On the subject of radiation

[AscentionTheMage]

Recently I got to thinking "If they ever made a VTM fighting game, one of the arenas should be the remains of cyrnobil or some other iradiated wasteland" but then I though that might not be possible. My question: does radiation cause agrivated damage to Kindred?

[Nail Eater]

That would also probably tip off the targets that they were being tracked "covertly". You don't put a radiothermal kick me sign on someone - not that they'd probably have access to it if they're just keeping to mortal-compatible radiotracers - if you want them to continue on unaware that you are watching them.

I think that you're right. Partially. As far as I remember Giovanni sold the entire shipment during a single night saying that they have access to the Elder's blood. As many Cams of lower generations were blood donors that claim was true.Sabat checked it for any traces of any magical deception, I believe that they could also checked it for any signs of diseases. Who could have thought about radiation? And if, it was still the Elder's blood. Besides, it's not the radiation (which could be a little inconvenient but still harmless), it's what you can do about it (that was what Sabat didn't expect). And the plan was executed in the next few days so noone have time to react.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

Or it could be more powerful as Camarilla fought for NY in 1999 so the threat of nuclear terrorism was treated lightier than after 9/11.

That would also probably tip off the targets that they were being tracked "covertly". You don't put a radiothermal kick me sign on someone - not that they'd probably have access to it if they're just keeping to mortal-compatible radiotracers - if you want them to continue on unaware that you are watching them.

[Nail Eater]

It'd probably be a relatively low-risk, low power kind of radiotracer as used in nuclear medicine. Mortal authorities would be too likely to take notice of something out of the ordinary, otherwise, and if there's anything the cam doesn't want, it would be the kind of attention that potential nuclear terrorism investigations would garner.

Or it could be more powerful as Camarilla fought for NY in 1999 so the threat of nuclear terrorism was treated lightier than after 9/11.

[Theodrim]

-Asks scary wife (A physicist) how radiation fucks you up.
- (paraphrasing) physics, physics, psysics; Radiation's not contagious. Unless maybe you're like, glowing.

Yeah, it's definitely the very last on my list of ways to die. Bad enough that people who get hit with obviously lethal levels ought to be humanely euthanized during the latent phase. Fuck that Hisashi Ouchi shit where doctors turned a dying man into a science experiment.

That said it's not as clear cut as that. To say whether or not it's "contagious" isn't the best way to put it. People who have been exposed to radioisotopes in particulate form and have internalized doses can emit hazardous levels of radiation themselves (though mostly in gamma and some beta), and extreme care has to be taken in their treatment lest medical personnel start suffering ARS. See for example the Chernobyl incident first responders, who had breathed in and swallowed smoke containing core material and high-level waste product all night while fighting the fire.

When you start talking about chronic dosage, not acute dosage, which has definite implications for the conversation, things get a lot messier. A lot of radioisotopes (Sr-90 immediately comes to mind) metabolize the same as calcium, which means they ends up accumulating in the bones and teeth. About a year back I was in an argument on another forum about the Kingston coal ash spill (which believe it or not is a worse radiological incident than Chernobyl, but relatively well covered up a decade later) and stumbled upon a study of Appalachian residents that found their own bones were dangerously radioactive from coal ash, mining externalities, and runoff, much higher than the norm from the nuclear testing days where people were internalizing dosages from airborne fission byproduct.

But when we're talking about like stupid high dosages, it's possible for the emission to initiate reactions inside the body that result in radioemitter byproducts. I want to say it was Cecil Kelly in particular whose vomit, feces, urine, blood, and tissue samples tested for (short-lived) fission byproduct that couldn't be explained adequately through his work with the plutonium mixing tanks, even accounting for the criticality incident itself, and the only possible source for them were fission reactions of already-internalized exposures to trace radioisotopes. But, he took 36 Sv straight to the face and chest, from a source approximately a meter away, over a time span of 1/5000 seconds, in almost all gamma.

[Saur Ops Specialist]

During War of NY Giovanni were bribed by Camarilla to support Sabat with radioactive blood. Not to harm them (I think that they would notice it) but to easily trace them. So I believe that radiation actually doesn't harm vampires.

It'd probably be a relatively low-risk, low power kind of radiotracer as used in nuclear medicine. Mortal authorities would be too likely to take notice of something out of the ordinary, otherwise, and if there's anything the cam doesn't want, it would be the kind of attention that potential nuclear terrorism investigations would garner.

[Nail Eater]

During War of NY Giovanni were bribed by Camarilla to support Sabat with radioactive blood. Not to harm them (I think that they would notice it) but to easily trace them. So I believe that radiation actually doesn't harm vampires.

[AnubisXy]

Had something like this come up years ago when the players had to get into a sunken USSR nuclear sub. I ruled that while Vampires would take damage from intense heat and fire, exposure to "mere" nuclear radiation wouldn't inflict damage. Their undead state however caused them to absorb nuclear radiation and become radioactive themselves (which would cause all sorts of problems to people and animals around them). I wrote up a quick scale of 1-7 (about equal to how many health levels characters have) and allowed players to "burn off" their radiation by having them heal it as if it were aggravated damage (basically 1 point per night at the cost of blood points so if you). So like if you were to spend a year in topor sleeping in nuclear runoff you'd wake up at rank 7 radiation and would be a walking hazard to anyone around you. If you had sufficient blood though, after a week you would be back to normal. Mostly it wasn't a big deal unless you spent a prolonged amount of time in a radioactive site.

[Thoth]

-Asks scary wife (A physicist) how radiation fucks you up.
- (paraphrasing) physics, physics, psysics; Radiation's not contagious. Unless maybe you're like, glowing.

The "elephants foot" in Chernobyl would tend to disprove the requirement about glowing to be dangerous.

[MyWifeIsScary]

Maybe vampires just un-irradiate themselves. They're magic. Also, yeah, Fortitude's not going to keep you dry, but it'll let you swim through acid or boiling water without getting burnt. Since it can refute chemistry as we know it, I don't think it's so much of a stretch to say it can deny radiation.

/

-Asks scary wife (A physicist) how radiation fucks you up.
- (paraphrasing) physics, physics, psysics; Radiation's not contagious. Unless maybe you're like, glowing.

[Thoth]

you need to also consider that vampires, even without fortitude, are supernaturally resistant to damage. with enough stamina they can shrug off blunt force trauma, sword cuts , high voltages or boiling water. With that in mind, I dont think the minute changes brought about by radiation would really pose all that much of a threat, especially when we do factor in Fortitude.

If you look back up at my original post, I stated that ionizing radiation is probably harmless to a vampire directly, the problem is all about the secondary affects of being a walking radiation source.

The Scorpion Eater rules from KotE give us a possible guideline for how a vampire might interact with radioactive blood when feeding. For the record Iron Mountain, the KotE version of Fortitude didn't factor into any of the rolls regarding consuming tainted blood.

There is an argument to be made that Fortitude of a certain level could some how reduce the amount of radiation getting absorb over a given amount of time, but that is really stretching things on the order of Fortitude some how changing how wet you get when standing out in the rain.

[MyWifeIsScary]

you need to also consider that vampires, even without fortitude, are supernaturally resistant to damage. with enough stamina they can shrug off blunt force trauma, sword cuts , high voltages or boiling water. With that in mind, I dont think the minute changes brought about by radiation would really pose all that much of a threat, especially when we do factor in Fortitude.

[Grumpy RPG Reviews]

You are more right than you know.

Thanks. I didn't know about that KotE bit of business, but it works for me. Part of my thinking was influenced by the HBO series Chernobyl - which is great and harrowing to watch - and thinking about vampires in that situation. To simply say radiation doesn't do anything to them seemed to easy.

[Theodrim]

So there's that Ritual...

I mean you wanna start talking thaumaturgy, Path of Conjuring 3 would allow a vampire to conjure a sword made of plutonium (at least that's how I'd rule it, Pu being a radioactive element). The danger there to vampires not being the radiation, but plutonium being so radioactive it heats itself glowing-hot, and a fast oxidizer that creates highly-flammable oxides.

You know, if you really want a melee weapon of mass destruction.

[Thoth]

As other have posted, in the rules as written vampires take no damage from radiation. However, while no specifically a part of established rules, a vampire might become radioactive. My own take is that sufficient levels of radiation should destroy the blood in a vampires system. Such as the radiation stripping the blood of, for lack of a better term, nutritional value for the vampire.

You are more right than you know. With all this talk about radiation and vampires it jogged my memory of something that could give us at least a hint at some rules. It took me a while to dig through the books to find it.

The Kindred of the East splats included a faction called The Scorpion Eaters, essentially they were betting on everything going to hell in a hand basket and adapted themselves to survive off of tainted chi sources, including chi tainted by radiation, in fact they have a Radiation Shintai (discipline).

In their write up tainted chi has no nutritional value for a vampire and has to be purged and replaced with chi from a clean source. Even trying to consume tainted chi requires a roll, complete with a chart with what happens. While the KotE stuff doesn't always translate to main line vampire it could be a good guide in this case. This can be found in Heresies of the Way page 121.