Progenitor of House Keziah

Part of the vampire transformation will increase the concentration of platelet tissue factor and of antibacterial agents already present in human saliva (such as lactoferrin, lysozyme and peroxidase). Platelet tissue factor helps promote blood clotting.

Other changes would include the production of nerve growth factor (NGF), which is not found in human saliva. Experiments with animals who have NGF in their saliva, such as mice, have found that wounds doused with NGF heal faster.

Another compound found in human saliva of interest is opiorphin – it has a pain-killing effect. However, the molecule degrades quickly in the intestine and doesn’t permeate the blood-brain barrier well, in the form found in human saliva. There’s a modification to the molecule that will stabilize it and preserve the analgesic effects, so if someone does science to the vampires of Keziah's ilk, they’ll also find pyroglutamized opiorphin in vampire saliva.

With this base of actual change to the composition of vampire saliva, and a boost from their semi-mystical nature, that is why licking wounds -- on themselves or others -- can speed up healing.

There were some measures said to stop a corpse from rising as a vampire...

–> burying the body face-down, so that the vampire goes the wrong way when it tries to dig out of the grave
–> burying the body at a crossroads
–> a long nail driven through the skull
–> wild roses planted over the grave, in the hopes that the thorns would entangle the corpse’s shroud when it attempted to rise
–> breaking the spine
–> cutting off the hands and feet
–> cutting out the heart
–> stuffing the mouth with garlic, or a coin, or some other charm…
–> stuffing the mouth with a brick
–> rubbing certain parts of the body with the lard of a pig killed on St. Ignatius Day (31 July)
–> driving a wooden stake through the chest
–> driving an iron spike through the body
–> cutting off the head
–> burning the body

Other than the wooden stake through the chest and cutting off the head, none of these measures will actually kill a vampire in Keziah's world. (And for her line, in a feature inherited from her original House, a wooden stake is not fatal unless it is ash wood.)

These preventative measures don’t actually stop the vampire from becoming undead, but some of them do mess up the bodies. The pre-reanimation damage can, in some cases, keep the vampire from being able to escape the grave.

Mutilated, aware, eternally hungry for the blood of the living but utterly unable to satisfy that hunger... corpse zombies are thwarted vampires gone mad in their graves.

Keziah was not always known as Keziah. It is a name that she adopted in 1347, after one hundred and sixty nine years as a vampire.

Vampires in Keziah's world inherit their benefits and weaknesses from their sire. Superhuman strength, speed, and durability are the basic benefits; while an inability to go in the sun, skin burning upon contact with religious iconography, and the fatality of a wooden stake through the heart and beheading are common weaknesses. And of course, all vampires feel an urge to feed on the life-force of the truly living -- for most vampires, this translates into a thirst for blood.

However, as vampires have diversified and come into contact with witches, fae, lycanthropes, and other creatures, they have changed. Some have gained boons against being harmed by certain kinds of attack, some have changed to feed directly on life-force energy rather than through the medium of blood, and a thousand other small differences. Witches will retain their magical abilities even after being turned, and vampires who were dhampirs (half-human, half-vampire offspring) to start with are stronger than average. Certain notable or long-lasting vampire lines have organized themselves into Houses, and knowing which House a vampire hails from can be a clue into the specific details of their strain of vampirism.

When she was turned in 1178, she was 22 years old and known by the name Ruqayyah. Her sire, a woman named Ibtihaj, had befriended her while she was alive. At this time, they have a generalized weakness to religious iconography and a weakness to sunlight that manifests itself in severe burns to the skin following exposure.

In the early years among her first House, Ruqayyah eventually comes to be referred to by the kunya Umm Shafaqat, a name meaning "mother of compassion".

It was likely this compassion that drove Ruqayyah in 1347 -- following the death of a Christian child, the local Jewish community was blamed, and the Christian majority was going to attack in revenge. Instead, Ruqayyah allowed herself to be seen feeding in order to shift the blame to herself. Vampire hunters were called in. But she was able to escape from them into the sunlight, after finding out that it no longer burned her. (Further, while Christian religious iconography no longer harms her, certain Jewish religious items will sting or sear her skin when handled.) After this, she takes on the name Keziah.

The vampires she sires afterward, starting with Giuseppe Poggio in 1350, inherit her sun resistance, as well as the specific weakness to Jewish religious iconography. Keziah values coexistence with the human majority and dislikes those vampires who don't have the control to leave their prey alive after a feeding. She does not believe in any kind of inherent superiority of vampires over other forms of life, knowing that they are far more dependent on the truly alive such as humans than most vampires would like to admit. She takes care when selecting who to turn, though she can be swayed by pleas from her vampire children. Anyone who doesn't meet her standards of self control will eventually be... removed from the House.