Vampire

A **Vampire** is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deaths in the neighbourhoods they inhabited while they were alive. They wore shrouds and were often described as bloated and of ruddy or dark countenance, markedly different from today's gaunt, pale vampire which dates from the early 19th century. Vampiric entities have been recorded in cultures around the world; the term vampire was popularized in Western Europe after reports of an 18th-century mass hysteria of a pre-existing folk belief in the Balkans and Eastern Europe that in some cases resulted in corpses being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants in Eastern Europe were also known by different names, such as shtriga in Albania, vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania.

## Etymology

The word vampire first appeared in English in 1732, in news reports about vampire "epidemics" in eastern Europe. After Austria gained control of northern Serbia and Oltenia with the Treaty of Passarowitz in 1718, officials noted the local practice of exhuming bodies and "killing vampires". These reports, prepared between 1725 and 1732, received widespread publicity. The English term was derived from the German Vampir, in turn derived in the early 18th century from the Serbian вампир.

## Beliefs

The notion of vampirism has existed for millennia. Cultures such as the Mesopotamians, Hebrews, Ancient Greeks, Manipuri and Romans had tales of demons and spirits which are considered precursors to modern vampires. Despite the occurrence of vampiric creatures in these ancient civilizations, the folklore for the entity known today as the vampire originates almost exclusively from early 18th-century southeastern Europe, when verbal traditions of many ethnic groups of the region were recorded and published. In most cases, vampires are revenants of evil beings, suicide victims, or witches, but they can also be created by a malevolent spirit possessing a corpse or by being bitten by a vampire. Belief in such legends became so pervasive that in some areas it caused mass hysteria and even public executions of people believed to be vampires.

## Origins

Commentators have offered many theories for the origins of vampire beliefs and related mass hysteria. Everything ranging from premature burial to the early ignorance of the body's decomposition cycle after death has been cited as the cause for the belief in vampires.

## Capabilities

Vampires are beings who subsist by feeding on the life essence of living creatures, regardless of whether the vampire is undead or a living person. They achieve this either through full or partial transformation into vampires, choosing to mimic certain aspects of vampiric beings, or simply already being a vampire in the first place. While all vampires need some form of life-essence, the quality and quantity vary greatly: from daily to rarely, from needing lethal amounts to barely notable, from sentient blood freshly drained to rare steak.

## Common powers

**Berserker:** Vampires are berserkers; beings that can empty oneself of all rational restraints in battle and completely immerse oneself in combat becoming a dangerous warrior for both friend and foe.

**Blood Consumption:** Vampires can absorb the blood of others for either sustenance, offensive, defensive, or regenerative purposes.

**Blood Empowerment:** Vampires becomes stronger, faster, more durable, etc. when they come into contact with or are near blood, possibly unlocking abilities related to the affinity and enhancing their existing powers.

**Contaminant Immunity:** Vampires are immune to poisons, toxins, venoms, viruses, bacteria, parasites, pathogens, allergen, etc.

**Glowing Eyes:** Vampires possess eyes that glow which allows them to generate light, sometimes allowing them to see in the dark clearly.

**Humanity Rejection:** Vampires are able to reject the entirety of their humanity, completing a conversion and fully becoming a monster or a completely different being.

**Lightning Bruiser:** Vampires are lightning bruisers, a type of fighter that combines both sturdiness and strength, with maneuverability.

**Lunar Empowerment:** Vampires become stronger, faster, more durable, etc. when they come into contact with a moon, moonlight, or lunar energy, possibly unlocking abilities related to the affinity and enhancing their existing powers.

**Mind Control:** Vampires can control the minds of others, including their thoughts, perceptions, memories, emotions and personality. Depending on the user's skill and power, this can range from a trance-like state very similar to hypnosis, to the target being completely subject to the user's control.

**Natural Weaponry:** Vampires possess some form of natural weaponry, including claws, fangs, horns, beaks, clubbed tails, etc., and knows how to use them.

**Night Empowerment:** Vampires become stronger, faster, more durable, etc. during the night, possibly unlocking abilities related to the affinity and enhancing the existing powers.

**Night Mode:** Vampires are able to enter a mode that is accessible during the nighttime, which grants the user different abilities, usually related to nighttime, but may grant things such as altered appearance, enhanced strength, speed, agility and other abilities.

**Predator Instinct:** Vampires possess predatory instincts, allowing them to become masters of assassinating, hunting, manipulating, planning and tracking.

**Reflectionlessness:** Vampires lack a reflection regardless of being under light.

**Shapeshifting:** Vampires can change their shape, size, color, density, texture, cellular composition, and atomic composition to mimic qualities, impersonate entities, amplify abilities, and traverse environments.

**Sleeplessness:** Vampires have no need to sleep, allowing them to continue living through their lives without suffering health decline from sleep deprivation.

**Soullessness:** Vampires possess no soul or spiritual tether to the world, essentially making the user emotionless and immortal, as a person needs a soul to have a degree of mortality in the first place.

**Conversion Blood:** Vampires possess blood with conversion properties, allowing them to turn others into another type of being through transfusion or ingestion.

**Vampirization:** Vampires can transform other beings into vampires.

**Undead Pulse:** Vampires exists in a paradox state of being simultaneously alive and undead by all definitions of both states.

**Wallcrawling:** Vampires can scale walls and ceilings, no matter how rough or smooth they are.