# [[40 Truth and Lies]] The differences between pop-culture [[39 Vampires|vampires]], or even legendary Balkan vampires, and the [[10 Lexicon of the Damned#^Kindred|Kindred]] trip up would-be slayers and even some new-fledged [[10 Lexicon of the Damned#^Cainite|Cainites]]. However, the similarities argue that myth-makers both modern and medieval occasionally tasted the truth. Even the seemingly timeless truths of the vampires admit some exceptions, or shift as the Blood changes its tides. For centuries, the Kindred believed there was no generation after the 13th, and some modern vampires retain a psychosomatic fear of the cross or garlic. **Vampires are immortal**: true. Vampires can die from [[46 The Blood#Decapitation|decapitation]] or burning by [[46 The Blood#Fire|fire]] or [[46 The Blood#Sunlight|sunlight]], but they do not age or die of natural causes. They require no food save blood, and they never need to breathe. Enough trauma can reduce a vampire to a deep, trancelike sleep called [[46 The Blood#Torpor|torpor]] – but they can revive again with sufficient time and blood. **Vampires are the living dead**: true. A vampire’s body has no heartbeat or pulse, holds no heat, and generates no sweat or hormones. A vampire’s body does not age or rot. It regrows lost flesh and even whole limbs, given time enough. And yet it thinks, walks, plans, and speaks – and [[70 Systems of the Blood#Hunting|hunts]], and kills. **Vampires drink the blood of the living**: true. Vampires crave human blood, and they can only [[45 Slaking Hunger|slake their thirst]] and power their inhuman abilities with the life’s blood of their victims. Some penitent vampires eke out an existence from [[45 Slaking Hunger#Feeding from Animals|animal blood]], and some ancient vampires must hunt and kill others of their kind to nourish themselves, but most vampires indeed consume the blood of their former species. **Vampires leave the marks of their fangs in their victim’s body**: mostly false. When first [[10 Lexicon of the Damned#^TheEmbrace|Embraced]] as a vampire, the undead grow extendable fangs for feeding. However, vampire saliva can close the wounds made by their fangs, thus concealing the evidence of the feeding. **Those who die from a vampire’s bite rise to become a vampire**: false. When vampires do kill their prey, the victim simply perishes. Otherwise, vampires would overrun the world. To Embrace a human, allowing them to return as undead, the vampire must feed the drained victim their own undying [[46 The Blood|Blood]], called [[10 Lexicon of the Damned#^Vitae|vitae]] by older vampires. **Sunlight burns vampires**: true. Although some [[20 The Thin-Blooded|thin-blooded]] vampires can bear the sun briefly and some vampiric powers allow a few minutes’ survival, sunlight fatally burns a Kindred’s undead flesh if exposed long enough. Vampires are nocturnal creatures, and most find it extremely difficult to remain awake during the day, even within sheltered areas. **Garlic or running water repels vampires**: mostly false. Mortals desperate to find any protection from the undead invented these comforting fables. [[35 Advantages#Merits|A few vampires still labor under these shackles]], but they are rare. **Vampires flee from crosses**: generally false. This myth is another comforting pious fabrication from the medieval era. However, some wielders of holy symbols (not just crucifixes) drive vampires back or damage them with the power of their [[50 True Faith|True Faith]]. **A stake through the heart kills vampires**: false. However, a wooden [[46 The Blood#Stakes|stake]] – or arrow, crossbow bolt, etc. – through the heart paralyzes the monster into a state of torpor until removed. **Vampires have the strength of 10 men; they command wolves and bats; they can hypnotize the living; etc.**: true and false. Vampire Blood grants Kindred supernatural powers called [[52 Disciplines|Disciplines]], which encompass all these abilities and more. Vampires increase their power as they age, from newly created vampires little more powerful than humans to mighty elders who can rival fiction’s Lestat or Dracula. The [[46 The Blood#Fourth and Fifth Generations Methuselahs|methuselahs]] and [[46 The Blood#Third Generation Antediluvians|Antediluvians]], who have stalked the night for millennia, often possess literally godlike power. **Vampires are monsters – demonic spirits embodied in corpses**: false – and true. If anything, the tragedy of vampires outweighs that of demons. Instead of one fall and a clear eternity of evil, vampires feel an inexorable pull toward damnation, often for centuries. Vampires seldom begin as sadistic monsters, unless they began that way as humans. However, overpowering [[41 Hunger|hunger]] for human blood and an existence dependent on regular feeding drive vampires toward sociopathy and predation. The vampire’s psychology changes as their solitary, predatory existence corrodes attitudes learned as a communal omnivore. Circumstance or need eventually forces even the most reluctant vampire to kill – and the joy and ease of murder turns such force to inclination, and finally to desire. Realizing their betrayal, vampires cease to trust. Realizing their differences, vampires isolate themselves from the mortal world. Realizing their existence depends on secrecy and control, vampires become secretive and manipulative. $\quad$As the years turn to decades and then to centuries, and the vampire kills over and over – or refrains from killing and watches their loved ones die anyway – such feelings ossify. Human life, always brief, becomes cheap, and then valueless compared to immortality. The mortal herd means nothing, only the vampire's house of cruelty, shadows, and lies holds significance. Jaded, unfeeling, paranoid – in a word, monstrous – vampire elders may not in fact be demons, but at that point, who can tell the difference? [[39 Vampires|⬅️ Previous Section]] | [[Vampire - The Masquerade 5th Edition Core Book#Structure|Table of Contents]] | [[41 Hunger|Next Section ➡️]]