v0.34:Vampire

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v50.12 · v0.47 · v0.34.11 · v0.31 · v0.28 · v0.23 This article is about an older version of DF. More Info · V

Vampires are night creatures that live off of blood, cursed in world generation by profaning against certain gods. In fortress mode, they occasionally appear in migrant waves and hide themselves amongst your dwarves.

Vampirism is believed to be spreadable (in fortress mode) by drinking water that has been contaminated by vampire blood. Also, in adventurer mode, if you drink vampire blood, this will immediately change your character into a vampire.

Having a vampire as the last "dwarf" standing in fortress mode will not trigger a "game-over" screen -- in fact, they may be preferable to regular dwarves because they don't need to eat, drink, or sleep.

Vampires In Fortress mode

In a fortress, a vampire acts similarly to any other dwarf, except for subtle differences too small to notice easily in any sizable population. A vampire will act like any other citizen of your fortress, performing jobs which are assigned to them and generally acting normally. They can be assigned to burrows, be given or claim rooms, possess items, and even be drafted into a military squad just like a normal dwarf. The exception, of course, is that rather than partaking of a fortress's provisions, they help themselves to the blood of the unwary to sustain their unnatural existence, living long and dark lives. Vampires will from time to time drink the blood of dwarves that they catch sleeping, whomever they can get their hands upon fangs into. This often kills the victim, but sometimes leaves them alive but weakened and unaware of what has happened to them. If any tame animals somehow fall asleep (for instance, via a syndrome), vampires will drink their blood as willingly as they will a dwarf's.

If they are caught in the act of draining a victim, the crime will be reported in the justice screen as a murder; if such a corpse is discovered it will be listed as a murder with no suspects. Even in the case that someone is accused, be aware that the deceitful vampire is capable of framing others for its crimes to send suspicion away for a time. Vampires routinely lie about their past so as to avoid identification by others, going so far as to adopt a false name when entering a new fortress. If a vampire is killed, the corpse will bear the original name of the creature rather than that of the dwarf who was seen to die, which might lead to some confusion among managers of such things. (A coffin will be designated for burial of the vampire's cover identity, with the corpse bearing the original name entombed in it. Memorial slabs will be dedicated to the vampire's original name.)

Identifying a Vampire

None of your starting 7 dwarves will ever be a vampire. Vampires are created as historical entities during world generation, and your starting 7 are created independently of that process.

Signs

The presence of a vampire will be indicated by different signs. You can be confronted with dwarves who have mysteriously acquired the 'pale' or 'faint' statuses without having apparently been wounded. These dwarves could have been bitten by a vampire. More obvious will be the discovery of a corpse which has been drained of all its blood. If you happen to look at the units screen while the vampire is in the act, they will be clearly visible.

Indication

Vampires who migrate to your fortress do sometimes have an abnormally massive looking list of former group associations in their historical background. Although this could result in false positives, it is a decent litmus test in cases where two dwarves accuse each other, as vampires will sometimes counteraccuse those who catch them sucking blood in order to avoid suspicion. Furthermore, they are likely to have very large lists of relatives, none of whom can be found within the fortress itself (in stark contrast to the parents, siblings or cousins whom most dwarves will share their home with). If the suspect is married, but his/her counterpart is not present at the fort, this is very strong evidence. They may also have an unusually large number of children. Note, however, that lacking relatives within the fortress is not an automatic indicator of being a vampire.

In addition, his/her personality can be scrutinized for abnormalities. Their biographies may indicate that they 'have the appearance of somebody who is (x) years old', which is a very good indicator of a vampire. As vampires do not eat, sleep, or drink, they will never have recent thoughts about meals, drinks, beds, dining rooms, or chairs. In the case of older vampires, particularly those who have immigrated, in the line which speaks about needing alcohol to get through the working day, a comment may be added to the effect that "s/he could really use a drink," "s/he has not had a drink in far, far too long," or "can't even remember the last time s/he had some," indicating that they have been sober of alcohol for a time. Vampire immigrants frequently have very high social skills, and one or more skills at the "Great" level. By itself, this may not be sufficient evidence to prove a dwarf is a vampire, but it is a frequent indicator.

Another (possible bug) indicator can be found if you like to give custom profession names to your dwarves. Often a vampire's profession will not change, even when you create a custom title. For example, a vampire trapper will remain a trapper in the unit screen regardless of what you set his or her profession title to.

It's not often a practical test, but a vampire with injured guts will not vomit, and a vampire with an injured lung will not develop difficulty breathing. Submerged vampires also do not drown.

Proof

You can check for vampires empirically: Lock the possible vampire into a room or burrow without food or alcohol. If the dwarf does not get hungry or thirsty, he or she is a vampire. Or, somewhat less subtly, you can wait for one to be caught in the act by a room full of witnesses.

If you make a copy of the save and go into legends mode, look up someone who was killed by the vampire and it will say "in the year 200 Dwarf X was drained of all blood by the Vampire X".

Other methods

To see if a vampire was cursed by a deity that it worships, look under the vampire's dwarf's relationships and view the deities that are listed. Give the dwarf a nickname and, when viewing the deity relationship, it will say: "In the [season description] of [year], [deity] cursed the dwarf vampire [nickname you chose] [dwarf's original name] to prowl the night in search of blood in [original location]". Since the nickname applies retroactively, this is a sure way to identify a vampire, *if* it became a vampire through being cursed, and happens to worship the deity that cursed it. This method is very tedious when looking at many suspects, and may apply to only a small fraction of vampires, so you should probably use it after trying the more obvious signs (like many former associations, or tags after "needs alcohol to get through the working day").

At the moment the Dwarf Therapist can be used to identify a vampire for sure, as they are listed by their real name. This is done by going through the list of your units in game and then comparing each name in Dwarf Therapist. If the name is in your units list, but not in Dwarf Therapist, that is the vampire.

Defense against Vampires

Vampires attack and drink from dwarves who are sleeping, so one defense is to force all dwarves to sleep and meet in the same room, increasing the likelihood of eyewitnesses catching the monster in the act. Curiously, even if convicted of a vampiric murder, a vampire will not necessarily be killed, but given a normal justice penalty such as temporary imprisonment. In this case, it is advisable to take justice into one's own hands and introduce the leech to a pit of lava, bottomless pit, arena fight, dropping tower, or other elimination method of your choice. This can be facilitated through the use of burrows. However, one must take care that the vampire is properly memorialized because even the ghosts of vampires will seek out your sleeping citizens and kill them.

Uses for Vampires

If you can correctly identify a vampire and isolate it from the rest of your population, you can make use of them without fear of blood feedings. A lone vampire in a sealed room will never die of hunger or thirst, doesn't need to sleep, and will never age. The only way a vampire can die (without your vengeful intervention) is in combat, through syndromes, or through insanity. Sealing it somewhere prevents the first two, and early detection will prevent the vampire from making friends whom he will obviously outlive. Since a vampire wants for so little it is difficult for him to fall into insanity without relationships.

Once you have your sealed emotionally detached vampire, your fortress becomes effectively eternal, since the vampire will always be alive even if horrible FUN claims your entire population. Be wary of ghosts, though, as they are the only being capable of reaching your vampire's eternal prison. Simply wait for the fun to pass and new immigrants to repopulate your otherwise abandoned fort.

Consider placing a chair and table in your vampire's sealed room and making them an undead accountant. As they have nothing to do but sit around for eternity, once they get their skills up, they may make exceedingly effective managers/record keepers. Work orders and stockpile updates currently seem to be psychically transmitted from the desk of the dwarf assigned to those labors, so entombing them in their office isn't an issue. However, vampire dwarves are still alcoholics, yet cannot drink anything but blood; the resulting job performance penalty from the "can't even remember the last time he/she had some" level of alcohol withdrawal significantly reduces the usefulness of vampires in this sort of role.

A cloistered vampire can also be used as a sleepless, un-eating and drinking dwarf who is always ready for some lever pulling, even if the rest of your dwarves die. You could even fill your fort with bridges, link them all to a lever in his isolation cell, and have him pull the lever repeatedly to remove any enemies short of a dragon.

With all that said, having an eternally cloistered vampire is not without drawbacks. As vampires do not drink, yet are still alcohol-dependent, they will eventually suffer performance penalties and take longer breaks. This can have fatal consequences if you need the lever to keep the goblin siege outside pulled now. Since dwarves get unhappy thoughts from having their clothes rot away, a vampire that's been naked for years is quite prone to tantruming or going insane, which can lead to even worse outcomes should he be assigned to the lever room. Of course, you could drop him some clothes from a chute, but what fun is that when there are other things to drop from above? Another way to mitigate cloistered vampire unhappiness is to convict them of one or more of their murders after they've been sealed in; they will eventually derive happiness from having their punishment "delayed".

Vampires do increase their stats like other dwarves, so that a weak vampire may be easily upgraded into a mighty one by using him as a miner or easily trained into a legendary swimmer. A vampire craftsdwarf may be burrow-limited to his workshop plus a stockpile or a miner restricted to specific mining levels, avoiding any other miners. It will be safe, if all of the miners have separate, assigned bedrooms.

So, in general, when under control, vampires tend to be much more useful and valuable then most of your non-bloodsucking dwarves. Without access to any sleeping places or hospitals, they tend to be totally harmless to other dwarves.

Dealing with Vampires

Although keeping a single vampire in eternal solitary confinement can be a bonus for any fortress, it is always important to be capable of killing them whenever necessary (especially if the peasants unwittingly elect one as their leader and an unfortunate accident becomes necessary). However, vampires have certain abilities which will make it more difficult to properly take care of them - they cannot drown, and their physical strengths could make them tougher to kill with regular weapons. Fortunately, they are not resistant to high-tech particle physics experimentation.

Note that vampires that go insane from failed moods can die of physical maladies in the same way as normal dwarves.

Vampires abroad

In the wider world, vampires continue the sort of behavior they exhibit in a fortress: deception and predation. Younger vampires stalk the streets of towns and cities, indistinguishable from the average mortal, and drink the blood of unsuspecting innocents. Elder vampires, those with power and ambition, mislead the gullible and power-hungry into forming vampire cults dedicated to worshipping and feeding their master. Should a vampire rise to a position of power in mortal society, it may deign to expose itself and impose a rule of tyranny upon the subjects who so unknowingly elevated it to power.

Creating new vampires

New vampires are created whenever a dwarf or a human drinks the blood of a vampire, so by contaminating the well with blood and cutting off the booze supply, one can create a large population of vampires.

Playing as a Vampire

By drinking the blood of a vampire in adventure mode, you immediately become a vampire. You will be able to feed on other creatures by using e and choosing the "Feed" option on an unconscious target. On becoming a vampire, Strength, Agility and Toughness receive a 200 point bonus, then physical attributes will no longer gain or rust.

• Note: The game does not give you any confirmation that you have become a vampire. ^v0.34.07 The only way to make sure that you have transformed is to wait for twenty-four hours (enough time for any regular mortal to hunger for food.) until you get thirsty, which should show up eventually. To get rid of the thirsty tag, you MUST drink directly from another living knocked out, unconscious or sleeping creature. This could lead to hazardous mishaps if you're discovered/if the victim awakes, unless you beat your victim senseless first. Once you have fed on an unsuspecting victim, you will have a red icon denoting you are a vampire next to your name.

Due to such conditions, it is relatively impossible to quench your thirst (on any member of a civilization) without antagonizing any of your companions, and even if you don't have any, there's still that chance that your victim might wake up in the middle of your feast and effectively set a whole civilization against you. One way to counter this is to raid goblin/bandit camps, concentrating on one lone weak unit far from any of his comrades, beat him till he gives in to pain (NOT TO DEATH) and then feed on him directly. You can do the same with wildlife, although some of them may be more aggressive and most might die too quickly.You can also try to strangle your foes, he have no chance to die and instantly pass out.For this, free one of your hand, wrestle, catch your target's throat with your free hand, then wrestle again, place a choke-hold, then strangle him/her/it.

After becoming a vampire, you become invincible to zombies, since you're now a night creature. It is usually preferred to raid a necromancer tower alone, because bringing companions will only get them killed, and your agility when you become a vampire will rise drastically anyway, causing you to outrun them. This increased agility will also give you better odds against bogeymen and night trolls, since you'll be quicker than both.

Playing as a vampire is a strong advantage, assuming you can manage your bloodthirst. The most convenient method of drinking blood is to wield a blunt weapon such as a mace: as long as you don't strike the head, enemies rarely bleed out or suffocate from blunt damage and it's easy to force them to give into the pain. Interestingly, your allies don't seem to care if you drink blood from enemies, and blood can be drunk in a single turn in combat (occasionally killing the creature, depending on its size and your thirst). Vampire bloodthirst shows up less often than normal thirst, and can usually be sated in a single feeding from a human-sized opponent. Feeding from smaller animals, such as dingos, is possible but multiple feedings may be necessary.

Vampires, as noted before, do not need to eat, nor drink (normal fluids), nor sleep. As an adventurer, this is a huge advantage, as you don't need to stop, or worry about carrying consumables. As long as there's living, pain-feeling enemies, you can feed. Vampires also do not need to breathe and do not tire. They can swim as long as necessary and cannot drown, even to the extent of being able to swim oceans. A sufficiently skilled and armed vampire is essentially immortal for all intents and purposes.

Bugs

• Although vampires don't drink anything except blood in the Fortress mode, they still suffer from alcohol withdrawal, which slows them down. ^Bug:5189