Vampire

**Vampires** also known as **The Children of Night** or **Night Children**, are a species of downworlders. Along with werewolves, vampires are humans infected with a disease. However, unlike the former, vampires are considered "undead".

## Description

Vampires generally tend to look pale, sallow, and thin, though this is not always the case.

The blood of vampires shimmers bright red. Vampires cannot shed tears; instead, it is blood that leaks through their eyes. Being reanimated corpses, they do not have a heartbeat and do not need to breathe, although they are still able to inhale and exhale oxygen, in order to utilize their heightened sense of smell, to pass as human, or to blow on something. Their lack of breath makes them impervious to such things as asphyxiation, drowning, or gases.

A vampire and a sire also have some sort of connection. Particularly, upon the death of one's sire, a vampire will experience a momentary jolt of pain, presumably feeling the same pain their sire felt at death.

## Abilities

Vampires also have the power of the encanto—the ability to mesmerize and essentially control others. They can also shapeshift into bats, rats, and dust, while maintaining their intelligence in either forms.

## Creation

A human who has consumed enough vampire blood, known as a fledgling, will not abruptly Turn into a vampire. To be reborn, the human must first die a mortal death, during which the undead body will enter into a state of transition. They must then be buried, during which they will reanimate while in the ground, and then must make their way out of their own grave to be 'truly born'. They must then feed on an exceptional amount of fresh human blood within the next 24 hours to complete the transition, or else they will fade and die. Because of the vampire blood, the "disease" and energy, in their bodies, their corpses are kept intact and animated.

Because of this, a killed fledgling should have someone familiar with the process to support the fledgling and ensure a smooth transition, specifically by being present for the vampire's rising, to ensure that the fledgling would successfully rise of the grave, and supply him or her with blood and take him or her to a safe place to recover.

## Diet

Blood is the main component of a vampire's diet; all vampires need to drink some kind of blood for their survival. Whether it is the blood of humans or animals is up to the vampire. Mundane food can make a vampire sick since they cannot digest it, although some have learned to eat food with practice, most of which they have to spew out sometime after.

## Weaknesses

Holy water, and other common blessed materials, such as angelically aligned swords, are harmful to vampires and will scorch and burn their flesh. More generally, holy symbols may be anathema to vampires if the symbol holds weight with the specific vampire addressed.

A crucifix may repel a vampire who held Christian beliefs before he or she was sired, but a vampire who was raised as a person in a Buddhist faith would not generally respond. Most vampires that did not ascribe to a religious faith as mortals do not develop an aversion to holy names as part of their vampirism. In addition, older and more powerful vampires often regain the ability to speak holy names and touch other religious objects such as the Bible. This may either be because the aversion fades over time as the vampires age, or because they descend more deeply into the demonic and become able to speak God's name as a curse, or simply because the religious word or symbol is not of their own faith.

An exception to this are "Daylighters", or vampires who are invulnerable to sunlight. While there used to be more Daylighters during ancient times, according to Lilith, they have become rarer over time, and the precise way how they are made is unknown. One of them, Chazarrae, became one after being fed faerie blood, particularly Maverick Pitchiner's , who has more faerie blood than most of his kind.