Remaining Awake
Why the Errata: Brian as Storyteller feels the need to impose some limit on Jamie's character's ability to cheat the night via teleportation circles and remain awake indefinitely. Otherwise, Jeremy Sanderson would have too great an advantage of all those who remain bound to one place.
Using mystic or mundane means, it is very possible for a Vampire to remain awake for longer than 24 hours at a time. The most basic is finding a lair above the Arctic circle (or below the Antarctic circl), and spending the entire winter un-bothered by the day. With sorcery or modern high-speed travel, a Vampire may out-race the sun, remaining swathed in night indefinitely. Further, mystic realms such as Enoch offer indefinite respite from the need to sleep.
But such luxury cannot come without a cost. While a vampire's body does not fatigue so long as the sun remains below the horizon, the brain is not so resilient. The most obvious drawback is that sleep, even the near-torpid, dreamless rest of the undead, provides the psyche a chance to relax, and recover from the myriad small traumas it experiences while awake. Allowing this trauma to build up can sap a Vampire's determination, making it progressively harder to summon the will to face daily challenges. While more determined individuals can resist the pull of ennui for longer, all Kindred must eventually succumb to sleep.
Nor does remaining awake slow in any way the perpetual need for blood to power the undead condition. While the daily expenditure is usually though of as the price of waking each evening, those who push the limits of the undead condition discover that this is not true: Instead, the vampiric body must be constantly "powered" by blood. The required blood point is used slowly over time, culminating in the point each evening when it is measurably gone.
Meditation, particularly in realms such as Enoch where there is no sun to force "normal" sleep, can substitute for sleep. These rules must be worked out.
From the standpoint of game mechanics, the following rules apply:
- 1: Each evening, a Vampire looses 1 point of blood. If he remains awake through that time, count the blood expenditure at a time equal to some multiple of 24 hours past the time he last awakened.
- 2: A vampire who does not sleep does not recover the usual point of willpower that sleeping provides.
- 3: A vampire who does not sleep for more days than he has willpower extended periods begins to loose temporary willpower at a rate of one point per 24 hours of wakefulness.
- 4: Additionally, a vampire who remains awake for extended periods (as with #3) has greater difficulty recovering willpower through success or in accordance with his nature (storyteller's discretion).
- 5: A vampire who's temporary willpower is reduced to 0 through some combination of lack of sleep and other factors effectively looses the will to remain awake. Typically, he will seek the nearest quiet spot and rest - those without willpower are not known for forethought: This could be on a comfortable couch in a living room that will soon be exposed to the sun.
- 6: All penalties are removed when the Vampire has slept for a number of days equal to the number days he remained awake through.
Thus, a "clever" vampire can effectively spend an average of every other day awake without significant penalty. Those with greater willpower have greater flexibility in pushing the average (getting up to 9 days out of balance before making up the sleep), but no being with a human brain can resist the need to sleep indefinitely.
Questions that need to be answered:
- How does meditation substitue for sleep? Supposedly, there are masters of meditation who have existed on an hour or two of meditation per night. Is this possible for vampires, and what ratings/rolls are required?
- How much sleep constitutes a day's rest? 12 hours (too much, or summers would be debilitating for any vampire)? 6 hours? An hour (too little would defeat the purpose of this rule: A teleporting vampire could skip ahead mere minutes before sunset, and effectively loose almost no time to sleep without penalty. Believe me, figuring out the limits is something I would definitely try. -Jamie)?
