This is a question that has stumped me for a while - is Vampirism illegal in Tamriel?

In Morrowind, it certainly seems so, as guards will attack on sight. But is this something unique to the province similar to the illegality of Necromancy? As certain characters - including Mages Guild members, who are imperially chartered, were non-plussed by Vampirism as they were Necromancy..
However, in Cyrodil, all Vampires the player is quest-required to kill have generally murdered someone - Seridor for example. So is Vampirism 'legal' in the same way Necromancy is?
Whilst Count Skingrad is not publically known as a Vampire, the Empire's ruling class seems comfortable with it provided he does not feed.

In-game books reference Vampire Hunters, and some can be met in game, and we can infer from Raynil Dralas' murder in Bruma that it is accepted practice - but, again, the 'vampire' in question was known to have murdered someone.

Is it illegal to be insane?
No, but that doesn't stop us from putting them in "hospitals" against their will. Likewise it is not illegal to be a vampire, but they are considered extremely dangerous (with good reason) and so they are hunted and killed (mostly because they don't have vampire wards at the chapels).

In both cases the afflicted is ill, but because they are dangerous to themselves or others they are "removed" from the general population.

To become a vampire also tends to carry the stimga that you willingly became one. You see, since curing diseases is relatively easy and quick, if one waits three days after fighting a vampire, people will see that person willingly chose to be some cursed being born of a curse from Molag Bal, and an abomination towards Arkay.

:rofl:

If a vampire wanted to be able to remain in the public, they would need to hide the fact that they are one. And yet, to do that, they would need to feed daily. That is probably why most lurk away from society, or are hunted down.

Would be so much easier if everyone was a vampire.

That's the Cyrodiilic vampires, all the other vampires are perma-ugly, with only a few select organizations tolerating them (Mages Guild, and Telvanni. Haven't looked that the DF stuff)

Not all - at least two bosmeri clans can efficiently disguise themself.
But yes, all whom we sawin games.

Are Vampires innately driven to feed? Janus Hassildor complains of Vampires giving in to their 'baser instincts'.

It seems the average 'dungeon' Vampire (aside from those beneath the Bloodworks) would rather be left alone, and don't feed often - this might be gameplay to make them more exciting opponents though.

I think the dungeon vampires suffered from a degree of laziness on Bethesda's part.
The intention was not that they would simply hide in a hole and do nothing until a hero comes knocking, but rather they would hunt at night (and possibly maintain "cattle" as they did in Morrowind). In reality there are many different kinds of vampires, some of them can easily disguise themselves and others who cannot. We do know that they do not have to feed to survive, but there is conflicting evidence as to whether feeding increases or decreases their powers (increases in MW, decreases in OB).

Yes, you can thank Molag Bal for that. For Janus, he does feed, but he's more civil about it, in that he's not likely to jump on someone and devour them. He even admits he feeds, as his wife refuses to feed. Most likely, he has people to perform bloodletting, or feeds on dead bandits and vampire hunters.

Also, the Cyrodiilic vampires only get weaker, as that was probably part of the deal they did to C. Vile. The reason why there's only one clan in Cyrodiil, was because the vampires there were able to look just like populace when they recently feed, and used that to drive out all the other clans, who are fugly all day everyday,. However, this portion was only explained in "Immortal Blood" and Beth didn't do these vampires that much justice by having more vampires blend in with society, and made the majority of them mindless. The newly created vamps I could see as being really dumb, but the ancients should be able to have much more control on their blood crave.

As long as they don't sparkle in the sunlight, I don't care if it's legal or not.

Well, Janus's wife went into a coma from not feeding. Have you ever seen the movie "Daybreakers", it answers the question of why everybody wouldn't become a vampire to live forever/let vampires fit in in almost every vampire myth.

In Tamriel that equates to: If everybody was a vampire, everybody would go into a coma, and without anybody to wake them up in some way they'd probably all eventually die.

It's not illegal to be a vampire I think. It's just illegal to perform any act innate to vampirism (ie svck blood, probably also let someone svck your blood, keep cattle (slaves), etc).

A topic like this doesn't really fit into the realms of "Law". Anyone percieved as an abomination of nature will be feared and killed without showing any real remorse.

It's just the way the world works. You don't see Godzilla going on trial in Japan

Oh, but what a trial it would be.

What's an interesting parallel (if perhaps unrelated to ES lore) is that most Western countries in RL are having just that debate in their law circles. To what extent should someone whose being/personality/leanings/desires/whatever be illegal and should the greater society be allowed to legislate against that? So I think that if we don't know ourselves, then the ES world would not either, or may just come down on the side Voby here pointed out.

I don't think vampirism is so much a matter of being legal or illegal, since it's not an action people choose to take, whereas necromancy is, rather, it's a condition. But as to whether vampirism is a condition generally accepted by the people of Tamriel, I'd say no, my impression is that vampires are seen as abominations, or at the very least dangerous monsters, and they are killed because they're regarded as either blasphemous things that should not be allowed to exist, or dangerous beings that people must be protected from. Either way, I'd say that if vampires are discovered, they're hunted down, while they're are instances of them being accepted by select groups of people, I think these are all special situations, and I'd say that if it became common knowledge that the people in question were vampires, others would not be so accepting. Usually, if vampires want to be accepted in society, they just have to hide the fact that they're vampires.

Over all, I'd say that the work that vampire hunters do is probably not seen so much as enforcing the law but rather being more like if the Fighter's Guild gave you a contract to clear a cave of monsters.

Arkay is a fool and the curse has been mislabeled. It is a gift, a gift with drawbacks, but a gift nonetheless. Well that's my opinion anyway lol

It seems that unlike vampires elsewhere, the most crafty and organized of the Cyrodiilic Vampires have no need to seek alliances among their own kin and form clans to survive; they instead pass off as normal members of society. Thus the rest of the vampire population has nobody that can organize them that isn't busy living their ideal lives pretending to be mortal.

Even so, it's possible Count Hassildor was giving refuge to the Pale Lady, and as I recall, Springheel Jak was giving a group of his kin refuge in his crypt.

Gift? HA! It's an abomination to chaos! Blood belongs to Khorne! And they're immune to disease and decay, an abomination to Nurgle! THEY WILL BE ANNIHILATED!

And I'm sure it'll change too in TESV. You get different writers and new employees with new ideas, the game will definitely change and will probably have conflicts with past game lore.

I think they would attack a vampire for the same reason they attack a beast.

"ANNIHILATED" LOL you can try, but I assure you we will endure.

I do have a question. It's related to this. I'm working on a fanfic based on the Cyrodiilic vampires. The ones who pulls the strings and walk around among men if well-fed. Of course, though. From what we have seen in-game, they work individually, clawing their way to power until they have it in their hands. As they put it "Strength is not in great numbers but in skilfful manipulation of society".

The story I have in mind is this: Another barbaric clan invaded the border of Cyrodiil, attracting more vampire hunters than before. The Order is not happy about it and wants to do something, quick and clean before society discover.

But do the Order have large meetings or not? If a problem is of such magnitude? I know they wont fight in huge numbers, they can manipulate saps to do their bidding, but atleast for a meeting together, they can right?

"Our wrath must be swift and total"-Manifesto Cyrodiil Vampyrum

Janus Hassildor employed the player to do is bidding and he was of the same order. No coinscidence the player gets 20+ disposition by the Count of SKingrad once he turns into a vampire. We know they dont do things "Legality", which is why hey have to deceive and manipulate.

I'd imagine that a secret order would operate in relatively isolated cells with a single ruling body. If you have Hassildor as part of this order, then he might be close to the leadership, but he wouldn't be a part of it because he's a pretty public individual (the mage's guild knows about him, Vicente Valtieri knows about him and if he also is a part of this order, then he'd be operating in a wholly separate cell). So the cell closest to the border in question would get wind, they'd send word up the chain of cells up to the ruling body, they'd decide what to do and hand their orders down to the appropriate cell.

Makes sense to me. That's what I thought..interesting.

Janus Hassildor is a vampire. He's also the Count of Skingrad, which is a large city quite close to the Imperial City. Either the Imperial Battlemage or Uriel Septim must know that their appointed representative is a vampire. So there IS a legal precedent of sorts,