Vampirism (Skyrim)



Vampirism is a Disease in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. Harmed by sunlight, stigmatized by villagers, and renowned for their thirst of blood, vampires go to extreme lengths to hide their presence from mortals. In Skyrim, Vampires acquire special magic spells, as their level of infection increases. To offset this advantage, vulnerabilities to fire and sunlight are also acquired. Vampirism can be contracted and cured an unlimited number of times. Falion, the thaumaturge of Morthal, requires a filled Black Soul Gem to cure vampirism.

Vampirism comes in four stages of severity. The severity of the infection increases the longer the vampire goes without drinking blood. Sleeping humans can be fed on to keep the curse at bay. Spectators of a feeding become hostile and report the crime to guards. The crime cannot be paid off with gold or jail time. Upon reaching stage four of Vampirism, mortals can detect the vampire more easily, attacking them almost on sight. Those who discover someone is a vampire attack until the vampire flees or is dead.

Sanguinare Vampiris
Sanguinare Vampiris is the disease that eventually culminates in vamprisim. Physical attacks inflicted by a vampire causes the illness to be contracted. Being the subject of their Vampiric Drain spell augment the likelihood that the recipient becomes infected. Removing armor leaves targets exceptionally vulnerable to acquiring Sanguinare Vampiris.

If a cure has not be acquired within three days, the infection spreads to full-blown vampirism, causing a series of maladaptive and beneficial traits to emerge in the subject. Drinking blood can stay the infection and lessen the deficits of the disease.

Immunity to Vampirism
When infected with Lycanthropy, or engaged in Beast Form as a result of Hircine's Ring, persons become fully immune to vampirism. Argonians, naturally resistant to disease, are less likely than men or mer to contract Vampirism.

Console commands

 * It is possible to become both a vampire and a werewolf. After becoming a werewolf through the companions questline use the command player.removespell f5ba0 to remove the Resist Disease effect caused by Lycanthropy.

Appearance
Vampires are easily distinguishable from uninfected persons. As a result of the hemophiliac virus, the infected slowly grow paler. Fangs protrude from their gums, allowing for easier feeding. Eye color changes from the spectrum of average hues to red. When infected, the fur of the Khajiit alters as the skin of a human or elf would. Long-toothed by nature, the incisors of the Khajiit grow exceptionally long, so that they protrude below the lip. However, their pupils become thinner and more blade-like. The scales of Argonians grows greyer as the infection worsens.

Named vampires

 * Babette in the Dark Brotherhood Sanctuary (not present if you decide to destroy the Dark Brotherhood)
 * Hern of Half-Moon Mill located a slight west of The Lady Stone. (Hern is an assassination target for the Dark Brotherhood)
 * Hert of Half-Moon Mill (Hern's wife)
 * Alva found in Morthal . She can be found sleeping in her cellar during the day and inside Movarth's Lair. Involved in the quest Laid to Rest
 * Movarth in Movarth's Lair northeast of Morthal . His pre-vampire life is detailed in the book Immortal Blood as the vampire hunter that was inquiring about the different vampires of Tamriel.
 * Sybille Stentor in the Blue Palace

Randomly encountered vampires

 * Broken Fang Cave
 * Pinemoon Cave
 * Mara's Eye Pond
 * Haemar's Shame
 * Morvath's Lair
 * Bloodlet Throne
 * Fellglow Keep
 * Shriekwind Bastion

Stages of Vampirism and their effects
After approximately 24 hours without feeding, a vampire will progress a stage. Feeding always brings the vampire back to stage one. In order to feed, stand (or crouch) next to a sleeping person and attempt to talk to them. An option box appears, giving the options to either "feed" or "talk". As the vampiric infection worsens, persons become hostile toward the vampire, attacking them on sight.

Effects across all stages

 * Weakness to Sunlight - Health, Magicka, and Stamina do not recover while in sunlight and the skin will appear to slowly burn as the player spends time in the sunlight.
 * Resist Disease - Your vampiric blood gives you 100% resistance to disease.
 * Resist Poison - Your vampiric blood gives you 100% resistance to poison.
 * Night Stalker's Footsteps - Vampires are 25% harder to detect while sneaking.
 * Champion of the Night - Illusion spells cast by a vampire are 25% more powerful.

Weakness to sunlight
Sunlight destroys the cellular construction of vampires. Because of this, vampires move more easily at night.

Equipping apparel that grants a faster regeneration percentage on any of the three stats, using the Lady Guardian Stone, or taking a perk that grants faster regeneration allows stat recovery regardless of Weakness to Sunlight.

Hostility
To avoid hostile persons, travel by night and avoid places where a vampiric infection would be noticed. Fast traveling while sneaking or rendered magically invisible can increase the odds of avoiding those hostile towards vampires.

In other words drink blood regularly, if some one is sleeping use pacify so they do not wake up and drink from them.

Because Vampirism bolsters Illusion spells, casting Pacify on persons can prevent them from attacking a vampire. Perks such as "Kindred Mage" may need to be unlocked first, before certain expert-level persons are affected by the spell.

Stage one

 * Resist Frost - Your vampiric blood gives you 25% resistance to frost.
 * Weakness to Fire - Your vampiric blood causes you to be 25% weaker to fire.
 * Weakness to Sunlight - Health, Magicka, and Stamina do not recover while in sunlight and are reduced by 15 points.

Powers

 * Vampire's Servant - Reanimate a weak dead body to fight for you for 60 seconds (can only be used once a day).
 * Vampire's Sight - Improve night vision for 60 seconds. It can be used multiple times a day and be toggled on and off.
 * Vampiric Drain - Absorb 2 points of health per second from target. This functions as a novice destruction spell, with a cost of 5 magicka per second.

Stage two

 * Resist Frost - Your vampiric blood gives you 50% resistance to frost.
 * Weakness to Fire - Your vampiric blood makes you 50% weaker to fire.
 * Weakness to Sunlight - Health, Magicka, and Stamina do not recover while in sunlight and are reduced by 30 points.

Powers

 * Vampire's Seduction - Creatures and people up to level 10 are calmed (cease to fight) for 30 seconds.
 * Vampire's Servant - Reanimate a more powerful dead body to fight for you for 60 seconds (can only be used once a day).
 * Vampiric Drain - Absorb 3 points of health per second from target (novice destruction spell, costs 10 magicka per second).

Stage three

 * Resist Frost - Your vampiric blood gives you 75% resistance to frost.
 * Weakness to Fire - Your vampiric blood makes you 75% weaker to fire
 * Weakness to Sunlight - Health, Magicka, and Stamina do not recover while in sunlight and are reduced by 45 points.

Powers

 * Vampire's Servant - Reanimate a powerful dead body to fight for you for 60 seconds (can only be use once a day).
 * Vampiric Drain - Absorb 4 points of health per second from target. (Novice Destruction spell; costs 12 Magicka per second.)

Stage four
At stage four, the citizens of Skyrim become openly hostile towards vampires and attack them on sight, with the exception of guilds these vampires have been accepted into.


 * Resist Frost - Your vampiric blood gives you 100% resistance to frost.
 * Weakness to Fire - Your vampiric blood makes you 100% weaker to fire.
 * Weakness to Sunlight - Health, Magicka, and Stamina do not recover while in sunlight and are reduced by 60 points.

Powers

 * Vampire's Servant - Reanimate a very powerful dead body to fight for you for 60 seconds (can only be used once per day).
 * Vampiric Drain - Absorb 5 points of Health per second from target. (Novice Destruction spell; costs 15 Magicka per second.)
 * Embrace of Shadows - The vampire becomes invisible, with improved night-vision for 180 seconds (can only be used once per day, interacting with anything will remove invisibility as per usual).

Vampire Lord


, the first official plug-in for redesigned the vampire game mechanic, adding a perk skill tree and renovating the physical appearance. During the quest called "Bloodline", the Dragonborn must decide whether to continue assisting the Dawnguard or join Harkon and the Volkihar Clan. Choosing the path of Harkon grants the ability to become a Vampire Lord, unlocking the potential to utilize 11 unique perk abilities.

Of the newly added spells is the ability to use consumed blood to vitalize the Vampire Lord and the ability to summon Gargoyles the way atronachs are summoned via the use of Conjuration magic. The power bite attack adds a unique cinematics where the Vampire Lord wraps its wings around the victim and bites them on the neck.

Conventional method

 * 1) Ask any bartender about any rumors going around, and they direct the infected person to Falion in Morthal, who studies vampires. Traveling to Morthal while at Stage Four vampirism can be difficult, since hostile persons will attack the vampire on sight.
 * 2) Once there, he informs the vampire that a ritual can be performed to reverse the curse. A filled black soul gem is required first. The Black Star cannot be substituted for this gem. Falion offers to sell the vampire a Black Soul Gem, if they cannot acquire one through other means.
 * 3) Fill the Black Soul Gem by casting Soul Trap on a humanoid target.
 * 4) Meet Falion at the stone circle to cure the infection.
 * 5) Falion endlessly agrees to cure vampirism, so the quest can be completed multiple times if infected multiple times.

Lyncanthropy
Becoming a Werewolf cures Vampirism. Aela the Huntress turns the Dragonborn into a werewolf during the Companions questline.

Console commands
Another way of curing vampirism is via console commands; open the console and type: setstage 000eafd5 10

Feeding
Drinking the blood of the uninfected stays the vampiric infection. Levels of vampirism can be reversed simply by drinking blood.

Methods for feeding easily

 * Find a spouse and drink their blood nightly. Housecarls also function well for this.
 * In the action command menu, ask followers to sleep in a bed.
 * Guilds harbor no prejudice against their vampiric members. Many guild members sleep in one location (i.e. the Dark Brotherhood and the College of Winterhold).
 * Taverns and inns host several sleeping patrons. Close the door to the sleeping persons room to avoid alerting the other patrons.
 * The Temple of Kynareth is a great place to feed when sneaking. The wounded soldier and sick women are always there.

Skull of Corruption
Because the Skull of Corruption requires the harvest of dreams to function, vampires may benefit from using this staff, as feeding on victims and harvesting their dreams both requires them to be asleep.

Trivia

 * Vampirism benefits in past games have varied greatly, including stat increases, new spells or powers, or even new game play mechanics.
 * The book Immortal Blood from Oblivion which is also found in Skyrim tells a tale of a vampire hunter being mentored by a priest, it briefly describes vampire clans from Skyrim and other locations. Skyrim's vampires were said to reach through ice without breaking it, live underneath great frozen lakes, and be able to freeze flesh. Interestingly enough, the vampire hunter from the book Immortal Blood is named Movarth Piquine. At the end of the book, Morvath is attacked by the priest mentoring him. As it turns out, the priest was a vampire and had gone 72 hours without feeding, at the time he attacked Movarth. Movarth Piquine is in Skyrim and may be found, through the Laid to Rest quest.
 * If vampirism is contracted before dealing with Laelette the Vampire, Alva calls players "Brother" if male or "Sister" if female, expressing kinship with them and unintentionally unveiling her vampiric nature.
 * If Vampiric Drain is equipped before Falion performs the curing ritual, it remains equipped and usable even after the vampirism is gone.

Bugs

 * While a vampire, NPCs no longer make comments about race. Argonians call other Argonians "Landstrider" even if they are an Argonian i.e.
 * Sometimes after feeding, switching back to first person view before moving away from the bed causes characters to be stuck, unable to move in any way. Reloading from the last save, or using the Whirlwind Sprint shout fixes this. Another, easier fix is to just simply feed a second time and switch back to first person view.
 * When playing as a vampire, Ebony shields or Blades shields will not appear on vampire characters even when equipped. After curing vampirism, the Ebony Shield and Blade Shields will be visible again. Other shields not affected.
 * When citizens attack vampires, this may cause the A.I. of guards to register this as a crime and help defend the vampire. Guards will still yell, "Vampire! Burn it!", but never attack the vampire.
 * After completing all quests in the Companions quest line leading up to the Underforge event where characters become Werewolves, if they are also vampires then they can wait exactly 2 minutes (in-game) before progressing to the next stage of Vampirism and drink Aela's blood from the altar. If timed correctly, all the new/progressed effects from that stage of Vampirism (excluding existing, unchanged effects) can be kept, while gaining Lycanthropy benefits on top of it. This also works 2 minutes before Senguine Vampiris progresses into full Vampirism, granting the 25% Sneak and Illusion Bonuses. Afterwards, Vampirism locks in its current stage, and characters will be unable to feed to lower their degree of Vampirism, nor will it increase with time. Vampirism cannot be cured through the related quest, once this occurs. Both negative and positive effects will be kept.
 * Sometimes when wearing masks or masked hoods, progressing into a stage 4 vampire will cause fangs to stick out of the mask. This seems to happen with Argonians and Khajiit.
 * Vampirism may cause the Thieves Guild Hood to glitch and become invisible with a large hole in the top of the wearer's hair.
 * This can be somewhat circumvented by reverting to the original race by using a command player.setrace  (e.g. player.setrace highelf, revert back by player.setrace highelfracevampire). This however causes the character to be unable to feed while still progressing through the stages of vampirism.
 * Equipping a cowl causes it and the Thieves Guild Hood to be equipped simultaneously, along with its bonuses still intact.
 * Poison resistance does not prevent you from being poisoned and taking damage, despite being listed in active effects.
 * Disease resistance sometimes fails as well. It is possible to contract at least one disease (Break Bone Fever) as a vampire.
 * In some cases, becoming a vampire doesn't grant the Vampire's Sight ability. Other features of the template remain unaffected. This can be corrected manually using the console command player.addspell 000C4DE1.
 * Due to vampires being undead, the Necromage perk from the Restoration school will act as a permanent Fortify Restoration 25%. This results in that almost all beneficial magic effects, including permanent item enchantments, blessings, and heals, are 25% more powerful.