Human Meta-Human Vampiric Virus

Human Meta-Human Vampiric Virus, commonly called HMHVV, is a fictional disease from the game Shadowrun. The virus has been known to cause changes which often resemble abominations that are no longer human and are occasionally not even sentient.

In the Shadowrun universe, vampires and their kin are not undead, but are changed by the retrovirus into a creature needing the life energy of others to survive.

HMHVV (Primary Strain)

• A human – and extremely rarely another metatype – becomes a vampire — they have many of the classic abilities and vulnerabilities, but are not necessarily limited by holy items
• An elf usually becomes a banshee — a barely sentient hunter
• A dwarf usually becomes a goblin — a pack creature, much reduced in intellectual abilities
• An ork usually becomes a wendigo — they feed on human flesh and look like white Sasquatchs
• A troll usually becomes a dzoo-noo-qua — a massive, deformed, burning-eyed hulk of a humanoid

Only vampires and wendigos can infect others. Banshee, goblins, and dzoo-noo-qua while created by the virus, do not pass the infection on to their victims. I.E. only a vampire/wendigo can create a vampire/banshee/goblin/wendigo/dzoo-noo-qua. (depending on the victims metatype)

HMHVV-II (the Jarka-Criscione strain)

This strain does not confer vampiric abilities like the primary strain. And it is unspecified what the strain does to the unlisted metatypes.

• A human becomes a loup-garou — similar to a werewolf
• A troll becomes a fomorian — known for being hairy rather than covered with bone deposits
• A sasquatch becomes a bandersnatch — increasing the creature's already impressive size, destroying its intelligence and giving it a capability to camouflage itself by optically 'melting' into the surrounding terrain (much like the alien from the film Predator), i.e., as a patch of fuzzy movement).

HMHVV-BL (the Bruckner-Langer strain)

Fatal to most metatypes.

• A human – and very rarely an elf – becomes a nosferatu, a variant type of vampire similar to the one depicted in the film of the same name.

HMHVV, Krieger (the Krieger strain)

The variant that creates ghouls, which are similar to folklore and pop-culture ghouls and zombies, in that they appear to be walking dead that have a hunger for living flesh. A Krieger infection can be passed on through contact with any bodily fluids from one already infected. The Krieger strain has also been shown to possess geographically localized variants that create distinct ghoul sub-species such as the long-limbed sasabonsam of the African nation of Asamando.

External links

• HMHVV at the Sixth World Wiki