Vampires are blood-sucking creatures from mythology and folklore from all over the place, though I don’t (yet) know where the first vampires showed up…the modern iteration started sometime in the…17th century? I’ll have to check.
Oh, right, half-vampires half-humans are called dhampirs.

I’ll add their origin notes a bit later. Coincidentally, just like with succubi, I can rely on Medusa’s Gaze and Vampire’s Bite.

I’ll write this out at some point, don’t worry.

I personally think that Vampire: the Masquerade has the best vampire lore in terms of a cohesive story.
Buuut…I think that, maybe, Vampire: the Requiem actually does a better lore-job overall, though there are parts of Masquerade that are better. Requiem is at least better for mixing and matching.

There are a bunch of different vampire-like creatures across mythology, but I’ll mostly be limiting myself to those I’m going to write include on the wiki.

The Jubokko is a yōkai that drinks blood. The twist? It’s a tree.

I would have never thought that a blood-sucking tree would be an interesting monster idea.
Though that’s mostly where the similarities end. I’m mentioning it particularly because I personally think it’s pretty cool.

It’s described on yokai.com.

I stated this on the Succubus article, but I think vampires and succubi overlap quite a bit. There was even a point where, apparently, vampires didn’t necessarily have to drink blood…but any fluid that comes out of humans. Which, yes, includes semen.
At this point, any depiction of a ‘sexy vampire’ is basically a kind of succubus as well.

The relationship between zombies and vampires is interesting in that, as far as I’m concerned, they’re basically the same…except zombies are the lamer version of the vampire.
Think about it: both are undead monsters that need to feed on the living. Just that zombies are, at least nowadays, tied to disease more than vampires…and vampires are also much stronger than zombies.

I had to include one of the greats. Though this is specifically concerned with the film and not the book.

Vampires in this film are in de-facto control of the Southern US through their positions as aristocrats and plantation owners. They happily feed off of the slaves there and, honestly, I get it.
They are almost exactly the same as the ‘standard’ vampire - hurt by silver, no reflections, superhuman strength, feed off of blood - except that…well, first of all, they can turn invisible. I don’t think that’s considered a standard vampire trait. And, second of all, they can go out in the sunlight…but they’re presumably weaker. It wasn’t really explained what the deal was though. They just prefer to wear sunglasses. The last important fact is that vampires can’t kill each-other for whatever reason. Some supernatural barrier prevents it.
Their position as the rulers of the South falls apart during the Civil War, where the majority of them are slaughtered by the Union army.

Oh, yeah, their feeding is also lethal about 99% of the time. Even if they don’t drain you dry, they can leave you with a disease that, y’know, will end you.

In comparison to Vampire: the Masquerade, I think that Vampire: the Requiem does a better job with vampires. Masquerade has more complete and interesting lore, but Requiem has better vampire archetypes, aided more by the mix-and-match nature of the lore.

Now, previously, I didn’t think I needed a dedicated section for the Chronicles of Darkness, since I assumed vampires were exactly the same between the two gamelines…until I found some stuff while skimming thru Requiem splatbooks that made me pause.

I think there’s a very subtle implication that the vampires in Chronicles are not dead but instead in a strange in-between state. I assume this for two main reasons:

• Daeva can somehow have sex without using the Blush of Life.^A)
• Female vampires can get pregnant somehow.^B)

Neither of those are possible in Masquerade (‘sfar as I know).
This kinda implies that they aren’t just dead, right?
Though I did briefly forget that Chronicles has a more Lego approach to play and lore…so while the implication is there, it isn’t like there is a ‘canon’. I personally prefer vampires as in an in-between state, so I guess they are.

Anyway, one issue I have is with the sheer number of bloodlines in Requiem. I think it enters the realm of unrealistic if we assume they’re all ‘canon’…but since Requiem and Chronicles of Darkness have lore that functions like Lego, I assume it’s more a pick-and-choose sorta thing, so it’s not a big deal. Though it still raises the question of wherethe bloodlines come from and how they form. I don’t think there’s a concrete answer.

Daybreakers is an interesting example for two reasons. The first is that vampirism is explicitly depicted as a (supernatural) disease. As far as I know, the only other thing that depicts vampirism like this is Plague Inc.
The second reason is a bit more interesting: this is so far the only example I know of where vampires rule and do so openly. In fact, vampires make up a majority of the population.

The premise is that sometime in 2008…I think…a disease started spreading from a bat. I-I know how that sounds, but let’s continue.

The disease turned people into immortal vampires. They could eat and drink like normal (apparently), though they still needed to feed on human blood. Not feeding on human blood makes them degenerate into more bat-like monsters. So…there’s some overlap with Yakusoku no Neverland.
Most of humanity chose to become these inhuman monsters, while the rest didn’t. The vampires now rule the world as if little has changed. At this point I realized I’m basically writing a review, so let’s not get too into it.^C) The point is that vampires are in charge and actively hunting down the rest of humanity.

Vampire lore here is mostly the same. They feed off of humans, they can turn humans, they burn in the sunlight…but nothing related to silver or garlic. They’re also pale and all have yellow/orange eyes.

The film does end with a cure for vampirism…but it goes a bit further too, as the vampires also create synthetic blood. For most of the film, they continually fail to synthesize blood but end up succeeding by the end. Underworld also features synthetic blood, but it’s not a plot point.

Kumo desu ga, nani ka? has Sophia and her butler as vampires, though the depiction of vampires is pretty standard.

There is some stuff later that reveals that the first demon lord was a company CEO who became a vampire prior to getting the job of Demon Lord. Also, vampirism is apparently a disease rather than being a trait of a distinct race. Sophia is a major exception for being a vampire who is ‘pure’: having been born as one.

Yes, seriously.

I realized recently that the main bad guys in this film are basically vampires. For some unknown reason, some of the survivors of the comet which wiped out humanity need to receive the blood of the remaining survivors. Though it’s never really made clear why and what the difference is.
If they don’t, they start looking super pale, kinda gross and their skin sticks to their bones, as if their fat disappears.

Definitely one of the more unusual entries here.

The main antagonists of Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue have a vampire theme. That’s it for now, I don’t remember much else besides a sexy vampire lady who I never really thought of as particularly sexy.

Vampires apparently exist in the Legendarium though they are never seen directly. The only ‘canon’ mention (that I remember) is in the Silmarillion, where Sauron takes the form of a vampire when he runs away one time.

More will be added later.

I first heard of Underworld in reference to a lawsuit filed by White Wolf against it. This is because White Wolf felt their copyright was being infringed in regards to the World of Darkness. It was settled out of court, though.
Underworld and Masquerade have very surface-level similarities, but are quite different. First, vampires aren’t dead…vampires are living creatures and, specifically, an immortal sub-race of humanity.
They’re immortal, drink blood and can turn others via a bite…and, well, the sun hurts them. They’re also directly related to werewolves and exist in a vampire faction, similar to the Camarilla…I guess.
Though there is only one faction in this world…though, keep in mind that I only watched the first two films.
The origin story for the vampires is that there was a guy named Alexander Corvinus who got infected with the Plague but, instead of killing him, it made him immortal. He had three sons. One of them was bitten by a wolf, which is where all the werewo- I mean…Lycans came from. One was bitten by a bat and that one was responsible for all vampires. Then the last one was just a normal guy.
However, there’s a worldbuilding issue here. Vampires cannot be descended from bats because vampire bats don’t live in Europe. This is actually an interesting quirk of vampire lore…since, well, as far as I can tell…the connection between vampires and bats is retroactive. Though all that matters is the fact it’s a mistake.

The vampires (Dread Lords) in Warcraft work for the Burning Legion and, in WarCraft 3, they’re heroes in the Undead.

I did write that more is to be added later…but I don’t know what else I could really say. The Dread Lords are very standard-ish vampires, except they don’t seem to be affected by the Sun and they are explicitly demons.

Apparently there are other kinds of vampires in WoW, but I don’t know anything about them. Yet.

I consider the World of Darkness (Vampire: the Masquerade) to have the most definitive portrayal of the vampire. Not only does it account for multiple kinds of vampires, but it also has detailed lore on the history of vampires…as well as a lot of really good worldbuilding, like the Masquerade, which just makes logical sense.

However, after thinking about it for a while…I came to the conclusion that Masquerade doesn’t really have the definitive vampire…with Requiem having that instead. The reason for this is that Requiem’s clans are more broad archetypes, while the Masquerade clans are very specific and detailed. Of the Masquerade clans, I think only the Ventrue can be ripped out of Masquerade and plopped into another setting without it being obvious that they came from Masquerade.
For an example of the other side of the coin: the Toreador. They’re generally viewed as the ‘sexy’ ones…but they’re also obsessive artists who can freeze in place to appreciate a sunrise. The Nosferatu are another example. Sure, they’re ugly and whatnot…but they’re also very good at gathering information, are extremely tight-nit and build sewer fortresses.

Masquerade’s bigger contributions (which can be pilfered for other story ideas) are the Masquerade itself and the vague structure of the Camarilla. Though for more broad vampire tropes, Requiem is likely better suited.

One aspect of the worldbuilding that’s actually kinda important (and possibly not present in Requiem) is the fact vampires are subjects/subordinate to their sire…and this goes all the way to the top of a given clan. This is the justification given for vampiric society being organized despite every vampire apparently being pre-disposed to backstabbing.

• I spun off worldbuilding notes into its own article because it got very long and complicated.