It would depend on the setting, I’d think.
In an SF setting, then maybe: it could be the chemical qualities of blood that they need.
In a fantasy setting, then probably not: what they need is life taken from another. Blood is simply the material component of that life force.
Kind of bridging the Sci Fi an Fantasy angles, someone could probably come up with an interesting mechanic about how the blood is grown in a lab
Could be that just straight-up blood cultures grown in a vat don’t have the necessary life force, but growing some genetically engineered organism that is just a living blood factory, basically a meat bag of bone marrow, circulatory system, and just enough of a nervous system to keep things going checks enough boxes for it to work.
Sort of tangential to lab-grown blood, but maybe there’s a little industry preying on the families of brain-dead patients who insist on keeping them on life support and convincing them to move their loved ones mortal vessels into a blood farm when the medical bills start piling up too high. Or desperate women taking dangerous drugs and getting pregnant in hopes of having an anencephalic baby that they can sell to the vampires to make ends meet.
Maybe there was a plague that causes widespread birth defects and millions of babies are being born without any higher brain functions. The church is having an absolute conniption over this, they won’t condone aborting them or taking them off of life support, but the only way many can afford to keep these human-shape meat puppets alive is by giving them over to the vampire blood farms, and they’re certainly not about to condone anything having to do with those demon-spawn bloodsuckers either.
Be careful with that reasoning. If vampires only drink blood for the life force connected to it, it’s only a short jump to cum vampires.
Since vampires don’t exist, you can make up any rules you like.
Isn’t that the whole premise for the show True Blood?
can they drink it?
why yes. I can drink blood too. Not that I would.
does it sustain them?
I would say… yes… depends on freshness. Nothing better than fresh (and warm) from a neck.
would they enjoy it?
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In the world of darkness setting, most vampires cannot eat anything other than blood. Drinking coffee would be like drinking liquid ash. Often causing the vampire to puke.
If the synthetic blood is not real blood, it would be like that for them, hence they would physically struggle to drink it.
The question is: can lab grown blood be converted to vitae by a vampire body?
Depends on the setting. It’s been a while since I last watched Interview with the Vampire but IIRC there was a scene where Lestat unknowingly drank from a very recently deceased person and it made him sick and weak immediatly, even tho that person was still “warm”. I guess the vampires in that setting wouldn’t be able to drink anything like lab-grown or even donated blood without severe issues. No heartbeat = not safe.
The vampires in The Witcher however don’t need blood to survive - to them it is more like a drug, something that they want to drink and get crazy when they have it, but if they don’t get it, they’re still perfectly fine. For those it would likely be okay to drink whatever synthetic blood science can create, since it is only for a temporary high anyway.
IRL lore about vampires differs greatly world wide, so answers will be different depending on who you ask. Personally I’d say yes, since I never understood why the victim has to be alive - as long as the blood has all the nutrients the vampire needs, and it hasn’t gone bad in some way, it should be fine.
Personally I’d say yes, since I never understood why the victim has to be alive - as long as the blood has all the nutrients the vampire needs, and it hasn’t gone bad in some way, it should be fine.
That works for more sciency vampires, but most settings that include vampires have explicit magic. When you add magic, you can basically apply whatever rules you want for why vampires drink blood. If they’re really feeding on the victim’s life force or soul or whatever then the synthetic stuff wouldn’t cut it, and the blood itself may not even matter.
