[Snake]

Ahem. Vampires keeping their vampirism hidden is not a 'head canon', it's literally their lore.

The child of Huggessoa are covert for a very clear reason that they don't want attention pulled over to them, which hints that they can VERY EASILY get that done. You can even see that during their Lunar Lunatism when they completely forsake hiding their true identity for power and go on a lunar rage.

Overall? It is exactly as said, IC shouldn't bleed out to their mechanical sense, lest we'll make it canon that Vampires can drink literal lava out of Firespitters or Forgeries. Though it always makes me wonder why Lore demands a Vampire to hide its Vampiric side for uh... 'reasons', yet Mechanics demand them to use Banquet or bust because that's how their kit works now and deal with it.

Do they hide their Vampirism because they're weak sauce nerds who can't team fight well, can't take a hit from a Holy weapon, can't take Light damage, can't drink blood from Cursed People even though they can BITE INTO A FIRESPITTER and not melt inside-out, can't even mechanically fake right their race, etc; Or because they're strong enough to cause a ruckus and ruin their only mean of blending with mortals easier?

This race was once one of the best Ancients to roleplay as, and fun to play as in combat situations given they always had this 'virtual power' you'd see from characters like Arcueid or Remilia, but post-rework all that freedom of creativity to have your Vampire be customized in any way you feel like was kind of stolen away for a predictable and hard to modify gimmick of "bite (and hit) enemy or else you are a Karatynn hooman with ugly base stats". Like a gun pointed at my head.

Not that it's bad, sure, directly drinking blood is a clear answer to their power surge, but I wish that they could access Lunar Lunatism at any time and with that, Sanguine Crest too as a third method to call their Vampiric side. It being not solely dependent on having to use Banquet or Life Drain. This vile power should be a choice, not a risk-reward (that doesn't reward you, instead, debuffs you down). Banquet, also as said from Polk before, has a LOT on it thanks to Traits and SAN, so you shouldn't also further bury the hatchet on making it mandatory for Vampires. It's not fun at all.

Look into the 'easy bandaid fixes' sect. Offer me your opinions, because I strongly believe that, alone, would be enough a compromise between not reverting vampire, not giving it anything new, but adjusting what it has to a point it can be usable in situations beyond you being forced to be a mage, since this will solely buff the side they should be hiding, while also increasing immersion on why they hide it.

I like the dynamic of 'power, but at a cost', and Vampires being a solely "Transformation"-based Race that has their normal state, and their Vampiric state during combat. Too bad Vampires ain't getting any of that "power" vs its "costs", chief.