Vampire

The Three Who Rule, a group of vampires as they appeared in State of Decay

**Vampires**, or **vampyres**, were parasitic, long-lived creatures who inhabited countless worlds across the universe and beyond. The original vampires were the Great Vampires of the Dark Times, who were emanations of the Yssgaroth, which was potentially an individual entity, although others thought of the Yssgaroth as a species or a phenomenon. The lesser vampires of later ages, a form of Mal'akh, descended from, and served, the Great Vampires. They "reproduced" by infecting other life forms with their "Yssgaroth taints", turning them into undead vampires, and subsisted on blood.

According to the data bank of K9 Mark II, accounts about the vampires came from at least seventeen 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 Haemovores. (TV: *The Curse of Fenric*)

## Biology

### Appearance

The vampire "curse" had different strains. (TV: *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*)

### Infection of others

Converting a new vampire required the initiate to drink a vampire's blood. (TV: *Vampire Science*) According to one account, if a vampire converted a new individual but was destroyed before the next full moon, the new vampire would revert to normal.(TV: *Goth Opera*)

### Abilities

Vampires and Time Lords shared 98% of the same genes; regeneration was similar to vampiric abilities. (TV: *Goth Opera*) Vampires were capable of rapidly healing injuries, such as broken fingers. (TV: *Goth Opera*)

They preferred the blood of the living to that of the dead. (TV: *State of Decay*)

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. (TV: *Vampire Science*)

### Weaknesses

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. (TV: *Goth Opera*)

A group of vampires encountered by the Ninth Doctor in San Francisco would crumble into red ash if staked through the heart, could be destroyed by sunlight, and had reflections. These vampires also suffered from malnutrition if they tried to live on animal blood, such as that of cows. (TV: *Vampire Science*)

## History

### War with Gallifrey

During the Dark Times, the Time Lords of Gallifrey, under the command of Rassilon, came into conflict with a race known as the Great Vampires (TV: *State of Decay*) or the Yssgaroth. (TV: *Hostage*) They were accidentally unleashed into the universe by a Time Lord experiment. (TV: *Hostage*) The Time Lords used bowships, which fired huge bolts of steel into the vampire's heart. (TV: *State of Decay*)

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. (TV: *Vampire Science*)

### Legacy of war

A Time Lord story showed 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. In the ducts and serviceways of the Capitol there were vampire shrines still used in the Doctor's time. Small groups of heretics followed the Cult of Rassilon the Vampire. 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. (TV: *Goth Opera*)

### Vampires on Earth

The vampire lord Yarven was sought out by Ruath in 1993, who believed him to be the Vampire Messiah foretold by the Cult of Rassilon the Vampire. She became his consort and he turned her into a vampire, however their plans were foiled by the Eighth Doctor. (TV: *Goth Opera*)

In 1997, the Ninth Doctor, Lena Haigh and UNIT combated a coven of vampires in San Francisco. (TV: *Vampire Science*)

### Vampires in E-Space

From within E-Space, the King Vampire drew the *Hydrax*, a human exploration vessel from the 22nd century, through a Charged Vaccum Embotiment. It turned the three crew members into vampires and they became his servants, the Three Who Rule, on the planet where the King lay dormant. For a thousand years the Three ruled over local villages, preparing for the Time of Arising when the King would awake.

At the Time of Arising, the Fourth Doctor, Romana, K9 and Adric arrived on the planet. They led the overthrow of the Three Who Rule and destroyed the King Vampire by flying a scout ship into its heart. (TV: *State of Decay*)

## 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. (TV: *Vampire Science*)