What happens when ghouls die with vitae in their veins?

[Wingstorm]

So ghouls are made by feeding them vitae. Which stays in their bodies. in V20 and older, they can even carry multiple blood points of vitae (to an upper limit, determined by age)

So what happens if a ghoul dies without having that vitae removed? Is it possible for them to become embraced via that vitae?

For further context, say the 2 scenarios below

1) The body has to be drained of blood first. What if the ghoul's body is drained of all blood, except that bit of vitae?

2) Or if the ghoul had all his/her blood replaced by vitae, then died?

I know there is the ritual The Curse Belated that does something like this. But without considering the ritual, is it possible for a ghoul to become embraced just by dying while having vitae in them?

If this question has been answered somewhere before, my apologies in advance.

[Vilenecromancer]

Neither would work. The blood has to, normally, flow directly from sire to childer for an embrace to occur. The magic that allows for the process to take place decays quickly once it leaves the kindred.

So, unless there is some plot magic going on, the ghoul will die in either scenario. How they die is different, however.

Scenario #1: The ghoul dies from exsanguination. Pure and simple.

Scenario #2: The ghoul would likely overdose, as kindred vitae is similar to drugs. Over consumption, forces the ghoul to suffer from overdose symptoms and their body would attempt to purge the blood. If ALL of their blood is replaced by kindred vitae, they'd die after vomiting up around a gallon of blood.

[Heavy Arms]

While there's room in the setting for odd and weird edge case scenarios, the default rules are simple: the ghoul dies. A vampire with vitae in their system that takes too much damage dies too. Vitae might be powerful but it's not a get out of Final Death free card.

[Wingstorm]

That's reasonable. Don't see vitae as a get out of final death free card, but it is involved in the embracing and creation of new vampires. I'm just curious how does it react to beings that have that have vitae at the point of dying and would the embrace triggers in beyond the norm situations.

Here's another scenario
Ghoul of a low gen vampire dies (while still having low gen vitae). The now dead ghoul is them embraced by a high gen vampire.

Now there is fresh vitae to get the magic of the embrace going, but more potent vitae is also present...

Would the ghoul be embraced as a high gen? Or as a lower gen? Since there is lower gen vitae in the body st the point of the embrace?

Would this also means that the new kindred is created... With out hunger? Since there is already vitae in him?

[Heavy Arms]

1) Vitae is vitae. While there are potential effects of drinking in vitae from certain sources, once ingested it's just vitae. If a Ghoul can hold two vitae in their system, and one came from a low gen vampire and one from a high gen vampire, it doesn't change anything.

2) The Embrace requires exsanguination. Any of the lower gen vitae in their system would need to be removed anyway.

[Vilenecromancer]

1) Vitae is vitae. While there are potential effects of drinking in vitae from certain sources, once ingested it's just vitae. If a Ghoul can hold two vitae in their system, and one came from a low gen vampire and one from a high gen vampire, it doesn't change anything.

2) The Embrace requires exsanguination. Any of the lower gen vitae in their system would need to be removed anyway.

This.

Also, here's a good list, from the White Wolf wiki, of the most common restrictions on the embrace mechanically:

• Animals cannot be embraced.
• The blood must go directly from sire to child.
• the result is instant, new kindred awakens immediately. This is not the case if the new kindred is a thin-blood, it'll take hours.
• Any activity that exsanguinates the target works, as long as they're completely drained if blood. The magic comes from the kindred vitae, not the exsanguination.
• Pregnant women nearly always miscarry.
• While two vampires can theoretically feed their Vitae to a candidate for an Embrace, the resulting vampire will generally have both the clan and generation as if the lower generation parent had performed the Embrace.
• Other supernaturals may, or may not, be possible to embraced based on an insane number of factors.

The main issue with embracing a ghoul is they can't have vitae, mortal or otherwise, in their system for it to work.

[Cadmiumcadamium]

There is a Thaumaturgy ritual (pre v5) that allows a ghoul to be automatically embraced upon it's death. The "Sire to be" loses a blood point that cannot be replenished until the ghoul dies and becomes embraced.

Since this edge case exists that leads me to believe that the normal situation is as such that the ghoul would just die. I mean, why would the ritual exist if the ghoul would be automatically embraced anyway?

[monteparnas]

Any of the lower gen vitae in their system would need to be removed anyway.

Actually this bit isn't true, although the truth still points to the Ghoul just dying.

Per the rules on Ghouls we have to remember that Vitae is the mystic "energy" that Kindred trade through blood, not the blood itself. This is important because what happens with the blood when a Ghoul ingests it is that... it is digested, period.

So the amount of Vitae in a Ghoul's system actually matters nothing to this whole process. The blood itself that could turn them into a vampire isn't in their circulatory system and doesn't even count for exsanguination. It went to the digestive tract to be normally processed.

If the Ghoul is completely drained they die. If they had Vitae given to them during the process they still die. While they can use it to recover from the damage of exsanguination for a time, the rules don't go in detail but still imply that they shouldn't just survive without blood in their veins. Unless the Ghoul's circulatory system is completely drained (through any means) and then Vitae is given through a vampire's blood, there's no Embrace.

One clear example of this are Revenants. They produce their own Vitae, yet neither self-Embrace nor are capable of Embracing (or Ghouling) others through their blood (that would be Vitae if Vitae were blood).

Now, that also means that it is actually possible for a newly Embraced to carry some Vitae from before the Embrace, even Elder Vitae. That wouldn't have lasting effects, but could still be interesting. Also, weird cases happen. There may be a Ghoul that got Embraced that way, maybe a Neonate that gets to be of lower effective Generation because of that Elder Vitae (or at least with some extra initial Disciplines), and even an odd, once-in-a-millennium Revenant that is capable of one or more Kindred feats with their blood. But those would be exceedingly rare and ultimately unexplained anomalies instead of anything resembling an expected statistic, much less a rule.

[Quatar]

I would actually say, once a Ghoul gets close to dying, and has Vitae in their body, the Ghoul will instinctively use that Vitae to heal themselves to not die. Kinda like when someone is underwater and knows they can't breathe, as soon as they get close to suffocating, they will try to breathe anyway, futile or not. So by the time it's done, the Vitae is very likely gone as well. (The only exception would be the exsanguination happens so quickly and the Ghoul had so much Vitae in their body, that they die before they can use up all of it, but that would be really rare)

[monteparnas]

I would actually say, once a Ghoul gets close to dying, and has Vitae in their body, the Ghoul will instinctively use that Vitae to heal themselves to not die. Kinda like when someone is underwater and knows they can't breathe, as soon as they get close to suffocating, they will try to breathe anyway, futile or not. So by the time it's done, the Vitae is very likely gone as well. (The only exception would be the exsanguination happens so quickly and the Ghoul had so much Vitae in their body, that they die before they can use up all of it, but that would be really rare)

Valid, but I don't think it is necessarily true. Using Vitae isn't something inherent to the human condition, so while I do agree that this would happen most of the time, there's no reason for exceptions to occur with some frequency (as far as Ghoul exsanguination is a thing).

That would be especially relevant for Ghouls selected for the Embrace. They know what's going to happen and have been Ghouls for a while, deciding to consciously hold fast to their Vitae shouldn't be impossible. And wouldn't have any lasting effect on the game.

[Baaldam]

Ghoul dies.

Then rises a few nights later as a thin-blood/dhampir if it's lucky and its sorry carcass wasn't destroyed or buried too deep for it to dig itself out.