Transformative Hemovorism (Vampirism)

As with all transformative cases, the syndrome is transmitted by means of a bite to any part of the victim. The infection becomes full and irreversible after approximately one hour.

An infection can be gained only from a bite from another vampire. A human infected with vampirism is still genetically human, but their magical being is mixed with a vampire bat's (or alternatively both their imaginary species chromosomes becomes a vampire bat's).

Vampirism is a double infection, where both of the human's imaginary species chromosomes become that of a vampire bat's. The body of the person infected is taken over as well as the mind. A vampire gains some physical attributes of a vampire bat, such as increased agility, climbing skill, echolocation, and the ability to transform into a vampire bat, either by will, or by force during a partial or total lunar eclipse, when at least 60% of the moon is in the Earth's shadow. A vampire also loses most of their former personality, being replaced by a mindset similar to one of a vampire bat's, including aggression, predatoriness, and nocturnality. A vampire will keep their former memories, but will largely revert to a more animalistic state of mind. The degree to which they revert depends on the intelligence of the human; more intelligent humans keep more of their intellect, meaning modern day vampires are generally smarter. This effect also builds up through generations of vampires, meaning the more humans get bitten the smarter the species becomes.   Upon becoming a vampire, a human's canine teeth become elongated and pointed, and their tongue becomes longer, both of which are believed to aid in feeding on blood similar to how a vampire bat feeds. In addition, vampires are also rendered sterile upon being infected, likely due to damage caused by the magic in the syndrome, meaning no vampires can be born. Vampirism only involves the vampire bat species 'common vampire bat' (desmodus rotundus). It is not known why other species or subspecies do not manifest their own infections, but this is common to all instances of transformativism. However, there is speculation that vampirism actually involves the extinct vampire bat species 'giant vampire bat' (desmodus draculae), seeing as how the bat form of a vampire is larger than most real vampire bats. However, this is questioned by the small overlap between the species and humans in history. Some believe it is explainable through the inherent instability of a double infection.   In the process of transformation, a vampire's DNA will magically convert itself from human DNA to a vampire bat's. After this, the rest of the body will metamorphose into a bat to fit the new DNA. This process is quite quick but uses a large amount of magical energy, which can be detected. The bat that a human will transform into will have a lot less mass, therefore lots of energy will be released in the process as the excess mass is converted to energy. This means that the process of turning into a bat will energise the vampire, and can be done to recover from fatigue and make a getaway. On the other hand, converting back to a human requires a lot of energy to be input (the same amount in fact), meaning that an exhausted vampire in bat form may be unable to. If they are forced to without the required energy, it could be dangerous or even fatal, as it could cause organ failure.

Once a human has been infected with vampirism, it is uncurable and irreversible, and cannot be alleviated by any known means. This is likely due in part to the magic involved being poorly understood.

Vampires have an extremely sensitive form of 'cutaneous porphyria', similar to 'porphyria cutanea tarda (PCT)', a condition where their skin becomes dangerously sensitive to sunlight. Too much exposure will lead to various skin problems such as blisters, scars, and extreme discomfort, and more than a few minutes will lead to second degree burns, eventually resulting in death. However, once removed from sunlight, vampires heal very quickly. Sequela for this disease also apply, such as the eventual loss of nails, hair, discoloured teeth, and the tightening of skin around the face. However, these often take at least a century to manifest.

The only possible prevention is if the bitten human is immersed in a strong anti-magic field before the 60 minute infection period is up. However, due to the short time-frame, this is often unfeasible.

How vampirism (and other cases of transformativism) came to exist is unknown, though the affliction appears to have originated in South America, which is where the vampire bat species reside. While some theories as to the origin of transformativism suggest instances of bestiality in the presence of magic, the theoretical difficulty of this with vampire bats lends credibility towards the theory that a forgotten dark magic created it artificially. It is also unknown how the disease came to spread worldwide, as vampires themselves are generally solitary and territorial, and vampire bats do not exist outside of South America, yet the condition has been reported across most continents.   In recent times the intelligence level of vampires has risen considerably, due to the aforementioned amount of intelligence retained by the vampires. Humans in the modern day have become more knowledgeable, and the human population has increased vastly, leading to many more humans being bitten to become vampires, these new vampires having a higher intellect, and this effect snowballing as even more humans are bitten. In fact, that intelligence could be retained by vampires at all, let alone that it could increase, wasn't known until this started occurring.

Vampires have always been ostracised by the magical community, owing to their aggressive, animalistic behaviour, and their apparent loss of any concepts of society. Modern, smarter vampires are still shunned, because despite being more intelligent, they are still predatory. Normal humans remained, and still remain, mostly unaware of their existence, though brief sightings spawned many legends. These were understandably negative legends, as vampires preyed upon humans.   ORCHESTRA regards vampirism as a threat to humanity, so seeks to eradicate it. However, due to vampires' relatively low numbers around the world and only periodic activity, they had not been a high priority until recently, when their numbers and intelligence started increasing exponentially and they became much more active.