Vampire Vampires were parasitic , long - lived creatures who inhabited countless worlds across the universe and beyond . They descended from the Great Vampire s and reproduced by infecting other life forms . They subsisted on blood . According to the data bank of K9 Mark II , accounts about the vampires came from at least 19 different inhabited planets . ( TV : " State of Decay " ) Vampirism was a phase that almost every inhabited planet went through . Because of this , there were several vampiric species who called themselves names other than " vampire " . These included Necrobiological s , ( AUDIO : " Zaltys " ) Haemovore s , ( TV : " The Curse of Fenric " et al ) Gelezen , ( COMIC : " Signs of Life " ) and Plasmavore s . ( TV : " Smith and Jones " ) Biology . Characteristics . The vampire " curse " had different strains . ( PROSE : " Vampire Science " ) The vampires encountered by the Fourth Doctor in E - Space , for instance , had pale skin and fangs , and aged rapidly to the point of death when their creator , the King Vampire , was destroyed . ( TV : " State of Decay " ) An equally alarming vampire attacked the Second Doctor while he was on a mission for the CIA . It was very tall , skeletal , with glowing red eyes in a dead - white face . ( PROSE : " World Game " ) According to one account , to be infected , an individual had to be repeatedly fed upon . Those infected had only a small chance of living through the mutation process . ( PROSE : " Blood Harvest " ) Another account stated that it was very easy to become a vampire . If a victim was not completely drained of blood , they would become a vampire . ( AUDIO : " Litefoot and Sanders " ) Those who turned into vampires became stronger and developed a sensitivity to light , mild hydrophobia and an allergy to the allyl component in garlic . Their mutated selves developed a hunger for protein and so they compensated for this by drinking blood . ( PROSE : " The Eight Doctors " , " Blood Harvest " ) They preferred the blood of the living to that of the dead ( TV : " State of Decay " ) , and could not survive solely on animal blood without lapsing into a fugue . They had a highly advanced cardiovascular system and fast recuperative powers , so small wounds healed nearly immediately . A significant blow had to be made to kill one , such as puncturing the heart or decapitation . ( PROSE : " The Eight Doctors " ) A related group of vampires , encountered by the Fifth Doctor had the ability to fly . They were capable of rapidly healing injuries and could summon other vampires by exuding a bloody mist , carried on the wind . They could change their shape and turn into mist . The DNA of these vampires was so contagious that even flowers growing on a vampire ' s grave would be affected . Vampires were affected by the faith of others , as it affects the transition between the quantum and classical states of physics in the humanoid mind . It was therefore possible that Ice Warrior s would be unable to perceive vampires . Faith or garlic could , in large - enough doses , make a vampire completely vanish . When attacked by a vampire in Paris , the Second Doctor wished for an axe , a stake , and a crucifix . ( PROSE : " World Game " ) Because , as in Time Lords , the bioplasmic fields were centred on their brain stem , decapitation caused vampires to crumble into dust . The stomach of a vampire was bigger on the inside . They were unable to cross running water and instinctively slept during the daylight hours . If a vampire converted a new individual but was destroyed before the next full moon , the new vampire would revert to normal . They were telepathic . ( PROSE : " Goth Opera " ) Another group of vampires was encountered by the Eighth Doctor in San Francisco . These vampires crumbled into red ash if staked through the heart , could be destroyed by sunlight , and had reflections . If two vampires drank each other ' s blood , a psychic connection would form between them , a process known as bloodfasting . Two vampires linked in this way would feel each other ' s pain . Converting a new vampire required the initiate to drink a vampire ' s blood . These vampires also suffered from malnutrition if they tried to live on animal blood , in this case that of cows . ( PROSE : " Vampire Science " ) Vampires and Time Lords shared 98 % of the same gene s ; regeneration was similar to vampiric abilities . ( PROSE : " Goth Opera " , AUDIO : " Project : Destiny " ) History . War with Gallifrey . During the Dark Time , the Time Lord s of Gallifrey , under the command of Rassilon , came into conflict with a race known as the Great Vampire s ( TV : " State of Decay " ) or the Yssgaroth . ( PROSE : " The Pit " ) They were accidentally unleashed into the universe by a Time Lord experiment . ( PROSE : " The Pit " ) The Time Lords used Bowship s , which fired huge bolts of steel into the vampire ' s heart . ( TV : " State of Decay " , " Interference " ) Eventually , the Great Vampires were all slain , with the exception of the King Vampire , who escaped into E - Space . ( TV : " State of Decay " ) The war destroyed dozens of inhabited planets . After this time , every Time Lord had a duty to deal with any vampires they encountered . ( PROSE : " Vampire Science " ) The Fourth Doctor found the King Vampire buried on a planet in E - Space , where it had infected three crew members of the " Hydrax " , turning them into vampires . The Doctor destroyed the King Vampire by flying a scout ship into its heart . ( TV : " State of Decay " ) However , the three had infected many of the humans who lived on the planet . The Doctor and Romana met with a group from the House of Zarn . ( PROSE : " The Eight Doctors " ) According to a " half - true " projection created by the TARDIS , the Great Vampires lived only on the blood of self - bred mindless animals , and had done nothing to offend the Time Lords , but Rassilon chose to purge them from the universe . The Vampires disguised themselves as human s in an attempt to escape attack , but Rassilon continued to slaughter them . ( AUDIO : " Zagreus " ) Aftermath of war . A Time Lord story shows an owl , symbolising Rassilon , being overcome by a bat . It was claimed that the Great Vampire bit Rassilon and that Rassilon became a vampire himself . ( PROSE : " Goth Opera " ) In the ducts and serviceways of the Capitol there were vampire shrines still used in the Doctor ' s time . Small groups of heretics called the followed the Cult of Rassilon the Vampire . ( COMIC : " Blood Invocation " , PROSE : " Goth Opera " ) Ruath claimed that Rassilon deliberately became a vampire , knowing that the Time Lords had reached an evolutionary dead end and faced certain extinction . Ruath claimed that he knew vampires would become the dominant life in the universe , and lay undead in his tomb awaiting that moment . ( PROSE : " Goth Opera " ) Vampires were one of the few things that could still frighten a Time Lord . The Second Doctor had to break free from this conditioning in order to fight the vampire sent to kill him , while his companion Serena was unable to move at all . The Doctor contemplated that the legends of the wars against the Great Vampire s and bowship s had remained as an atavistic fear . He found it difficult to battle the creature , for it was already mostly dead and felt almost no pain , but it smelled the garlic on his breath and was repulsed . He killed it with a makeshift stake . A number of vampires remained in the Death Zone after the games were closed . One was the vampire Luco sent to murder the Second Doctor in Paris . The Doctor realised the trick when the staked vampire slowly dissolved ( de - materialised ) instead of crumbling to dust . He recognised the work of a Time Scoop and found it even more terrifying than fighting a vampire . ( PROSE : " World Game " ) Vampires on Earth . In 1903 , after receiving a wealth of information from the future , Grigori Rasputin saw vampires . ( AUDIO : " The Wanderer " ) In 1911 , the Forge harvested vampire DNA in South America . They initiated Project : Twilight , a program to create a vampire super - soldier to fight in World War I . On 4 October 1915 , 57 vampires escaped from the Forge Alpha Facility . William Abberton , the scientist in charge of the project , injected himself with the vampire DNA and vowed to kill all of the escaped test subjects . ( AUDIO : " Project : Twilight " , PROSE : " Project : Valhalla " ) In the 1970s , NASA conducted experiments involving vampires . ( AUDIO : " Zaltys " ) In 1973 , the Third Doctor and Jo Grant fought a vampire in Los Angeles . ( AUDIO : " The Elixir of Doom " ) By the end of November 2001 , William Abberton had killed all of the Project : Twilight vampires , with William Moore being the final one . ( PROSE : " Project : Valhalla " ) However , before Abberton killed Reggie Mead and Amelia Doory , they infected Cassandra Schofield with the Twilight Virus . ( AUDIO : " Project : Twilight " ) The Forge recruited Cassie and brainwashed her into becoming one of their agents . ( PROSE : " Project : Valhalla " ) Creatures mistaken for vampires . The Corvid s were mistaken for vampires in 1972 . ( COMIC : " The Highgate Horror " ) The people of Saturnyne as well as their leader Sister of the Water passed themselves off as vampires in 1580 Venice . ( TV : " The Vampires of Venice " ) Society . Vampires sometimes came together in covens . The traditional number for a coven was fourteen , one more than the number of lives allotted to a Time Lord . ( PROSE : " Vampire Science " ) The Second Doctor knew it was possible a " colony of vampires " existed somewhere in Paris . ( PROSE : " World Game " )