Nyesaya

Like traditional vampires they are known for their need to feed on human blood/flesh to survive, as well as their shapeshifting abilities and tendancy to lure in prey with their appealing human appearance (most of the time)

## Biology

* Unlike traditional vampires, Nyesaya shapeshifting abilities are very slow - they have this ability so they can adapt to the shifting beauty standards of humans
* They can actually accelerate their shapeshifting and hold a temporary form for up to a minute before reverting back to their more stable form (this is limited to less structural things however, like skin, eye, and hair color) - they can use this ability for temporary camouflage
* Vampires are sexless but are generally socialized as female, as female presentation tends to be the most effective lure - some vampires do identify as male but it's pretty rare
* They are cold-blooded and spend several months from late Autumn to Spring in brumation - they also sleep up to 20 hours a day, they only need to eat once a month or so to remain healthy
* Though their shapeshifting powers can help in retaining a youthful appearance throughout their lives vampires do not live much longer than humans naturally, only an extra 20-40 years at most
* Though they emotionally mature at the same rate as humans and may often engage in a recreational sex-like bonding ritual when of the appropriate age, vampires do not reach sexual maturity until around age 30. To reproduce a couple deposit a clutch of eggs into a hole dug in the ground, the eggs fuse together and create and offspring that developes in the hole until it is mature enough to theoretically hunt for itself
* When vampires are born they look like strange bat-faced creatures and they must shapeshift into more human looking features as they grow
* Vampires are considered adults when they've fully shapeshifted out of their bat-like features, which with constant attention can be achieved at around age 20

## Culture

* They have their own religion an customs which involve the acknowledgment of their creator, the goddess Nieyamaso, and use of her language Nyesion which is taught by the goddess herself via dreams, and then from parents to children as well - Most followers do not share Nieyamaso's vision of humanity's destruction and instead wish to progress past the need to kill humans
* The religion is taught as a history of the species and used to connect with other members on a level that exists outside of human society
* The origin of vampires is said to have begun when humans first came to the Forest of Spirits, Shetsoucay, where Nieyamaso the Vampire Goddess lived, the first humans she tolerated because they had their own animals, their own farms. The second wave however is where they began to upset her, cutting down trees, wiping out entire species of animals - she decided to protect the forest (as it was basically her job anyway) and she began to devour every human who entered it, eventually the humans found her to be threatening enough to retaliate against her, sending entire armies into the forest to kill her (and burn down the forest) - this did not work, she ate all of them, and this also annoyed her, prompting her to finally decide humanity deserved to be eradicated - This however upset The Grandfather Dragon greatly, as he had grown attached to humans (he found them interesting because he did not create them) and in an attempt to save them, banished Nieyamaso to the dream realm - though not before allowing Nieyamaso one last wish, which was to create a new creature to destroy humanity (fairly) in her place - she dug a hole in the ground and combined human blood and her own in it, buried it, and after she was gone the first vampires sprouted from the earth
* Vampires have no concept of an after life
* Vampires also have their own calendar which revolves around the seasons and is used to keep track of brumation as well as special weeks and holidays that are important in vampire culture - each week of a season is named and has special significance - each hour in Nyesion is named as well and lasts about as long as 3 human hours (probably because they sleep so much)
* There are always 364 days in a vampire year so that each season can be exactly 90 days long, the solution is that there is one day (or sometimes two on leap years) which they simply pretend does not exist, nothing is recorded and everyone gets an extra 4 hours of sleep, it is called Havraoai or "Hidden Day"

## Other

* Vampires often have short life expectancies as they are frequently hunted by humans - there's a law that allows any human to kill any vampire at any time for any reason as a counter to a law that allows vampires to each kill a single human every 60 days as long as it is between 10pm-4am and is properly reported.
* It's theorized the government uses vampires to "remove" undesireables, and that is why alternate vampire support resources (blood donation facilities) are kept underfunded, though the excuse used is that humans don't want to have to "help" vampires survive
* Vampires are extremely uncommon and are approaching extinction