So if vampires are aren't dead because of the cure, then why did Rona Hassildor die when she drank it? Huh?

That's because she refused to imbibe sanguine and so withered to the point that the only thing keeping her alive was the immortality. When it went poof, she went "hurgh!"

Yeah, mortals can't fast for years unfortunately.

What I mean is, you cut out the heart of an innocent, and killed her. The witches used a special potion to make the heart start beating again in your hand, and when the heart was placed back into the dead body, she came back to life. They brought a dead person back to life. In Oblivion, it is again a Glenmoril witch that creates a potion to cure vampirism, so it doesn't seem to be much of a stretch to think that she's restoring life from undeath.

I would tend to believe the scroll in Bloodmoon is a gameplay quirk, added for people that killed the witches so they're not stuck with lycanthropy. IIRC, the witch in Oblivion was essential, so she couldn't be killed and a backup scroll wasn't be needed.

It's said the witches have a potion or scroll to cure lycanthropy but don't use it for reasons known only to them. They prefer the rite. Confirmed in Bloodmoon. It is supposed that offering the potion/scroll would bring about Hircine's disfavor.

The rite seems more like a summoning than what you seem to make of it, but it does not imply vampire undeath regardless.

I always assumed that in TES the cure worked ( aside the fantasy settings mechanics ) was that Vamps are still closer to life than death. IAMOS.
Unlike Liches.

One of the reason why I loved VtM was, that the Vamps there were dead. Cut open, bits and pieces of various rotting degree would greet the exes. :wink_smile:

Zombies are undead. They are the living dead. They have no conscience. The same for skeletons and even Liches. Vampires, even in real mythos and stories, usually contract the virus (that is the best definition for it) by being bitten. Typically to become undead, one has to die and become resurrected, but not as living, not fully. The difference is, the undead body typically is deteriorated, the person usually lacks basic human and cell functions such as mitosis, meiosis, they generally do not hunger (except Zombies, but I do not know if that is an actual hunger or simply a 'natural' behaviour of them to 'feed.'), they cannot reproduce, regenerate cells/their body, the brain is either nonexistent or doesn't function, etc etc etc. I could simply state all the characters of a living organism and be through with it. And their 'undeadness' doesn't usually spread, except in cases like Resident Evil and etc.

However, let's take a look at Vampires (again, considering, IIRC, I posted something similar.) They have all these functions that make them living. What functions or characteristics do they have that makes them undead? Hard to name any, isn't it? I cannot recall at the moment whether or not their heart is beating, but that actually doesn't matter or become a point for being undead, and I'll explain why. The victim has contracted a virus. They now become a host. The virus can stop the heart and ergo the host's blood flow. One could postulate that feeding allows the body to survive, keep healthy and "young." In the case of the Porphyric Hemophilia Cyrodiilia (my own made up name (; lol. I know it's not actually medical, lol.), the Cyrodiil strain strictly keeps the body young and close to living when feeding by filling the body with fresh blood, allowing it to stay dormant. The less a person feeds, the more the virus starts to evolve, or wake up, and as a side effect, causes shifts in the host's body, as the virus starts taking more control.

In our real world, this virus wouldn't give all the superhuman straights that you find in the game. The host would simply need to feed on blood to live, though the barbaric and predatory nature the virus induces would be normal and perhaps even function as a form of PCP.

In other strains, however, I cannot speak for. Mostly because I am unaware of most of their biology. But back to the living status I was getting to...

In fact, even being undead, doesn't mean you can't die. Of course Vampires can die, too. But they can be cured, undead cannot. Vampires also live an eternity, though I am not sure of the [i]lifespan[/] of actual undead creatures such as skeletons. However, here is the interesting kicker of it, undead are immortal, too... Just... Not really. They're not immortal because they're not living. And I do not think it is rightfully fair to even say they're undead, because un means not, and they're very much dead. But dead doesn't mean inactive. A zombie is not caught between the boundaries of life and death. He is simply an animated corpse. A skeletal figure (aka skeleton) is simply a magically bound, animated skeleton. A liche is a decayed and dead body reanimated with the soul of someone. This does not in any way actually constitute "undead" as they're very much still dead, simply reanimated.

Though I guess that goes to ask, "What is undead?" By strict definition, to be undead is to be the reanimated dead who behaves as if one was alive. This, however, does not bring them near, again, the realm of living. Granted that TES doesn't function like the real world, cells dont exist, etc etc etc. You could list thousands of things.

But at the end of the day, to be a Vampire is to be cursed to be the undying, not undead. How this works is up to you. The Vampires body regenerates, and they are fully functional, and can procreate with the non-infected, as evidenced by the Grey Prince. Even excluding the difference between the anatomy and essence of living between TES and the real world, it simply cannot actually be argued that Vampires are undead, exactly like Zombies, Skeletons, etc. They may be declared and classified as undead, but they,b y strict definition, are not.

Actually, a lich is your definition of being undead. They are fully concious of their surroundings, can think, speak, talk, and make logical deductions. The only thing they don't do is age, eat, and other biological functions. Mannimarco was a lich in Daggerfall, and he always threw wild parties. Aesliip was a Skaal turn necromancer, who in an attempt to stave off dying too early, lichified himself in order to keep the barrier, that is blocking Solstheim from a daedric invasion, constantly active. Unless you mean they die then come back to life as if nothing had happened, with everything normal.

All a lich really is, is a person, through some rituals, has his/her soul ripped out of his body, placed in a temporary vessel, and allows his/her body to die off. Once that is complete, the soul goes back to its old, but now corpsey, body and doesn't suffer effects of aging and so on. Heck, one could argue that becoming a lich is almost like enchanting, except you are using your own soul to enchant a dead body to house you.

Again. People try to add RL science in a fantasy setting. The whole "Porphic Hemophilia Cyrodiilia" has a great Daedric Influence over it. Clavicus Vile is responsible for the "Drink blood, look human" sort of thing. Not strictly to logical scientific evidence.

Either I mispoke/typed or you misread. A lich is undead, as are Zombies and Skeletons. A Vampire, however, is not, as it exhibits all functions necessary for life. A zombie is also conscious of their surrounding, as well. It is why they will attack you. Their thought process however, I could not guess.

But if you meant Lich being living (because I go by the strict definition of undead, which is a dead organism reanimated, not brought back to life or between life and death.), it is not that. They are conscious, as they contain the brain and soul of the person formerly contained. However, the body is decaying, or perhaps not. Someone more knowledgeable about Liches could better answer whether or not the body is still decaying. At any rate, a lich cannot be classified as living in the real world as it does not exhibit or function as living organisms do.

And to be classified as living (Side note: Viruses are NOT living, they're just like data that cells replicate within itself, and that is why they become devastating.) one must have the following: Able to maintain homeostasis, contain a cell (nucleus not required), metabolize energy, ability to adapt and evolve, reacts to stimuli, and can reproduce.

A vampire exhibits all those functions, save possibly having a cell and evolve (because of debates of evolution in TES, wherein some great experts and theorists, such as Lady N, I believe, say it is actually de-evolvation. ). I personally do not believe in that (laymans) theory and rather believe that things do evolve because things do undergo mutation, they're not all replications of eachother, and those mutations are passed down to the offspring. That is evolution. But here's where you can sort of rearrange some things. The virus strain can evolve, and has shown that it does. You have an unknown amount of strains, even different Sub-Cyrodiilic. The virus is now encoded in the TES version of DNA and will be passed on, by either sixual reproduction or infecting other organisms. Now, whether or not there is an equivalent of cells in TES or not, I do not know.

But yes, a Vampire does maintain homeostasis, as well as being able to metabolize an energy source (Blood), reproduce, adapt and evolve, and reacts to stimuli. Their bodies are not dead, which is required to become undead. Now, onto the next part.

It has been long debated whether or not you actually die to become a vampire. It is said you do. Maybe you do and therefore are undead. It is my personal belief that you do not actually die, but rather the virus (called a disease) simply has awoken fully. Even in vampire movies and lore, people don't die exactly. Rather, they are put in a sleeping state for a period of time to reawaken as a vampire. For some lore, it is instantaneous, suddenly after being bit. Perhaps the "On the third day, when the PC sleeps, he awakens in a mausoleum two weeks later with all of his equipment (the religion of the time being Egyptian in its belief that people should be buried with items precious to them.)" On TIL is more symbolic than literal. I mean, after all, they retain all their functions and basic components of life.



Now... at the end of all this, it's really semantics and TES vs real world. But I think, despite how much people try to differ the two (tes vs rl), the real world can greatly be applied to TES.

Just because it may be a creation of magic, doesn't mean anything, really. I know about all that, trust me, lol. I am merely leaving those details out (which actually do not disprove what I am saying, even though I am leaving them out) to offer my opinion on the entire thing, aside from the Daedric influence, I am looking at it from a biological standpoint. I know RL cannot be applied always, but who is to say what can or can't be applied? I say it can. You say it can't. Who is right? I try to make my arguments, same as you.

Reread it, and yeah I misread what you said.

I agree with what you say. However, the reproduction thing was a giant fluke with the count making the Grey Prince. In fact, that's the only time it is heard that a vampire has actually procreated with someone, whether it's due to information being brought out from embarrassed mothers/fathers of half-vampire babies trying to hide their shame of sleeping with a vampire, or this truly is something that never occurs. Normally, vampirism seems to cause the infected to become sterile, but I guess the count fed very recently to just barely pull it off. Maybe orsimer women are very fertile; the orsimer have survived countless genocides and live shorter lives than anyone else.

How many times do vampires try to have six with people anyway? Sometimes effects are infrequent events because their causes are as well. Also, I don't know of any justification in the lore for the statement that Vampirism normally seems to cause sterility. Sure, Lovidicius is the only example, but I can't think of any time when the issue of traditional reproduction in vampires was touched upon outside of Lovidicus being successful in mating.

I did point out the possibility there may have been other instances, but were kept hidden. Think about it, you had six with what is considered, by practically every culture in Tamriel, an unholy abomination. Not only that, you just brought out a child from that one night stand.

Not to mention there really are no other instances in which a vampire has been noted to successfully creating a child, even in other vampire's diary/journal/dialog/whathaveyou.

Those same whathaveyous also don't mention any acts of sixual reproduction. I mean really, Angronak and his father are the single, solitary data point on this issue.

It was blatantly obvious that Lord Lovidicus and Luktuv-gra-Malog had six in the Lord's journal. No other vampires have mentioned having babies and whatnot.

Oh come on hellmouth, of course the single solitary example of reproduction is exempt from my statement that the other texts written by vampires don't mention reproduction.

Then what are you trying to say? I'm extremely tired right now, and without coffee.

I'm saying that this statement:


and this one:



Cannot be reasonably supported because the only data point concerning Vampiric reproduction (Angronak and his parents) was a successful instance of reproduction.

And I'm saying that is the only instance, as there are no other accounts. Even Lord Lovidicus was extremely surprised. I only deduced this because there was never ANY mention of there being a child created from vampires in the whole 4000 years of Nirn's recorded history.

BUT, I also said that it is likely they're not sterile, it's just that those who do end up making babies with vamps try to hide this as they had six with a universally hated being. The stigma of you being known as a vampire [NUMMIT] and the stigma of your child being the union of a sicko and an abomination would likely cost them their life at the very worst, exile at best.

In other words, I put in a likely theory that they may NOT be sterile, but unions between vamps and non-vamps are almost never recorded, due to shame, and that vamps just may not be into humping each other or its something they don't talk about.

So would it be possible for two vampires to conceive a vampire offspring?

Yes. I havn't seen anything that confirms that they're sterile.

haha yes. Imagine that miracle of a pureblood vampire child. I wonder how the aging process would be?

http://fabulousfashionz.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/wizard-of-weird-11979464148_xlarge.jpeg

I imagine they are as immortal as immortal gets. Frightening creatures.

Not that it sheds any light on the process, but it seems that there is a difference between http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Greenberg. So if real life has any bearing on this matter, I'd imagine that parts of the child would stay new and pristine (like their bones never hardening, making them more pliable but less strong), but the child would grow and hit puberty and whatever growth process TES children undergo (the infamous invisible-and-insubstantial stage still baffles magicians to this day.)

A thoroughbred corpse?