How could a vampire fake his own death?

[Dirigible]

Acquire small shack under anonymous name. Or, alternately, just find a warehouse not currently in use. Go all serial killer with it - put a couple guns, a few hundred rounds of ammo, and any other paraphanelia you want, in a stash there.

Buy a cheap computer. Keep a diary on it, explaining how you believe that by dissecting another human being, you can see God. Don't leave fingerprints - wear gloves always while you are here.

Kill someone roughly your size and build, and move the body to the hideout. Check them and yourself for identifying birthmarks, and swap them. Cut their body into reasonably small pieces. Replace the identifying marks that will survive fire (hands, teeth, foot if you ever got a baby footprint) with your own. If you have a metal plate in your head or something similar, you'll need to provide that, too.

Burn the pieces. Leave. Bury the identifying marks of the person you killed somewhere far away, or if you can get access to a foundry late at night, dump them into the molten iron.

*stares in abject horror*

Seasong...remind me never, never, to piss you off... *faints*

Beware generalizations. In Vampire, the question of what will stop a stake is not so much an issue of the weapon itself as it is of who is holding it. Many things in the White Wolf universe are capable of packing a lot of whallop behind that stake.

Indeed, but the stake can only take so much force before shattering.

Do VtM vamps show up on video, photos, digital images etc? If not, there may be a problem in faking it (your death ! not when harry met sally !) in public, due to the prevalence of surveilance in modern America, Europe etc.

 

[seasong]

Dirigible - Ah, don't worry. I'd never do such a thing to you. I'm on your side.

Another good way to die, while avoiding autopsy, and clearly avoiding suicide (for the insurance), is to have one of your newly arisen vampire buddies tie you to a chair and slit your throat. Don't leave any evidence - there's no reason this has to be a solvable case, as long as you can avoid the insurance suicide clause.

 

[FoxWander]

Wow! Again- lots of cool info. Let's see...

An adult 1500 pound cow has 32 gallons of blood.

Thanks!! Is that something you just knew (judging from your profile pic) or did you look it up somewhere? And if you looked it up, please tell me where. I spent over an hour trolling the net trying to find out that bit of info and never did. We were wondering because we wanted to know how much, quantity wise, was one point of cow's blood. And if a cow has 32 gallons. ( ) that would mean over 6 gallons per point!! Youch. A little to much to conveniently store in the fridge. Of course that's way to much to physically drink period. Chances are White Wolf didn't have that factoid when they were assigning blood points. They just had to make everything less appealing than human blood. So we could probably just stick with our house rule based off humans having 5-6 quarts of blood and say cow/pig blood is 1 point per quart, since it's half as "nourishing".

Thanks WayneLigon and clark411 for the advice about the game itself, but I guess I could have explained that I know the game quite well (been playing it off and on since just after it came out, and being ST most of that.) Most of my newbie-ish type questions were aimed at more 'real world' concerns in that setting. If that makes any sense. We're trying to play it without dealing so much with the clans and Camirilla vs. Sabbat stuff and more wondering about the "what would YOU do" aspect. How would you deal with it? I guess we're working up to all the angst and morose gothness that WW tries to pound into your head that Vampire is supposed to be all about. That said, here are some specifics on the "game aspects" of it.

We statted ourselves out using the rules for Mortals, using a mix of honest self-analysis and equally honest opinions of each others capabilities. We tried not to worry about the primary, secondary, tertiary bit, and just put dots were it seemed appropiate- but it actually turned out that we conformed to the rules pretty well. We know more skills than are actually on a WW character sheet, but we just stuck with those. Even then that's where most of our freebie points went. Though all of us had some left over. We decided to hold those for vamp stuff.

To "vamp ourselves" we just applied the point differences to attributes and abilities. For clan, we figured that since we don't know our sire then we're Caitiff. So for Disciplines, and this bit was interesting, we based them on what our views of what "real life" vampires would be like. Take everything you've read or seen in movies and tv, throw out the stuff that seems like bs and keep what fits your idea of what vampires "really are." And then we tried to fit that into Vtm disciplines, merits and flaws. So the result is none of us are alike, which is as it should be. I based my idea on a mix of Daracula, Lestat, Lost Boys and Forever Knight. My "clan disciplines" are Auspex, Protean and a home-brew one dealing with motion and flight called Motus. And then I spent freebie points to get Domination as well. None of us could narrow done a vampire concept that only had 3 disciplines. There's too much that just seems to be the core vampire stuff. And this was without throwing Potence, Fortitude and Celerity into it- cause every pop culture vampire would have some level of those as well. But we figure since even ghouls can learn the "physical" disciplines without "training", that all of those are "clan disciplines" by default. Then there's a mix of merits and flaws to complete our "clan"- I took Acute vison and Prey Exclusion-children. My friend took Acute vision as well, and Cast no reflection. The other one took no mertis OR flaws. All told its been pretty interesting.

But really we're trying to stay away from the rules side of it. One, it's just weird and very geeky to play yourself as a character. (though it is a fun fantasy) And two, focusing too much on the game side detracts from the original idea of dealing with "actual vampirism". So that's where the newbie questions about coffins and such come in. I mean, us as "characters" wouldn't know we were in a "game". So we'd have to figure this stuff out on or own. What other mundane aspects of being undead should we consider?

 

[Impeesa]

Recommended feeding spot: Vampire LARPs.

--Impeesa--

 

[Umbran]

Indeed, but the stake can only take so much force before shattering.

Vampires aren't made of stone, you know.

Do VtM vamps show up on video, photos, digital images etc?

In general, yes. They have reflections, do show up on video, etc., unless they are using certain specific powers to hide themselves.

Also, in general, these vampires cannot fly or control minds. Certain individuals with specific powers might be able to, but they are not a general vampire traits. Same for turning into mist, or bats. V:tM characters (especially starting ones) are not all that much like Vlad Dracula.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

A butcher, and yes, it is entirely legal. Eastern European folks often have some version of "blood sausage", for which actual blood is a major ingredient.

Here in Portland Maine you could buy it a few (meaning 10) years ago from Jordan's Meats for $7.00 for a 5 gallon bucket of the stuff. Mmmm, cold beef blood, just the thing to start off your evening!

Is it a bad sign when a Malkavian thinks your character is strange?

The Auld Grump

 

[Dirigible]

Vampires aren't made of stone, you know.

Ah yes, but kevlar vest are.

No wait...
In any case, if it can stop a nugget of lead moving faster than sound getting familiar with your bowels, surely it'd block point wood moving at a few meters per second.

In general, yes. They have reflections, do show up on video, etc., unless they are using certain specific powers to hide themselves.

*sigh* Clearly, Ultraviolet has ruined me for any other modern vampire stories

 

[Umbran]

In any case, if it can stop a nugget of lead moving faster than sound getting familiar with your bowels, surely it'd block point wood moving at a few meters per second.

Not necessarily true. Some materials react differently to high-speed impact than to low-speed impact. Perhaps the best-known of these would be the non-newtonian fluid "oobleck".

IIRC (and admittedly I may not), modern soft body armor includes such materials. It is designed to stop bullets, but it is still possible to get a knife through it (or at least some of the lighter forms). After all, there's got to be a way to cut the stuff to make armor out of it, no?

Shadowrun makes use of this concept - in that game armor has two separate ratings - "Impact" and "ballistic". The former is how well it protects agaisnt slow-moving things like fists, swords, and stakes, the latter is agaisnt fast moving things like bullets.

Of course, none of this matters in WW. Armor gives you extra soak dice. There are no rules at all for breaking weapons by using them too hard. By the book, if they guy's got enough backing the stake, it will go through the armor. We're talking about a game where there are critters more dangerous than guns, after all.

 

[FoxWander]

Recommended feeding spot: Vampire LARPs.

--Impeesa--

LOL! One of my NPCs in our Vampire game has a Herd that is a group of LARPers.

As for stakes vs. kevlar I guess I could just adapt the Shadowrun I/B armor rules to VtM. The scale is about right from what I recall.

And speaking of "armor" for Vamps. Does anybody know of any official rules from WW on the protection factor of wearing a racer or stuntman style nomex suit? I looked it up online and you can actually get some fairly stylish clothes made from fire-resistant nomex. I figure between that and a good vest with the ballistic plate installed it's about the best protection a vamp can get.

And BTW, I'm glad nobody has started flaming me for all this Vampire talk on a d20 D&D board. I know for a fact that if you started talking D&D on a Vampire board you'd be incinerated from all sides almost. Just wanted to put a nod in towards the coolness factor of ENWorld over other gaming boards.

 

[seasong]

Kevlar is a weave. It is made up multiple layers which are designed to wrap around an object as it penetrates through the layers. As the object continues to penetrate, more and more layers wrap around it and twist up, slowing it to a stop.

Even when a bullet does penetrate the vest, it is usually coccooned in a bubble that is connected to the vest, and is unable to fragment or significantly deform. That hurts to get in the ribs, but it generally won't kill you. It takes a lot to punch a bullet far enough to rip the kevlar and let the bullet tumble into the flesh unfettered.

It works just fine against bullets, arrows and other impalements (such as stakes). However, a very sharp edge, or a very, very hard, slick surface, can prevent the advantages of kevlar. And a cutting motion cuts against the direction that kevlar is built for. It's not a function of speed, but direction, and while you could build a slick, armor piercing stake, you would probably need to use something other than wood to make it.

That's all moot, however. A smart vampire cuts open his flesh along the bottom edge of the pectoral muscle, slides a nice and heavy ceramic plate underneath there, just over the heart, and then has a buddy do the same for his left shoulder blade.

He also carries a mini fire extinguisher A raincoat that can folded small enough to be packed into a survival kit probably wouldn't be amiss. A pair of handcuffs is also useful in a wide variety of situations, although it's not specific to protecting vampiric weaknesses.