AHV Vampires

Name of the Race: Vampires
Mythology, if any, based on: A mix of Dracula and H1N1
Standard Appearance: While the 1st generation of the infected Vampires were all members of the Elder Humans, the race generally includes all humans as a whole. because the Vampire body requires stimuli to produce melanin, they generally appear pale in color.
Attributes: Viruses--many suspect it simply to be His mistake. Nonliving but deadly, viruses can destroy a village within a month, a country within three. Yet, all viruses inside the corpse perish--a giant miscalculation on the part of the Virus. And so, the Lysogenic Virus is effectively an improvement over the Lytic Virus--a virus that, while pumping out viruses, will not kill the very factory that produces the viruses. The Acquired Hemodependency Virus (AHV) was one of these advanced viruses that began to infect marines who had invaded one of the many Lost Isles temples. Symptoms were an aversion to light, sweating, flu-like symptoms and eventually death in 80% of the cases as the virus overwhelmed the patient, causing the body to self-destruct in its attempt to destroy the virus integrated into the whole body's DNA. However, in 20% of the cases, the virus proved compatible to the human cell. And so vampires are born.

The AHV Virus is transmitted only through the exchange of body fluids (Pus, semen, blood, etc.), and proceeds to fan out through the bloodstream, hijacking already-existant blood cells to spread virus pathogens throughout the body. The virus proceeds to integrated its genetic data into that of the human cell. In most cases, the body reacts unfavorably and attempts to use lysosomes to destroy the very genetic data of the human cell, eventually killing the human. However, when a compatible pairing of virus and human cell are found, the blood and then the whole body becomes a symbiotic host with the virus. The virus integrates its own genetic data into the telomeres of the cell. Eternally lengthening it, this allows the human cell to replicate indefinitely along with the vampiric data. The body's own blood cells are dissembled for consumption. Generally, the vast dissembly of the body's own blood cells outpaces blood cell production, and so the Vampire is forced to acquired blood cells and plasma from other sources, namely other humans. This vast amount of genetic material in those blood cells can, when the body is damaged, be swiftly converted into genetic code and then made to transcript the body's DNA rapidly and quickly allow a vampire's wounds to heal (thus, the more healings a vampires goes through, the more blood that needs to be consumed). Animal blood, due to its relatively primitive nature, is not as effective a food and, due to the presence of antibodies, requires far more already-existent energy to metabolize. Thus, one who consumes a vast amount of animal blood may still be more malnourished than another vampire who consumes a smaller amount of human blood.

To allow the Vampire to survive and the genome to propagate, the virus endows the host with a constant desire for blood, perfect vision at night and strength and survivability that exceeds that of almost any human. Yet they do have weaknesses. In the past, the radiation of the sun wreaked havoc on the genetic code of the Vampiric human, but after millenia, Vampires now can produce Melanin when necessary (though it drastically weakens them). Food as a whole requires energy to digest and also weakens a vampire. Moreover, Silver will combine with elements of the Vampiric Cell to form various salts that toxically damage the are around the wound (retarding recovery) and, if distributed in the bloodstream, severely weakens a vampire. Most vampires, because of their high sensitivity to light, are badly blinded to sudden flashes of light.

Vampires are organized into "Covens", generally led by a patriarch or matriarch who passed down his or her strain of the virus to a group of new vampires, who thus spread it to form the facsimile of a family tree. As the virus is spread through body fluid contact, each successive generation is weakened (whereas normal human reproduction produces vampires with the same abilities as their parents). As the virus evolves often when combining with the human genome, many covens manifest specific abilities unique to the clan.

After the emergence of the disease, the physical prowess of the vampires interested the Elder, then the conquerors of much of Terra. Working with the Elder, the Vampires were the secret police and secret service of the Elder. However, as they became increasingly powerful, the paranoid and proud Elder turned on them and, not long before the fall of the White Tower, attempted to exterminate all vampires. The survivors fled all over the world, turning against the Elder. After the fall of the Elder, the vampires for a time seemed poised to replace the Elder as the next great civilization--but a new clan of vampires arose, killing the ruling Coven of the time. These, the Pure Vampires, insisted on purebreeding and began the cannibalistic practice of sucking blood from other vampires (this practice yields a massive amount of power because the blood inside a vampire has already been purified and hyperconcentrated. However, it is also extremely addictive and leaves the user on an emotional low afterwards). In the wars that followed, the Pure Vampires and the Gray Vampires (the other half of the vampires) split and have lived as enemies ever since.

If any, what god do they worship?: Vampires, like the Elder whom they are decended from, worship no god, and derive abilities from their disease and Coven abilities.

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