How many people drained for a BCV to be fully functional?

[zenten]

So last game the PCs managed to inflict every last consequence on the big bad Master Black Court Vampire before it got away, including Extreme (it lost it's left arm to a blowtorch for that one).  All by the book too, had quite a few die rolls gone differently the BCV either would have been destroyed, or one of the PCs could have died.

Anyway, my question is, roughly how many people will this BCV have to completely drain to be fully healed?  By the rules only the minor consequence can be, but I think that is both lame and doesn't fit with how things work in canon.  Also, do you think the extreme consequence should be fixable with enough blood?  I can see arguments both ways.

[Katarn]

I think you're thinking of Red Court or White Court Vampires.  Black Court have no healing abilities to speak of- they merely propagate through killing others, but don't gain anything from it aside from making more BCVs.  To quote the YS entry on Living Dead:

Corpse Body
Your body is a corpse. This means that you cannot recover from consequences with time, because your body does not regenerate.  Any physical consequences you suffer are permanent until you take some kind of effort to remove them (know any good taxidermists?) or seek supernatural assistance to reconstruct your body.

So by that logic, it needs some form of magic to regain its strength.  THE OW entry on BCVs mentions healing would have some indirect form of healing, something like taxidermist thralls to preserve them (since they don't heal- for example, Harry takes off 1-Ear's ear and it stays missing.)


(....Chuck Testa is a BCV thrall....)

[zenten]

I think you're thinking of Red Court or White Court Vampires.  Black Court have no healing abilities to speak of- they merely propagate through killing others, but don't gain anything from it aside from making more BCVs.  To quote the YS entry on Living Dead:

So by that logic, it needs some form of magic to regain its strength.  THE OW entry on BCVs mentions healing would have some indirect form of healing, something like taxidermist thralls to preserve them (since they don't heal- for example, Harry takes off 1-Ear's ear and it stays missing.)


(....Chuck Testa is a BCV thrall....)

No, I'm not mistaken.  BCVs have Blood Drinker, which lets them heal a minor consequence.  I acknowledge that the rules fail to address how a BCV heals more severe consequences, but since canon has it (can't remember the name of the short story from Side Jobs) that BCVs can heal fully from drinking blood that's what I'm going with.

So I'm asking people what their opinion is for how many people this BCV would have to drain to heal the various consequences.

[wyvern]

Minor, moderate, and severe consequences, yes, those can be healed.  But the extreme consequence is a special plot token, and will not heal - for a very long time, if ever; that's what it's for.  Remember that taking an extreme consequence requires an aspect change.

Now, if you're dealing with a critter that can, thematically, heal a missing arm by eating a few people - then what that tells me is that a missing arm is not an appropriate extreme consequence.  Severe, maybe.  Or perhaps fire is enough of a cleansing force that the BCV just can't heal that without a major necromantic ritual that'll take it months to set up - it lost not just the physical arm, but also the metaphysical mojo that would animate that arm and thus can't just attach a new one.

Alternatively, re-focus the consequence not on the physical injury, but on the mental / social effects thereof; it came too close to permanent destruction and is now going into ultra-paranoid mode - in which case it won't be killing hardly anyone, because that would leave evidence it exists, and someone might be able to hunt it down and finish the job.  In this case, the effect of the extreme consequence is that it won't be feeding much, and that it'll run from any sort of direct confrontation (at least for a while).

[Becq]

I would say that you (zenten and Katarn) are both right.

Fact: BCVs are subject to the Living Dead power, which prevents natural healing of physical consequences.  Supernatural healing methods work normally, and this power implies that there are other, semi-mundane ways of healing (with taxidermy mentioned specifically), but no mechanics are given.

Fact: BCVs also have the Blood Drinker power, which grants them a supernatural means of healing minor physical consequences.

So BCVs can't heal physical consequences by the normal method (ie, wait out the recovery process in scenes or sessions).  They have a specific supernatural power to heal minor physicals; this bypasses the Living Dead restriction.  In addition, OW86 'extrapolates' that BCVs have a "rejuvenation by blood" power.

As one last consideration, the Blood Drinker power doesn't actually specify that minor consequences are healed; rather this is a specifically noted benefit of the actual power, which is to gain (supernaturally) a scene's worth of recovery, once per scene, by killing a subject through drinking their blood.  So one could extrapolate this to say that so long as a BCV drains a victim every scene, they gain the supernatural equivalent of normal recovery.

Here's my suggestion on handling them.  Consider these house rules, and take 'em or leave 'em as you see fit.

BCVs don't heal normally, but they can be repaired through a combination of physical rebuilding of their bodies and regeneration powered by the deaths of victims.  First, create a new stunt called 'Corpse Repair' (or just 'Taxidermist, if you prefer) which allows a character to use their Craftsmanship skill to repair structural damage to corpses (but does nothing to heal the living).  Characters with either this stunt or the 'Doctor (Medical)' stunt can repair structural damage to corpses, including BCVs.  The dificulty of this task is based on the level of the consequence being repaired; for example great for moderate or fantastic for severe.  (Note that these difficulties are noted on YS220 for medical rolls to trigger normal recovery.)  If successful, this allows the taxidermist to 're-label' the consequence to something less severe.  For example, if a BCV was given the Severe consequence "Arm lopped off", it could be changed to "Damaged arm".  This is still considered a severe consequence, but changed what compels can occur (ie, the vampire has gone from zero use of the arm to not-entirely-reliable use of the arm).

To actually recover from the consequence, the BCV needs to feed on death fairly regularly.  How often requires some judgement, as 'scenes' can be variable lengths of time.  A minor consequence is easy, since it requires one scene, therefore a single death, and this occurs nearly instantly.  A moderate consequence requires a session (or one or more days, per YS315) worth of recovery.  I'd go with, say, six 'rest' scenes ~= two days ~= one session sounds about right.  A severe normally requires several weeks to recover from, so this would scale up to dozens of deaths.  Note that the vampire can't simply "power-heal" by draining large numbers of mortals in one sitting; healing still takes time.  This time is greatly reduced if the BCV happens to have a Recovery power, though I'd tend to favor ruling that the same number or deaths are required, but that the BCV can metabolize them more quickly.

As I said, these are ideas not RAW.  Any thoughts?

[Katarn]

No, I'm not mistaken.  BCVs have Blood Drinker, which lets them heal a minor consequence....

So I'm asking people what their opinion is for how many people this BCV would have to drain to heal the various consequences.

Ah, I see it now (missed that on the read-through).

GM's call I'd say.  If you're going that route, I would make it quite a few, so that it wouldn't happen as often because several people gone missing is far more noticeable than one, and BCVs don't like attention.  I'd prefer, as a GM, to use an external healing source (taxidermy, necromancy, other magic) since the rules don't really support healing beyond mild- humans can recover from things beyond mild because their cells regenerate- BCVs do not.  But if you're going the healing route I'd say make it 15+.

mild-1
moderate- 7?
severe- 15+
extreme- N/A

But I'd definitely maintain the extreme consequence holds- without something big (far beyond any healing abilities), the arm can't come back.  Grafting on a new arm is different, however.

So if you want this villain to show up in a subsequent chapter, an intriguing opening is several people going missing.


EDIT:  I like what Becq said a lot too.

[InFerrumVeritas]

I wouldn't go quite that much. 

Basically, I'd say that one person for every two stress blocks, plus the cost of recovering from the previous level consequence.

One for mild (heals two stress boxes).

Three for moderate (heals four stress boxes, plus the one for the cost of a mild consequence).

Seven for severe (heals six stress boxes, plus three for the cost of a moderate consequence).

Extreme would require eleven plus a justification to start recovery (stolen arm of descendant treated with magical ritual and sewn on by taxidermist using needles made from the charred shards of your former fingers or something) and would still leave with an aspect relating to the trauma (Severely Arsonophobic or Arm with a Mind of its Own).

(SO to actually answer your question, you'd be looking at something like 22 people completely drained plus a major ritual affecting the plot of the story that the PCs can actively try to stop). 

[ways and means]

I generally treats un-dead critters sewn back together (craftsmanship or scholarship roll) as fully healed for the sake of consequences (as otherwise the consequences would never go away). As for BCV there should be a blood/life energy healing power (for all the vampires IMO which would deal with the problem). 

[admiralducksauce]

Let's find out!

One...

Two....

*CRUNCH*

...Three.

[Becq]

Basically, I'd say that one person for every two stress blocks, plus the cost of recovering from the previous level consequence.

One for mild (heals two stress boxes).

Two things:

First, keep in mind that stress clears for free at the end of a scene, even for characters with Living Dead (which only modifies recovery from consequences, not stress).  So no need to include stress boxes in the calculation.

Second, keep in mind that Blood Drinker grants a free scene worth of recovery for a death, which by default means the first death is enough to remove all stress and all mild physicals.  For a stock BCV, this would be up to 7 stress boxes and a mild physical.  For a hypothetical archvillain Master BCV with Endurance 5 and the "No Pain, No Gain" stunt, this could be 8 stress and three mild physicals, all for a single death (per the Blood Drinker rules).  If the same BCV also had Inhuman Recovery for whatever reason and a noncombat scene to spend savoring his meal, he would be able to clear a minor physical "for free" each scene, and also drain a victim (no more than once per scene) to immediately recover from all 8 stress boxes, all three minors, AND a moderate physical (because Blood Drinker allows you a free scene worth of recovery and Inhuman Recovery allows you to heal a moderate in a scene when out of combat).

The above is all per the RAW.

So I still favor trying to keep to RAW as closely as possible, which means that it's just a matter of deciding how best to translate sessions and scenarios or days and weeks into scenes in a way that makes the whole thing reasonable.

One other option (hous rule; not RAW but based loosely on RAW), which might be reasonable given that BCVs are NPCs: allow them to "borrow" Inhuman Recovery to simulate a form of power-healing.  This would allow them to recover VERY quickly at the cost of two Fate or two Debt per scene.  So one scene of power-healing (healing all physical stress, mild(s), and moderate) would cost, say three deaths -- one for Blood Drinker, and two more as a 'down payment' on the two Debt (which in turn would be used for compels relating to the trouble stirred up by all of the disappearances and/or less-than-complete healing).  Healing a serious consequences this way could rack up corpses very quickly.  If you go with three 'rest scenes' per day, then the recovery from a serious would require perhaps two days and eighteen corpses, along with a dozen points of Debt.

So pick a set of mechanics that feels right to you and go with it.  Regardless, it should require some form of physical repair to patch up the most obvious damage unless the BCV doesn't mind the odd missing arm or having loose entrails shoved in his pocket.  It should also take some time (BCVs shouldn't get a free bonus to healing time, unless you are allowing the loaned Recovery -- which isn't really free).  And it should leave a lot of corpses, mortals searching for lost friends and family, etc.

[InFerrumVeritas]

Two things:

First, keep in mind that stress clears for free at the end of a scene, even for characters with Living Dead (which only modifies recovery from consequences, not stress).  So no need to include stress boxes in the calculation.

Right here is where you missed what I meant.  The number of stress each consequence negates.  So, for instance, a mild consequence is worth two.  I know that stress disappears, wasn't working off that assumption at all.

[Becq]

Right here is where you missed what I meant.  The number of stress each consequence negates.  So, for instance, a mild consequence is worth two.  I know that stress disappears, wasn't working off that assumption at all.

Alrighty.  Then I guess that first point is merely restating the obvious. 

[UmbraLux]

Don't have an opinion on the number of kills it would take to heal but I would leave at least one armless body...as the BCV needs a replacement part.     He'd make sure to pick a 'good' arm while he was at it...

[Becq]

Don't have an opinion on the number of kills it would take to heal but I would leave at least one armless body...as the BCV needs a replacement part.     He'd make sure to pick a 'good' arm while he was at it...

Do you think BCVs can do the Frankenstein thing?  That is, graft other corpses' parts onto their own?  I'd be tempted to say they can only repair their own body.  Which would mean that if they lost an arm and couldn't locate it (or if the arm was destroyed, possibly due to fire), then they are S.O.L.

On the other hand, if they can do the Frankenstein thing, can they do so with enthusiasm?  That is, maybe graft extra arms on?  I would tend toward 'NO'.

Oh, and that brings up another point: I would probably rule that catch-based damage can never be fully repaired.  The consequence might be cleared, but it should probably leave an altered aspect behind to reflect the damage to the BCV's body, somewhat like an extreme consequence does.

[UmbraLux]

Do you think BCVs can do the Frankenstein thing? 

Shrug.  I think it makes good plot fodder and is a reasonably good trapping / explanation for "healing" which is otherwise unexplained. 

If you're sticking closely to the Bram Stoker myth, it may not work for you.  That said, not every monster is equal...some BCVs may well have powers Stoker wasn't aware of.