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Vampires are a special category of empathic talent.  Vampirism is caused by a genetically-engineered virus created by the Vulcanians during their final war 300 million years ago, in a desperate attempt at creating a "super" warrior.

A vampire using his empathic abilities results in a special kind of "feed" situation.  Each stage of success in an empathic task requires the afflicted to consume 1/2 liter of blood from a sentient being within 24 hours or suffer 1D of damage to the chest. Each 24 hours without feeding results in an additional 1D of damage.

Victims of a vampire bite may become vampires (Easy: CON to avoid, failure results in neuropaths that will undergo an awakening — and the possible resulting madness — as the virus takes control of their systems) with an empathic link to the vampire that infected them. The virus also makes the vampire "allergic" to light. For every round a vampire is exposed to sunlight (or UV light) he takes 1D of damage to the chest). It also makes the vampire allergic to silver. Attacks with silver weapons against a vampire do double damage. On the plus side, the virus acts as a natural anagathic (see TNE), and allows the vampire to heal more rapidly than normal (healing takes place at ten times the standard rate).

Vampires are hated even more than your average Empath because of their "habits." For this reason they avoid attention. Vampires are basically solitary predators (too many in an area will begin to attract attention), so they take efforts to keep their numbers low. It may take several bites to infect a victim, so a vampire might simply attack a victim only once, rendering the victim unconscious before feeding, or kill the victim and hide the body after feeding. The latter can get dangerous if too many people start disappearing in an area, whereas the former can be chalked up to the occasional mugging. A more imaginative vampire might start a cult in which new initiates have to drain some of their blood into a chalice from which "the Master" drinks. This keeps the risk of infection down considerably. More thoughtful vampires may make arrangements to get human blood from volunteers using similar methods.