In Journal 15, the Amber Zone Chill is about transporting whole blood to the leaders of a world not very high in technology. Even when I read this in college it struck me as not really being all that realistic: the leaders suffer from hereditary anemia and require full blood transfusions. Normally this comes from the population but there is a faction against them.
Now the planet is a TL7 planet, with a B starport. One would think they could import medical personnel to perhaps do some minor gene editing or bring in a small blood creation factory. Pretty sure the Army has had some success with artificial blood.
Anyway, what brought this up is that I was listening to Concrete Blond on the way to the gym this morning, the Bloodletting album (I did go through a Concrete Blond phase apparently). Got to thinking about vampires, vaguely recalled that Traveller Amber Zone, and then got to wondering if vampires were sensitive to blood types. And no, I was not taking any pre-workouts! Sometimes those can mess with you, or at least with me.
Now most people are aware of the 4 main blood types (A, B, O, and AB). And that you can have the Rh factor positive or negative. What many people don't know is that there are actually a LOT of other blood types. In fact, more than 600 combinations (Red Cross link here; I do give platelets and if you can, you should!). There are some so rare that only 1 or 2 people have that blood type. They are in serious trouble if they need a blood transfusion.
So, I got to thinking if perhaps, like our anemic leaders from Traveller, if vampires had restrictions on blood types? Sliding into The Fantasy Trip, could an Orc vampire only survive on Orc blood? Or even a specific type? Most modern fantasy with vampire have those who don't want to drink human blood use animal blood quite a lot, so perhaps it makes no difference. And the way is is portrayed, any mammal it seems will do.
But going with the music flow here, perhaps a vampire can at least smell well enough to determine the blood type of their potential victim. Perhaps it is like a wine bouquet - some just taste better than others. In a fantasy world, I doubt even the best healer would know about blood types, so it would be a complete mystery as to why some people are spared. There is no distinction in TFT - any humanoid creature will do apparently (In the Labyrinth, p. 83):
Vampires need to drink blood. A vampire loses 3 ST for every day past the seventh that it does not drink the equivalent of a quart of blood from a humanoid creature. A vampire’s victim loses 4 ST for each quart of blood taken. A human-sized vampire can drink 2 quart a day, given the chance. Vampires have the ability to levitate – like an automatically successful Flight spell with no ST cost.
So, looks like being a vampire could be a really good thing for a group in this world - free levitation! My current (okay, it has been almost a year since we got to play, so not sure that is considered current. On the bright side, they will be getting their Covid vaccinations, and as soon as I can get one, perhaps we can play again!)... sorry, side tracked. My Fantasy Trip group does have a werewolf with them. So far little reactions as not everyone can tell a werewolf if you are not wolfing out. Though other werewolves definitely can. Hmm - there is a half-elf, a werewolf and a goblin mage if I remember. I do miss playing that game on Sundays!
In the end, it really makes no difference: the vampire just "vants to suck your blood!" and does not care about blood type. To make some mechanics around this would be silly. But it could be something in a Traveller game: in the 10,000 worlds of the Third Imperium, there could be all sorts of blood types. And some diseases are more potent against some blood types. If you are a Scout, I am certain you would probably know that: Scouts tend to get better medical care (somewhere in the Traveller corpus there was something about rolling against disease, and Scouts get a +1 per term or something due to all the inoculations they get in the service. Now I may have to dig around to see if I can find that: I do have a fantasy supplement about diseases coming in at some point which I may throw at the players).
And there is today's stream of consciousness blog post based on a song heard on the way to the gym.
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