Vampirism

Ah yes, vampires. You´ve heared a lot of unbelievable stories about bloodsucking creatures, disguised as humans, elves or orcs? Good that you came to me. There are so many myths out there, even for me its hard to isolate the truth in this pool of horror stories.  

The Origin

It is debated where the disease showed up the first time. But most people, me included agree, that the disease derives from Nyx, a very very old god of the night. He and Galmo, lord of slavery and domination came together to spoil the creations of the other gods. Humans, elves, orcs and dwarfs, originally designed to live in peace and harmony, Nyx and Galmo hatched the plan to spoil the peace with paranoia, delusion and suspicions.
Their creature should look like the others, but secretly feed of them and enslave them.
It took them a while but in the end they smoothed their curse over and got it ready to sink societies into constant horror and paranoia. They disguised themselves as noble men and travelled around Aar. Every once in a while, they would stop somewhere and get involved in the villages or town dealings. As soon as they made out a person with power and influence, they started to seduce them and eventually proposed their gift to them.  

"... my noble friend, it has brought us great pleasure seeing you rise up so far, but there is a constant pain in our thoughts that is getting stronger everyday. One day you will meet the one invincible enemy no man can defeat. Dead is inevitable... But we might have something for you - a blessing of an ancient god, made for his most loyal servants. We might came across a book that contains the ritual to immortality."

  In most cases the lust for power blinded the ones chosen by the two evil gods. This qoute comes from an ancient scroll, found in the archives of Samarkant. Nyx and Galmo would then proceed to prepare the ritual - their votar would have to sacrifice two lives to them, with the power of that sacrifice, Nyx and Galmo then would alter their chosen one into a vampire. From then on he (or she) wouldn´t age as promised.
But the two were giving out a poisened present. After being turned into a vampire the victim of their curse feels the constant thirst for blood and nothing but blood.  

Symptoms and its course

There are two forms of vampirism existing in Aar. The one given from Nyx and Galmo, which I will explain to you in another note and the disease that is spread by those who got cursed by Nyx and Galmo. This second and way more common form is what is called vampirism.
When bitten by a vampire, that vampire can chose to pass on the curse on his prey. All it needs is a little prayer to Nyx and Galmo.
If that happens the victim will wakeup the next morning, feeling completly normal. But when dusk comes, they will feel awake and a little restless. They will have problems finding sleep and when sleep finally comes they are going to experience dreams filled with battle, blood and turmoil. The second day they will feel a little dizzy during the day and the feeling of restlessness will increase. This cycle intensifies for around 5 days, then the victim will look for a dark, quiet and isolated place. At midnight the transformation will start. It should be pretty painful, according to a vampire who seeked a cure at the Arcaneum ultima. First they will turn blind and deaf, then their fangs will grow and sharpen. After that happens, their eyes and ears and sense of smell ajust to their new purposses, suddently all senses are back and have increased massivly, which is, soposed to said vampire, pretty overvelming.
At this point the transformation is complete, the newly made vampires digestive system now only accepts humanoid blood, other food leeds to fierce diarrhea. At the end of the metamorphosis the thirst will come in and the now incredibly powerful feeling vampire is going ou to hunt.
It is nearly impossible to tell apart a human and a vampire. The only way are the eyes, a vampire still has the eyes he was born with, but now you can see tiny red and silver veins running through the iris. And when a vampire hasn´t fed for a week he starts to look somewhat gaunt and starved - pale skin and dark eye bags will give them a hungry and sick look and let their bones shine through the skin.  

The Cure

I asked myself when you will ask that question - plain and simple, there is no cure. Many have tried until this day, the only cure that helped was incineration, beheading or a sword right through the heart. But that obviously doesn´t help the vampire. But the world is full of wonders - so maybe one day somebody figures something out, you never know...