For a vampire, Final Death is just what it implies: the true and final death which ends their undead nights forever. Though a vampire has already died in a purely mortal sense, they remain relatively immortal as undead creatures roaming the night. Through vicious fighting, exposure to the banes of vampires, or incredible accident a vampire may suffer enough physical damage to sever the bonds of unlife which maintain their undead existence. If that happens they die a second, final time: the Final Death. There is no known way to restore a vampire who has suffered the Final Death, and most assume damnation or oblivion consumes them.
Final Death breaks the spell of Damnation, reverting the immortal body of the vampire to the state it would be in if it had actually been allowed to rot since the moment of its death — ancient monsters erode into dry and splintering bones, while the newest vampires wrinkle and bloat and putrefy like month-old corpses. The longer she’s been undead, the quicker the dissolution. The end result for the most vampires is the same: a pile of ash and dust, scattered around and within the vampire’s clothes and equipment. Obviously, any witness to this speedy decay is a breach of the Masquerade.[1]
Disintegration: At the moment of Final Death the powers maintaining the Kindred's body in the condition it was in at the moment of Embrace are released. Without the arcane, the body reverts to ash, the speed of disintegration depending on the Kindred's age.
Role-Playing Considerations
To most vampires, the sight of another suffering Final Death is a traumatic experience, whether they admit it or not. Any vampire falling apart into ash is a reminder of one’s own mortality, and most Kindred are masters of denying their own vulnerabilities. Some vampires will retreat from the sight immediately, averting their eyes and acting as if they’ve seen nothing at all. Others weep uncontrollably, even if they thoroughly hated the Kindred who has died, and cannot stop the tears for five or 10 minutes. Some fly into a rage and must resist the undirected anger of the Beast or slip into an aimless, destructive frenzy. None will be able to gaze impassively upon a vampire’s last moments.[2]
| Vampire age
| Disintegration time
|
| 1 month
| 12 hours
|
| 1 year
| 6 hours
|
| 5 years
| 1 hour
|
| 1 years
| 30 minutes
|
| 50 years
| 5 minutes
|
| 100 years
| 30 seconds
|
| 200 years
| 10 seconds
|
| 300 years
| 1 second
|
