Vampires

## Overview

Vampires are the tallest of the races, ranging from 5'12" minimum for women and 6'0" minimum for men to 6'4" max for a woman and 6'7" max for a man. Vampires have a more regal, charismatic appearance than their original selves; most are slender and well proportioned, though exceptions do exist. A vampire's skin tone often changes; lighter skin tones may become paler, some near chalk white, while darker skin tones may gain a greyish cast or ashen appearance. Vampires will always have sharper canines that may elongate at will or when ready to feed, though some may choose to keep longer fangs visible at all times. A vampire’s fangs are long enough to press into the bottom lip and not retractable like a dhamphir or vaewolf, their fangs can extend downwards to their chin if needed. Otherwise, hair color, eye color, and other appearance traits are extremely variable.

Vampires have a unique ability that when they feed, from human or animal, they get the memories of that victim for life, giving them a wealth of information. It only works when the vampire feeds. For those who are children or turned, it can be a difficult thing to get used to and cause them not want to feed. As they age, slowing the memories gets easier so that born vampires master it by their mid-adolescence and turned by their second decade.

Bitten vampires freeze at whatever age they were bitten at; this can be anywhere from a simple child to an elderly individual, and anywhere in-between. However, purebred vampires (vampires that are born of vampire couplings and not from being bitten) will age normally into their adult years, by which time they will freeze anywhere between the ages of twenty-five and fifty.

A 'purebred' vampire is an individual that was born to biological vampire parents - they are born as any other, and often develop fangs and a taste for blood from toddler age on. These purebred vampires are somewhat stronger in magical ability than their Changed brethren, and do not suffer the hunger that leads to a nosferatu transformation until their teenage years.

Those transformed into vampires through bite undergo what is known as the Change; a transformation by which the virus attacks, takes over, and alters cells in the victim's body. This Change takes place over a handful of weeks, usually anywhere from two to ten weeks depending on the individual and what race they were when they were bitten. Humans take the shortest amount of time; lighter-based species may take significantly longer. After the transformation has begun, a bitten victim must partake in their creator's blood, or otherwise feed within the first week of the virus' hold, lest they become permanent nosferatu.

A vampire's diet is made up of food and blood. Corpse blood or blood from a human that has been dead longer than 72 hours can make a vampire ill and tastes like sour milk. Although vampires are capable of eating food, it gives them no nutritional value and vampires who drink animal blood or try to live on it are physically and mentally weaker than those living on human blood. Animal blood is only a last resort for a starving vampire.

A female is pregnant for 7 months and gives birth to 1 to 3 children. The child will need a lot of blood within the womb from the mother to develop properly and is born smaller than a regular baby, appearing to resemble a 5 1/2 month preemie. If a mother does not get enough blood or is starved of blood, the child will often sap energy from the mother, weakening her. They are born like all others though sometimes a C-section may be needed. If an unborn vampire determines its life is in danger, for they are able to see and hear up to a distance of five feet while in the womb, the infant is known to tear itself out of the mother through use of its own teeth, usually resulting in the mother's death.

Vampires can feed on animals, dhamphir and humans but not on other vampires or vaewolves.
A vampire's status is determined by wealth and they take great pride in it. The more wealth they have, the higher their prestige and social hierarchy. Their status from highest to lowest is determined as follows:

Highest: >Overlord
>Master
>General
>Purebloods
>Knight
>Shadow
Lowest>Fledglings-These are always newly turned vampires and the weakest of the vampires. The higher ranks are for those born vampires and they only act that way to show the wealth they have. The higher in rank a vampire is, the richer they are.

Prestige is everything to a vampire. Blood Slaves with rare blood types (B-, AB+ and AB-) can only be afforded by Overlords. The sale of a human with a rare blood type can fund tend auctioneers for years or even decades.

The Darkness: All Vampires and Dhamphirs have a dark side to them that is the predatory nature of the vampire, often lurking within the inner recesses of the vampire's or dhamphir's mind. It has red eyes and elongated teeth but otherwise looks normal. This dark side is often present in vampire and dhamphir babies though not always there. The darkness will take what advantages it can, sometimes due to a missed feeding or emotions to take over the body. When that happens the dhamphir takes control of the body and the normal side of the vampire or dhamphir ends up taking a backseat with the dhamphirs known to black out. It turns the vampire or dhamphir into a rabid animal and is a fight that must be fought internally by the normal side and the dark side. The dark side cannot be defeated or killed, it can however be weakened and locked back up whereby it takes months, sometimes years or even decades to form again.

When a vampire has been starved of blood for two months, they may begin to deteriorate physically and revert back to their primordial forms. The first change is that of eye color - their eyes will shift to a scarlet hue, and their pupils may divert into slits. Their skin will then lose whatever remaining color it has as the hunger progresses, and their fangs will elongate as the rest of their teeth divert to sharpened points. Next, a vampire's mouth will grow into a blunt muzzle as claws tip their hands, and their ears and nose will become large and batlike. If the hunger is allowed to persist for any length of time, their hair will fall out and be replaced by rows of spikes, their arms will grow into large bat wings, and their feet will grow large talons: they will become one of the nosferatu, and be unable to assume their previous form. These creatures are dangerous to any that come across them and are to be executed for they cannot be saved

Vampires of the nosferatu are masters of hiding and obtaining information, and often serve the supernatural world as information brokers. Unfortunately, they age rapidly compared to other vampires and often appear completely demonic.Their hair turns white and their eyes turn gold. Their teeth become jagged and their fingernails grow out into claws.
*Abilities of Nosferatu*
Enhanced mind compulsion - Defective vampires share normal vampires' 'compelling' ability, but defective vampires' compelling is much more advanced.

Defective vampires can compel not only humans but also werewolves, ghosts and normal vampires. Defective vampires' greater compelling ability is such that they can even use it to make themselves appear without their deformities to the eyes of anyone who sees them, without the need for verbal commands, and none of the subjected people's psyches seems to suffer any detrimental effect no matter how recurrently they're exposed to the aforementioned use of compelling by the defective vampire.

Enhanced strength - Nosferatu are physically much stronger than average adult humans, and have more strength than a regular vampire; with a newly-turned defective vampire being more or less equal in strength to a centuries-old regular vampire. A Nosferatu increased strength is enough to push, throw or kick humans, untransformed werewolves and regular vampire 4-9 feet away.

Enhanced senses - Nosferatu possess heightened senses, much greater then humans' and mutt werewolves'.

Enhanced stamina - Nosferatu can run, fight and exert themselves with much more stamina and endurance than any human, though they can still get fatigued and even knocked out by physical trauma.

Clairvoyance - Nosferatu share normal vampires' ability to detect werewolves by their dog-like scent, and as supernatural beings to see and hear ghosts.

*Weaknesses of Nosferatu:*
Enhanced bloodlust- Nosferatu have less control over their bloodlust than regular vampires; being more prone to attacking, and being almost certain to feed if they sight or smell a bloody wound.

Wooden stakes - Like normal vampires, defective vampires can be killed by a wooden stake piercing their heart.

Juniper - Like with regular vampires, if the plant juniper gets into a defective vampire's system, it will leave them severely weakened and paralysed for hours before they recover, during which time they're almost completely defenceless and open to attack.

Fire - Defective vampires can be destroyed by burning with gasoline and fire, at least when they're still transforming since being turned and haven't awoken yet.

## Abilities

**Cloaking-**They can hide themselves from visible sight, rendering them invisible which includes hiding their scent.

**Decelerated Falling:** Vampires fall from great heights at a much slower rate than humans, almost appearing to float.

**Night Vision or Heat Vision-**Vampires can choose with one of two visions when reaching adolescence. They can choose either night vision which lets them see in low-light to pitch blackness or heat vision which allows vampires to see living things which help when hunting. Yellowish-orange is alive, blue is surroundings/objects, red is dying and black is dead.

**Scaling Walls-**Vampires can scale walls like spiders and still act like they were walking on the ground with their capes and clothes falling towards their feet instead of the soil. They can detach at will to land on the ground and carry on their work from there.

**Enhanced Superhuman Senses:** Vampires have extremely keen senses of hearing, sight and smell that far exceed those of humans and werewolves. 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. They are able to see better than humans. Vampires have razor-sharp senses of sight and can see with perfect clarity in the complete and total darkness of the night, to the point of being able to detect the bodily heat emanations from its victims. Vampires also seem to have night vision. A vampire's razor-sharp sense of hearing is much greater than a human's. Their hearing is comparable to a bat or an owl, possessing a level of sensitivity on par with the bat’s own echo-sensitivity. They can hear whispered conversations, even ones in far of buildings and on phones, hear voices coming from another room, and hear a human's heartbeat. Vampires possess and enhanced sense of smell is much greater than a human's which allows them to smell almost anything, things that humans would not. Their senses of smell is as acute as that of a wolf or a dog’s, enabling the creature to track its prey for miles by the scent of the victim’s blood alone, a sensation that the vampire relishes. Vampires are also able to tell individual people apart by the scent of their blood coursing through their veins or bodily odors. A vampire can even sense a werewolf's presence purely by smell, as werewolves give off a unique smell that only vampires can smell. They are also capable of catching the scent off blood from several meters to far away. A vampire can track a human's blood over long distances.

**Superhuman Endurance:** Vampires can remain active at all times. Their bones are very strong and their skin is quite tough. Older Vampires are impervious to blades, gunfire.

**Superhuman Regenerative Healing Factor:** As long as they have enough human blood, Vampires can and have the supernatural ability to supernaturally, quickly and rapidly heal and recover from any and all types of infections and injuries that would permanently incapacitate or even kill a human, such as including cuts, massive burns, scars, bruises, projectile wounds, open wounds, poison, suffocation, extreme cold, aging, drowning, tissue damage, or disease etc., faster than humans in a matter of seconds at an accelerated speed that does not include amputation, making them immune to illness and ailments. Vampires heal extremely quickly, but still feel the pain of a wound before it heals.

**Eidetic Memory:** Vampires are said to possess perfect recall and to be unable to forget since becoming sired into the species. Their minds are often called "vaults" in which they store all information permanently, regardless of how far such memories recede into the past.

**Hypnosis/Mind Control:** Although only seen in older and more powerful vampires, through the use of hypnosis, full Vampires are able to put someone in a trance, dominate the mind and will of a human, and control their minds. If necessary, the Vampire can completely crush the human mind or destroy the individual’s sanity, leaving little more than a drooling lunatic. In the same manner, the Vampire can create a human slave. This slave is totally obedient to his master’s will, to the point of being willing to sacrifice everything for his master’s safety, including his life. Such individuals inevitably lose their minds due to the vampire’s power over them. They can also erase memories completely, even being able to eliminate days worth of mental impressions, provided the memories are not entangled with the memories of other events. However, this works best on a one-on-one basis, as controlling the minds of more than one person places visible strain on a vampire.

**Superhuman Stamina:** Despite their hunger, Vampires unable, have far more endurance and stamina than humans, and are able to move at great speed for long periods, and it is impossible to tire the vampire, due to its preternatural degree of endurance. They can run, fight and exert themselves much more and for longer than any human, though they are unable to get fatigued but can knocked out. They do not need to sleep and do not require food or oxygen.

**Flight:** The unique ability known to older vampires to defy gravity and move towards anywhere in the air. Newborn vampires have a lesser variation of this power; they can land silently and carefully by floating down to the ground during falls. It is suggested that older vampires can fly, while younger vampires can merely levitate.

**Superhuman Durability:** Vampires can take a great amount of physical damage without being slowed down and are able to endure physical pain better than humans and can recover from attacks that would cripple, maim, or kill humans with minimal effort. Even vampires who have been shot with wooden bullets have been seen to continue fighting, as long as they were not shot in the heart, or the head.

**Flexibility:** A vampire's body movements are uncannily flexible. Their agility is more advanced than humans, which allows them to rapidly respond to change by adapting to its initial stable configuration; They can make numerous gymnastic, or martial arts implements with little effort using a combination of strength, balance, reflexes and speed. They can even swing, flip, bend and twist themselves without failure due to their enhanced sense of balance and flexibility.

**Super Agility:** Vampires possess super-human agility. They have shown that 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. This ability also increases with age.

**Accelerated Superhuman Speed:** Vampires are remarkably fast, able to move with lightning reflexes. They are also able to travel quickly on foot. To the untrained eye, a vampire moving with their incredible speed may appear to be a blur. However, once someone has become used to dealing with vampires, it becomes clear they are not truly that fast. In this area in particular, a vampire outmatches a Slayer. Using their remarkable speed, vampires are also able to scale buildings and other vertical surfaces. In extremely powerful vampires, this ability can be used in such a way that a vampire may be able to fly short distances, though this skill is very rare. Like their strength, their speed also increases with age.Vampires have superhuman speed that is greater than humans which allows them to have the supernatural ability to run, jump, and move at superhuman velocity much faster than humans, even extremely quick, moving faster than the human eye can possibly see and perceive, allowing them to sidestep/outrun bullets and cover miles in a short time, and werewolves in human form, both in speed, agility, and reflexes, and can possibly out run a werewolf even in wolf form and can move at amazing speeds, to the point where they appear to be blurs. Vampires are the fastest supernatural creatures. Vampires also move and fly fast enough to run on water. Vampires can also accelerate their movements to cover short distances in an instant, faster than the human eye can see. When running across long distances, their speed is so great that they appear as vibrating blurs of motion. They can run in excess of 100 miles per hour.

**Super Strength:** A vampire is said to be thousands of times stronger than any human, able to lift objects several hundreds of times their own weight. They can crush granite boulders, subdue any prey, throw cars, crush metal, and uproot trees with their bare hands.

**Dream Manipulation-**Vampires can mentally create and control dreams of humans, werewolves, and weaker vampires. It is easier to get into a vampire's head if they don’t drink human blood or convince humans to become a vampire.

**Atmokinesis -** Vampires are able to control the weather within limits. They can direct fog, summon a powerful storm, control the direction and the force of the wind, or even call down bolts of lightning to strike their enemies.

**Aura-**A power that allows vampires to control other vampires, humans and dhamphirs by forcing them into submission. The older vampire is (elders), the more powerful an aura becomes.

**Shifting-**Vampires can turn into a bat, rat, wolf or smoke.

**Limited Animal Control-**Can control wolves, bats, and rats.

**Telekinesis-**Vampires can move things with their mind, the older the vampire, the better control.

**Telepathy-**Vampires can communicate with their minds though the further away one is from someone, the harder it is communicate.

## Weaknesses

**Canines:** Dogs and other canines show an uncontrollable fear of vampires. Werewolves, while not terrified, will do their best to avoid vampires and will become particularly vicious when fighting them. They are the natural enemies of the vampire.

**Crosses:**By holding some form of crucifix in front of a vampire, a potential victim can cause the vampire to halt, or even to turn and flee. A cross presented strongly enough can even cause a vampire to be unable to return to their coffin. Direct physical contact with a crucifix will severely burn a vampire, but will not destroy them.

**Garlic:** Vampires have sensitive noses and garlic causes fangs to erupt, running eyes, sneezing, blindness, coughing and skin rashes and moreover a chemical present in garlic can cause the same burning effect as sunlight. Although garlic smell cannot ‘burn’ a vampire but it can cause such an irritation that a vampire would leave the area. Garlic and Pepper spray can cause a vampire to be fatally damaged.

**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 (including witches, shifters and elves), werewolves, or other vampires, 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.

**Beheading/Decapitation:** Dismembering, severing, or removing the head of a vampire will result in instant and permanent death. If the head of a vampire is severed completely, the vampire will perish. Breaking the neck of a vampire only causes mild discomfort. Beheading is by far the most commonly used and effective method of killing vampires. Cutting off the head of a vampire can and will kill any Vampire, no matter how old or how powerful the creature may be. This grisly practice originates from the belief that the Vampire is incapable of existing without its head or heart, as it cannot regenerate these vital parts. Without its head, the Vampire is unable to wander about at night without the head to direct it.

**Fire:**Fire causes vampires a great deal of pain and injury. If vampires are consumed by fire for a prolonged period of time, prolonged exposure to fire will result in permanent death and then they will die. Vampires can, however, quickly heal from even the worst burns, if given time and blood. However, if a vampire cannot take the time to heal from the burns, the vampire will die.

**Desiccation:**When vampires go prolonged abstain periods and extended amounts of time without feeding from blood, their blood and skin begin to dry up and they begin to look like a mummy, as they will eventually desiccate and mummify. A lack of blood for a prolonged period of time will cause vampires to weaken and begin to resemble a corpse.

**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. Wounding a vampire with a wooden weapon will cause the vampire to become severely weak. Stabbing a vampire through the heart with a wooden stake will result in permanent death. Vampires die when stabbed in the heart with a wooden stake. Vampires are susceptible to wood and wooden objects, including stakes and wooden bullets. If the heart of a vampire is pierced with a wooden object, the vampire will explode, and leave a mass of blood where they were previously standing.

**Wild Rose:**When ingested, wild rose causes a vampire to become severely weak and feverish. Also, If a vampire's skin is exposed to wild rose, it can result in burning them.

**Sun:**Vampires can go out in the sun, however it tends to make them ill after a few hours and can end up weak and virtually powerless.

**Werewolf Blood:**If a vampire drinks werewolf blood, they began to bleed heavily from their eyes and nose and experience violent seizures. Moreover, a vampire who has drunk werewolf blood will be unable to create other vampires, instead creating defective, vampire-like mutants. The blood only remain in their system for a few weeks.

**Silver-based item:**silver will burn them badly when touch. the purer the silver, the more powerful it effect will get.

**Ultraviolet Light:**Ultraviolet light can cause burns on a vampire, even at the weakest setting. The flesh becomes burned and if the ultraviolet light is set up too high then the vampires can be killed. In this stage, even the strongest vampires are rendered weak and unable to use their aura or other powers. The Blood Order and Celestial Order may even use UVL bullets on vampires. If a vampire ends up staring directly at UVL, they risk going blind. Staring directly at UVL lights causes the eyes to burn. It can also cause scarring, though this often occurs on fledglings. A vampire who is starved of blood and under UVL will take days to recover.

**Werewolf Bite:**The bite of a werewolf and the poison, 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. Vampires suffering from the bite seem to always hallucinate moments from their past. A bite from a werewolf as the venom in the saliva will neutralize the vampire venom in their blood causing them to die and deteriorate.

**Juniper:** The plant juniper can temporarily render vampires severely weakened and paralysed if it gets into their system. The effects apparently take "a really long time to kick in." Human blood can acquire the effects of Juniper if ingested, but will only work if a large does is consumed (enough to kill the human).

**Blood withdrawal** - When vampires don't feed after a week or two, they begin to become sick and rabid; losing self-control over their bloodlust around humans, and even experiencing hallucinations. They will act aggressive and will slightly feel panicked and desperate for blood.

**Blood intoxication** - When vampires feed on too much blood they will begin to become intoxicated. In this mental state, vampires can be overpowered easier by werewolves that are a day away from transforming, and are at greater risk of losing self-control and attacking humans. This most often occurs with fledglings, less with older vampires.

## Mating

Vampire sex may involve biting but not as much as wolves and pales in comparison to having one’s blood drunk. It typically causes the one whose blood is being drunk to climax and creates a rather intense pleasurable sensation for the couple. Vampire couples may drink each other’s blood during sexual relations, this is the only way they can feed on their own kind’s blood.

## Ages

0-3 years:: infant
4-15 years:: child
16-25 years:: adolescent
26-50 years:: young adult \*
51+ years:: adult onward
\* average time of the "freeze"
Vampires are immortal, and freeze when bitten at whatever age they were changed at. Bred Vampires, however, age much like humans until their freeze.