Yssgaroth Taint

The Yssgaroth Taint, also simply the Taint, (PROSE: A Bloody (And Public) Domaine ^[+]Loading...["A Bloody (And Public) Domaine (short story)","A Bloody (And Public) Domaine"], etc.) or the taint, (PROSE: The Book of the War ^[+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) and otherwise known as the genetic material of the Great Vampire, "vampire DNA", (COMIC: Blood Invocation ^[+]Loading...["Blood Invocation (comic story)"]) the V Factor, (PROSE: Vampire Science) or the vampire virus, (PROSE: All Flesh is Grass) was the distinguishing characteristics that "made vampires vampires". (PROSE: Vampire Science ^[+]Loading...["Vampire Science (novel)"])

Nature

The V Factor involved a gene that was added to the victim's biodata during vampire conversion. The Eighth Doctor devised a method of purging a vampire of the V Factor. (PROSE: Vampire Science) The Fifth Doctor described the "genetic material of the Great Vampire" as "ravenous" and able to infest and reanimate any corpse within a single day. (COMIC: Blood Invocation ^[+]Loading...["Blood Invocation (comic story)"])

The "taint" was so called due to being a manifestation of the original inter-dimensional Yssgaroth whose Great Vampires (PROSE: The Book of the War ^[+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) fought the Time Lords in the Eternal War of their early history; while the true Great Vampires were driven out, (TV: State of Decay ^[+]Loading...["State of Decay (TV story)"]) such that "no pure matter from the “Spiral Yssgaroth” survive[ed]", Yssgaroth biomass proved capabel of "hybridis[ing] and corrupt[ing] by its very presence"; the infected, (PROSE: The Book of the War ^[+]Loading...["The Book of the War (novel)"]) "pale shadows of the real thing", (TV: State of Decay ^[+]Loading...["State of Decay (TV story)"]) were beings "pulled out of shape by the Yssgaroth’s substance, malformed and predatory", and took various forms from elegant and cultured to the beastly Mal'akh grotesques. According to The Book of the War, the Great Houses were unable to eradicate the Yssgaroth taint from the universe because the Yssgaroth had entered history precisely as it came into existence, embedding themselves into its structure on a conceptual level. (PROSE: "Yssgaroth" ^[+]Part of The Book of the War, Loading...{"namedpart":"Yssgaroth","1":"The Book of the War (novel)"})