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[GreatWyrmGold]

It should depend on vampire type, his/her personality, and the situation. A sufficiently hungry or stupid vampire will just munch on whoever's nearest, maybe without even waiting for them to go to sleep first. Another vampire might randomly hate jewlers and thus targets them above all others. A third could feed only on children and the lazy, so as to not affect the working of the fortress. A fourth might be interested in chaos, and thus targets food producers, miners, and friendly dwarves while leaving the fortress guard intact, perhaps smashing furniture occasionally, feighning a tantrum. A fifth might pick off everyone higher on the social ladder than him, especially if he's a noble. A sixth might try and convince young adult dwarves of the opposite sex to be fed on willingly, sparkles optional. A seventh might slaughter sleeping dwarves whenever he has some spare time, just because he's bored (maybe this could happen with non-vampires?). And so forth.

This is a good suggestion.

+1 for GWG's suggestion, takes into account the other ideas too.

...People agree with me? I think this is the first time this has happened.

Why am I picturing Vampires now with Scouters that display a Dwarf's power level?

Ohh yes, because that would be relatively close to what this suggestion is actually asking.

I'm not sure what a "scouter" is, but it's safe to assume that most vampires would realize that they will draw more attention killing the beloved Starting Seven expedition leader/baron/etc, the axelord militia commander, or the legendary weaponsmith that forged an artifact steel battleaxe with a hundred goblins and a dragon killed by it, than they would by feeding on the worthless cheesemakers and glazers and such that come every season and are known by maybe two or three other dwarves, who are mostly other worthless haulers.

[bombzero]

view it from this angle, you are the vampire, you just arrived at a fort in secrecy, desguised for the 50th fucking time, after your last town chased you out with pitchforks and torches.

are you going to go after the legendary axedwarf? ruining your brand new feeding grounds?
or are you going to work your way around the fringe of society, picking off nobodies who wont even be missed?


alternatively, you are a vampire, you just finished bleeding dry a camp of soldiers over a week, you have 1496 kills across your various personas.

are you going to creep around the edges, only taking the fettered blood of peasants and farmers?
or are you going to see what a kings blood tastes like?

[Neonivek]

There is a difference between a Vampire chosing to feed off of nobodies over important and prominant members of dwarven society...

And a vampire seeing how much muscle mass a dwarf has or how much brain matter and deciding if they should feed.

[Iapetus]

There is a difference between a Vampire chosing to feed off of nobodies over important and prominant members of dwarven society...

And a vampire seeing how much muscle mass a dwarf has or how much brain matter and deciding if they should feed.

You can get a good idea of someone's muscle-mass just by looking at them, so if they decided to choose their targets according to strength (e.g. the have a "might makes right" mentality and/or don't want to risk getting beaten up by their victim or they think strong dwarves are tastier or less likely to die) then they could easily choose to target weak (or strong) dwarves.

Mental abilities will be less obvious, but they should be able to work them out after getting to know the dwarf, and again (depending on their personality or motivation) may well want to target stupid (or clever) victims.

[RabblerouserGT]

Sounds like a badly disguised "The vampires are killing my recruits/legendary miners/legendary artisans!"
I just wish vampires were easier to spot.


EDIT: Yikes. I thought this was a recent thread. It was linked in another thread. :S Sorry for the bump.

[NW_Kohaku]

Two weeks is recent enough.  There's no reason to assume that something that isn't on the first page is automatically dead.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Doubly so if it's a suggestion thread--most people think that it's better to add onto an old thread with the same idea than to clog up the suggestions forum with several threads about the same topic.

Back on topic...

Sounds like a badly disguised "The vampires are killing my recruits/legendary miners/legendary artisans!"
I just wish vampires were easier to spot.

On one hand, yes. It IS annoying when your legendary dwarves get bled dry by vamps. On the other hand, this provokes the fortress management (i.e. you) to go into overdrive looking for the vampire. If it only kills a few lowlives, you wouldn't care much. Vampires should know this. Therefore, a clever vampire would feed only on the elements of society which no one cares about--again, the new cheesemakers and such.
And vampires, hard to spot? Look for the pages of trinkets and inability to breathe. And being a former member of a large number of groups helps, too.

[Beyondrepair]

It would make sense if, vampires by default tried to achieve symbiosis with the fortress. However, if you try to root them out, they would exact revenge and start killing high prio targets.

The problem then is how exactly the vampire would determine you are looking for it (triggering its revenge spree).

[NW_Kohaku]

It'd actually be an interesting twist if you could be complicit, especially if there were things like a tyrant vampire king/queen, or at least having a vampire baron and mayor, and essentially tried to make it like a secret cabal of vampires, where you coordinate and pre-plan out who gets drained, and make sure that they are healthy enough that they don't die outright, and that you just lightly feed on a distributed load of dwarves to maintain control over a clueless flock of sheep fortress of dwarves.

[NRDL]

It'd actually be an interesting twist if you could be complicit, especially if there were things like a tyrant vampire king/queen, or at least having a vampire baron and mayor, and essentially tried to make it like a secret cabal of vampires, where you coordinate and pre-plan out who gets drained, and make sure that they are healthy enough that they don't die outright, and that you just lightly feed on a distributed load of dwarves to maintain control over a clueless flock of sheep fortress of dwarves.

Wow, that might have to be like a separate gamemode or something. 

Something like, I dunno, night creature mode or something. 

[GreatWyrmGold]

That does sound interesting...

[xlork]

It should be remembered that vampires are normal dwarves who have been cursed. They don't (all) love sucking blood and killing people for the hell of it. Rather, I imagine them as sorta peasants who try to keep a low profile and only suck blood because they have to, and they really hate that they have to kill people to feed. Admittedly, this doesn't fit with the current vampires who are always mayor and sucking your legendary weaponsmith...

[GreatWyrmGold]

I still say it sould vary. Some try to avoid notice, some go mad with power and kill the best, some sneakily elliminate those of higher station, some just suck whoever's nearby.

...Somehow that just sounds wrong, if taken out of context.

[xlork]

No, I agree with you, I'm just saying that they are just normal peeps who've been cursed, so for the most part they should not be very happy about having to kill others at all! But, yes, variety would be very good, so their personality affects their sucking habits eg. those "ruled by irresistible cravings and urges" would feed off the nearest sleeping dorf, while a dorf who "revels in chaos and disorder" would kill all the nobles.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Ah, I see, you think vampires should have a tendancy towards being discreet, and that other personality traits should weigh in heavily...sensible.