Vampire

**Vampires** are magically reanimated human corpses which are inhabited by the spirits of the deceased person, who feed of blood.

## Description

A human who has consumed vampire blood in some way (whether by drinking it, having it poured into an open wound, or being injected with it) and has subsequently died with the blood in their system will be magically revived as an undead vampire, just like the vampire who sired them. The exact nature of the human's death is irrelevant to this process; the only condition that must be met is that the body has to be more-or-less intact and able to function once they reawaken in transition.

* Transition
* Sireline
* Nature
* Society and Culture
* Relationship with Humans

In order to complete the transition into a vampire, the person must then consume a significant amount of human blood, at least a sip's worth, within the next twenty-four hours, or else they will die. Vampires can only feed on human blood (which includes the blood of a witch) to successfully complete their transition-- animal blood or vampire blood is not sufficient to finish the transformation from human to vampire. A vampire in transition is neither truly living nor truly dead until they either complete their transformation by drinking human blood and becoming a vampire or choose not to feed and die for good. This puts them in a strange liminal space between the two states that can have several different effects. Until a person in transition drinks human blood to complete their transformation, they will be not be susceptible to the standard weaknesses of a vampire (i.e. they can still walk in sunlight and can enter homes without an invitation).

Every regular vampire that has ever existed is descended from those of their kind who are known as the Original Vampires, who, unlike the majority of vampires, were turned not by dying with vampire blood in their system, but instead were transformed with a powerful spell fueled by dark magic that was cast at some point around 1001 AD in what is now modern-day San Francisco. However, the ritual that resulted in their transformation does have similarities to how normal vampires are turned in that they had to consume enchanted blood (in their case, the blood of the human Warren doppelgänger Amara that had been enchanted with an adapted version of the immortality spell by the powerful witch, Neena) before being killed while that blood was in their system.

After the Originals awakened in transition, they fed on the blood of another human from their village and were officially transformed into the world's first true vampires, from which all other vampires were created. Their blood possesses mystical properties that are passed down to each and every one of the vampires they sire, along with every vampire sired by their progeny, connecting all vampires to one of the four Original vampires from whom they are descending by a bloodline connection. Because of this link, the death of an Original vampire will result in this connection being severed, and every vampire in the deceased Original's bloodline will follow them in death within an hour=

Vampires have the capacity to be extremely feral, predatory creatures, and can be more beast-like and savage than their human appearance suggests.

Despite their nature, vampires are also capable of human emotions, such as compassion, love, and self-control. However, it's in a vampire's nature to be violent, and no matter what their morality or kindness, they will almost always resort to such acts if it's necessary for their survival. While vampires typically maintain their human personalities after their transformations (though magnified by the magical properties of vampirism), they are usually dehumanized to some degree, and due to both the violent tensions between witches, werewolves, and vampires (along with the in-fighting within the vampire community itself), violence, tragedy, and death of the aforementioned groups and humans caught in the crossfire seem to follow vampires wherever they go, even despite their best efforts to avoid it. Many (though not all) vampires are inherently selfish and consider other beings, especially humans, to be inferior to themselves, as they see themselves as the top of the proverbial food chain. Even the most compassionate of their kind will often resort to cruelty and torture if it means protecting themselves and their loved ones from danger.

Due to their intensely emotional nature, it is not uncommon for vampires wishing to maintain self-control to document their lives after their transition in journals. Though they have consistently shown considerable powers in recollection of specific memories and dates, vampires still need to peruse their journals in order to reflect on their feelings and other minute details during certain events. Another function of the vampire nature is the ability to "turn off" their humanity in order to make it easier for them to emotionally deal with feeding on (and occasionally even killing) humans to maintain their immortality.

Vampires who have used this coping mechanism described the process as "flicking a switch," which essentially numbs their emotions and disables their ability to be empathetic, allowing them to shut out painful feelings such as guilt, grief, and sadness and turning off the part of them that makes them ashamed of their actions. Vampires with their humanity turned off often think of themselves as purely rational and logical and are not ruled by their emotions. They also have no problem feeding indiscriminately on whomever they please, either using compulsion to make the humans forget the experience or killing them outright with no shame or remorse.

Many vampires are nomads of sorts who periodically move around from place to place to make sure their immortality and lack of aging do not lead to their exposure as vampires to the general public. Some of them appear to attempt to take on identities within the human world and exist alongside humans while others instead appear to enjoy living among humans mostly anonymously without making human attachments and then choosing to travel to new places for a change in scenery whenever the urge strikes them.

Age is a powerful status symbol in the global vampire community. One such reason for this is because the amount of history the vampire has experienced gives them a great deal of knowledge, which translates to certain bragging rights in the community, especially when the elder vampires interact with the younger vampires, werewolves, witches, and in-the-know humans they encounter. However, the main reason why age is a status symbol in the vampire community is because a vampire's age directly correlates to how physically powerful they are. As a vampire ages, their supernatural physical and mental abilities become even stronger and more advanced as well.

The sharing of blood between vampires is considered an intimate act and is not typically taken lightly, though it is not always this way. Between romantic partners, however, this is an incredibly intimate act that denotes the love between the two vampires, as well as the trust they share.

Vampires generally coexist with humans due to their shared origins and appearances. Humans are mostly oblivious to the existence of vampires, which makes it easier for vampires to commingle with their human cohorts without detection or exposure. Most of the few people who do know about vampires have either been killed to ensure their silence, compelled to forget their encounters with them, or, in some cases, are compelled not to speak of it to anyone, which lessens the chances that the vampire species will be exposed to the public.

Attitudes of vampires towards humans vary from individual to individual. Some see humans as simply food, servants, and/or entertainment, while others feel compassion for humans, remembering their lives before becoming vampires and not wanting to cause any more harm to them than necessary, and even regarding certain humans as close friends, lovers, or family. In general, vampires are known to see humans as less compared to themselves and ultimately regard their lives as being essentially insignificant, as humans are mortal whereas vampires live forever. As a result of their immortality and the fatal violence they witness on a regular basis, the death of a human who has no significant connection to the vampire is typically a non-event for them, and is either shrugged off as collateral damage or seen as a means to an end in part of whatever the vampire in question's current agenda is.

Only a handful of humans are aware of the existence of literal vampires. In history, there were periods of time where vampires were not so secret, but as of the 21st century, the majority of humans regard vampires as superstition, fiction, and myth, which is how most vampires prefer it to be, as it makes it easier for them to move through the world without detection. There are small pockets of in-the-know humans, however, and they usually are in one of two groups: either they are aware of vampires because they are acquainted with at least one of them, either due to friendship, alliance, or, in rare cases, being attacked and not compelled to forget the encounter; or, they belong to a family or are associated with an organization who hunts vampires or studies them to gain more knowledge of how they work
## Powers and Abilities

**Natural Abilities**

* **Fang Retraction:** The ability to to possess razor-sharp teeth.

**Active Powers**

* **Dream Manipulation:** The ability to manipulate dreams. Vampires can control dreams and the subconscious. This is much easier to learn, a vampire has the ability to produce and modify dreams, bestow nightmares and lucid dreaming, distort people's perception of reality and trap someone in their dreams. Vampires can manipulate and enter the subconscious of other vampires and even an Original vampire if they are vulnerable enough. However, this is a learned skill that requires practice to achieve.
* **Enhanced Speed:** The ability to move at extraordinary physical speed. Vampires can accelerate their movements to cover short distances in an instant, usually faster than the human eye can see. When running across long distances, they appear as vibrating blurs of motion allowing them to appear or vanish quickly and quitely. Their reflexes and dexterity are similarly heightened, allowing them to catch certain projectiles with ease. Like their strength, their speed also increases with age.
* **Enhanced Strength:** The ability to have and exert a level of physical strength much greater than that of a normal person. Vampires are noticeably much stronger, and slowly grow stronger as they grow older. They always have the advantage of superior strength in direct combat with a human. Even new vampires who are still in transition can toss an average-size, fully-grown human across a room with great speed and force. Their other feats include single-handedly lifting grown men high off the ground by the throat and snapping their necks, cutting off a person's head with their bare hands, and ripping out internal organs such as hearts with little to no effort. Vampires who feed on humans are stronger than those who feed on animal blood. Although noted that a vampires strength enhances with age, it can also be noted that the emotional status of the vampire takes a toll on the strength.
* **Mind Control:** The ability to control the minds of others. Vampires have the ability to influence and control thoughts, emotions, and behavior and can alter or erase memories. Regular vampires, as weaker forms of their Original Vampire progenitors, cannot compel vampire hybrids or other vampires, though they can compel the other aforementioned species.
* **Telepathy:** The ability to mentally receive and/or transmit information. Vampires have a limited form of telepathy that allows them to easily enter the minds. They can also enter the minds of other vampires, though this ability is dependent on the vampire being younger or weaker than the one using telepathy. Ways to weaken a vampire to use telepathy on them are to starve them/drain them of blood, inject them with rosaceae, or expose them to werewolf venom. Normally, this ability works through tactile contact, usually by the vampire placing the palms of his or her hands on the temples of the vampire whose mind they want to enter. The vampire then closes their eyes and focuses on the information they wish to seek, allowing them to sort through their victims' memories until they see what they're looking for. Like their physical attributes, a vampire's mental strength increases with age, making it difficult for a vampire to invade the mind of an ancient vampire unless they are of similar age.
	+ **Illusions:** The ability to to project extremely realistic illusions into the minds of others by altering the perceptions of reality conceived from sensory distortions be it accidental or forcible. Vampires have the power to trick the minds of other younger vampires into seeing/feeling things that aren't actually happening

**Other Powers**

* **Accelerated Healing:** The ability to heal yourself quickly from most injuries. Vampires recover tissue from any form of physical damage to their bodies within seconds, though they still feel the pain of a wound before it heals. As long as they had consumed a regular diet of human blood prior to the injury. Those vampires who feed on animals will still heal much faster than a human, but their injuries, especially severe ones, will take much longer to heal than a vampire who feeds on human blood. The only injury a vampire can sustain that cannot be healed on its own or by consuming more blood is a werewolf bite. Also, a vampire's enhanced healing is limited to physical damage to their bodies—many forms of magical damage and psychological damage are beyond its capability.
	+ **Enhanced Durability:** The ability to sustain numerous blows of internal or external assaults. Vampires can take a great amount of physical damage without being slowed down. Vampires still react to physical force in a human manner, particularly young vampires, who will occasionally be affected even by human-strength-level force. Vampires can also still be stunned and dazed by strikes and trauma, though their tolerance for it will increase as they get older.
* **Blood Empowerment:** The ability to gain strength from blood.
	+ **Blood Consumption:** The ability to gain power from blood by ingestion.
* **Enhanced Agility:** The ability to to possess agility beyond that of a normal member of the user's species. They can move quickly, jump very high, climb, and run incredibly fast without difficulty or exhaustion. Vampires can jump with their super speed too. Vampires that feed on human blood can jump much higher than vampires that feed on animal blood.
* **Enhanced Emotions:** The ability to experience emotions more powerfully than a humans. Emotions like love, joy, and happiness are magnified for vampires, allowing them to live life more intensely. Allowing vampires to feel emotions hightened regardless of their age. Original vampires have experience emotions as powerfully today as they did 1,000 years ago. However, sadness, depression, guilt, fear and anger are also amplified, causing many vampires to become so overwhelmed that they "turn off" their emotions to block out the more painful ones. After time and practice, the overwhelming sensations of heightened emotions fade as the vampire learns to overcome their emotions without turning it off.
	+ **Emotion Removal:** The ability to remove the ability to feel emotions. Vampires have the supernatural ability to remove or dull their emotions by "turning off" or "switching off" their humanity, which is directly connected to their emotions. Doing so allows them to block out their more negative emotions, such as fear and guilt, allowing them to feed and kill without remorse, go against any opponent without fear, and relieve themselves of painful feelings such as grief, loss, depression, and shame. A vampire without their emotions can become a remorseless killer, and are almost unrecognizable from the person they truly are, as blocking out negative emotions also causes their positive emotions to become dulled or nonexistent as well. Vampires are capable of turning their humanity back on and bringing back their emotions, but it is difficult as a result of the fact that they will be ambushed with all of their repressed emotions in as well as the guilt of anything they did without their humanity with enhanced intensity.
* **Enhanced Endurance:** The ability to survive without supplies, resources, energy, or other items for an extended amount of time. The only things Vampires need to survive is blood - either human or animal.
* **Enhanced Senses:** The ability to possess senses that are amplified beyond their regular function. These senses improve and grow stronger with age and experience.
	+ **Enhanced Hearing:** The ability to pick up every single sound, and can decipher layer upon layer of noise; has the ability to pick up a conversation from a mile away in a busy city. They can hear whispered conversations, even ones in far of buildings and on phones, though most vampires typically learn how to tune out most ambient noises when it's not necessary to hear them
	+ **Enhanced Vision:** The ability to see with amazing clarity over a distance.
* **Enhanced Stamina:** The ability to function for long periods of time without tiring or straining oneself.
* **Immortality:** The ability to have an infinite lifespan and an arrested aging process. A vampire stops aging once turned. Upon their transformation, vampires become immune to all conventional illness, diseases, viruses and infections. While vampires who were cancer-free as humans will be immune to cancer after they are turned, those humans who were turned while they had cancer will not only still have it as a vampire, but their newly-enhanced healing factor will accelerate the progression of the cancer cells over two-fold, nearly always causing the cancer-stricken vampire to kill themselves to end their suffering.
* **Vampirization Conversion:** The ability to transform people into vampires. Vampires can turn others into a Vampire by feeding them their blood, the person to die with the blood in their system, and then for the Vampire in tansition to drink human blood.

## Weaknesses

If vampires are killed by a wooden object stabbed through their heart, their body desiccates into a gray color, and their vampiric veins thicken and protrude from their skin.

* **Animal Blood:** Animal blood, while somewhat satisfying a vampire's hunger and sustaining their undead life, will make the vampire considerably weaker than they would be if they had drank human blood, causing their physical abilities to be inferior to a human-blood-consuming vampire, making them heal much more slowly, and making their compulsion less effective.
* **Broken Neck:** Breaking a vampire's neck will not kill them, but it will render in a death like state for varying amounts of time, depending on the diet and age of the person in question.
* **Decapitation:** Dismembering or manually removing the head of a vampire will result in instant and permanent death.
* **Desiccation:** Vampires who abstain from blood for extended amounts of time will eventually desiccate and mummify. Witches can use magic to desiccate vampire.
* **Fire:** Vampires are highly flammable and sensitive to fire, and will quickly burn and die from it if the flames are not extinguished in time. This quality has been proven to be useful in disposing of the remains of a dead vampire without any physical evidence.
* **Heart Extraction:** Removing the heart of a vampire will result in permanent death. Vampires have the strength to plunge their hands right through the flesh of humans, werewolves, other vampires, or magical creatures, allowing them to punch their hand through the thorax of a person and pull out their heart. If it is a vampire who has been subjected to this, then they will desiccate upon their death, causing their bodies to become a grey, dry husk with their vampiric veins exposed all over their body.
* **Invitation:** Vampires cannot enter a home without an invitation by the owner. If a vampire that wasn't invited in a human's house is forcefully shoved into the threshold, they will begin to bleed from the nose and eyes and feel immense pain.
* **Magic:** Vampires are susceptible to the powers of witchcraft.
* **Physical Trauma:** Minor physical injuries such as gunshots, stab wounds and broken bones will cause a pain and also slow them down. However, this is momentary as they will heal completely within seconds so long as they haven't been weakened by other means such as rosaceae or werewolf bites.
* **Rosaceae:**Exposure to or ingestion of rosaceae causes a vampire to become severely feverish and weak to the point that it can even hinder their healing abilities as well. Also, physical contact with rosaceae will burn a vampire's skin. Vampires cannot compel anyone who has ingested rosaceae or has it on their person.
* **Sunlight:** Sunlight and UV rays burn vampires on contact, and prolonged exposure will cause them to burst into flames and die. However, this weakness can be mitigated by the use of a lapis lazuli stone enchanted with a specific protection spell by a witch for a particular vampire, which is usually affixed to jewelry, though it requires the vampire to wear the stone at all times.
* **Vampire Bloodline:** If an Original vampire dies, all vampires descended from their bloodline will slowly perish as well.
* **Werewolf Bite:** The bite of a werewolf, which involves injecting a toxic venom into the wound, is extremely lethal to vampires. It will cause them to hallucinate, grow severely weak and go rabid until it kills them.
* **Wood:** Wounding a vampire with a wooden weapon such as wooden bullets will incapacitate them, and it will take longer for them to heal their injuries than if the wounds were caused by any other substance. Stabbing a vampire through the heart with a wooden stake will result in instantaneous and permanent death.

## Notes

* Vampires feed and survive on the blood of the living, typically on that of humans, and they can also transform other humans into more of their kind with their own blood.
* Their fangs appear once they drink human blood for the first time and successfully transition into a true vampire.
* As predators, vampires enjoy stalking and toying with their victims before biting and drinking their blood. The hunt is often more enjoyable to vampires than the actual feeding.
* Vampires are excellent predators, as they can hunt their victims while using their supernatural abilities to remaining undetected.
* Vampires are infertile. They are unable to have children.
* Vampires cannot technically own property with respect to supernatural protection through invitation. This is why many vampires prefer to live in a home owned by a human, usually one who lives in the home who they have compelled to obey their wishes—if an unfriendly vampire comes to visit, the vampire in question can simply compel the human not to let the hostile visitor in under any circumstances, preventing them from entering.
	+ However, vampires can force non-compelled humans to invite them in under duress by threatening their lives or the lives of their loved ones. Vampires have also killed compelled humans to bypass the invitation rule, or to burn down or otherwise destroy a home in retribution for not allowing them entry.
* Although most vampires were born human, their souls still go to the Other Side when they die. This could mean that the transition from a human to a vampire changes their essence as well.
* A witch can kill a vampire through heart extraction using telekinesis.
* Some witches consider vampires "monsters wearing the skin of humans."