Radiation and Vampires

[Elsrick]

Out of curiousity more than anything, spawned from a recent game session, what would happen to the vampires of the different courts if they were to be exposed to a lethal dose (for a vanilla mortal) of gamma radiation?

[sdfds68]

[bobjob]

White Court would probably get pretty sick, but might be able to recover if they fed. Dunno how it would affect RCs or BCs. BCs would probably be completely unaffected other than making Renfields that are close by sick. RCs are a weird animal in that their bodies completely change to that of the rubbery bat creature and they form idealized ectoplasm suits.

[PatchR]

Radiation is... Radiation. Heat and the like ... it would hurt anything, modified by toughness and would be recovered as normal since it's not a catch covering thing. Pretty simple.

[bobjob]

Radiation is... Radiation. Heat and the like ... it would hurt anything, modified by toughness and would be recovered as normal since it's not a catch covering thing. Pretty simple.

This is magical radiation. I like Hulk WCs

[Hick Jr]

I have a skeleton writeup of a post-apocalyptic setting with magical radiation, Cybermen-expies, Wardens in technomantic power armor, demon-zombies infesting the landscape, and dinosaurs. It's like Fallout meets Neuromancer meets the Dresdenverse.



I wonder if I should open a recruitment thread.

[Haru]

I have it on good authority that white court vampires begin to sparkle.

Kidding aside, I think anyone but the black court vampire would be affected just as any human plus their toughness. Black court vampires don't really rely on being biologically intact to function, so even if part of their biomass broke down, that's not going to slow them down all too much.

[g33k]

BCV's are dead -- they'll wind up as radioactive dead, but essentially unimpaired (easier to detect, though, with the right gear!)

Radiation penetrates matter -- I wouldn't allow "Toughness" to apply to charged subatomic particles zipping through the body...  Recovery-powers should apply, and (except for massive doses) their healing-rates vs the relatively-slow onset of symptoms from radiation, make both RCV's and WCV's "seem to be" immune to radiation.  Presumably they'd need to feed fairly urgently, as their Recovery powers dip into their Hunger Tracks.
 

[Taran]

BCV's are dead -- they'll wind up as radioactive dead, but essentially unimpaired (easier to detect, though, with the right gear!)

Radiation penetrates matter -- I wouldn't allow "Toughness" to apply to charged subatomic particles zipping through the body...  Recovery-powers should apply, and (except for massive doses) their healing-rates vs the relatively-slow onset of symptoms from radiation, make both RCV's and WCV's "seem to be" immune to radiation.  Presumably they'd need to feed fairly urgently, as their Recovery powers dip into their Hunger Tracks.

If radiation bypasses their toughness then you need to boost the rebate provided by their catch.  I don't see why toughness wouldn't apply.  They are more resilient and can take more punishment.  It doesn't necessarily have to be 'physical' punishment in the traditional sense.

I'd treat radiation as an environmental attack.  If you have it as a catch, it'll hurt more.  Monsters who get taken out by radiation could just have their high concept changed (and some of their powers) to become radioactive versions of the monsters they once were! (black court vamps and zombies, for example)

I see White court and Red court getting hurt by radiation but they could tap into their recovery/toughness powers to resist it.  I might let reds use their skin masks to resist the damage by encasing themselves in a protective layer...but that would just be represented by maneuvers they tag to resist the damage...but it depends whether you think their skin masks can actually protect against that kind of energy.

[Amelia Crane]

Radiation is not well understood by most.  But basically, there are three main things that should be considered.

• Alpha and beta radiation - are high energy nucleii and electrons (respectively).  However, these charged particles interact strongly with the world, so they are easy to stop with paper or a thin sheet of metal (respectively).  These are likely to do skin damage to humans.  Might do similar damage to blampires and whampires, but probably unlikely to kill them (I'm assuming the whampire could feed to get rid of the cancer).  Might disrupt the skin-suit of a rampire, depending on your definition of ectoplasm.
• Gamma radiation - is high energy electromagnetic radiation.  It has enough energy to break any chemical bond, and does so many times as it passes through you and out and through the guy behind you too.  This stuff can help give you cancer almost anywhere.  Or just screw up enough things in your body that it can't fix them in time to save you.  Probably doesn't affect blampires much (at doses that merely kill humans - although you could throw more out until they effectively burn up from all the energy they absorb).  Whampires would likely be as affected as humans, but could recover by feeding.  Rampires, it would depend on your definition of ectoplasm - somewhere between bypassing toughness to them being immune to it.  I'd probably treat it like any other damage just because that is simpler.
• Radioactive particles - are bits of radioactive stuff that got spread out or normal material that got irradiated with neutrons to become radioactive.  These are the lingering danger, the others affect you instantaneously and/or continuously.  The largest danger is letting these particles into your lungs, where they attach and irradiate your insides with one of the other forms of radiation at a later time.  They can also contaminate your skin (although that can be washed off).  Unlikely to adversely affect blampires, but they might irradiate nearby living beings.  Whampires would likely suffer as much as humans, although they may be better able to recover from the adverse effects.  Rampires ... do they breathe?  If they do they might be affected, but could probably recover like whampires.

[killking72]

Well I'm just going to mention this about radiation doses. Mild to severe doses (10-80 xrays worth of radiation) wont cause symptoms until 6 hours for mild doses to 1 hour for high doses. Wizards and other things that mend wounds wouldn't be affected much by the later symptoms of radiation sickness because they would be able to heal the DNA/other molecules in their body neigh perfectly. http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/radiation-sickness/basics/symptoms/con-20022901

Also don't forget that one of the most radioactive places on earth only gives off about 2mSv/hr which in beta radiation would take about 500 hours next to it to give you 1Gy of radiation. That's enough to give you a headache if my math is right. Unless it's some weird ass place in the never never I wouldn't touch stuff with radiation because either it's not enough radiation or matter, or it's enough radiation to kill your PCs if you wanted to keep it kind of real.