Inigo Already Knows - Tumblr Posts
Vampires Don’t Shiver
An in-depth headcanon about Skyrim Vampirism explained through a clip of dialogue I wrote between Ravenna and Kaidan while they waited for Inigo outside Langley’s hut. While egg gathering outside Langley's house, Ravenna and Kaidan were attacked by a wandering vampire, and Ravenna, afterwards, expresses great confusion about what the vampire was even doing so far up on a frigid mountain like that. Kaidan, who has spent his life believing vampires to be immune to the effects of cold weather, asks her to elaborate. Ravenna explains that vampires are, indeed, resistant to the cold, but not immune to it. "There's an important difference between our bodies and yours," she doesn't really notice the slip-up, but frankly neither does Kaidan, and if he does he assumes it's a hypothetical thing, "a human's body warms up when it moves, so you can stave off cold by moving or shivering. Vampires’ bodies don't warm up at all, and they don't shiver. In fact, vampires don't actually feel the cold, only the effect it has on them after prolonged exposure. Their blood will freeze inside their veins and they won't really notice until their muscles start getting frozen as well. Even then, usually the only indicator is that their joints and muscles become stiff and difficult to move because they need to thaw out. A vampire could feasibly become frozen up on a mountain like this and be stuck in limbo forever if no one found them and thawed them. A place like this is dangerous for a lone vampire to be hunting. The only thing that might motivate one to stay in an area like this is a highly populated location nearby that could provide them with a long-term source of blood. It would still be safer for them to settle in a den or something with other vampires though, rather than roughing it by themselves - and maybe that one wasn’t, so we should be watchful on the way back." Kaidan respects her knowledge. They find the last egg and she almost falls out of a tree getting it.
Inigo: Let us move on before something dead finds us :( Ravenna, nervously: YES THAT WOULD BE HORRIBLE I AGREE LETS GO