken blood and saying some magic words keeps evil creatures sleeping another night. Don't drink blood and the true vampiric nature steadily rises to the surface.

It has a twisted humor to it. A vampire that wants to retain its humanity and never feed off a mortal has a tough choice - feed or become an outcast. Some evil chao that wants to live it up, Drac style and glut themselves on blood has to choose as well. Be powerful or be social.



I am kind of curious - how accurate is the lore in TES concerning vampires? I mean does it fill of information niche in universe like a doctoral work by somebody that studied a phenomona with evidence etc or does it take a position like the works of some Roman natural philosopher took during the Renaissance?

But anyway - the simplicity argument? Again? Judging by the amount of people who complain bitterly about the fact they were "suddenly vampires" and now "everyone wants to kill me and I don't know why help!" it is still far, far from simple. That said I wouldn't have minded the Skyrim vampires be more like their lore counterparts, they sound cool - as long as it didn't go Morrowind.

Morrowind actually had the best vamp content of the Skyrim games, but it was frustrating that unmodded the game was essentially over unless you had it cured. Fair enough - if I am going to rub it in peoples faces they should react accordingly. But after becoming a vamp I traveled (at night) to my Mushroom tower, went through my gear collection and dressed my character in such a way that not a scrap of flesh was showing. I couldn't tell he was a vampire through all that, if I brought in a friend to look at the character they wouldn't have had any idea of appearance (or even gender). But apparently every member of every race in Morrowind has vampire sense and everyone hates vampires. Even one who has been nothing but an upstanding hero for Morrowind.



Well actually it is. We know there are different types of vampires based on the lore and we know a possible origin to vampire kind based on the lore. I'm not sure if it is specified in the lore that "vampires drink blood to be strong!" (I might be mistaken and I would be happy to be corrected) - perhaps you mistaking TES lore with real world myth and fictional evolution of vampire lore.

Plus the question above - where does the lore sit in TES on this. Is it a definitive scholarly work, or is it a 700 year old writing on some terror of the night? You should read some IR lore on things like vampires and werewolves - interesting stuff.



Oh, so you do know some of it. Though it is an awfully big claim that "much" of the original vampire lore came just from Romainia (or the territory that modern day Romania inhabits perhaps) - what do you know of the Greek/Russian/etc myth contributions?



Tell me about it. *points at sig* Oh for some vampire content.

I agree, vampirism does seem abit backwards. Then again it has always been kinda poorly implemented compared to other games, where being a vampire was the main part of the game.
Vampire Masquerade and the other white wolf games of that series I feel did a good job of it. They are older games but was a decent example of vampire lore in my opinion.

I do think it would of been better that, vampires would need to feed regularily in order to maintain themselves; In order to stay strong.
Rather than to become stronger, they didn't feed. They need blood to survive, and you should actually die if you go too long without it.
You should feel sick and even a side quest might hint towards other vampires approaching you in order to persuade you on which path you could take.
Which can include telling you how to cure you, but also educating you on how to get by as a vampire.

In order to retain their humanity and not become monsterous, they would need to ensure they didn't use this vampire power to kill innocents.
Being monsterous and being Powerful should not be connected. Being a "Nice" or "Monsterous" vampire played right should be similar enough.
Except of course a "Monsterous" vampire would be treated far worse on sight.
So feeding would have to be done on those who were already hostile to them, or feeding off a person but not killing them, for example in their sleep.

So a vampire would have 3 methods to keep up their need for blood:
1) Sneak into houses while fair maidens slept and take a small drink get out without waking them.
2) They would reguarily feed on any hostile humans they found while adventuring, and do so without being noticed.
3) Just kill anyone they felt like it, without any regard for who saw it or weither they were hostile or not.

1, would have no impact on their humanity, 2 would have only a minor impact, aslong as it was not regular you could regain it, and 3 would have a major impact to your humanity.
Losing alot of humanity would push you closer towards becoming a monsterous stages of vampirism.
Feeding would become a challenge and a roleplay with two different ways of acting it out.

Sorry if it sounds like abit of a ramble, it's still early and only 1 cup of tea.

I'm pretty sure there are no true vampire stories (but rather, maybe, true stories that had a vampire added to them).

It is kind of screwed up but its like when I play footy if I eat before the game I feel weaker if I don't eat I'm more vicious and I put more power into the tackles as the people above has posted about

This I don't disagree with at all. I think the more blood you drink the more powerful you get and the more you can retain a lively appearance.



I mean you can reason it out and I understand it working maybe for Cyrodiil's vampires....but not all. Seems Skyrim vamps were just a copy and paste and not at all what the Skyrim vampires are originally described as.



See above.



East European Vampire lore is fairly common because of the common substratum they share. It's fairly common with slight variations.

Vampirism in Elder Scrolls seem backwards, but only when you compare them to other, mainstream sources. Think about it as a different set, and you should be fine.

It is not about logic, it is about the design. Bethesda simply chose the different path

As for whether lore says anything about feeding to stay humanly, http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Lore:Immortal_Blood from Oblivion says so

It doesn't say anything about getting weaker with every feeding, but I don't think of it as a problem myself, you choose: power or social life?