I must be in some sort of (un)lucky streak lately. I have previously never been infected with Vampirism ever since I started playing DF, years ago, yet my latest Breton Mage got himself infected two times already, both of them after crawling through vampire infested dungeons at level 18.

I consulted the UESP and the Beginner's Guide on the issue, because both occasions have been very weird: I never had a dream, and in all cases I became a vampire after reaching my destination - in a normal manner - I should add. Furthermore, I have slept plenty of times, and I didn't see a single bad dream... This arises questions. First, the UESP says you can contract vampirism through "cursed" items. Never mind the fact that I got Critical Weakness to disease and got attacked by vampires, which I'm sure is the cause, I would like to be further enlightened on the issue of being "cursed" with items because I looted a few enchanted ones from vampires. I'm "quite" sure that being bitten was the culprit of my disease, BUT the circumstances through which this happened are quite mysterious - the Beginner's Guide for instance says I would either wake up in a random dungeon or get to my destination only if my travel was about three weeks enough, which is evidently not the case here. Furthermore, there's still the lack of a dream - dunno if it's a bug or a problem with playing DF with Dosbox, the intro video also doesn't seem to work well for me.

The intro videos don't play either? I'd say these problems are all related. I've never heard of being cursed through an item, but that doesn't rule it out. Also, for the record, getting either of the magical diseases is unaffected by resistance and weakness alike.

I've had the "travel too long and arrive a vamp" thing happen to me, but I don't remember how long I rode, but I do remember getting the dream every time. I'd say the game just can't find the video files.

Yeah it was quite exciting, the first time I mean. I traveled, for exactly three days, and I immediately got a message saying "Death is not the end" or something like that and when I saw my character was wholly deformed. Guess you can never forget the first time, but I had to give up soon because afterwards I could literally travel through the dungeons in Fast Forward and blast away every critter that I came across, and not just "any" critter, but the top of the house liches, daedra, vampires and so on. But it felt great rampaging through Castle Sentinel like this for awhile.

One thing... If I catch vampirism as a male character, will it still screech those feminine vampire sounds like my Breton lady did?

Now the problem with my intro video is quite weird. I can play most videos normally, but when the throne room video plays, it vanishes immediately. I've never had that issue before, and I read it's somehow related to excessive CPU cycles or something. Can't attest for sure.

I'm pretty sure that the cursed item trigger for vampirism doesn't exist. I think that it is a very old claim from soon after the game was released. It got added to a few web pages and has been copied from one to another with people assuming it's true. Of course, it's probably impossible to prove it can't happen just from playing the game. I guess someone could examine the game files to find out.

As for the video, if you are infected with vampirism and rest before you "die" you will always see the video. So it's probably a video problem for you.

Like Jormungandr said, the critical weakness to disease has no bearing on contracting vampirism. Actually, it makes it more surprising you got turned. Normally vamps will infect you with a fatal regular disease, like plague, that will kill you before the 3 days needed to turn vamp pass. And if you cure that disease, you'll also cure the vampirism.

Never mind, solved the issue by reinstalling the game & configuring Dosbox appropriately. Now the intro video plays correctly - dunno about the vampirism one.

Yeah, it was really a fluke. I got contaminated once, cured myself, then got contaminated again. Guess it's just sheer Destiny acting on my character - being alive just wasn't enough so she had to become undead and get all the powerful boosts B) .

Plus I really liked the gritty feel I got once vampirism came: the opening message, living in graveyards and preying on the occasional rat, traveling at night, and dodging the wraiths on Daggerfall while performing the MQ. That and the glamour entry on towns through levitation, sounds like I'm love for it .