Vampire (The Original Cultivator)/Dark Ones

**Vampires** (or **Dark Ones** as termed by other Vampire Races) are magically reanimated human corpses which are inhabited by the spirits of the deceased person and who closely resemble the living human they were before their transformation. 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 by sharing their own blood with them. Vampires are one of the many known supernatural species that were created by witches, albeit through the creation of their progenitors, the Original Vampires.

## History

### Origin

This specific race of Vampire, termed the Dark Ones by Christian, began a thousand years ago now, when a witch named Esther turned her family into bloodsucking monsters at the behest of her husband Mikael. Thus the Original Family was born, which mainly consisted of Mikael, Fin Mikaelson, Elijah Mikaelson, Niklaus Mikaelson, Kol Mikaelson, Rebekah Mikaelson, and Henrick Mikaelson.

## Creation

### Sirelines

Every regular vampire who has ever existed is descended from those of their kind known as the Original Vampires, who, unlike the majority of vampires, were turned not by dying with vampire blood in their system, but who were instead transformed using a spell that was cast using dark magic at some point around 1001 AD in what is now modern-day Mystic Falls. However, the ritual that resulted in their transformation does have similarities to how normal vampires are turned, in that they had to consume blood (in their case, the blood of the human Petrova doppelgänger Tatia which had been enchanted with an adapted version of The Immortality Spell by their powerful witch mother, Esther) 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 six Original vampires from whom they are descending by a bloodline. Due to 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. This bloodline connection can be broken, however. Using magic, Davina Claire and the the Sisters used a spell that Davina created to break the sireline of an Original in an attempt to free all of Klaus and Elijah's sirelines from their progenitors. This spell made it possible to kill an Original without killing their sirelines in the process. The spell was only performed on Klaus and it resulted in every vampire he or his progeny had ever sired to be free of their connection

## Attitude Towards Everyone

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.

## Human Awareness

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 (such as the Human Faction in New Orleans), 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 (such as the Founding Families of Mystic Falls or the Town Council) or studies them to gain more knowledge of how they work (such as Whitmore College's Augustine Society).

## Powers and Abilities

The Dark Ones are sustained by a supernatural force named magic, and the blood of others which contain their lifeforce. This inherent magic and lifeforce also endow them with superhuman physical abilities, some mystical powers, and some of the mind. Their physical abilities such as strength, speed, agility, durability, healing and senses all grow stronger with age and experience. For the Original Vampires there is a greater effect. The older they get, the more magic their bodies use to not only to sustain them, but also to make them stronger and grant them more abilities, eventually even being able to use the magic like the witches themselves. This magic will also eventually get rid of a Dark Ones weaknesses and make them fully immortal, while still being sustained with blood. Vampires over the age of 900 years do not need to breath to survive, are immune to a lot of magical spells that damage their minds.

* **Super Strength**: Dark Ones are much stronger than most supernatural beings created by the Witches, stronger than Immortals, Werewolves, and Humans. Fully turned Dark Ones can punch, bench, squat, and grip with an output of Age = Strength in Tons. Vampires in transition can do the same but with only the strength of half a ton of weight. However, something common among all Dark Ones is their ability to grow stronger as they age, in this case it adds one Ton to their output every year. The Original Vampires, however, get two Tons added to their strength every year they are 'alive'.
* **Super Speed**: Dark Ones are much faster than most supernatural beings created by the Witches, faster than Immortals, Werewolves, and Humans combined. Fully turned Dark Ones can run, jump, react, and move with a speed of Age = Speed in MPH3. Vampires in transition can only achieve short dashes of speed where they have not control over direction unless stopping, speed equal to their age as well. The same happens with speed as does strength, where they grow faster the more time they are 'alive', and the rules of the Originals still come into play.
	+ **Dash**: Dash is a short burst of speed that any Dark One can achieve, even those still in transition, to make up for their massive disability of speed.
* **Super Agility**: Dark Ones are much more agile than most supernatural beings created by the Witches, more so than Immortals and Humans, but not Werewolves. Fully turned Dark Ones can reach, jump, climb, and run with an agility of Age = Agility in RPS3 (Reactions per Second). Vampires in transition can react the same as any fully turned Vampire, depending on their age. The same happens with agility as does strength, where they grow more agile the more time they are 'alive', and the rules of the Originals still come into play.
* **Super Senses**: Dark Ones have extremely keen senses of hearing, sight, smell, taste, and sometimes touch that far exceed those of Humans and/or Werewolves. All Dark Ones can hear normally missed auditory signals with range and precision, their sense of smell expands to unknown ranges and lets them organize and recognize specific scents, they can see for miles and in the dark like in the day, they can detect most ingredients in any food and pick them out individually with their sense of taste, and their touch so sensitive that they can feel the individual cracks in the skin of anyone. This attribute also grow stronger with age, and double for the Originals.
* **Super Durability**: Dark Ones, while not being able to bounce bullets with their skin, can take a great amount of abuse before finally going down. The ones with a greater will or age could multiple take wooden bullets, which weaken them, before going down. Really old Vampires could possible bounce bullets from their skin, but over all, their bodies are still Human. They can also still be stunned and dazed by strikes and trauma, though their tolerance for it will increase as they get older. This attribute also grow stronger with age, and double for the Originals.
* **Healing Factor**: Dark Ones recover tissue from any form of physical damage to their bodies within seconds to minutes, though they still feel the pain of a wound before it heals. Vampires can snap their bones back into place after they have been broken and have been seen to fully recover from gunshots, stab wounds, and torso impalement very quickly, so 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, which requires Klaus' or Hope's blood or a very rare scientifically-created serum to cure. Also, a vampire's enhanced healing is limited to physical damage to their bodies—many forms of magical damage (such as the damage caused by The Phoenix Sword) and psychological damage are beyond its capability. Vampires cannot grow back body parts, though they can reattach the severed limb with some effort.
* **Immortality**: Dark Ones stop again 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.
* **Enhanced Emotions**: Dark Ones experience emotions more powerfully than humans. Emotions like love, joy, and happiness are magnified for them, allowing them to live life more intensely. This ability allows Vampires to feel emotions at their peak regardless of their age. Conversely, sadness, depression, guilt, fear and anger are also amplified, causing many vampires to become so overwhelmed that they "turn off" their humanity. Turning off their humanity 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 is far more calculating and direct than one who keeps them on. Vampires are capable of turning their humanity back on and bringing back their emotions, but they will be bombarded with all of their repressed emotions with enhanced intensity. This ability fades with time and Vampires who are over 500 years old have lost the ability to turn off their humanity altogether. After time and practice, the overwhelming sensations of heightened emotions fade as the Vampire learns to overcome their emotions without turning off their humanity all together.
* **Flight**: Dark Ones have the ability to achieve flight without any outside support by manipulating the magic inside them to oppose the force of gravity. Only Dark Ones 200 years and older can achieve this feat as not only is the magic not enough for younger Vampires, but they also have no control over it. Even 200 year old's can barely achieve full flight, being able to only really levitate and few inches off the ground while moving slowly.
* **Magic**: Dark Ones over the age of 3,000 years old are capable of using magic like any other Witch is able to use it. In fact, they may be able to magic even better than most Witches due to their massive reserves of magic slowly gathered over the years.
* **Magic Conduit**: Dark Ones slowly and passively gather ambient magic inside their bodies that not only sustains them, but also grants them magical abilities such as manipulating shadows and the weather, or controlling the minds of others. As they grow older, they gather more magic, which in turn strengthens all their current abilities while even unlocking new ones.
* **Weather Manipulation**: Dark Ones have the ability to manipulate the weather, creating rain, wind, hail, lightning, snow, sleet, fog, and temperature changes. This includes the ability to generate various natural phenomena or control the intensity of the weather in highly concentrated (inside room) or vastly extended (continental) areas. Only Dark Ones 600 years and older can achieve this feat as not only is their magic now enough for younger Vampires, but they also have no control over it. Even 600 year old's can barely create dense fog or light rains.
* **Shadow Manipulation**: Dark Ones have the innate ability to manipulate and expand shadows, areas with an absence of light. Almost all Vampires can almost instantly and instinctively use this ability, as they tend to use it to shield themselves from the sun's light. It takes massive practice to completely control shadows, but old Vampires can even completely become invisible even while in direct sunlight.
* **Mind Compulsion**: Dark Ones have the ability to influence and control thoughts, emotions, and behavior and can alter or erase memories. Normal Vampires can compel any non-supernatural creature, meaning creatures of natural origin. While the Originals can control all beings, difficulty varies depending on the race or species of creature, except Witches.
* **Sire Bond**: Although rare among them, sire bonds can be formed when a Human is turned with the blood of the Vampire for whom they had strong romantic feelings before they were turned. Those Vampires with a sire bond are supernaturally loyal to their sires to the point that they will go out of their way to do whatever their sire asks them to do, even if they don't actually want to do it. However, this bond doesn't affect how they truly feel about their sire, it only affects their behavior.
* **Telepathy**: Dark Ones have a limited form of telepathy that allows them to easily enter the minds of humans, and with more effort, the minds of other supernatural beings. 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.
	+ **Dream Manipulation**: Dark Ones can also use their power of telepathy to control dreams and the subconscious. This is an aspect of telepathy that is much easier to learn, and with it, 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.
	+ **Illusions**: Dark Ones have the power to trick the minds of other younger vampires into seeing or feeling things that aren't actually happening, such as when Lexi made Stefan believe he had been starved of blood for years.
* **True Face**: A Dark One's true face is the appearance they are hiding under their normal human face. When a Vampire's true face is revealed, the sclera of their eyes turns blood-red, dark veins appear under their eyes as the blood pumps forcefully through them, and their canine teeth extend into razor-sharp fangs. On some occasions, a Vampire's fang teeth can include both their canines and their lateral incisors. A Vampire's true face can be revealed whenever they wish, but it will appear against their will whenever they are aroused by the scent of blood, or are feeling intense emotions such as fear, anger, lust, sadness, etc. A Vampire's fangs are extremely sharp which gives them the ability to tear into almost any substance and tear off limbs. A Vampire's true face will appear for the first time either while they drink human blood for the first time or shortly afterward. With the fangs come the darkened veins under the eyes as well.

## Weaknesses

If Vampires are killed by a wooden object stabbed through their heart, their body desiccates into a gray color, and their vampiric vins thicken and protrude from their skin. Vampires can build up a tolerance to some weaknesses, such as Vervain, allowing them to protect themselves from compulsion by an Original and to help lessen the likelihood that it will seriously incapacitate them when used by enemies. However, it will still burn them upon contact, but if ingested, it will not weaken them as much if they take small amounts over time to increase their immunity.

* **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. The Enhanced Original vampire Alaric once snapped Damon's neck, though he recovered quickly due to the fact that he is an older vampire.

* **The Cure:** If a vampire takes the cure, they will revert back to being mortal again. Once taken, the cure prevents vampire blood from having any effect on them, as it will not heal their wounds, and, if the vampire dies with vampire blood in their system, they will remain dead and not awaken as a vampire in transition. Additionally, their blood becomes the Cure once they've ingested it, making them a target to any vampire who wants to cure themselves. If the Cure-laced blood should be drained from a cured vampire, that vampire would begin to rapidly age to compensate for the years they spent as an undead, un-aging vampire. In the case of older vampires, this can cause them to age so quickly that they die in weeks or months if the Cure has been drained from their body. This was demonstrated when Silas drank the cure-laced blood of Katerina Petrova, causing her body to begin to rapidly age to compensate for her 538 years of life, 521 of which were spent as a vampire. This was proven to be because of losing the cure in her blood, as she had spent four months as a newly-returned human before Silas consumed her blood, after which point she began developing gray hair and losing teeth within a day. She then began to develop wrinkles, bad eyesight, exercise intolerance, and other symptoms of aging that worsened over the course of several weeks until she finally had a heart attack and her body died a day later.

* **Decapitation:** Dismembering or manually removing the head of a vampire will result in an 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 a vampire, and Wes Maxfield also developed a serum that would cause desiccation in a vampire if they were not given an antidote within a short matter of time.

* **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. However, in some cases, vampires have used this vulnerability to their advantage, such as when Elijah and Elena removed their daylight rings and exposed their hands to sunlight near an open gas leak, causing explosions and fireballs to incapacitate or kill their enemies and dampening the flames before they can do harm to themselves.

* **Heart Extraction:** Removing the heart of a vampire will result in permanent death.

* **Invitation:** Vampires cannot enter a home without an invitation by the owner. An invitation can be granted long-distance and even by someone who hasn't lived in the house in years. For example, Josette Laughlin invited Stefan into her parents' home despite the fact that she had not been there in nearly twenty years.

* **Magic:** Vampires are susceptible to the powers of witchcraft. This is inclusive of mystical objects such as the Gilbert Device and dark objects. A Siphoner can also siphon the magic from a vampire to fuel their spells. Witches have been seen to use magic to cause agonizing pain by inducing aneurysms in their brain or muscle spasms, telekinetically ripping out their hearts or snapping their necks, magically increasing their hunger for blood to unbearable levels, setting them ablaze with a single thought, and desiccating them to the point of mummification.

* **Physical Trauma:** Minor physical injuries such as gunshots, stab wounds, and broken bones will cause pain and also slow them down. However, this is momentary as they will heal completely so long as they haven't been weakened by other means such as Vervain or werewolf bites.

* **Poison:** There are various poisons invented by people, such as Dr. Wes Maxfield and Aya, that are capable of incapacitating or desiccating a vampire when administered. Klaus also used a poison to kill Tim that not even vampire blood could cure.

* **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. Members of Klaus's bloodline were unlinked from him; thus they were spared upon his death unlike Finn, Kol, and Elijah's sirelines.

* **Vervain:** Exposure to or ingestion of Vervain 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 Vervain will burn a vampire's skin. Vampires cannot compel anyone who has ingested Vervain or has it on their person. Many vampires drink small amounts of diluted Vervain to protect themselves from Original vampires' compulsion and to reduce its effects when used against them by enemies.

* **Werewolf Venom:** The bite of a werewolf, which involves injecting 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. Klaus' or Hope's blood is the only surefire way to cure the bite, though one of the doctors allied with the Travelers managed to come up with a cure for the enhanced Ripper compound, which contained small amounts of werewolf venom. Lucien Castle also possessed a scientifically-created serum that, when injected into a werewolf bite wound, would cure the vampire of the venom's effects and allow them to heal the wound. Vampires suffering from the bite seem to always hallucinate either significant moments from their past, significant people in their lives, or specific actions of the vampire that they feel guilty or ashamed about.
	+ **Advanced Werewolf Venom:** Lucien Castle invented an advanced strain of venom derived from the seven werewolf bloodlines with no known cure. The venom is infused in the bite of an Upgraded Original vampire. Similarly, it is fatal to that of a werewolf or hybrid bite, although working twice as fast and more painfully. It is so potent that not even the blood of Klaus or Hope Mikaelson can cure it, nor will the blood of the Upgraded Original vampire.
* **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 or shooting them with wooden bullets will result in instantaneous and permanent death.

* **White Oak Ash Daggers:** It is said that if a vampire daggers an Original vampire, they will die while the Original vampire is neutralized. This, however, has never been proven.

* **Cancer:** A unique weakness that rarely occurs under specific circumstances. Although vampires cannot develop diseases and illnesses, such as cancer, if a human has active cancer and is turned into a vampire, the effects of the cancer will increase. The regenerative properties of vampire blood will cause cancer cells to sporadically replicate, and exceed normal stages of the condition. This was first proven when Caroline fed a terminal cancer patient vampire blood to test if it could cure cancer. When Jo ran tests on the patient after he was turned into a vampire, she referred to his tumors as "stage 10."

## Former Weaknesses

* **Doppelgänger Blood Magic:** This spell was cast by the Travelers in 2012. The spell is designed to use the combined blood of the last remaining doppelgängers of each line to unravel and reverse any non-traditional form of magic, and as such, it strips away the magic that makes humans into vampires and returns them to the last state the vampire was in before awakening in transition, killing the vampire. This effect could be achieved by feeding the combined blood to a vampire, or by casting the spell in a large group. The spell was broken when the spell's magic was absorbed by Kai Parker.
* **The Phoenix Sword:** The phoenix stone, when attached to the sword with which it is paired, has the power to kill the body of a vampire and trap their soul in a prison within the stone. This prison has been described as a hell dimension where time has no meaning and where the vampire souls inside it are emotionally tortured with horrifying images such as being forced to kill their loved ones. Though the souls inside can be released with a spell cast on the stone, it requires the vampire's original body for it to be successful. If it is placed in the wrong body, the vampire spirit will experience amnesia, confusion, and an insatiable hunger for blood that will turn them feral. In one case, when the soul of a vampire inside the stone was placed in a human body with the spell, the human's body rejected the soul and eventually deteriorated until both the vampire soul and the body died for good. The blade was destroyed by Nora and Mary Louise.

## Myths

* **Garlic:** The vampire's supposed repulsion towards garlic may have been a fabricated lie, similar to how werewolves are not actually immune to silver. This myth was presumably started to hide the fact that vampires are actually vulnerable to Vervain.
* **Holy Items:** The myth that vampires could be harmed using holy artifacts like crosses, blessed ground, and holy water may have circulated from the belief that they are unholy creatures originating from Hell and in league with the Devil.
* **Mirrors:** The myth that vampires did not cast a reflection may have come from the belief that vampires had no souls.
* **Shapeshifting:** The origin of the myth that vampires had the power to morph into a bat, wolf, rat, or a cloud of mist is unknown. It may be the result of a mistake of perception between vampires and werewolves. Or it may even be related to Silas, who has the ability to cast psychic illusions to appear as anyone he chooses.
* **Soulless:** The belief that vampires are soulless beings may have stemmed from their ability to shut down their humanity, causing them to block out their emotions and behave without remorse or regret, giving off the impression that they have no conscience and by extension, lack a soul.
* **Death:** Contrary to popular belief, vampires have beating hearts and they cannot function without oxygen. They will, however, be forced to revive after suffocation or oxygen deprivation but will only die again if the circumstances of their revival are less than favorable.