The Vital stats are health, mana, and ego.
Health
Health represents a character's physical well-being and when it reaches 0, they die*.
*Unless they have certain abilities or conditions: Vitae potion, Lichseed, etc.
Mana
Mana signifies a character's available mental faculties. Reaching 0 mana is not bad on its own, however it prevents a character from using abilities that cost mana, typically deactivates abilities that have a periodic mana cost to sustain, and makes the character vulnerable to certain instant-kill attacks.
Ego
Ego is the present strength of a character's personality. Involved primarily in influencing and debate, ego also fuels certain skills like Healing and Psionics. A character's personality is shattered/burnt-out when their ego reaches 0 and they will need time to recover before they can use ego-powered abilities again.
Calculations
The core formula is 300 + (5 * Character Level * (11 + Vitals Level)), where Vitals levels are the total active buffs from traits and abilities. (You can see a printout of these in-game if you have learned the BodyScan ability in Discernment.
- Note: Adding levels past 100 for Demigods or 101 for Ascendants will not increase your vitals per level, instead the calculation will use 100 or 101 for Character level.