Blood

**Blood** is a specialized bodily fluid that is responsible for both delivering nutrients and oxygen to the cells as well as transporting metabolic waste products away from those cells. Vampires and hybrids need to drink blood to function. If a vampiric being cannot feed on blood for an extended period of time, they will weaken to the point of desiccation, which will essentially turn them into a statue-like state until someone else feeds them. Blood is also what provides vampiric beings with their supernatural abilities, such as enhanced strength, speed, agility, senses and healing, and as a result, the strength of these abilities can be dependent on how recently they've fed; starvation can weaken a vampiric being's powers considerably, whereas someone who has just fed on a significant amount of blood will experience a slight increase in the strength of these powers. Most vampires drink human blood, but there are some who choose to exclusively drink animal blood.

Witches can integrate the use of blood into their magical practice to strengthen certain types of spells, which range from simple and minor locator spells to more powerful and complex curses and hexes whose effects can be so devastating that they can even kill a human or supernatural creature.

## Types of Blood

* Human Blood
* Vampire Blood
* Witch Blood
* Hybrid Blood

Feeding on human blood is the final phase in becoming a vampire after a human has died with a vampire's blood in their system and has subsequently reawakened in transition. If an individual chooses not to feed and resists human blood, the transition will not be complete and the individual will die permanently within twenty-four hours.

When a vampire experiences moments of hunger, bloodlust, or any other heightened emotion, their vampiric aspect becomes evident in their facial changes-- their eyes become extremely bloodshot, the veins around them darken and protrude, and their fangs become exposed. The majority of vampires drink human blood. Some choose to consume donations from blood banks as a more ethical way to satisfy their needs, while other vampires feed off of willing or compelled individuals. There are also those who go so far as to feed on their victims until their death, though it has been proven that it is not necessary for a vampire to kill in order to feed-- it is simply a skill that takes practice to achieve.

It has also been shown that the blood from witches and werewolves in their human form seems to have the same effect on vampires as human blood, as vampires have been seen to feed on either species with no negative physical effects.

Vampire blood is necessary in the process of turning a human into a vampire. The human must have vampire blood in their system at the time of their death in order to begin the transition. However, vampire blood cannot turn a human into a vampire if the human is already dead when it is ingested, nor can it be used to heal someone from a fatal wound if they have already died.

Vampire blood also has strong regenerative properties, and when ingested by a human (including Witches and werewolves who are untriggered or in human form), it will heal them of almost any wound and the majority of illnesses within seconds.

Vampire blood cannot cure cancer, however, most likely since it works by increasing the speed at which cells regenerate to heal wounds, whereas cancer cells are biologically immortal (that is to say, they don't die from old age like normal, healthy cells, and cancer cells can only be "killed" by methods such as surgery, chemotherapy, radiation, etc). As a result of the physiology of cancer, the exposure of cancer cells to vampire blood creates many problems due to their out-of-control growth.
Although generally, witch blood contains no properties that make it different than human blood to a vampire, it has many additional uses throughout the witch community, including what has come to be called "blood magic." While the origins of this practice remain a mystery, it can be traced back to at least as early as the 1st century BCE.

### Jacob Chamberlain's Blood

Jake is the only being in the world whose blood can cure vampire of the lethal effects of a werewolf bite. After a bitten vampire ingests Jake's blood, he or she is immediately healed of the bite wound "as though it never happened," in Jake's words. Additionally, Jake is one of only two beings on earth whose blood can turn a werewolf into a hybrid, assuming that he has doppelgänger blood in order to complete their transition. The other being is his daughter, Elizabeth. However, Jake's blood cannot heal a vampire who has been bitten by a Beast.

### Elizabeth Chamberlain's Blood

Elizabeth's blood can be used to turn werewolves into hybrids, though this process also required the hybrid-in-transition to feed on her blood again to complete the transformation. It can be presumed that her blood can also cure a werewolf/hybrid bite, though it has yet to be demonstrated. However, her blood is not effective in curing the bite of a Beast. In addition to these qualities, Hope's blood can also act as a potent binding agent and can be used to break complex spells cast by other witches as a result of her witch heritage.