Vampire

Bela Lugosi from Dracula (1931). THE OG "classic" gothic vampire.

"There is a generation whose teeth are as swords, and their jaw teeth as knives, To devour the poor from off the earth, and the needy from among men."

– Proverbs 30:14

Vampires are mythical creatures and/or people that are known as being malevolent, though the degree of this ranges from someone being forced to drink the blood of others to rage-filled cannibals who are more animal than human.

Vampires mean many things to many people, although they generally have a Gothic aesthetic, but can go from cartoony villains to horrifying monsters.

Vampires As We Know Them

in Tabletop Games

Deadlands

In Deadlands, vampires first appeared in the story/adventure module combination "Dime Novel" series, where the third volume "Night Train" featured the Great Rail War getting bloodier because evil Voodooist Baron LaCroix has gathered up a bunch of nosferatu and allowed them to set up shop in trains he's smuggled onto his rivals' tracks, allowing them to ravage the Weird West. The second major source was "Rascals, Varmints & Critters 2", which reprinted Nosferatu stats alongside states for Cinematic Vampires, Penanggalans and Ustrels. It also provided stats for Dracula himself and rules for playing a vampire in the Deadlands Classic system. Finally, "The Great Maze" introduced the Jiangshi and issue #3 of the official magazine "The Epitaph" finished the deal with Nachtzehers, Shtrigas and Upirs.

Vampire strains known to exist in the Deadlands universe consist of the following:

• Nosferatu (with a more powerful variant called the "Ancient Ones")
• Cinematic Vampire (your Gothic Horror style vampire, also a playable "race")
• Jiangshi
• Penanggalan (spelled with two Ls here)
• Ustrel (a child vampire born from a child who died of neglect, which prefers to feed on animals and has a voracious appetite)
• Nachtzeher (a fangless, ghoul-like vampire that chews on corpses to extract blood and which is marked by its heavily gnawed extremities, a result of its initial hunger upon rising)
• Shtriga (a female witch who feed on blood to fuel her magic and preserve her youth, characterized by her tendency of gorging herself until her belly bloats up like a pregnant woman's and she messily vomits up what she can't fit near the site of her kill)
• Upir (powerful vampires who prefer to strangle their prey before feeding from their tongue)

Dungeons & Dragons

Vampires have been around in pretty much every edition of the game. They get a full smorgasboard of powers, including the ability to shapeshift into animals and mist, climb up walls, fast healing, and the ability to not only drain blood but inflict negative levels with their touch, though they usually can't fly unless they shapeshift into something that can. There're also vampire spawn, which are lesser vamps subservient to their creators and reduced versions of most vampiric powers. Most vampires have special weaknesses, but can also be killed by good ol fashioned damage, though a few require extra steps to stay dead.

2nd Edition Ravenloft introduced separate monster entries for demihuman vampires: elf, dwarf, halfling, gnome, and even the dreaded kender.

The gameline also includes a variety of special custom vampires reflecting the dizzying array of bloodsucking undead monsters in world mythology.

Special mention to everyone's favorite master vampire villain, Strahd von Zarovich, and to the Vampire, the awnsheigh from Birthright where monsters tend to be unique, a tragic figure who hunted down the monster that slew his father, only, in a conflux of different factors, to lose his humanity in the process and become a tyrannical awnsheigh in his own right.

Ravenloft

Being a Gothic Horror/Dark Fantasy setting for Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, and considering AD&D's general approach to monster design (aka "let's turn as many alternate names as possible into unique monsters!"), you better believe that Ravenloft was ground zero for an invasion of an absolute fuckton of vampire variants!

Firstly, there's the Oriental Vampire, which is native to the Domains of I'Cath and Rokushima Taiyoo. This one is a weird blend of the "classic" D&D vampire given an Asian reskin and the Jiangshi; in 3rd edition, it would lean slightly more towards the latter and become known as the Chiang-ahi.

Secondly, there's the Cerebral Vampire, an artificially created vampire that is only found in the domain of Dominia, a corrupted insane asylum. They feed on cerebro-spinal fluid, hence the name. In AD&D, they caused madness and their victims would die and return as ghouls, whilst in 3e, they cause permanent Intelligence loss and can reproduce this way.

Nosferatu are a variant strain of vampire who actually feed on blood (drain Constitution) rather than sapping levels like other AD&D vampires. Otherwise, they're largely interchangeable. Ironically, Mystara has its own Nosferatu variant which is based more on novel!Dracula or Varney the Vampire, and the 3e update of Ravenloft rewrote the Ravenloft nosferatu based on the abilities of the Mystaran nosferatu.

Most famously, Ravenloft would introduce an array of demihuman vampires, as well as two monstrous vampires; the drow and illithid:

• Drow revere the transformation into vampires, referring the change as "The Kiss of Lolth". They can transform into giant spiders and clouds of poisonous vapor, but cannot cross a line of salt and are incredibly light vulnerable; even moonlight burns their flesh, whilst a single shaft of sunlight is instant death. Vampire drow can be placed in a death-like torpor by staking them through the heart with rock salt, but can only be killed by exposing them to sunlight, immersing them in a waterwall, or binding the torpid vampire in cords of silver thread, smearing it with oil, and burning it for at least 12 hours.
• Dwarves loathe vampires of their kind, who can pass through stone as if it were air and are unimpaired by sunlight. They can't transform, but they can command burrowing and subterranean creatures. They can't enter a home unless it's at least partially made of earth or stone, nor can they cross a line of powdered metal, and water from natural springs scorches them like acid (but holy water has no effect). Dwarven vampires can be rendered torpid by staking them with a natural stalactite or stalagmite. Actually killing them requires cutting out their heart, soaking it in oil for 3 days, then burning it to ashes.
• Elves regard their vampires with pity, for they are metaphorically and literally hideously warped, twisted, ugly creatures. These Charisma-draining undead can only walk about during the day, and perish if they remain abroad at night or if forced underground, in a reversal of the standard vampire. Their touch kills plants, and they possess a number of twisted druid-like abilities, such as assuming the form of an eagle and commanding forest creatures. They are burned by the sap of deciduous trees and repelled by fresh flower petals. They can be made torpid by staking them with a stake of charcoal, but to permanently kill them, the torpid elf's head must be cut off and burned for 24 hours in a fire made of flowers and flowering shrubs.
• Gnome vampires are twisted, perpetually silenced creatures with faces twisted into rictus grins. They can transform into the form of a will o' wisp and can freely command (but not summon) animals. Their touch slowly petrifies their victims. Though they hate sunlight, only natural sunlight hurts them. Defeating them is tough; once rendered torpid by pounding a stake of Blessed silver into their heart, their hands must be cut off and boiled in a natural hot spring for 24 hours whilst the gnome is placed in a wooden coffin. Once their hands have finished boiling, their eyes must be gouged out and replaced with high quality precious gems; once that is done and the coffin is nailed shut, the vampire is dead.
• Goblin vampires are weaker than most vampires, and are created artificially from the goblins of Tepest by its hag darklords. Oversized brutes with distended fangs and claws who feed on both blood and fear, they are mindless killers with few supernatural talents or resistances, although they prefer to hunt during the day, as goblins avoid the day. They can be killed by hammering a stake of obsidian into their hearts.
• Halfling vampires have a surprising array of magical abilities, including freely transforming into and commanding small woodland creatures, assuming a sweet-smelling smoke form, exuding an aura of fatigue and creating high-quality food and drink at will. They cannot approach somebody smoking a pipe, nor enter a room where a fire is burning in a hearth. They can be destroyed by sunlight and rain. To render one torpid, impale it with a burning length of wood taken directly from a hearth. To kill it, chop off its hands and feet and then burn them in a hearth for 3 hours.
• Illithid vampires were a mistake that went horribly wrong, creating mindless blood-and-brain-sucking brutes with no more than animalistic intelligence. Whilst they lack most of the sundry supernatural powers of both races, they are, to all intents and purposes, indestructible; nobody knows the method to truly kill them yet. They returned in 5e with a major overhaul; no longer technically indestructible, they also now serve a purpose - where as the original Vampiric Illithids were a failed attempt to create a weapon against the God-Brain, in 5e they are agents of the God-Brain. These short-lived creatures are sent to harvest cerebrospinal fluid from humanoids, then return to the God-Brain and are dissolved into its nutrient-pool to infuse their life-energy and stolen bounty directly into the God-Brain, which is the only thing slowing the God-Brain's decay into death.
• Kender vampires are only found in the domain of Sithicus, and in fact are destroyed instantly if forced over its border. Wracked with permanent rigor mortis, they are surprisingly easy to turn by clerics and paladins. They are repulsed by shimmerweed, and the sight of moonlight shining on shimmerweed can actually destroy them. But the most effective weapon against them is their own iconic hoopaks; if a warrior can snatch away a kender vampire's hoopak, not only can they swiftly beat the creature into submission with it, but impaling the kender vampire through the heart with it (easier than it sounds) will instantly destroy the kender vampire forever.

3rd edition would introduce the only new Ravenloft vampire to this list, the disease-carrying, ghoulish Vrykolaka, and update all of the above, sans the Drow and Kender vampires.

In addition, Ravenloft also introduced three "vampire-adjacent" monsters; the Japanese-flavored Kizoku (a supernatural womanizer that lures women to commit evil acts, then turns them into willow trees), the Vampyre (a "living vampire" flavored monstrous humanoid), and the Vorlog (a human partially warped into a vampire).

But that wasn't enough for fans, so they got together and came up with the Aswang (based on Filipino vampires) and the Upir Lichy (Russian heat vampires).

Other D&D Vampire Strains

Whilst Ravenloft is home to the largest array of vampires and vampire-like monsters, AD&D at least had its share of other vampires to be found in other settings.

The Forgotten Realms is home to the Lhiannan Shee, an all-female vampire strain created from human, elf and half-elf women that specializes in preying on bards and artists. It is, quote, "thought to be the undead spirit of a woman who killed herself for the unrequited love of a bard or other artistically talented and desirable, but unobtainable or callous man."

Mystara is home to both the Velya, an aquatic vampire strain, and to its own distinct strain of Nosferatu, which ironically became the basis of the Ravenloft version in 3e.

The Fiend Folio introduced the Penanggalan to generic D&D as a whole.

4th Edition

Vampires are now a class in 4e. They were introduced in the Heroes of Shadow book, and yes, they are in fact a CLASS now, no longer a template or curse. There is also detailed in the book a new race, "Vryloka," which are basically vampires in their own right so WHY MAKE VAMPIRE A CLASS, I MEAN SERIOUSLY. Only in the fluff, Vryloka have the power of vampires, just without the bloodlust. Really? That just sounds stupid on paper. And also stupid in general. We got a fucking cornucopia of stupid going on here.

The Vampire class has the Shadow power source, and is also a striker, which is apparently all Shadow is good for in 4e, being that all it consists of is Assassins, Executioners (variant Assassins from the Heroes of Shadow), Vampires, and Blackguards, all of which are strikers for fuck-all reason. WOTC explained that they named the class Vampire because they really wanted the players to feel like they were playing one, as most of the powers are based on vampiric lore (turning into bats, mist, wolves, drinking blood to gain healing surges). If so, they still could have come up with an original fucking name either way and kept the fluff relatively the same. This also means that Vampires (the class, that is) cannot be mages or knights without using hybrid classes.

Then there's the Vampiric Heritage feat, which lets any humanoid gain +2 to Perception and Insight checks to find undead while also getting Blood Drain (Encounter Attack; Str/Dex/Con +2/tier vs Reflex when grabbing someone, deals 1d4/tier + Con Mod damage and lets you spend a healing surge). This already is a step above the class by not hamstringing you with the shittiest number of surges in existence and an absolutely pitiful selection of powers. You also get access to the Blood Knight Paragon Path and a few extra feats, though some of them are kinda naff:

• Vampire Alacrity (+1 Speed)
• Mist Form (Requires level 10; replace a level 10 or lower utility power with Mist Form, a sustainable daily power that renders you insustantial with a hovering speed of 8 squares but forbids you from attacking)
• Night's Sight (Gain darkvision)
• Bloodied Regeneration (Requires paragon tier; replace a level 10 or lower utility power with Bloodied Regeneration, a daily utility power that grants you regeneration 5 until you aren't bloodied anymore)
• Domineering Gaze (Requires level 15; replaces a level 15 or lower utility power with Domineering Gaze, a daily ranged 5 attack that uses a mental stat +4 (+6 in epic) vs Will that inflicts either save-ends Dominated (downgraded to save-ends dazed after making the save) or save-ends dazed)
• Savage Bite (Requires paragon tier; you can now use your power on anyone you have combat advantage over)

This also raises a question: Since vampirism was already present in 4e by way of heritage feats (which was already a decently-received idea that enabled for diversity in builds), why not simply expand on that idea instead of introducing both a race AND class that are both vampires? Or better yet, why not make vampire a race in the same way that Revenant is (that is, you choose which race you are a revenant of and can select that race's feats)? As the system is, it is possible to make a Vryloka with Vampire class and the Vampiric Heritage feat, meaning you can gain utility and attack powers that all relate to being a vampire from three different sources with one character.

Another, better idea than they did was themes: optional features that give players a bit more unique character fluff, that came with at least one additional power and others to choose from as you leveled up. Why couldn't they have done this with Vampire? It would have cut down on the feat expenditure, enabled access to unique powers without being shoehorned into any crap class, and offers all the benefits of each without any drawbacks.

Tl;dr There's a Vampire class, it is stupid, blame Essentials.

Pathfinder

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2e

Most of the time, a vampire sucking out your blood means the end of your PC. Thanks to Book of the Dead, however, your now blood-less character can become a bloodsucker themselves and remain under your control! This is thanks to the Vampire archetype. Your bite now does a d6 of damage, and you can grapple with it. You even get an action to drink blood, granting you temp HP and leaving your opponent with the drained condition.

However, it's not all sunshine and roses, as now you are allergic to said sunshine. You gain the slowed condition in sunlight, and if you reach slowed 3, you die. Also you are repulsed by religious symbols and garlic until you pass a will save.

Like all other archetypes, there is a feat tree that grants you awesome abilities. There's even one called Daywalker, a level 6 feat which allows you to not die in sunlight! You still get slowed though, so you still have a chance to lose all your actions and be still as a statue.

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  3e Demihuman Vampires

Vampire: the Masquerade

THE quintessential vampire game.

VtM from White Wolf had a pretty good take on Vampires, consisting of an entire campaign setting surrounding Vampires, covering a range of playable clans from the uber-seductive Toreador (presumably what inspired the Twilight books though) to the feral Gangrel, the fucking ugly as shit Nosferatu to the batshit mental as fuck Malkavian. So pretty much the setting allowed players to play the vampire of their dreams.

The setting was real-world too, fitting into real-word mythologies using elements from biblical canon to explain itself away, using the origin story of Cain(e) & Abel and making Vampires to be Caine's cursed descendants, after learning how to master his blood magic from the equally outcast Lilith (Adam's first ex-wife according to Hebrew canon)

Vampire: The Requiem

Essentially a reboot of VtM above, VtR removed the Christian backstory and made vampires more mysterious, and condensed the vast array of playable clans down to five clans that embodied strong vampire archetypes and myriad sub-clans, "bloodlines", that further refined those archetypes.

Warhammer Fantasy

Warhammer Fantasy Battle plays up the horror aspects of the vampires to 11, knowing that it's what makes them a compelling force to play - after all, the one nice thing about being an undead lord of the night is that you get to be a right and propa evil overlord about it. vampires in WFB are both hard as nails and are wizards to boot, meaning they cover most bases that other armies have to pick and choose, however being masters of necromancy and all, if the general dies then the rest of the undead army under his command usually starts crumbling to dust (not so much after the return of Nagash though) unless another vampire/Necromancer can step in and take over. Steven Sevile's vampire trilogy - Inheritance, Dominion, and Retribution - are great for showing just how monstrous these fiends are.

Warhammer Age of Sigmar

The spiritual successors to the Vampire Counts in Warhammer: Age of Sigmar are split between the Soulblight Gravelords and the Flesh-Eater Courts.

The Soulblight pretty much represents the classic counts as they were formed. They're still incredibly dangerous spellcasters, they still have skills in combat, but their more monstrous aspects do get drawn out a bit, with a particular dynasty of them becoming infamous for literally starving themselves until they forcibly transform into crazed half-beast monstrosities. The other major difference is that instead of being a bunch of loosely affiliated families largely uninvolved with each other's business, the majority of the vampires are now unquestionably servants of that dastardly skelepope, though the vampires themselves will privately gripe about having to serve such a colossal asshole.

The Flesh-Eaters, on the other hand, take the old Strigoi lineages and transformed them into an army of delusional lunatics who've convinced themselves that they're actually noble knights and kings rather than a bunch of insane ghouls wearing literal flayed skin wielding bones as weapons. This all is the result of Ushoran himself going insane while imprisoned, only to be unwittingly freed by Sigmar and left to spread his infectiously deranged mindset to various other ghouls and other fools desperate for some sort of power that they'd willingly sacrifice their sanity and humanity to become such ghouls.

Warhammer 40,000

There were once actually rules for Vampires (spelled Vampyre) in the 40k universe, taken as supplementary rules for Necromunda they represented an abhuman subtype who drank blood, had superhuman statlines and raised gangs of thralls to do their bidding. Even a young, pony-tailed Gav Thorpe got involved with the rules and wrote up a counter character: B'Ufi the Vampyre Slayer which was somehow part of the 40k canon.

Though 40k has generally left Necromunda behind(Lol, Lmao even), mention of blood sucking mutants can still be found in Dark Heresy and one of the Freeblade Knights (the Crimson Reaper) is rumoured to be a Vampyre. Rogue Trader has vampires as Warp-Spawned entities that change shape and drink the lifeforce of societies they inhabit.

Also, several tabletop factions drink blood as part of their fluff.

"I will drink your blood!"

• Blood Angels A first-founding chapter who includes blood in many of their chapter themes and rituals (and their successors usually follow this), basically what would happen if you threw Catholicism, Bram Stoker's Dracula, and the zombie trope of "still technically alive" in a blender and pressed puree. The Blood Angels have a lot of modern vampiric themes mixed with angelic elements: looking eternally youthful, being long-lived (even by Astartes standards), and having a chance of developing a need to quench their partially dormant bloodthirst. Failure to do so can reduce the Astartes in question to a devolved gorilla-like mutant that goes berserk. These are kept in stasis until they are needed.
• Blood Drinkers A Blood Angels successor chapter. They have a literal need to drink blood, although unlike their more angelic cousins they do not do this out of ritual; instead they do it as a way to sate their chapter's innate bloodlust.
• Flesh Eaters Crappy Space Marines who like to eat flesh. Especially if it's raw. While the Blood Drinkers had collectively fallen to the curse and were declared renegade until they sacrificed themselves to save fellow Blood Angel successors (and even then were not rebuilt as they thought the name was too tainted and just recorded them as martyred and posthumously restored their reputation), the Flesh Eaters don't give into it by being berserk rage all the time so actually being used to it and knowing when to unleash and when to hold it.
• Dark Eldar While not bloodsuckers, although they might drink their victim's blood if it fancies them; the Dark Eldar partake in a sort of "emotional vamprism" on their hosts to sustain themselves. Said vamprism is carried out usually by slowly torturing the host until he's dead. They also follow the "classic" vampire aesthetics, being a bunch of long-lived, crazy arrogant, pale and nimble wannabe-aristocrats. They even come back from dead in a process which involves crystal coffins.

Finally, see Night Lords. (Seriously, how were these not in here before??)

in Literature

The Vampyre

A short story written by John Polidori published in 1819, the Vampyre basically spawned the vampire genre. All of it. It's the Adam and Eve of vampire stories. The story concerns a guy called Aubrey who runs afoul of one Lord Ruthven, who is the title vampire and set the standard used to this day; rich, charming, secretive, handsome, seductive with the ladies, it's all here. He's also an asshole who kills Aubrey's girlfriend and then his sister after seeming to die. Because he's the first vampire in popular fiction, Ruthven predates like... all the normal vampire stuff. He's fine walking around in daylight, can be seriously wounded by things other than garlic and stakes, doesn't shapeshift, but also can be healed by moonlight, and to stay immortal he must kill three women every year. He might also hold some kind of supernatural sway over Aubrey after swearing him to secrecy, so there's that. If you want to be old-school, make your vampires like this guy.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter

A alternate history franchise about the Civil War being caused by a vampire masquerade trying to establish a vampire homeland in the deep south. Campy as hell, but an intriguing story setup that works pretty well.

Dracula

The vampire. No other vampire is more iconic than Dracula himself who, since his debut in Bram Stoker's novel, has become one of the most iconic villains in horror. In the original book, Dracula is very much implied (but not outright confirmed) to be Vlad the Impaler, though most adaptations make them one and the same. Dracula's abilities in the novel include shapeshifting into a bat and wolf, climbing up walls like a spider, hypnosis, turning into mist, being able to walk around in daylight (though weak while doing so) and a variety of others which he doesn’t use because it’d make him too OP to fight. Dracula was an OG powergamer.

Notably, Dracula is written as an elderly aristocrat at the start, but as time goes on, he seems to regain his youth as he kills more victims and demonstrates himself as being fairly competent and dangerous, while being fairly ruthless. Any work dealing with vampires that's set in the "real" world will reference him in one way or another. Strangely, Castlevania is pretty much the only thing that actually gives him the mustache the book describes him as having, probably because Bela Lugosi is so iconic. However he also has a tendency to become a demon as well. Hellsing also busts out the mustache for when its version of Dracula drops the Alucard facade.

The Dresden Files

A number of species (or "Courts) of vampires exist in the The Dresden Files. While the RPG isn't on the neckbeard's essentials list, the novel series is on /tg/'s approved literature list, and the rich background made from the 17 and counting books, numerous short stories, and a few other forms of media is rife with nasties. This includes a number of species that fall under the umbrella of vampires. It should be noted that while they're largely unrelated, vampires have a few thing in common: each Court is essentially a family clan or a close-knit set of family groups; they feed on humans in various ways; they're agelessly immortal; the older they are, the more powerful and more influential in court politics they are.

The Black Court

The Draculas. Meant almost unironically. The Black Court are what we normally think of with the pop cultural vampire: blood drinking, moldering corpses with superpowers. In addition to the expected super strength, super durability, and super speed, Black Court vampires have a grab bag of superpowers, including subverting the will of humans to make them docile and compliant, or as a Renfield, a physically-empowered beast who is fanatically loyal to their master. Black Court vampires are the most powerful, but have the most weaknesses, and it adds up to them being the hardest to fight and easiest to kill. While older, more powerful vampires have some protection against the traditional weaknesses, young vampires have to remain dormant during the daytime. Garlic, sunlight, and getting staked are all lethal, and holy relics are an anathema, and necromantic magic is rumored to be a potent weapon against them. They are also notably vulnerable to more modern means, such as flamethrowers and high explosives. Out of the vampire species, they reproduce the fastest, with victims of their bite getting back up in a matter of minutes and able to create even more Black Court vampires; but the greater their presence means the more attention they draw, meaning the sooner a whole group comes to extinction.

Their rivals in the White Court commissioned Bram Stoker to write the novel Dracula as an expose on their strengths, weaknesses, and signs that a group (or more correctly, a "scourge") of Black Court vampires have taken up residence in an area. This has lead to the court has largely dying out, and natural selection has left the most powerful, the most cunning, and/or the most discreet vampires being left alive, with the odd exception of a young Black Court vampire popping up to cause trouble when an older vampire finds them useful.

The original vampire of the Black Court has the title of the Black King, and in this case it appears to be the original Dracula. His father, Vlad Dracul was ironically even worse, since he was some thing of incredible evil that was trapped in human form (most fan theories posit that he was a demon or a dragon, but juries out if he was something else entirely), and since he was incredibly evil, he was a dick to his son. So out of daddy issues, little Vladdy joined the Black Court according to a snarky magical database, but he might have been mistaken about Dracula having joined the Black Court rather than creating it, as Word of God later posits that Dracula was the Black Court O.G. Whoever the creator was, the Black Court was apparently created when they had made a deal, if not with the Devil, then with a creature of comparable evil and power. Notably, if Dracula was indeed the founder, that would make this Court just more than 5 centuries old, making them the youngest Court.

Red Court

The Red Court are Central American, anthropomorphic bat monsters. Unlike most depictions of anthropomorphic creatures, Red Court vampires are grotesque creatures with flabby bodies, pot bellies, spindly limbs, and slimy skin. For them, blood is both sustenance and a drug, sometimes having a narcotic effect with dependence potentially being a very real issue; and instances of insanity and mental instability occurring in Red Court vampires in much greater frequency than in other Courts and human populations.

Red Court vampires are less powerful than Black Court vampires, but also have fewer weaknesses. There are a higher number of magic users in the Red Court than in the Black (though thats a given and its unknown if that's per capita, since only about two vampires of the Black Court showed up, and literally hundreds of Reds). They have super strength, but the fact that they still have a mass comparable to a human has been leveraged against them. Their main weaknesses are divine symbols, fire, and sunlight, being damaging against them, and lethal only with sustained exposure (with fire, of course, requiring slightly less sustained exposure). They can also heal pretty quickly, given they have enough blood to metabolize. They can also pose as regular (albeit incredibly attractive) humans with a second skin called a flesh mask, which can be formed at will over a few seconds, and it provides them with some protection from sunlight. Elder vampires are hinted to be able to alter their flesh masks, allowing them to disguise themselves, and occasionally they happen to have other abilities (one vampire could mesmerize people with a look in the eyes, making them see the things she wanted them too). Lastly, they have narcotic saliva, which can be used to make prey more compliant and willing (imagine an incredibly hot individual who has a tongue than makes you feel great, numbed, and willing to go along with their suggestions), and they can create "renfielded" individuals by making them dependent on the effects of their saliva.

Most members of the Red Court are survivors of another Red Courts vampire's bite. These "dhampirs" have super strength, immortality, and super senses. Unfortunately, they also have a huge hankering for blood that they need to resist unless they want to become a vampire themselves. A group of rebellious Red Court dhampirs have gathered together as the Order of Saint Giles and are conducting a centuries-long guerrilla war on the Red Court. If a Red Court dhampir ever drinks blood, that is to make or fail to resist the choice of taking the life of another to sate their thirst, then they become a vampire.

The leadership is based around hierarchical system of nobility, the very top is a council of twelve who took the name of the Lords of Outer Night, and the Red King being placed above them, and he having taken the title of Kukulkan. Kukulkan has been the Red King for at least 4,000 years, ruling Central American civilizations from the shadows all the while, and nobody is quite certain where he comes from. The Lords of Outer Night have posed themselves as gods, members of one of the Central American patheons (probably Mayan, going by "Kukulkan"), for several thousand years, and the worship and devotion of mortals has allowed them to become deities in their own right; this means they become much more powerful, and exerting their force of will is like a form of telekinesis that most humans don't have a prayer of overcoming. While considered a nation unto themselves, they control several human nations in Central and South America, mostly through secretly pushing their cult and compulsion of key individuals through intimidation, addiction, or promises of vampirism. As a nation, they have several billion dollars worth of resources and entire villages of humans bred like cattle for consumption and occasionally proliferation, including children.

Kukulkan has ruled the red court for his entire life, though through the novels, his subordinates think that it's about time for his tenure to end. By the "present" in the novels, with the possible exception of a few sequel hooked individuals, the Red Court has been driven to extinction.

The White Court

Incubi and Succubi. The White Court are psychic vampires that mainly feed on psychic energy, mostly lust and desire. They appear the most human, having no secret form and no distinction except for glowing silver eyes when their powers are activated or their hunger is stoked. White Court vampires are more born than created; the son or daughter of a White Court vampire is a human born with a demonic symbiote called a "Hunger", and it manifests at puberty, and is awakened only when it sates itself for the first time the nascent vampire makes love for the first time. The effect is that their partner is drained to the point of death and the human scion of the White Court is transformed into a vampire. Female White Court vampires appear to be sterile (though this isn't confirmed).

The White Court is, in a few ways, the weakest of the Vampires. They're still physically superior to humans in every way, have an ability to regenerate from injury that's superior to the Red Court and much better than the Black Court, and when their power is activated, their strongest vampires can go toe-to-toe with a Black Court vampire. But every time their power is used, it draws from their Hunger, draining their "battery" each time, and one of the best ways to beat them is to exhaust their Hunger. They can inspire lust and devotion in their prey, advanced vampires or vampires with a long term relationship with their "food" being able to take the life force from their prey with a touch. At least one of their more humane vampires has developed a semi-functional romantic relationship with his prey, even with the predator-prey dynamic. To compensate the fact that they generally aren't as powerful and that they don't have the sustained power as their counterparts, the White Court has developed a culture of scheming and manipulation. (On the other hand, their relative weakness and tendency to act indirectly means they aren't enough of a threat to be worth exterminating like the Reds or Blacks were.)

The White King is the patriarch of the Raith family, known only as Lord Raith, and he maintains his position at the top of the heap with a long-earned reputation of being the most powerful White Court vampire and being the entire court's best manipulator. There are other families, presumably derived from Lord Raith's siblings. While House Raith feeds on and can inspire lust and desire, the lesser houses of Malvoras and Skavis have a similar relationship with fear and despair respectively, and it is implied in the RPG books there is another house that feeds on anger. The White Court derives at least as far back as the Etruscan civilization, which was one of Rome's neighbors about 21 centuries ago, and the ancient Etruscan language is still utilized by the Court in the present.

Jade Court

The only court that hasn't appeared directly in the novels. The Jade Court are Asian vampires that have the least details known about them, due to the fact that they're extremely secretive and isolationist, they largely constrain themselves to their bases in China's Yangtze River basin and the area around the South China Sea, and that most of the series takes place in North America. They likely date back to the Qin dynasty. (221-206 BC) They're currently holding themselves up in their homes while they see if the new People's Republic will collapse like previous Chinese governments. While very secretive, they have a reputation for being honorable and respecting the supernatural equivalent of the Geneva conventions. Next to nothing is known about their nature, but fan consensus is that they're Jiangshi, and probably feed on a victims qi.

Other Courts

There are reputedly at least 3 other courts in the 'verse, but they're fleas compared to the others, and thus not really worthy of mention.

Monster Hunter International

Monster Hunter International has two types of vampires: Standard and Master. Vampires move faster than humans, drain blood, are weak to silver (like most monsters), holy stuff, faith, sunlight, can't enter buildings unless invited (though invitations are forever and welcome mats count), can be paralyzed with a stake and must be beheaded to kill. Master Vampires are all around stronger and have a few extra powers including only being weakened by a stake, mind reading, hypnotism, more powerful spawn and, rarely, turning to mist. How exactly master status is determined remains unclear, though they are only below Lich (who are very rare) in PUFF value. The second RPG implies normal vampires become masters through age, and in-character speculates the only young master known to exist got that way by using her monster hunting knowledge to feast on other monsters. Normal humans fed on by a vampire will spawn new vampires from their corpse if they die, regardless of how much time has passed, unless it is cremated or beheaded.

Vampires in the Monster Hunter International verse are, like all non-ghost undead, universally evil. Such universal ethics is notable, as there's at least one non-evil demon in the verse (though if he still counts as one is questionable), and at least one other reformed enough for a PUFF exemption. Fiction portraying sparkly, "friendly" vampires is well loved by vampires in this universe: It makes getting victims so much easier. The running jabs are, at least in part, Larry Correia's way of distancing himself from the other, much worse, Utah Mormon urban fantasy writer (though the work of Anne Rice gets a few jabs as well).

in Television & Film

Nosferatu

The classic 1922 silent film is essentially a bootleg version of Bram Stoker’s Dracula with a more copyright-friendly name. That doesn’t stop it though from coming up with a few original ideas; it’s notable for inventing the entire idea vampires burn in sunlight, something which has stuck with them ever since. The filmmakers' attempt to dodge copyright was notably unsuccessful; the Stoker family sued them and won, leading to most copies of the film being destroyed. We can still see it today thanks to bootlegs that escaped the litigation. However, the character of Count Orlok is a classic example of vampires being terrifying monsters which prey upon the living. Not much backstory is ever really given about him or vampires in this setting, but to defeat a vampire here, a pure maiden must sacrifice herself in order to vanquish him by exposing Orlok to sunlight. Orlok also has a noticeable rat motif going on, bringing rats with him when he moves to a new town, rats which spread the plague. His powers include telekinesis, levitation, some kind of mind control and turning into his own damn shadow. However, what everyone remembers is his appearance, which is now so iconic it's a go-to for making an especially creepy vampire.

in Video Games

Castlevania

The big one. The Castlevania series' main plot focuses around a generational conflict between Dracula and his monsters against the Belmont clan of vampire hunters sworn to oppose him. Notably, Castlevania's interpretation of vampires has them gain supernatural abilities beyond the usual repertoire such as various black magics, teleportation, and the ability to transform into a much greater variety of forms than just bats. They retain several classic elements as well.

Darkest Dungeon

In the videogame Darkest Dungeon, "Bloodsuckers" as the game insists on calling them for some reason are people who, depending on the person, suffer from/revel in what's called "The Crimson Curse," although the game doesn't make it clear whether this is a disease, an actual supernatural curse, a supernatural disease, or whatever (though the fact it can eventually be cured at the hamlet's sanatorium suggests the latter).

The most notable feature of this setting's vampires is that they actually turn into mosquitoes instead of bats (and yes, even the guys suck blood), though there are a handful that turn into ticks instead.

Legacy of Kain

A series of video games from the 90's to the mid 2000's by Crystal Dynamics which has itself some rather unique ideas about vampires and their particular place in the dark fantasy setting of Nosgoth.

While the first game (Blood Omen) plays vampirism rather straight with a few extra tricks like telekinetically sucking blood, there are some vampires that do look rather monstrous when compared to the pale-skinned human the protagonist Kain is. Then came Soul Reaver, which sets itself in a distant shithole of a future where the world's about to end and the vampires are now all very inhuman, each with some very unique evolutions based upon their progenitors (like spider-vampires, mer-vampires, bat-like vampires with sonic blasts, etc.) alongside a developed immunity to sunlight. Even Kain himself looks more like a life-sized gargoyle than a person by this point. Raziel, the second protagonist, makes things even weirder by being an undead vampire who has to feed on souls because he lost his jaw.

Later games expanded upon this by revealing that vampires only became the bloodsucking monsters they are because of an ancient curse by a long-banished enemy that corrupted all vampires and stripped their reproductive abilities from them. With no way to sire vampires or cure their curse, they had to resort to necromancy (Which only made the corruption worse) and eventually became hunted down by greedy fuckwad humans. None of this is helped by the fact that everything's been run by the machinations of an eldritch Lovecraftian entity whose ultimate goal is to own all life in his cycle of life and death.

in Anime & Manga

While Japan may have their share of silly vampires, they mostly respected the traditional image of modern vampires. here are some of the traits you may find when looking through weeaboo media:

• Undulated light-colored hair (white, blueish white or light blonde) when it isn't pitch-black
• Red eyes (may brighten when showing strong emotions)
• Long sharp nails
• Pallid skin with fair if slightly sickly features
• White fangs (duh!)
• Bat wings (sometimes may be feathered wings)
• Very very rich (because long term interests are easy when you are a couple of centuries old, may or may not even be the bank owners)
• Preference of early modern age European customs and dresses (may feature black and red)
• Usually of British or west Slavic ascendancy
• May or may not be real nobility
• Crosses (Apparently it doesn't affect them since they aren't christian...)
• Mockingly suave in times of peace, very cultured
• Ferociously sadist when fighting, the beast is unleashed
• Extremely strong close combat and lighting speed

Of course not all anime and manga or vydiagaem vampires fit to the T with this list, but they will have most of this characteristics, expect them to be proficient fighters with all the advantages of old vampires and enough brains to not to fall to cheap tricks such as exposing themselves to the sun due some silly accident.

The most famous of vampires, Dracula, also pops up in weeaboo form a good amount. The most popular portrayal among these is THE CRIMSON FUCKER aka Alucard of Hellsing (Ultimate) fame, which portrays ol’ Drac as having changed sides after being defeated by the OG Hellsing and still serves his descendants, massacring other vampires and monsters instead of humans, as well as having a pretty good reason for turning to the darkness (spoiler: it’s the result of something very Slaaneshi). His Abridged version, courtesy of the beautiful bastards at TFS is even better, due to him gaining dark humor fitting of someone who doesn’t give a shit about anything anymore.

History of the Vampire

Ancient Vampires

In ancient cultures, there weren't any creatures called "vampires" or any word that roughly translates to "vampire"; however, stories were told of demons and spirits that drank blood or ate flesh. Even the devil was directly associated with the eating of flesh and drinking of blood, and the gods and goddesses of some cultures were credited with these activities.

The Persians were one of the first civilizations to have tales of blood-drinking demons: creatures attempting to drink blood from men were depicted on excavated pottery shards. Ancient Babylonia had tales of the mythical Lilitu, synonymous with and giving rise to Lilith (Hebrew לילית) and her daughters the Lilu from Hebrew demonology. Lilitu was considered a demon and was often depicted as subsisting on the blood of babies. However, the Jewish counterparts were said to feast on both men and women, as well as newborns. The closest this got to the idea of vampires in recent history was that some demons would possess corpses and then use them to drink the blood of people.

Medieval and European Vampires

Many of the myths surrounding vampires originated during the medieval period. The 12th century English historians and chroniclers Walter Map and William of Newburgh recorded accounts of revenants, though records in English legends of vampiric beings after this date are scant. These tales are similar to the later folklore widely reported from Eastern Europe in the 18th century and were the basis of the vampire legend that later entered Germany and England, where they were subsequently embellished and popularized.

During the 18th century, there was a frenzy of vampire sightings in Eastern Europe, with frequent stakings and grave diggings to identify and kill the potential revenants; even government officials engaged in the hunting and staking of vampires. This was due to a combination of hysterical accounts from deathbed-bound plague victims and the simple fact that symptoms of what we now know to be corpse decomposition (e.g. bloating, pallid "bluish" skin and leaking of apparent excess blood) wasn't a fully understood thing yet.

Despite being called the Age of Enlightenment, during which most folkloric legends were quelled, the belief in vampires increased dramatically, resulting in a mass hysteria throughout most of Europe.

The panic began with an outbreak of alleged vampire attacks in East Prussia in 1721 and in the Habsburg Monarchy from 1725 to 1734, which spread to other localities. Two famous vampire cases, the first to be officially recorded, involved the corpses of Peter Plogojowitz and Arnold Paole from Serbia. Plogojowitz was reported to have died at the age of 62, but allegedly returned after his death asking his son for food. When the son refused, he was found dead the following day. Plogojowitz supposedly returned and attacked some neighbours who died from loss of blood.

In the second case, Paole, an ex-soldier turned farmer who allegedly was attacked by a vampire years before, died while haying. After his death, people began to die in the surrounding area and it was widely believed that Paole had returned to prey on the neighbours. Another famous Serbian legend involving vampires concentrates around certain Sava Savanović living in a watermill and killing and drinking blood from millers. The folklore character was later used in a story written by Serbian writer Milovan Glišić and in the Serbian 1973 horror film Leptirica inspired by the story.

The two incidents were well-documented: government officials examined the bodies, wrote case reports, and published books throughout Europe. The hysteria, commonly referred to as the "18th-Century Vampire Controversy", raged for a generation. The problem was exacerbated by rural epidemics of so-claimed vampire attacks, undoubtedly caused by the higher amount of superstition that was present in village communities, with locals digging up bodies and in some cases, staking them.

Although many scholars reported during this period that vampires did not exist, and attributed reports to premature burial or rabies, superstitious belief increased. Dom Augustine Calmet, a well-respected French theologian and scholar, put together a comprehensive treatise in 1746, which was ambiguous concerning the existence of vampires. Calmet amassed reports of vampire incidents; numerous readers, including both a critical Voltaire and supportive demonologists, interpreted the treatise as claiming that vampires existed. In his Philosophical Dictionary, Voltaire wrote:

"These vampires were corpses, who went out of their graves at night to suck the blood of the living, either at their throats or stomachs, after which they returned to their cemeteries. The persons so sucked waned, grew pale, and fell into consumption; while the sucking corpses grew fat, got rosy, and enjoyed an excellent appetite. It was in Poland, Hungary, Silesia, Moravia, Austria, and Lorraine, that the dead made this good cheer."

The controversy only ceased when Empress Maria Theresa of Austria sent her personal physician, Gerard van Swieten, to investigate the claims of vampiric entities. He concluded that vampires did not exist and the Empress passed laws prohibiting the opening of graves and desecration of bodies, sounding the end of the vampire epidemics. Despite this condemnation, the vampire lived on in artistic works and in local superstition.

Celtic mythology features the Baobhan Sidhe, which resemble the archetypal modern horror vampire, as they are beautiful women who take the blood of men while "dancing" with them (usually in a murderous fashion), but have to return to their burial mounds before the rise of the sun. There is also the Lennan Sidhe, or Barrow Lover, who is the tamer, more good natured, monogamous style of vampire girlfriend, who inspires her pet artist but also drains him, sometimes driving him into an early grave. There's also Abhartach, a dwarf magician and tyrant who, according to legend, rose from the grave after he was killed and demanded the blood of his subjects. He was finally killed using a sword made from a specific type of tree wood.

Romanian mythology also contributes heavily to the modern, sociable, attractive notion of vampires, who seem to usually be gingers, and could sometimes pass unnoticed in human society or even procreate or marry; even female vampires could bear offspring. The children are usually fated to become vampires after death. Romanian vampires come in countless varieties, from evil spirits to owls to vampire babes to actual living witches. Romanian vampires potentially have a shot at becoming alive again -- it involves marrying a foreigner, changing their name and leaving the country, however, which sounds a lot less like "becomes human again" and more "sneaks off to bite people elsewhere." Idk, you tell us.

American Vampires

An outbreak of tuberculosis in the 19th century in New England caused a Vampire panic. Tuberculosis, also known as consumption, was understood to be caused when a dead relative began to drain the life of their surviving relatives. Corpses of the dead relatives were dug up and organs ritually removed, such as the heart, and burned to stop the vampire from attacking the local population. These practices were limited to New England and spread by a moral panic and some real panic but a complete lack of understanding of Tuberculosis. Notable figures are Mercy Brown of the Mercy Brown vampire incident of 1892. She and many of her family members died from consumption and the remaining ones, fearing for their lives, exhumed the dead. Mercy's body showed the least amount of decomposition having been stored in a crypt which acted like a freezer, and so gripped with idiot-boomer fear the town removed her heart and liver burned them. This story went national and collectively everyone looked on in horror at what the then-backwoods small townsfolk of New England were doing, and intervened to stop it.

Louisiana has a strong history of vampires within its folklore traditions. Many of these appear around the same time as the New England Vampire Panic and history nerds suspect an origin in tuberculosis. New Orleans being a dummy thick port city saw many travelers who would have easily spread diseases. With a very lax understanding of germ theory and more non-existent ways of containing them outside of ship quarantine, diseases spread fast. Many of the New Orleans/Louisiana vampire myths are heavily tangled New Orleans Voodoo. It is sometimes referred to as Mississippi Valley Voodoo to describe the wider region it is practiced in. It is a cultural form of the Afro-American religions developed by the West and Central African populations of the Louisiana area. Voodoo is one of many incarnations of African-based spiritual folkways, rooted in West African Dahomeyan Vodun. This subculture is an important staple of vampire fiction, with Louisiana being a recurring setting, as well as characters practicing voodoo. Important plants such as garlic may have found their way into vampire myths from voodoo wards. Do not confuse this with etsy witches appropriating plant theory. In the 1980s and 90s emo and goth subcultures split off and a few groups known as “Real vampires” began to form in New Orlands.

Modern Vampires

Vlad von Carstein of Warhammer Fantasy Battle fame. He'd mutilate the unholy tard out of Tinkerbell Cullen. AND HOW.

In the late 1800s, vampires were still widely regarded to be nasty little weirdos like Count Orlok, creeping around in the night looking freakish and completely the opposite of sexy. Literary examples go back as far as the 1740s, though the works that codified vampire as we'd come to know it wouldn't be codified proper until the 19th century, with the likes of Carmilla, Dracula and The Vampyre. Carmilla in particular was one of the first notable instances of a lesbian vampire, and actually predated Dracula by about 27 years. From this root a popular archetype would emerge, primarily in 20th Century film, of the lesbian vampire would who seduce a straight woman, the already-present themes of vampirism-as-sexual-predation amplified by the presence of a then-"taboo" sexuality, and people took notice of the unfortunate implications - once most of 'em finished fapping to it, anyway.

As for Dracula, the novel by Bram Stoker laid much of the groundwork for modern vampire stories: Dracula was originally a thin elderly man with a hooked nose, pointed ears, thick eyebrows, thick mustache, blue eyes that went flaming red when he was mad, and hairy palms, though his appearance became more youthful as he fed on blood. There were also three female vampires who lived with Dracula in an ambiguous relationship that held both familial and romantic/incestuous overtones, and they tried to seduce people into surrendering to them. This novel also added weather manipulation to the powers of vampires, though it's implied as a product of Dracula studying black magic rather than an inherent vampire ability (in fact, one oft-forgotten aspect of that novel is that Dracula was a practitioner of black magic even before he became a vampire, and that this was in fact the origin of his vampirism).

Though hints of their romantic and sometimes erotic aspects had long begun to manifest around the time of Carmilla, and even well before then, it was Tod Browning's adaptation of the aforementioned Dracula that elevated the vampire from their typical creepy unattractive status to the suave ladies' man inspired by the film's star Bela Lugosi. The film "rehabilitated" Dracula into an eloquent and charming (if manipulative) fellow, the likes of which would be firmly embedded into the public consciousness along with the traditional weakness to sunlight (which we incidentally owe to 1922's Nosferatu; before this, even Dracula himself could walk in broad daylight, though his powers were weakened, and if he'd shapeshifted he was stuck in that form until noon).

Lady-types developed a metaphorical hard-on for vampires, and vampires supposedly got literal hard-ons for ladies until 1976, when Anne Rice published the first book in her series, The Vampire Chronicles, which established a more... primal interpretation: Vampires had free will, but all of their needs paled before the all-consuming need for fresh blood to feed upon. This is where we started to see more classical portrayals, the vampire pulling triple-duty as sociopath, glutton, and sophisticate all at once.

Discussion of the vampire mythos and their descent into Suedom/Studom cannot be had without careful analysis of the culture at this time. Vampires, up through the 1980s, had always been associated with gothic horror - it's one of many reasons that there was such a resurgence of Victorian-style fashion amongst the Goth crowd, which admittedly a lot of /tg/ finds impossibly hot. Goth culture celebrated vampire mythos for this very reason; they were a worthy bit of admirable folklore, the source of many an interesting BBEG, and an inspiration for a lot of things in Goth culture. This "classical" archetype is what we would see with most Vampire portrayals throughout movies, comic books, television series, and so on during this time.

Sadly, in the early 1990s, cross-contamination by the "Emo" subculture caused this to bottom out in a parasitic fashion - Emo glutted itself on anything it could encounter and claimed that it belonged rightly to it, and Goth subculture, with its established fashion sense and habits, was a natural target. The prevalence of Emo bullshit caused the bulk of the Goth subculture to retreat back to its Victorian roots, but not before Emos had secured vampires as "their own." Similar fates would happen to other genres: Grunge, Punk, and even the Beat movement would all likewise be absorbed by Emo attempts to claim it, which is why many stereotypes - including Emo fashion, music stylings, and predilection towards poetry - persist to this day.

More relevant, however, is the damage that Emo subculture did to the popular perception of vampires, romanticizing them into individuals for whom the taste for blood was little more than a dietetic quirk. Identifying with the angst of the undead condition to the point of hanging all their pots on that one hook, these teenyboppers would drag the reputation of the vampire down to levels of "brooding wangsty limpdick loser" as it was increasingly associated with make-up, bad poetry, and incense lit to conceal the smell of pot so the "vampire kid's" parents don't come in and scold them in front of his friends from high school. Emos continue to drink tomato juice from plastic Halloween goblets, dress up like shitty vampires, and whine endlessly about how they supposedly hate life to this very day, whilst everyone else who remembers the good old days just shakes their head in disgust, goes "son, I am disappointed," and walks off, depressed.

...and then there was the Vampire: the Masquerade LARP scene. Yet even that paled in comparison to the influence of one infamous work...

Twilight

This article or section is about a topic that is particularly prone to Skub (that is, really loud and/or stupid arguments). Edit at your own risk, and read with a grain of salt, as skubby subjects have a bad habit of causing stupid, even in neutrals trying to summarize the situation.

Possibly the most notorious example of the "ruination" of vampires in contemporary media can be credited to Twilight, whose vamps are less like undead fiends and more like mysterious pretty-boys, who sparkle in the sunlight rather than burning to death.

Now to be fair, some of the hate Twilight gets is unwarranted, as the sexual aspect of Vampires goes back centuries. The idea of vampires being totally amiable chaps whom it's completely safe to hang around might not be anywhere near as old, but it's far from original to Twilight as well. Even the idea of vampires subsisting on nonhuman blood goes back rather far, since fucking everyone's thought to ask that at one point or another. Twilight did many things wrong, but the only one that lies with its actual depiction of Vampirism is the memetic Sunlight Sparkling.

Twilight was a 4-part book series, authored by overly horny Mormon woman Stephanie Meyer, which was marketed at tween girls - completely unremarkable, until you consider that the first book alone had an initial print run of 75,000 copies and that the movies are internationally successful.

To make an unnecessarily long story short, a woman named Bella gets saved from a car crash by Edward, a mysterious pretty boy who looks all emo and shit. After half a book of plodding romantic crap, we learn that he's a vampire (as though the sunken eyes, avoidance of sunlight and pale skin weren't a massive tipoff). But it's okay -- he and his family are vegetarian vampires, they don't drink human blood. Oh, and sunlight doesn't kill them, it makes them sparkle like Tinkerbell on a six-coffee bender. Oh, and he and his family all have superpowers as if they were the vampire Justice League.

Things become even more retarded when her Native American best friend is revealed to be a werewolf, and the least convincing love triangle of all time ensues, inasmuch as it is explicitly stated over the next two books that she'll choose Edward. Meanwhile, various other shit involving the not-Catholic vampire Illuminati among other things happens, most of which is glossed over or covered in the most hamfisted way ever.

This is itself combined with said Mary Sue insisting on being turned into a vampire, only to be told they need to get married for some reason. Stupid, yes. But if you view it as a metaphor for sex and keep in mind that the author is a devout Mormon, it makes a lot more sense - insofar as a vampire abstinence porno Meyer could get off to without angering Jesus could make sense. Incidentally, said Mormonism is also why we get such peculiar euphemisms as "Holy crow" in the books. No, really.

The last book of the series can be summed up as follows:

"I'm gonna die a horrible death during childbirth, and my kid's gonna look like a god-forsaken hellspawn all because I fucked a vampire. Oh wait, hold the phone-- it's ok, he's going to turn me into a vampire too, and mystical vampire magic will heal my spine so I can frolic through the forest in heels and a cocktail dress, while my werewolf ex-boyfriend tries to fuck my baby hellspawn daughter."

Tl;dr Stupid biatch can't decide for 4 episodes if she's a necrophile or a zoophile, and can't close her mouth as well. End of story.

On top of all of this are the accusations of encouraging toxic relationships, domestic violence, racism, and stalking, and catering to the Mormon ideal of the nuclear family and male dominance through female submission in the most base sense of the concept (arson, murder, and jaywalking for those who don’t believe their culture’s differences are inherently superior to Mormon culture)... all written with the expect kind of incompetence that coalesced it into a truly marvel-worthy abomination, and then marketed to teenage and young adult girls.

Now at this point, vampires still had the whole "aura of promiscuity" thing going for them - Pinelight took to its logical conclusion, and in doing so created the spitting image of the fucked-up, universally-mocked, emotionally-abusive teen heartthrobs that naive or similarly fucked-up teenagers would find sold to them. With this, vampires reached an absolute state of immense glittery faggotry that caused every Vampire Counts player in WHFB, every old-school Goth, and everyone who gives a damn about literary or cultural verisimilitude to cry manly tears of pain and rage as they declared vampires Ruined Forever™.

...well, we say "forever", and yet here we are.

The /tg/ Invasion

/tg/ at large became aware of Twilight shortly after the release of the first book, when random (presumably) teenyboppers and/or neckbeards began popping up on threads squeeing about seeing this awesome new series with its SoKewl vampires and asking for advice on how to stat them out as characters — or worse, suggesting that they were superior to 'proper' vampires and should totally replace our icky night crawlers as a superior breed. These questions and "suggestions" were met with reasonable counterpoints, which became more eloquent after some few elegan/tg/entlemen actually read the book.

This rapidly expanded into a multiple-year-long discussion when the real-life popularity of the books (and later the movies) grew so great that it became impossible to avoid, and Edward Cullen became the poster boy and (especially) punching bag for vampires everywhere. /tg/ did what they did, raging day in and day out against the "dying" of the scary and badass monsters-of-the-night that vampires originally were - joined (somewhat surprisingly) by the rest of popular culture.

A pleasant byproduct of this backlash was the surge of more and more media that not only took the piss out of these overidealized sparkly wangsters, but eventually went fully in the opposite direction and made vampires actually frightening and dangerous again. Believe it or not, this was partly spurred by Edward Cullen himself - the actor who played Ed, Robert Pattinson, mentioned in interviews long after the fact that after reading the books he immediately made Ed for the creepy antisocial loser he was, and played his part to its logical conclusion.

The wellspring of righteous fury on the subject has long since run dry, aside from a brief revival in 2020, and even then it no longer has the cultural relevance to even halfway justify any further sustained vitriol - less of the frothing, passionate hatred of old that became well-ingrained into pop culture itself, and more of the apathetic "yeah, fuck that series" disdain that comes with hindsight and the passage of time.

Even after you filter for the usual population of folks who blow up at the slightest provocation, the Twilight invasions remain one of the most epic RAGE inducing eras of /tg/ history. And yet, for all that, the image of an all-powerful badass creature of the night that can be both repulsively monstrous and charmingly human retains its appeal, showing that sometimes, just sometimes... there's nothing wrong with just liking things. Even with the usual fleet of derivative hacks, a good idea is a good idea, and there's a reason the public is willing to remember them more often.

As a small side note, an occasional /tg/ sentiment is that there's possibly a better story hidden under all that Mormon schlicking material -- the vampire mechanics are not that bad, if you're not going to have them burn up in the sun, and the vague plotline of the first book ("'Vegetarian' vampires come into conflict with wandering criminal vampires") sounds like something that could make a fairly good Vampire or Hunter campaign.

Defining Abilities

Though vampires as a species have gone through the gamut in regards to what powers they do or don't have or how to identify one, there are some very common powers that a great number of vampires possess.

• Bloodthirst: THE defining feature. It occurs usually because vampirism is a product of black magic or demonic involvement, so it's either the price for all their powers, blood fuels their powers or something demons added because well... they're evil. Regardless of reasons such as simple survival, slaking an addiction or just sadism, almost all vampires have to drink blood. Depending on the artist some vampires suck the blood out with their fangs, while others just rip their prey in half and gulp it right down their throats. Also comes with bad side effects if they don't such as going blood-crazy like a rabid dog, weakening until they're paralyzed or dying. It also serves as the main source of conflict for vampires, as it can potentially lead to a conflict in conscience or morality by putting another's life at risk (if not ending it altogether) in order to preserve their way of life.
  • Healing Factor: Like any self-respecting BBEG, a vampire's gotta have regeneration if they plan on living past one fight. Usually, drinking blood hastens the process. Anything that causes continuous harm (such as drowning or burning) might overwhelm the healing factor, and a few things may be shown to cancel it out or bypass it entirely.
• Immortality: Another defining feature - vampires generally don't age at all, though some works add the caveat of "so long as they're well-fed on blood." Particularly powerful vampires may have this upgraded to "complete" immortality, rendering them functionally impossible to kill outside of extremely specific and difficult to achieve circumstances while also being incapable of aging.
• Hypnotism: As part of their drop-dead sexy, vampires tend to have some sort of hypnotic power, usually in the form of some entrancing gaze (For an example, look at Mephiston's Transfixing Gaze or DIO's flesh buds).
• Shapeshifting: Vampires tend to have some form of shapeshifting, even if it's just to conceal their less human features from unsuspecting eyes. There are also those vampires who can shapeshift into animals (typically bats, but they can also turn into wolves, rodents, and even mist). Some vampires can also shapeshift into more monstrous forms, reserved for when they're truly pissed off (Both Hellsing's and Castlevania's interpretations of Dracula come to mind).
• No Reflections: For whatever reason (usually related to silver, see below) vampires do not show up on mirrors. Whether a vampire's clothes show up in mirrors is up to the artist. Sometimes this is played with, like making it that they only show up on mirrors not lined with silver, or making them not show on photos (and this sub-rule can be taken further, since not all cameras use mirrors). It's usually a dead giveaway that vampires aren't human.
  • No Shadows: When in a room without mirrors (which can happen quite a bit depending on setting), a vampire's inability to cast a shadow might be a giveaway. Just pray that said shadow isn't planning on double-teaming you. Shenanigans with multiple shadows from multiple light sources are surprisingly rare.
• Shadow Magic: Whenever vampires are allowed to use magic, they tend to focus on using shadows or necromancy, sometimes blood manipulation. Telepathy is another frequent power, especially when communicating to lackeys/vassals.
• Super Strength/Speed: Another common power for vampires is some kind of enhancement to their natural strength and/or speed, particularly if the writer is aiming to play up the vampire as an inhuman predator or outright monster as opposed to a human that doesn't age and gets severe sunburns easily.

Weaknesses

Just like the features of vampires, their weaknesses have also gone through various interpretations, but they usually follow some common tropes.

• Sunlight: Despite what pop culture says, sunlight doesn't always kill vampires. Even in Stoker's classic, sunlight really just hampered Dracula's power to the point that he's effectively a normal human. Again, thank Nosferatu for that particular bit of suck sauce. Of course, some settings have vampires be resistant enough to sunlight that it just irritates, if it bothers at all. And then there are those that just...turn into fucking sparkles upon exposure to sunlight. Whatever the case, sunlight's not a nice thing to a vampire, so they tend to sleep in their coffins to pass the time until night falls.
• Stakes: Yes, the other trademark weakness. By piercing a stake (usually of either silver or wood) through a vampire's heart, sometimes at a crossroad, you can effectively cancel out their blasphemous regenerative properties and kill them for good. This aspect of vampirism is often criticized on the grounds that it's just as lethal to normal folks and tax collectors/recruiters, but in the original lore the implication seems to be that the heart is the only spot that shoving a stake into will do you any good. In the event that this doesn't kill them, it may still put them in a coma-like state until it is removed, eliminating the immediate threat and allowing one the time to perform a method that will dispose of them more permanently.
• Decapitation: Another weakness that's just as lethal to normal people!
• Woodchipper: Vampires can tank a lot of damage, but there is usually a ceiling on it. If nothing else, having everything below the neck ground into hamburger is technically decapitation.
• Holy power: Since vampires are almost universally unholy creatures if not being demonic themselves, the power of God or gods is a major weakness of theirs. This includes things such as holy water, holy objects (some vampires can't even touch a copy of the Bible) and symbols; Crosses are a popular choice, especially if there's a demonic/Satanic element to vampires, though in some settings it's based on faith rather than divine power, or else it just don't work. These can repel, hurt or even outright kill vampires. Certain substances can also be effective such as thorns - like Crosses, deriving power from Christ's crucifixion ala the Crown of thorns - or salt because the purifying properties of salt extend to the supernatural or it just repels evil spirits. Sometimes this ties into staking, because for the Stake to kill them it has to be from wood that's either blessed or considered holy. Most modern versions nerf this to require someone use these objects to channel True Faith in order to avoid asserting a single religion is correct. This can even extend to non-religious faith, like to communism, being able to do the job.
• Silver: Silver works fine enough on werewolves, why not use your silvered weapons here too? Interestingly, in some stories werewolves could change into vampires, giving another reason for the shared weakness; other pre-Christian Pagan myths also connect it to the Sun, for a more obscure link. It's also traditionally linked with concepts of purity and health due to its antimicrobial properties, which provides a neat contrast to the concept of the vampire as a corrupt, disease-spreading figure.
• Running Water: For some vampires, running water, be it rivers or aqueducts, is an effective way to block them off, even when they could just fly over it. Maybe it's because it reminds them of blood flowing in veins. Maybe it's because water's acidic to them, as is the case in the Legacy of Kain series. Maybe it's because disease tends to breed easier in stagnant water than running water. Interestingly, this can be overcome according to some stories - Dracula himself explicitly could cross running water "at the slack or flood of the tide" (i.e: low or high tide).
• Garlic: A persistent weakness involved vampires having a phobia of garlic, originally because superstition (a lot of cultures thought garlic was a symbol of health or holiness) and nowadays because it's frankly hilarious. Expect vampires to be crippled by it either because of how it smells awful or because it has some sort of property that's lethal to them like some supernatural food allergy. Then again, some vampires can't taste a thing and wouldn't even notice.
• Arithomania: In case you ever wanted to mention a very petty or stupid weakness, there's spreading sesame seeds somewhere - some vampires have a obsessive-compulsive need to count the fuckers, like the Count from Sesame Street - even when it leads to them counting until sunrise. This plays into the demonic factor, as in some folklore and mythology demons are very OCD.
• Knots: Coupled with the OCD theme above, another stupid weakness comes from the idea that vampires are obsessed with out-of-place or messy knots, and will pause whatever they are doing to untie them upon sight. Apparently this is a weakness that is tied with fairies who will also fall for this trick according to old-time legends.
• Permission: Another very unusual habit some vampires have is their inability to enter a residence without permission. This usually plays hand in hand with their hypnotic factor, but if denied, they'll just pace around angrily until they can try again if they don't decide to go to greener pastures. It's actually important to define what does and doesn't count as permission in your work, as one common joke involves a vampire pointing to the Welcome Mat at a confused victim's front door. Revocation of permission may or may not be a possibility, and it's unclear whether they can come and go as they please after being given permission once.
• Fire: Fire is another common weakness for vampires, usually due to it being connected to the Sun or due to causing dead things (like vampires) to burn faster. In some versions it can cause outright panic attacks in vampires, sending them running away from fires in blind terror, while in others it's just very, very dangerous for them to get set on fire.
• Roses: Yes, really. The original Dracula couldn't open his coffins at night if a wild rose was laid atop the coffin while he slept during the daytime, essentially meaning that he could be trapped in one if careless. This is understandably one of the less-seen weaknesses, though for those of you folklore nerds there IS an explanation: the weakness is not specifically a rose, but all thorned flowers, usually hawthorne (wild rose is just more romantic). When a recently deceased folk was suspected to turn into a vampire, he was buried with said plants, sometimes even bound with them, so that it was difficult and painful for him to climb out from a coffin (that's ALSO an alternative explanation for funeral wreaths tradition, with them being made from evergreen, thus prickly branches).
• Limited Shapeshifting: Another weakness from the OG himself, Dracula could only shape-shift at exactly noon, sundown, or sunrise - for the rest of the time, he's stuck as whatever form he chose to take. Needless to say, this could be a problem if the vampire shifts into a form inappropriate for something they need to do urgently.
• Homesickness: Of a sort - some works portray vampires as needing to sleep on soil from their homeland or be incapable of resting, which will weaken their abilities (see: Clan Tzimisce and Dracula himself). The easiest way to get around this is to do as the OG did and keep large amounts of homeland dirt in several (dozen) different places, since there's no rule that it has to be part of your homeland.
• Everyone Just Fucking Staying Inside At Night: If both the sunlight rule and the permission rule are in play, then this is all you'll need to do to starve out a vampire. But this makes for a fucking lame villain, so no character ever thinks of this.

Sexy, Sexy Vampires

Prove your worth, and she may favor you for the evening.

This article or section is about Monstergirls (or a monster that is frequently depicted as a Monstergirl), something that /tg/ widely considers to be the purest form of awesome. Expect PROMOTIONS! and /d/elight in equal measure, often with drawfaggotry or writefaggotry to match.

When Sheridan Le Fanu and Bram Stoker wrote their vampire novels (Carmilla and "Dracula" respectively) in the 1800s, setting up the modern vampire, both included heavy erotic themes from the gate. Carmilla was as much a lesbian stalker as you could make a character in 1871 and invented the b movie staple of the “lesbian vampire”. While ol' Drac himself was not exactly portrayed as the handsomest individual, the book's scenes of Dracula's attacks on sleeping women had a darkly erotic undertone (and two of Drac's attacks on women who are awake read like rape scenes) that women readers instantly picked up on, because some women are just fucked up like that. Add in Dracula's far more handsome portrayal by actor Bela Lugosi in the first ever film depiction (which was based on the play rather than the actual novel, btw), and you had the beginnings of the vampire's descent into sexual fandom amongst the growing Goth movement. Add in Anne Rice's sexually charged Vampire Chronicles books, and thus the "Vampires Are Sex Gods" trope was born.

Though it initially tended to be the male vampires who get presented in this light, dominating the niche genre of "supernatural romance" for women by an enormous margin, there are MORE than enough voluptuous, sexually provocative female vampires in media that monstergirls fans aren't left entirely in the dust.

In fact, it's not actually unprecedented; the Balkans had stories of Dhampirs, the offspring of vampires and their human wives, for centuries before Anne Rice put pen to paper, so people have been seeing vampires as sexy for a pretty long time.

Though it's worth noting that erection in humans is achieved by inflating the penis with blood, and that increased bloodflow plays no small role for a woman's genitals either, which might complicate things if your vampires are the sort without a pulse...

In the Monster Girl Encyclopedia, the vampire is presented as a kind of succubus with a taste for bloodplay and an affinity for necromancy. They are arrogant, conceited tsunderes, demanding only the very best in a potential human mate. Unless you feed them garlic, whereupon they turn into a horny, submissive slut.

If you're including them in your setting...

If you're including vampires in your worldbuilding, you should probably decide what general metaphor and niche you're going for.

To provide some examples of niches:

• The inhuman monsters who are merely pretending to be human.
• The tortured and persecuted people struggling with their inhuman and/or monstrous wants and/or needs.
• Both of the above, with the more inhuman ones being the ones who fall off the slippery slope.
• Always Enemy Mook types, who it's perfectly okay for protagonists to murder by the bucketful.
• Superhuman badasses who in turn have some very obvious vulnerabilities.
  • In other words: A just about perfect opponent for an "asymmetric warfare" scenario.

And some of the more obvious metaphors to reach for:

• Human predators, whether social or physical.
• "Aristocrats are evil parasites" cliches made literal.
• Violent criminals generally.
• The inhuman creature who mainly serves as an exploration of immortality.
• On the positive side, it's fairly easy to make "attempting to be good" vampires into "recovering addict" metaphors.

The two most important questions are "Are they protagonist material?" and "Are they by default antagonists?"--and it's quite possible to answer "Yes" to both, with the "good guy" vampires being in some way the exception to the rule (for example, a spell exists to grant a vampire a human soul)--or, for that matter, "no" to being default antagonists (for example, if they don't need to kill when they feed, nor do they have to feed on humans, "civilized" vampires may emerge).

Another question to ask is whether you want to give them an animal motif, and if so, what animal. There are actually a number of options here. There's the obvious classical bat, but that connection actually only arose when European settlers arrived at North America and learned that some of the bats there drink blood; prior to that, vampires turned into wolves. The film Nosferatu actually gave Orlok (yes, that was the vampire's name) a plague rat motif. And as mentioned above, the Bloodsuckers of the videogame Darkest Dungeon brilliantly utilize a mosquito motif, one particular individual amongst them instead has a tick motif, and then there's a mod for that game where an individual of a different strain comes along who has a leech motif.

There's also the all-important but rarely-addressed question of whether nonhuman blood can sustain them, and by extension whether nonhuman vampires are possible. If the answer to either of these is no, then it's best to have a reason why. If the answer to both is yes, then it's best to give your vampires some of the freaky supernatural abilities and aspects available to you, because otherwise they'd really be no different from some poor sob who got attacked by a wild animal and contracted rabies.