Why don't NPCs recognize you as a vampire unless you are at stage four? This has always bothered me ever since I played Oblivion. I suppose it is just gameplay mechanics, but can anyone convince me of a good lore reason? I mean you obviously look like a freakin' vampire from stage one and on. Are other people just that much in denial? To me it would have made much more sense for the player character to still retain their mortal looks with no changes until they reach stage four vampirism. That would make much more sense for people not to know what you are then. Or do other people know that you are a vampire and not care until you reach stage four? That makes the least amount of sense of all to me.

So what are your lore-y takes on why no one notices or cares that you are a vampire until stage four?

There's an in-game book called http://www.imperial-library.info/content/immortal-blood Read it, it will give you a good overview of Tamrielic vampires (you might even notice a familiar name ). Here's a fragment thar might be the answer to your question:


"Now, tell me," he said. "Of the vampires of Cyrodiil."

I told him what I could. There was but one tribe in Cyrodiil, a powerful clan who had ousted all other competitors, much like the Imperials themselves had done. Their true name was unknown, lost in history, but they were experts at concealment. If they kept themselves well-fed, they were indistinguishable from living persons. They were cultured, more civilized than the vampires of the provinces, preferring to feed on victims while they were asleep, unaware.

It explains cyrodiilic vampires. Even though the book mentions Volkihar, they might not be the only vampiric clan in Skyrim - the ones we meet could be of the same variety as the ones in Cyrodiil, that's why they are indistinguishable from regular people. Or maybe some of them struck a similar deal with Clavicus as the cyrodiilic ones did?
Of course, it could just be something that Bethesda overlooked. Or they didn't feel like creating a whole new kind of vampires that can reach through ice and all that jazz - what we had before was easier to implement.

It's up to you what you decide to believe in, but the lore is there

Oh I know all about that story. It's just that the PC is not indistinguishable from mortals when they are a vampire. They look pretty different. Of course one can always imagine that they don't look like a vampire, but in the game you clearly do.

The reason vampires in Skyrim can disguise themselves so well can only be because the vampires of Cyrodiil have infected some people who then went to Skyrim, or the vamopires themselves moved. I imagine these bigger, badder vampires are the Volkihar. But for all we know, vampires have just evolved.

Much more difference in Oblivion still the npc's in TES never have been intelligent.

You know...I just thought of the fact that if you are seen as a stage four vampire, but then go back to being stage one no one is hostile to you anymore. So obviously at that point people know what you are because they've seen you as a stage four. So maybe it is more that NPCs know you are a vamp, but don't care as long as you aren't blood starved? Again that doesn't make sense to me, but then TES NPCs aren't the sharpest tools in the box I suppose.

Don't know. Lore-wise, a person's face is dramatically changed when they become a vampire. For example, the author of "vampires of the illiac bay" wrote how he knew a tavern wench for a long time, but after he became a vampire, she did not recognize him at all. He was dead, and when he said who he really was, she scoffed and told him it was a very poor joke. So we can assume between stages they do not look the same.

Maybe they have a short memory span? At least it's better than when you're seen as a werewolf in Morrowind- you could be seen in a werewolf form, leave, come back few days later in a human form, but people would, for some odd reason, know you were that werewolf that attacked them long ago. Don't know how it works in Skyrim since I have never turned myself and went into town or someplace like that.

i dont remember exactly what people on the street said to you in oblivion when you were a vampire, but its what i said to their corpses.

something like, "MEEEEH, U SHUD C A HELER!" so annoying.....