Lore question about vampirism

Elvenheart

Hi everyone! I’m just working on a new character concept, and I was wondering if lore-wise it is thought that npc vampires in the game are considered to have as easy access to a vampirism cure as we the players do, and that they either just don’t know about it or are just choosing to embrace the “gift” rather than cure it?

EDIT: I guess the same question would apply to lycanthropy as well, but it seems like some of the in game books I’ve read suggest some werewolves do not like what they are and would cure it if they could.

HappyTheCamper

It definitely depends on the era, but I do think in ESO’s case (the 2nd Era of Tamriel) everyone had access through priests of Arkay. The actual lore book on it says you need to see a priest immediately to prevent the disease fully, but with donations they are able to cure them.

So I definitely think it depends on your condition. From the conversation you have with the Arkay Priest when trying to cure yourself, he doesn’t sound awfully surprised, as if he’s done it before with others.

This might help as well: https://en.m.uesp.net/wiki/Online:Noxiphilic_Sanguivoria

Soarora

As for lycanthropy, I don't think it's so easy to cure as talk to a priest. In vague memory of TES5, curing vampirism required a priest do some ritual... curing lycanthropy had to do with beheading specific hagravens? In ESO we see in March of Sacrifices that it's possible to cure someone by taking on the curse yourself as an offering to Hircine but that's not really getting rid of it.

Elvenheart

Both of those comments were very helpful, thank you both!

jumapel29

Soarora wrote: »

As for lycanthropy, I don't think it's so easy to cure as talk to a priest. In vague memory of TES5, curing vampirism required a priest do some ritual... curing lycanthropy had to do with beheading specific hagravens? In ESO we see in March of Sacrifices that it's possible to cure someone by taking on the curse yourself as an offering to Hircine but that's not really getting rid of it.

If I remember right you are required to kill a humanoid being, fill a black soul gem with their soul, perform a ritual to summon the beast "ghost" from inside you and kill it. And the other way is to become a vampire which automatically removes lycanthropy

chessalavakia_ESO

My impression is that the ease of the cure is a gameplay convenience. It was a bit of a challenge in Morrowind and Oblivion but, Skyrim made it a fair bit easier and in ESO it's easier still.

Below are some examples of the npc reactions to vampirism in ESO.

Spoilers for Spindle Clutch II:

Once Vorenor Winterbourne is dead, you can speak with Sud-Hareem:

"Why isn't … why isn't he breathing?
Oh gods, we're too late."
What do you mean too late?
"I mean too late! He's been infected too long. I've seen it before. Soon he'll be one of them. A vampire.
I … I have to stop this. I have to stop him from coming back.
Don't I?"

You have to give him a chance. He's your son.

"Is there? You don't just recover from vampirism.
Gods, what am I talking about? He's my son! I have to try.
I'm not ready to lose him."

It's better for him if you end it now. Nobody should have to come back like that.

"You're right. It has to be done. It has to."

Spoilers for Under Siege in Rivenspire:

"Please, stay back! I'm so hungry and I don't want to hurt you!"
Heloise, you need to talk to me. Tell me what happened.
"I think … I think Hinault's son is right. I think I did attack his father."
Why do you think that?
"I'm not sure. My memory comes back to me in flashes. I smell blood, so fresh and strong. I've just been so hungry!
I think … I think … I think I consumed Gennove's blood! Why am I so hungry?"
When did this begin?

"Begin? I don't know. Days ago? Weeks? No … I was scratched.
During the battle with the Montclairs … I remember a snarl … something touched my arm. I forgot about it until I noticed the deep scratch while I was tending to the wounded soldiers."
What does this have to do with a scratch?
"Since then, I've been dreaming while I'm awake. I dream about teeth and blood. So much blood!
I can smell it all around me. And I'm hungry … so hungry."

What do you think we should do?

"I'll go away. Far away. I'll find a place to hide, someplace where I can't hurt anyone.
I don't trust myself. Stendarr help me! I'm so hungry!"

No, I can't let you go. You have to die.

"Please, this isn't right! I've done … terrible things. But I'm still me—most of the time, anyway. I think it's only when the hunger takes me that my mind goes … somewhere else.
Please. I … I don't want to die."
Do you really want to be responsible for more deaths?
"You're right. It's the only safe path. I knew that all along. That's why … well, a good healer can craft a poison as well as a poultice. When I dropped my kit, I held on to it. I knew this was how it had to end.
Tell Fairfax I'm sorry."

All right. I'll let you go.

"I can do this. I can control it. It's only when I'm hungry that I lose control.
I'll live in the wilderness, far from people. I'll survive on animals. Never people! Never! I'm sure I can control it."
Then go. I'll tell the Lieutenant what happened.
"Lieutenant Fairfax. Sometimes I thought he had a … fondness for me. I hope he didn't. I really hope he hated me. I can't think about what might have been.
Tell him not to look for me. I want him to hate me with all his heart."

Rivenspire Main Quest Spoilers:

"What have I done? What have I done? I thought I could kill the ***, but instead he... he turned me into a... a monster!"

Listen to the Countess' conflicting thoughts and resolution to kill her sister. Talking to Janeve after the Countess breaks down, she says:

"I can see it in your eyes. I'm turning. Becoming one of those... things.
No! I refuse to give in to despair! I want to live, gods damn it! I want to live!"

How do we know you won't become a monster?
"I heard what my sister said. She thinks I'm evil. Unholy. But it's still me! I'm still the shield of House Tamrith! I'm still her little sister!
We've seen it before. Not every vampire is a monster. I can control this. I … I want to live!"

Now you can decide her fate.
Janeve Dies

Janeve Lives

I agree with the Countess. We can't take the chance. You have to die.
"What? No! I refuse to let you put me down like some rabid dog! I ….
No, my sister is right. Better to die with dignity, while my mind is still my own. Eselde is my sister and my lord. I will do as she commands. My fate is in her hands."
May the Light bless you.


I agree with the Captain. You deserve a chance to prove yourself. We should let you live.
"Thank you, my friend. You are wise and merciful. I will prove to my sister that I am still the woman she knows and loves. I will never succumb to this affliction. I will never betray House Tamrith or Rivenspire."
May the Light guide you.

If it was just a matter of containing the person till they met a priest we likely would not see such extreme reactions.

Elvenheart

Thank you everyone for the comments! They’ve been very helpful! 😊

NotaDaedraWorshipper

It's mostly for gameplay convinience. Players need an easy way to get rid off it, since it's an mmo and not a singleplayer game.

If you are recently infected by vampirism/lycantrophy then it's not that hard to cure the disease. But if it gets to incubate and you fully became a vampire/werebeast, then to most people of Tamriel you're doomed to be one. Cures for that stage is almost unheard of and rare.

There are numerous quests and references throughout Elder Scrolls, including in ESO, that shows this. chessalavakia_ESO above has mentioned a few.

Trejgon

Soarora wrote: »

As for lycanthropy, I don't think it's so easy to cure as talk to a priest. In vague memory of TES5, curing vampirism required a priest do some ritual... curing lycanthropy had to do with beheading specific hagravens? In ESO we see in March of Sacrifices that it's possible to cure someone by taking on the curse yourself as an offering to Hircine but that's not really getting rid of it.

In Skyrim, curing vampirism involved black soul gem and a ritual, curing lycantrophy only required hagraven head from glenmoril coven, because glenmoril witches were the ones whom gave the lycantrophy to the companions.

PrinceShroob

In single-player Elder Scrolls games, curing vampirism or lycanthropy is usually an involved process and most characters believe that curing those conditions is impossible.

The Glenmoril Coven in Daggerfall can brew potions that cure vampirism and lycanthropy, and when the player is tasked with delivering it, they're hounded by werebeasts and vampires desperately trying to cure themselves. If the player does not drink the potion themselves, vampirism can be cured by tracking down and killing the progenitor of the player's vampire bloodline. As for lycanthropy, quest dialogue in Daggerfall holds that lycanthropy can be transferred both by bite and by heredity. If a latent lycanthrope--a hereditary werewolf who has not yet manifested the curse--drinks the blood of a werebeast, the cure is lifted from the provider of the blood, but the imbiber immediately transforms.

In Morrowind, it is common knowledge that it is impossible to cure vampirism. To quote Vampires of Vvardenfell, "even if it were curable, a cured vampire would be an abomination to be destroyed. Since the disease is infallibly cured if treated within three days, failure to treat oneself after an encounter with a vampire would be considered a deliberate attempt to contract the disease, and a mark of monstrous depravity..." Vampirism may be lifted by performing a service for Molag Bal, who obtains the cure from Vaermina.

In Bloodmoon, the player must perform the Rite of the Wolf Giver for the Glenmoril witches on Solstheim. First, the player must collect wolfsbane and belladonna, which the witches use to create a potion. Then the player must slay an innocent sacrifice and remove her heart; the witches then pour the potion over the heart. Once the heart is placed on the sacrifice's body, the sacrifice is revived as a werewolf. Defeating this werewolf cures the player's lycanthropy. Alternatively, the witches have also prepared a scroll that will cure lycanthropy if read, which the player can learn about by killing them.

In Oblivion, a witch of the Glenmoril Coven can brew a potion to cure vampirism, or the player can use Greywyn Blenwyth's Font of Renewal in Deepscorn Hollow. Researching purgeblood salts and collecting the items needed to refine them apparently took Greywyn months. Oblivion did not feature lycanthropy.

In Skyrim, Falion can perform a ritual that requires a filled black soul gem, during which he offers the soul in the gem to Oblivion to bargain for a vampirism cure for the player. Since the Companions obtained their lycanthropy in a bargain with the Glenmoril witches, curing it requires the head of a Glenmoril witch, which Kodlak Whitemane calls the "seat of their abilities." Burning the head in a special brazier in Ysgramor's tomb manifests the player's "wolf spirit," and killing it cures the player's lycanthropy.

In Online, there are several quests involving curing NPCs of lycanthropy, several of which harken back to Daggerfall and Bloodmoon, with Gloria Fausta giving the Duke of Camlorn her blood to cure his infection, to Adonatus Varian requiring the ingredients needed in the Rite of the Wolf Giver to cure his lycanthropy in Moon Hunter Keep. I don't recall any quests about curing vampirism off the top of my head--notably, in Rivenspire, the Ravenwatch recruit a few people who are turned, rather than curing them.

***

In lore terms, vampirism and lycanthropy are often regarded as being irreversible. If they can be cured, it would require a great questing hero to gather the ingredients, or potentially the sacrifice of an innocent life.

Prelate Sabinus exists as a gameplay convenience; Online is the first game to allow the player to contract and cure vampirism and lycanthropy an infinite number of times, and since it's an online game, it's frequently patched, altering the power of the curses, which affects how desirable it is to remain a vampire or werewolf.

ghastley

Captain Janeve didn’t appear to get the option of visiting a priest for a cure. And nobody in House Ravenwatch ever mentions an option, so it appears that for NPCs, there is a point of no return, probably the incubation period used in the single-player games. After that, they are stuck with it.

If acquiring vampirism is different for an NPC, it makes sense that curing it differs too. Maybe the Vestige condition interacts?

Tessitura

In TES generally curing vamprism is not a option for most. To a vast majority of people there is no cure, and to those that know, it is always a pain in the ass to cure. In Morrowind it requires the literal intervention of a daedric prince. In Oblivion you needed the ashes of a very powerful and ancient vampire. In skyrim you need to literally mess with your soul. ESO is the only game where is derp easy. I am not even sure how canon that it is suppose to be to the greater lore. It really just comes off as a gamified system rather then a lore tidbit.

Same thing with werewolves. None of the cures are easy, and to normal folk they just don't exist. Again, the easy of access in ESO really just comes off as a gamified system with little thought put into it. It's a mmo, I guess it's about what we can expect but it probably shouldn't be taken too seriously. After all, people wouldn't consider it much of a curse if you could just pay to fix it as if it were a bad hair day and you need a cut.

Wolf_Eye

jumapel29 wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

As for lycanthropy, I don't think it's so easy to cure as talk to a priest. In vague memory of TES5, curing vampirism required a priest do some ritual... curing lycanthropy had to do with beheading specific hagravens? In ESO we see in March of Sacrifices that it's possible to cure someone by taking on the curse yourself as an offering to Hircine but that's not really getting rid of it.

If I remember right you are required to kill a humanoid being, fill a black soul gem with their soul, perform a ritual to summon the beast "ghost" from inside you and kill it. And the other way is to become a vampire which automatically removes lycanthropy

Curing lycanthropy with vampirism specifically required getting the blood of a Vampire Lord (Harkon). Other than Harkon (or his daughter, I think), you couldn't cure lycanthropy with vampirism using vampirism from any other vampire (aka "common" vampires).

Vevvev

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

jumapel29 wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

As for lycanthropy, I don't think it's so easy to cure as talk to a priest. In vague memory of TES5, curing vampirism required a priest do some ritual... curing lycanthropy had to do with beheading specific hagravens? In ESO we see in March of Sacrifices that it's possible to cure someone by taking on the curse yourself as an offering to Hircine but that's not really getting rid of it.

If I remember right you are required to kill a humanoid being, fill a black soul gem with their soul, perform a ritual to summon the beast "ghost" from inside you and kill it. And the other way is to become a vampire which automatically removes lycanthropy

Curing lycanthropy with vampirism specifically required getting the blood of a Vampire Lord (Harkon). Other than Harkon (or his daughter, I think), you couldn't cure lycanthropy with vampirism using vampirism from any other vampire (aka "common" vampires).

They had to be pure blooded basically. Yes, Serana could have you go from lycanthrope to vampire as well.

Wolf_Eye

Vevvev wrote: »

Wolf_Eye wrote: »

jumapel29 wrote: »

Soarora wrote: »

As for lycanthropy, I don't think it's so easy to cure as talk to a priest. In vague memory of TES5, curing vampirism required a priest do some ritual... curing lycanthropy had to do with beheading specific hagravens? In ESO we see in March of Sacrifices that it's possible to cure someone by taking on the curse yourself as an offering to Hircine but that's not really getting rid of it.

If I remember right you are required to kill a humanoid being, fill a black soul gem with their soul, perform a ritual to summon the beast "ghost" from inside you and kill it. And the other way is to become a vampire which automatically removes lycanthropy

Curing lycanthropy with vampirism specifically required getting the blood of a Vampire Lord (Harkon). Other than Harkon (or his daughter, I think), you couldn't cure lycanthropy with vampirism using vampirism from any other vampire (aka "common" vampires).

They had to be pure blooded basically. Yes, Serana could have you go from lycanthrope to vampire as well.

Yeah, they had to be pure blooded. It can be theorized that any pure blooded vampire might be able to change any lycanthrope to a vampire.

Kiyakotari

Some of the lore compliant explanations for the differences in ease and method of cure across various games could be attributed to the many different strains of vampirism, and the one that's most prevalent (one that's available to players for infection) ESO versus those in other games/eras.