Mycelium

Mycelium

Vampires require essence to survive, often the essence of meta-humans or other sentients. This poses a serious problem to their coexistence with other people. To address this for its agents, and perhaps for vampires generally, Arcadia developed Mycelium, a paranormal strain of bacteria, genetically crossed with neural cells, which is both high in essence, and capable of forming a non-sentient neural network which nonetheless can be made to hold an emotional state. When ingested, Mycelium provides essence to creatures with the essence drain ability.

There are problems however. Mycelium, being a briny sludge, is highly unpalatable, and relatively large amounts of it are necessary to provide a similar amount of essence to feeding on a human. It's flavor and texture are enhanced somewhat when it is thoroughly chilled and mixed with alcohol and sugar, resulting in vampires working with Arcadia being seen on occasion to drink giant frozen daiquiris. Mycelium is also difficult to produce, and Arcadia, while having enough for its own uses, could not produce enough for the existent vampire population at large, or even the official membership of the Ordo Maximus, even if the vampires would agree to drink it. Of lesser note is the fact that Mycelium exhibits no complexity of emotion, and exhibits no emotion other than ecstasy, despite some vampires tastes running towards darker flavors. Arcadian personnel have made no effort to increase complexity of emotion due to the fact that such would likely arise only from sentience, and find requests for Mycelium which feels pain or fear to be... distasteful. Furthermore, Arcadia has been entirely unwilling to share the production process, and the Ordo Maximus would never like to be dependent upon Arcadia for subsistence.

Even under the best of circumstances Mycelium is expensive and slow to produce, but in truth Arcadia is unable to release the production details of Mycelium due to its extreme potential for abuse. Firstly Arcadia has made it a priority to avoid the creation of sentient bacterial colonies, which, with Mycelium, would be easy for a sufficiently determined or careless party. Secondly, the techniques used to generate Mycelium, along with the bacteria itself, could be easily weaponized. The latter combined with the former, and Mycelium's magical nature could theoretically lead to an intelligent weaponized disease, potentially displaying intelligence within a host, or even across multiple hosts. Arcadia of course keeps the details of such concerns to itself and lets the Ordo perceive their reticence primarily as a power play. Nonetheless, the Ordo Maximus covets the secrets of Mycelium production, both for the purposes of producing blood-substitutes, and likely for more nefarious ends...