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I'm wondering what would happen to all the Vampires an Intelligence created by splintering it's Essence if the Intelligence itself were somehow killed before it could Teleport away.

Would they continue to exist as normal?

Would they keep all their abilities except the ability to create new Vampires (since the source of the Essence Fragments is gone)?

Or would they all drop dead where they are because the Essence Fragment that is at the heart of their power and existence (the Essence Fragment) dies when it's creator dies?

Personally, I'm leaning towards the If the Master Intelligence Permanently Dies, so does all it's Essence Fragments and the Vampires they inhabit...

from how i understand it - the fragments are separate from the master essence ... to which if the Rifts earth essence were to die ... it might fragment its essence . maybe down the chain of command to the master vampires ?

Psychotic wrote: ↑Wed Jul 31, 2024 3:44 am I'm wondering what would happen to all the Vampires an Intelligence created by splintering it's Essence if the Intelligence itself were somehow killed before it could Teleport away.

WB1 revised, pg 98 - they all turn to dust

oger333 wrote: ↑Tue Dec 31, 2024 10:25 pm from how i understand it - the fragments are separate from the master essence ... to which if the Rifts earth essence were to die ... it might fragment its essence . maybe down the chain of command to the master vampires ?

I think I need a page reference to understand what "splinter" means in this context.

In the revised WB1 the word "splinter" only comes up a couple times:
pg 34 for the Demonic Familiar: "the avatar of the Vampire Intelligence and as such, is a splintered, living part of it."
pg 37 for the Master Vampire: "the Vampire Intelligence dispatches a splintered fragment of its wicked life essence to find an individual suitable to become a living gateway"

In either case it's the only two vampires created by means other than Slow Kill in this, as far as I know. (others exist in other books like the Necromancer version in Mystic Russia or the Land of the Damned 2 version which can be created as a Lesser Deific Curse)

Psychotic wrote: ↑Wed Jul 31, 2024 3:44 am I'm wondering what would happen to all the Vampires an Intelligence created by splintering it's Essence if the Intelligence itself were somehow killed
...
would they all drop dead where they are because the Essence Fragment that is at the heart of their power and existence (the Essence Fragment) dies when it's creator dies?

Like what is OP asking here... if instead of the AI's main body running out of HP+MDC what happens if the Master Vampire or the Greater Demonic Familiar is killed?

Or are we applying generic AI rules for essence fragmenting to vampire intelligences? Or something like deific powers to make copies?

All vampires (even wild and secondary) possess tiny essence fragments - it seems like they can just be split indefniitely without getting smaller, its' truly terrifying since other AIs can only produce them from the source, not create replicators.

Rifts - World Book 01 - Vampire Kingdoms Revised Pages 33 - 35 , the main Create Demonic Vampire Familiar (special): This monster is
the avatar of the Vampire Intelligence and as such, is a splintered, living part of it. See the description that follows.
. so its splintered essences - would keep the vampires alive ? and maybe grow into a new Vampire Intelligence ? Create Master Vampires (special): for every 1,000 secondary vampires that is created . palladium dragons and gods book has info on Alien Intelligence- the old ones Created life forms so i could see the fragment of the Vampire Intelligence hiding and Growing back in Power

All vampires, from master to wild, are also splintered essences, so no I don't believe a mere 'splinter' being alive would be adequate to sustain the vampires.

The only situations I can see where this question would be more legitimately raised is when we have powers or spells which duplicate the intelligence itself.

I understand the confusion regarding the 4-100 fragments that greater AIs (80% of them - 20% are lesser AIs who can't) can create on page 70 of Dragons and Gods but barring special rules on how to stat these fragments (ie vampire intelligences in WB1, or the Zllyphan in WB3) I had always assumed this follows the rules on page 72 for "Enegry Form" which transitions into "Physical Form" bonuses.

This differs from classic Demonic Possession since it involves killing the host, they can't be recovered - so I can see the similarity to vampires but it is differnet when we look at the "half attributes" policy. Vampires have varied attributes not a static copy.

we're told these physical forms half all magic/psi at half the level but it's unclear how this applies to other stuff like deific powers or natural abilities

The Zllyphan more closely resemble these rules, Vampires are very different since there's no 4-100 cap but it's also lesser splinters since they won't have the full abilities of the intelligence.

This is easy to notice when looking at the Demonic Vampire Familiar stats - in some ways they are actually better than normal fragments because they have the SAME mental attributes as the vampire intelligence (not half) though the magic/psi does follow the 'half' pattern.

It's also unclear to me if the 'one at a time' policy of the DVF applies to each dimension or ALL dimensions.

First, we all know that PB rules, especially for Rifts, are not hard and fast. While I use the D&G material for AIs all the time (once had a PC that was an AI manifested by the collective power a doomsday cult, actually quite fun), it is effectively a framework for GMs to build the ultimate bad boss who PCs are unlikely to ever confront directly, unless your PC group are a bunch of high level dragons and cosmo knights.

Vampire intelligences are an example that is not supposed to match the AI framework. Their unique flavor is what makes them VIs. Just as unique as the the Spaghetti intelligences of the Dorax dimension... oh don't know about them? That's because they are GM manufactured. That's the point. The tables in the books are not to be taken literally, but are a resource for GMs to cook up adventure. You can twist yourself up into knots trying to figure out a mechanic for VI death, and I've spent too much time falling into that trap on many different mechanics, when that time would have been better spent simply making a GM call and moving on with the story.

Do I like the idea that orphaned DVFs may be a vestige of the VI cancer that could metastasize into a clone of the Intelligence to keep the bloodsucking horde going? Heck yeah, that's a great idea and I will use it at some point. But does it need to happen every time or just here and there? Since there is little RAW clarity beyond "vamps turn to dust", the GM could deem that special circumstances caused the DVF to turn into a VI to keep the story going, surprise players, thicken revenge plot lines, etc. Or maybe instead, each VI / AI manifests their death in such a way that is as unique as they are. The point is that if your big bad boss NPC is cookie cutter, then your adventure is going to be cookie cutter. Anyway, how would players know or care - it not like they are knocking off a VI every other Tuesday or at least I hope not.

This is all to say that there are no real answers in the books except those what are written and if you want to embellish for the benefit of a great play session, just do it. You may **** off a rules lawyer here and there, but a GM can always claim manifest authority under the Rule of Cool.

BTW WB1r pg 37 - only one DVF at a time. These are emissaries, and probably kept busy going from place to place ensuring the Masters are keeping in line. For large dimension spanning vampire empires, it might be millennia before a DVF shows up at a sleepy backwater outpost to "audit the books", so to speak.

I imagine if a Vampire Intelligence used Manifestation that might allow their manifested copies to create their own DVFs, but you're limited to two manifestations. So far the only VI explicitly w/ access to this is Vald-Tegor and he's listed as having no manifestations so it doesn't seem he opts to use it.