Sacrosanct – Vampires of Skyrim
Sacrosanct overhauls vampires and vampire lords. Reverse progression (stronger when fed), new abilities, powers, perks, hemomancy, various new progression systems and many gameplay tweaks for the discerning undead monster.
Features
Improved vampire abilities, spells and powers.
Become stronger by feeding victims to death (draining), by feeding on powerful individuals, or by gaining ranks.
Improved vampire lord abilities, spells, powers and perks.
Vampiric blood magic: Hemomancy.
Much more engaging vampire and vampire lord gameplay.
Lightweight, no save bloat.
Life as a Vampire
The curse of Molag Bal
Vampirism is not a blessing. Ancient vampires may be powerful and feared among the populace, but they start their unlife in a weakened state and must overcome hardships to attain the power they seek.
Molag Bal’s presence gnawing at the sanity of every vampire is known as “the Beast”, a primal force that possesses weakened vampires and drives them to ruin. It is important to stay well fed and healthy to avoid its temptations, lest you find yourself unable to heal or getting attacked by a mob of townsfolk.
Vampiric thirst and feeding
As a vampire, you must feed. Each day that goes by without feeding makes you thirstier and weaker. There are four stages of thirst and you progress to the next stage after at least 24 hours without feeding, though occasionally you may be able to delay the onset of thirst by a few hours. The Vampire ability in your magic effects menu tells you how thirsty you are.
Sated
Thirsty
Parched
Blood Starved (At this point, your vampirism is so obvious that onlookers will attack you on sight.)
Feeding immediately returns you to Sated status no matter how thirsty you were before. To feed, activate a sleeping person or a person affected by the Vampire’s Seduction power and choose “Feed”. You may also choose to “Drain” a sleeping person, killing them instantly as you feed. Perks and abilities offer additional ways to feed, including sneak feeding, combat feeding, etc.
Abilities
Vampires receive the following beneficial and detrimental abilities:
Dominate: Illusion spells cast by a vampire are 25% more powerful and last 25% longer on creatures and people.
Moonlit Waters: A vampire can swim underwater without drowning, and walk across the surface.
Resist Disease: Your Vampiric blood gives you 100% resistance to disease.
Resist Frost: Your Vampiric blood gives you 50 (Sated) to 20 (Blood Starved)% resistance to Frost.
Resist Poison: Your Vampiric blood gives you 100% resistance to poison.
Still Heart: A vampire is 25% harder to detect by creatures and people while sneaking.
Trespassing Curse: When trespassing in someone else’s home, lose 10 points of Magicka and Stamina per second.
Weakness to Fire: Your Vampiric blood gives you 20 (Sated) to 50 (Blood Starved)% weakness to Fire.
Weakness to Sunlight: Health, Magicka, and Stamina do not recover while in Sunlight and are reduced by 25 (Sated) to 100 (Blood Starved) points.
Vampires also receive the following abilities depending on thirst. As you become thirstier, you lose beneficial abilities and gain detrimental abilities instead, representing Molag Bal’s growing influence over you.
Fortitude: Vampiric blood makes you hard to kill. Upon taking fatal damage, you come back to life, becoming thirstier.
…when Thirsty, turns into…
Wassail: The Beast awakens below 25% Health in combat, draining Health, Magicka and Stamina during combat and reducing them by 10 points until you feed.
Kiss of Death: Draining a victim (killing them by feeding) permanently increases Health, Magicka and Stamina by 1.
…when Parched, turns into…
The Beast: Unable to Feed and can only Drain mortal victims, which kills them. (Immortal targets can’t be drained.)
Presence: Your Vampiric charm makes intimidation attempts twice as likely to succeed, and buying items is 5% cheaper.
…when Blood Starved, turns into…
Mockery of Life: Healing spells and effects no longer heal you. Potions of Blood have no effect. You don’t regenerate Health.
Each race has one additional racial vampire ability.
Altmer – Wine and Revelry: Feeding increases Magicka by 50 points for 60 seconds (600 seconds if the victim is sleeping).
Argonian – Jeweled Scales: Protected against Sunlight while swimming and for 180 seconds after leaving the water.
Bosmer – Bitter Sap: 100% weakness to poison. Consumed alchemy ingredients are reversed and 10 times stronger.
Breton – Dolmen Haunt: Can feed by activating a Standing Stone.
Dunmer – Tainted Blood: Feeding on people grants you their racial vampire ability. You can only have one at a time.
Imperial – Cult of Shadows: Shrine blessings also increase Magicka and Stamina by 25 points, but their effects are reversed.
Khajiit – Misfortune: You bring bad luck. In combat, your enemies within 50 feet have 5% chance per second to trip and fall.
Nord – From Ancient Soil: Once per battle, you may activate a corpse to reanimate it. The corpse crumbles to dust when combat ends.
Orc – Lavish Brutality: Feeding increases Stamina by 50 points for 60 seconds (600 seconds if the victim is sleeping).
Redguard – Ruler of Locusts: Once per battle, activate an enemy humanoid to send insects that deal 5 poison damage for 60 seconds.
Spells and powers
Vampires receive the following spells and powers.
Vampire’s Seduction: 1/day – Silently bewitches a person up to level 10 for 30 seconds, calming them and allowing you to feed.
Vampire’s Sight: At will – Improved night vision. Cast again to disable.
Vampire’s Will: 1/day – Clouds a person’s mind for 120 (Sated) to 15 (Blood Starved) seconds, ending combat and making them unlikely to detect you while sneaking.
Vampiric Drain: Spell – Absorb 5 (Sated) to 20 (Blood Starved) points of Health per second from the target.
Vampires also receive the following powers depending on thirst. As you become thirstier, your power set gradually shifts from vampiric charm to vampiric might as the Beast makes its presence known.
Blood Cauldron: At will – Expend some of your Vampiric blood to replenish Health, Magicka and Stamina, becoming thirstier.
…when Thirsty, turns into…
Blood Revel: At will – In combat, gain 25% bonus attack damage and spell effectiveness for 120 seconds or until combat ends, but activate Wassail.
Nightwalk: At will – Send forth a mist for 15 seconds. Use again to teleport to its location. Maximum range is 100 feet.
…when Parched, turns into…
Obfuscate: 1/day – Blend into your surroundings, gaining unbreakable invisibility for 60 seconds.
Vampire’s Command: At will – When talking to unoccupied people, adds new dialogue options that must be obeyed. Lasts 60 seconds.
…when Blood Starved, turns into…
Flaywind: 1/day – Target person within 10 feet flees while vampire bats absorb 25 Health per second for 30 seconds. If the target dies, counts as feeding.
All spells and powers belong to their respective spell school (Illusion for Vampire’s Command, Restoration for Blood Cauldron, Conjuration for Nightwalk, etc.) and are affected by relevant perks.
Vampires deal 20% more damage with frost spells and effects and 20% less damage with fire spells and effects. This can be disabled in the MCM.
Vampire ranks
A fledgling vampire is a pathetic sight, while an elder nightmaster vampire is feared and respected. Progress to the next rank is based on time spent as a vampire, but you can also feed on a victim to age by one hour or drain a victim to age by one day. The Vampire ability in your magic effects menu displays your progress.
An MCM option is available to change the rate at which you progress to the next rank.
Fledgling: This is how you start your vampiric existence.
Blooded: 5 days.
Mistwalker: 15 days.
Nightstalker: 30 days.
Nightlord: 50 days.
Nightmaster: 75 days.
Etc…
Upon advancing to the next rank, you may choose an additional ability or power from a list of 13, including a variety of roleplaying and powergamer options.
Blood Bond: Feeding on a sleeping victim makes them a lover, potential follower and marriage partner.
Blood Knight: Able to feed on staggered enemies in combat for 50 points of Stamina.
Cauldron of Fire: After using Blood Cauldron, deal double attack damage and take half attack damage for 30 seconds.
Dance with the Beast: Attack damage dealt doubled and attack damage taken halved while affected by Wassail, until combat ends.
Eyes of the Predator: At will – Spend Health to detect creatures and people within a 500 feet cone for 30 seconds. Cast again to disable.
Harvest Moon: Draining a victim also generates a Potion of Blood.
King Among Kine: You no longer lose any powers when feeding.
Oberon’s Grail: Reduces the chance to fall victim to Wassail in combat by 75%.
Path of Humanity: Increased chance to delay the progression of Vampiric thirst.
Night of the Wolf: Able to sneak feed on people who are not detecting you.
Summon to Molag’s Court: 1/day – Commands the nearest person within 150 feet to come to you for 120 seconds, allowing you to feed. Feeding resets the cooldown.
Vicissitude: Hemomancy spells other than Blood Seed do 25% more damage to targets affected by Blood Seed.
Wicked Wind: At will – Dash instantly to a target location within 15 feet.
Feeding on powerful individuals (“Blue Blood”)
Where is the fun in preying on the weak? Feeding on some of the strongest individuals in Skyrim (Ulfric, Elenwen, etc.) grants up to 7 additional abilities. After your first feeding, you receive the Blue Blood quest, marking all targets with strong blood on the map. Abilities are unlocked in a fixed order as follows.
Potence: Vampiric strength grants 15% more attack damage, increased to 30% when Sated.
Sense Vitae: Activate a living target while sneaking to learn its attributes and resistances.
Eyes of the Moon: Your Vampire’s Seduction power can affect targets up to 50 levels higher.
Tooth and Claw: Your attacks deal 25% more damage to targets affected by a Hemomancy spell such as Blood Seed.
Mytherceria: Day passes 20% faster and night passes 30% slower.
Masquerade: You are no longer hated and feared when Blood Starved.
Daywalker: You are immune to non-lethal Sunlight.
Hemomancy
Draining a sleeping victim may teach you arcane secrets of the blood, in the form of 7 Hemomancy spells. The first spell requires 1 draining, increasing by 1 for each consecutive secret. Hemomancy spells are classified as Destruction and deal magic damage to living and undead targets.
1 draining – Blood Seed: (Apprentice) Jagged bone shards grow in a living or undead target, dealing 6 magic damage for 10 seconds.
3 drainings – Blood Brand: (Adept) Living or undead target takes 5 magic damage per second. After 10 seconds, detonates for 100 damage.
6 drainings – Blood Garden: (Adept) Casts Blood Seed on all targets, inflicting 10 magic damage for 10 seconds.
10 drainings – Blood Scourge: (Expert) Living or undead target takes 20 magic damage for 15 seconds. On death, spreads to all nearby targets.
15 drainings – Blood Ankh: (Expert) Hexes the corpse of a living or undead being, causing it to levitate and explode for 200 magic damage.
21 drainings – Profaned Sun: (Master) Flaming star that follows the target for 20 seconds, dealing 25 magic and fire damage to living targets near it.
28 drainings – Borrowed Time: (Master) Deals 5 magic damage for 20 seconds to the living or undead. When time runs out, deals damage equal to all Health lost by the target during this time.
Potions
Create the following potions at a cooking pot.
Potion of Embracing: Vampire Dust + Flawless Ruby – Grants Vampirism. Heals vampires 100 points.
Potion of Hemomancy: Vampire Dust + Briar Heart + Fire Salts (x2) + Moon Sugar (x2) – Advances Hemomancy. Vampires heal 100 points of Health. (Requires at least 1 Hemomancy spell.)
Potion of Thirst: Vampire Dust + Void Salts – Increases Vampiric thirst. Vampires heal 100 points of Health.
Potion of Blood: Human Flesh – Counts as feeding. Vampires heal 100 points of Health. (Requires Court’s Chef perk.)
Potion of Blood (x2): Human Heart – Counts as feeding. Vampires heal 100 points of Health. (Requires Court’s Chef perk.)
The hunter hunted
Vampire hunters and their enigmatic leader are not yet implemented, but will be added in an upcoming update.
Life as a Vampire Lord
Vampire Lord gameplay has been significantly upgraded in both melee and magic form. To promote interactivity, Vampire Lords do not regenerate Magicka in magic form or Stamina in melee form, encouraging them to switch often, and new perks increase the power level and variety of both forms. In general, the Vampire Lord excels at dealing with large numbers of enemies, starting out with an area effect spell and having access to several perks to further improve their ability to dispatch crowds, including spells to pull them together and stun them while dealing cleave damage.
Additionally, Vampire Lords can now loot bodies, use objects and gain Destruction experience. However, everyone who is not a Volkihar vampire will attack you as an enemy.
Abilities
Vampire Lords receive the following abilities:
Royal Bloodline: Vampire Lords gain 25 (level 5) to 250 (level 50) points of Health, Magicka and Stamina, 0 (level 5) to 45 (level 50) points of attack damage and 75 (level 5) to 300 (level 50) points of armor.
Fall From Grace: Vampire Lords are immune to fall damage.
Stagger Attack: Attacks in melee form stagger most targets.
Weakness to Sunlight: Health, Magicka, and Stamina do not recover while in Sunlight and are reduced by 100 points.
Spells and powers
Vampire Lords receive the following spells and powers.
Raze: Spell – Cast a wave of blood that cuts through targets in a line, absorbing 15 (level 5) to 25 (level 50) Health and dealing 50 (level 5) to 150 (level 50) additional magic damage.
Lord’s Servant: Spell – Reanimate a level 25 (level 5) to 50 (level 50) corpse for 60 seconds.
Bats: At will – Dash in your direction of movement. (2 charges)
Perks
The Vampire Lord perk tree is expanded from 11 to 31 perks, but new ways of gaining Vampire Lord perk points exist. Many perks affect your mortal form as well, allowing you to scale even when not in Vampire Lord form. Perks are easier to attain: each perk point you gain only increases the required number of kills to the next perk point by 1 instead of 2. (This is not retroactive if you are already a Vampire Lord upon installing Sacrosanct. Sorry.)
Power is Power: All attributes (Health, Magicka, Stamina) are increased by 50 points as Vampire Lord. Choose an attribute to further increase by 100 points.
Wings of the Strix: In magic mode, sprinting allows you to glide, greatly reducing fall speed.
Astral Poison: Attacks in melee form deliver an unnatural toxin, dealing 25 points of poison damage and absorbing 50 points of Magicka over 5 seconds.
Night Cloak: In combat, you are surrounded by a cloud of bats that feed on living enemies within melee range, absorbing 5 points of Health per second from each.
Dragon at Midnight: You gain 4 perk points to spend in your other perk trees. However, when you are Blood Starved, contact with Sunlight will instantly destroy you!
Echolocation: Night Power: Sends out a quick pulse that detects any creature. (Magicka cost: 15)
Mist Form: Night Power: Morph into a dark mist for 15 seconds, becoming undetectable and invulnerable but unable to fight while regenerating 25 points of Health, Magicka and Stamina per second. (Magicka cost: 50, cooldown: 30 seconds)
The Reaping: Night Power: Unleash your inner Beast, slowing time while gaining 40% movement speed and 60% attack speed and launching enemies with your power attacks. Lasts for 10 seconds. (Magicka cost: 75, cooldown: 40 seconds)
Tremble: Night Power: Emit a shockwave that throws all within 25 feet into the air and stuns them. (Magicka cost: 75, cooldown: 30 seconds, 2 charges)
Court’s Chef: Able to create Blood Potions at a cooking pot. Using Human Flesh yields 1 Blood Potion and using a Human Heart yields 2 Blood Potions. Additionally, consuming a Blood Potion advances Vampire Lord perks.
White Wolf: Your Vampire’s Seduction power now works on targets 15 levels higher and you may Drain people under its effect regardless of how thirsty you are. Additionally, Draining a sleeping or seduced victim advances Vampire Lord perks.
Psychic Vampire: Feeding on victims depletes their Magicka and Stamina and increases the effectiveness of Dominate and Still Heart against them to 200% for 30 seconds.
Embrace the Beast: You are stronger when Blood Starved: you deal 25% more attack damage, Flaywind lasts 100% longer and Vampiric Drain deals 50% more damage and has 15% chance per second to cast a Flaywind on humanoid targets for 5 points of magic damage for 10 seconds.
Foster Childe: Able to Embrace a sleeping victim when feeding, turning them into a vampire who will fight for you and making them a lover, potential follower and marriage partner.
Amaranth: Vampire’s Seduction works on vampires. Able to Drain humanoid vampires to disintegrate them and absorb their power. Your reward for this depraved act is a 30% bonus to combat and social skills while weaker vampires flee from you, for 5 minutes.
Fountain of Youth: Killing a person with a power attack bite in melee form restores all your Health and 150 Magicka.
Lion Among Sheep: In magic form, damaging targets with the Raze spell in your right hand reduces their attack damage by 10% for 10 seconds. In melee form, you deal 10% extra attack damage for each target affected.
Slasher: Power attacks in melee form deal 50% more damage and hit all targets in front of you.
Celerity: Able to move at unnatural speed. Movement speed increased by 10% in mortal and magic form and 20% in melee form.
Unearthly Will: Blood Magic, Night Powers, the Raze spell in your right hand and Hemomancy in mortal form cost 25% less. The Vampiric Drain spell in mortal form costs 50% less.
Blood From a Stone – Blood Magic, the Raze spell in your right hand and Hemomancy in mortal form can now damage Daedra and automatons.
Lord of Destruction – The Raze spell in your right hand deals 0.5% more damage per level of Destruction.
Blood Storm – Permanently upgrades the Raze spell in your right hand to Blood Storm. Concentrate to cast a barrage of exploding blood spheres that absorb 25 points of Health and deal 150 points of magic damage.
Exsanguinate: Your Vampiric Drain spell in mortal form deals 50% more damage when fighting only one enemy, and can be dual cast for a chance to stagger enemies.
Starving Artist: In mortal form, Hemomancy spells used against people absorb Health equal to 25% of their base damage (dealing that much extra damage and healing the caster for the same amount). Killing people with Hemomancy spells advances your Vampire Lord perks.
Make Them Beautiful: In mortal form, Hemomancy spells used against people have 25% chance to tear apart victims below 25% Health, instantly killing them.
Auspex: In mortal form, your supernatural senses warn you of the presence of enemies within 200 feet, briefly illuminating them through walls. Enemies can only be illuminated once and enemies that are too close are not detected.
Curtain Call: Hemomancy: Briefly pacifies people affected by a different Hemomancy spell before decapitating them, killing them instantly. (Magicka cost: 1500)
Lamae’s Pyre: Hemomancy Power: A 50 foot hurricane of flames that enwraps the caster for 10 seconds. Enemies take 75 fire damage per second. Can be used once, then becomes unavailable until you feed on a sleeping victim. (Magicka cost: 600)
Chokehold: Blood Magic: Concentrate to pull a creature to you from a distance, absorbing 20 points of Health and Stamina per second when it is close. (Magicka cost: 50/sec)
Conjure Gargoyle: Blood Magic: Conjure a gargoyle to fight for you for 60 seconds. (Magicka cost: 50)
Gutwrench: Blood Magic: Concentrate to absorb 5 points of Health per second from nearby living foes. Uninterrupted exposure builds up 25 points of agony per second on each foe, tearing them apart when this exceeds their remaining Health. (Magicka cost: 25/sec)
Maelstrom: Blood Magic: Create an imploding vortex that pulls all within 50 feet into the center, stunning them and reducing magic resistance by 50% for 3 seconds. (Magicka cost: 150)
Installation
Installation procedure: Add the mod to your load order and activate it. Note that existing abilities that are active on your character cannot be modified, which may result in some abilities being incorrect or “stuck on your character”. Ideally, you want to install the mod before you contract vampirism to avoid this issue, but this is not strictly necessary and the mod will be functional even if you don’t.
If you encounter this issue, open the console and type player.setrace [Your]Race (for instance HighElfRace). Then leave the console for a few seconds and type player.setrace [Your]RaceVampire. This will fix most issues.
Uninstallation procedure: Just remove the mod, ideally when you are not a vampire.
To upgrade from versions before 5.00 to 5.00 or later: Ideally, you should not be a vampire. If you must, make sure you are Sated, then feed after upgrading.
FAQ
I receive an error message stating that some scripts have been modified by another mod: You have either a mod loaded below Sacrosanct that modifies PlayerVampireQuestScript and/or DLC1PlayerVampireChangeScript; a local copy of those scripts in your data\scripts folder (possibly left behind by a mod); or an outdated compatibility patch. Better Vampires: If you are using Better Vampires and its Sacrosanct compatibility patch, this message is expected because Better Vampires removes most mortal form features from Sacrosanct and replaces them with its own, so the error is correctly telling you that Sacrosanct content has been replaced. It can be ignored, unless you want those features, of course.
Unable to Feed on specific named actors: When Parched or Blood Starved, you have the detrimental ability The Beast, which replaces the Feed option with the (lethal) Drain option, forcing you to kill the victim of your feeding. However, you can’t Drain essential actors (= unkillable for quest purposes). Find some nobody who won’t be missed and Drain them instead. (Version 3.00 and later allow you to feed on moth priest Dexion in particular regardless of your thirst stage. Version 5.00 and later allow you to Drain regardless and give a descriptive failure message to reduce confusion.)
I don’t have the Blue Blood quest or various other mortal form features: If you are using Better Vampires and its Sacrosanct compatibility patch, it replaces Sacrosanct’s mortal form progression with its own and just gives you all the spells and powers at once, resulting in the loss of many abilities, the Blue Blood questline, and breaking several perks.
I just died for no reason! Weakness to Sunlight reduces Health by up to 100 points when Blood Starved, killing you if you never put any points into Health. Alternatively, Wassail applies a stacking 10 point penalty to all attributes, potentially reducing Health to zero. Alternatively, due to a quirk with the Vampire Lord, its Weakness to Sunlight will activate before the Health bonus from Royal Bloodline upon transforming, killing players with 100 or less Health.
When I gain The Beast, the Drain option is missing: You can’t Drain essential actors (= unkillable for quest purposes). In versions before 5.00, the Drain option was removed for those actors, causing some confusion. 5.00 allows you to Drain regardless but displays a message indicating that the target is invalid. Alternatively, if you are using version 4.00, there was a bug in this version that has been fixed in 4.01 and later. Alternatively, you can’t Drain actors that are essential (= unkillable for quest purposes) and the option to Drain is absent in versions before 5.00. Alternatively, if you are using Better Vampires and its Sacrosanct compatibility patch, it replaces Sacrosanct feeding with Better Vampires feeding, which does not have a Drain option.
Perk descriptions are truncated on 4:3 aspect ratio monitors: This is a limitation of Skyrim. Use the Extended UI mod.
My abilities, perks or powers are wrong or not as advertised: You have another mod loaded below Sacrosanct that modifies this content. Load it above Sacrosanct. Alternatively, this can be caused by applying this mod to an existing savegame: see above under “Installation”. Alternatively, some mods will add their own vampire related features, overriding Sacrosanct. See the “Compatibility notes”.
