Vampire

xTATTEREDx  · +FINE+  · *SUPERIOR*  · ≡EXCEPTIONAL≡  · ☼MASTERWORK☼

v50.15 · v0.47.05 This article is about the current version of DF. Note that some content may still need to be updated. More Info · V

This article or section contains minor spoilers. You may want to avoid reading it.

Urist McVictim, Cheesemaker has been found dead, completely drained of blood!

Vampires Ñ are undead night creatures that feed on blood, cursed during world generation by profaning against their former deities. In fortress mode, they occasionally appear in migrant waves and hide themselves amongst your dwarves. Vampirism can be further spread by drinking either vampire blood, or water contaminated by said vampire blood.

Graphically, if revealed to be a vampire, dwarves and humans will have light green skin. Elves, goblins and kobolds on the other hand, will have blue skin. Animal people will appear as they are, with no color palette changes.

Description

"blood sucker" in other Languages Dwarven: nazush-eb Elven: cameda-pelese Goblin: ogom-oson Human: cadem-engo

Vampires, like other night creatures, are created during world generation. The amount of vampires created during world generation is closely related to world size, population, and history, and it can be directly controlled with advanced world generation—a world generating with "Number of Vampire Curse Types" set to 0 in advanced world generation will not have any vampires in it. Every once in a while, a deity will curse a worshipper who desecrates their temple or otherwise offends them, cursing them to become either a vampire or werebeast. Any creature with blood, capable of learning, and not already a werebeast or undead, can, theoretically, become a vampire, but most vampires will be human or dwarven. However, since civilizations can have members not of their founding race, the occasional vampiric goblin, elf, or even animal person will also occur.

Vampires are much more powerful than normal humanoids, possessing enhanced speed, strength, stamina, and pain resistance in combat, don't need food, or need to breathe (and thus, cannot drown), and never get drowsy. They do, however, get thirsty, albeit not in the normal way; vampires thirst for warm, fresh blood, and will suck unconscious creatures (usually others of their own kind) dry given the chance, usually killing them. In the rare case that the victims survive and recover, they will not remember what happened to them, and may very well fall victim once more. It appears that when a vampire feeds successfully, they receive a large happiness boost.

Vampires do not age - most live for hundreds or even thousands of years. Thus, all but the youngest vampires are more skilled and experienced than their peers, spurred on by the countless lives detailed on their kill lists while they hide their true identities. This makes them natural candidates for leadership, and thus vampiric monarchs are a not-uncommon sight upon the thrones of certain ill-starred civilizations, which do not seem to wonder as to how their liege has been alive for so many centuries. Vampires are a type of undead, therefore, animated dead creatures will be docile towards them, as will nonplayer necromancers—while they're undead, necromancers cannot control vampires, as they possess free will. Vampires are sterile, and therefore can't have children.

Younger vampires stalk the streets of towns and cities, indistinguishable from the average mortal, and drink the blood of unsuspecting innocents. Elder vampires, those with power and ambition, mislead the gullible and power-hungry into forming vampire cults dedicated to worshiping and feeding their master. Should a vampire rise to a position of power in mortal society, it may deign to expose itself and impose a rule of tyranny upon the subjects who so unknowingly elevated it to power.^[Verify]

None of your seven starting dwarves will ever be vampires, nor will children or babies, caravans, sieges^[Verify], ambushes^[Verify], or thieves^[Verify], but any of the rest of your dwarves can be. (Foreign diplomats can be vampires, and will be labeled as such.)

Habits

Vampires are secretive and, for better or for worse, a fairly common occurrence. Many fortresses can expect to see a vampiric resident within the first few years - some may see two or more. Vampires arrive with a false name, hiding their true name and kill list until they are discovered. They act as any other dwarves, performing jobs which are assigned to them and generally acting as expected, except for differences too small to notice easily in any sizable population: they do not eat, drink or sleep. They can be drafted, assigned to burrows, be given rooms (because they do not sleep, vampires will not claim rooms on their own^[Verify]), and own items. The most important difference is that sometimes (when? how often?), they drink the blood of dwarves or other creatures (if any tame animals somehow fall asleep - eg via a syndrome - vampires will drink their blood as willingly as they will that of a dwarf or other creature) that they catch sleeping. If a vampire is in the military and has current station orders, they may ignore them and search out a victim, still displaying 'station'. If a vampire is caught in the act of draining a victim, their crime will be reported in the justice screen as murder (they will not, however, stop drinking when caught). If only the corpse is discovered, the crime will be labeled as a murder sans suspects, and the player can accuse dwarves of the act. Even in the case that someone is accused, be aware that the deceitful vampire is capable of framing others for its crimes to send suspicion away for a time. If a vampire is killed, the corpse will bear the original name of the creature, rather than that of the dwarf who was seen to die, which might lead to some confusion among managers of such things. A coffin will be designated for burial of the vampire's cover identity, with the corpse bearing the original name entombed in it. Memorial slabs will be dedicated to the vampire's original name.

Identification

Visually, in the default Steam edition tileset, revealed vampires have unnatural looking pale-green skin.

Non-visual identification

It might be smart to scan the thoughts and preferences screens of all incoming migrants before welcoming them to their new home, as a safety measure; it really sucks when you don't discover you have a vampire until after they've drained your only legendary armorsmith of blood. Sometimes, when getting visitors, the game might immediately disclose some vampire visitors with messages like the following:
Eman Togiocba, Human Bard vampire is visiting.

A dwarf who is suddenly pale or faint for no explained reason is a good but rare indicator that a vampire is around: They were most likely fed upon, but survived. Dwarven corpses being discovered "drained of blood" are more common; a vampire fed upon them and killed them, and their body was discovered. These dwarves should be buried well and speedily, lest an axe-crazy ghost arise from their death. Dwarves inexplicably going missing for more than a week are another indicator, although this might be the result of dwarven stupidity (e.g. falling down a well, walking off a waterfall, etc.) as well.

Once you suspect you have a vampire, you probably want to know who it is. There are a number of good indicators of a vampire and the more points a dwarf hits, the more likely they are, indeed, a vampire. The difficult vampires to identify are young ones, as they have not had time to build up the indicators that are obvious on older bloodsuckers.

Firstly, there are the consequences of their age. Vampires tend to be high in multiple (4-5+) social, high in at least one military skill, and "great" or better in at least one domestic skill. The biggest indicator of a vampire in this version^[Verify] is that they will almost always have more skills (10-15+ easily) at Novice or better than any of your other dwarves. If your new Great Hunter is also a Novice Milker, Shearer, Farmer, Tanner, Carpenter, Stonecrafter, Furnace Operator, Soap Maker, Fisherdwarf, Fish Cleaner, and Fish Dissector... they're almost certainly a vampire. They also tend to have very long lists of group associations, on the order of dozens, far more than normal dwarves; abnormally long lists of relations, and often many, many children, none of whom are present in the fortress (in stark contrast to the spouses, children and siblings whom most dwarves will share their home with). If they are married to a dwarf that is not present in the fortress, this should be treated as especially strong evidence. Note, however, that lacking relatives within the fortress is not a good indicator of being a vampire.

Their personality can also be scrutinized for abnormalities. Their biographies may indicate that they "have the appearance of somebody who is (x) years old," a very good indicator of a vampire in cases where they have too many children - or too many civilization associations - to be that young. As vampires do not eat, sleep, or drink, they will never have recent thoughts about meals, drinks, beds, dining rooms, or chairs, leaving their thoughts especially bare and suspicious. In the case of vampires who have been in the fort for a while, a comment may be added to the effect that "s/he could really use a drink," "s/he has not had a drink in far, far too long," or "can't even remember the last time s/he had some." This is an indicator that they need blood. In any case, if alcohol is available, it makes an excellent distinguishing mark. However, tavern keepers may give a vampire alcohol which they will then drink.^[Verify] In addition to the brevity of surface thoughts, if you were unfortunate enough to have a dwarf die to a vampire, the culprit will have the "took joy in slaughter lately" thought. It is also possible to find surface thoughts reacting "seeing [the victim] die" -- since normally the vampire is the only witness to their own murder, it's a strong signal.

There are two "normal" ways to be absolutely sure a dwarf is a vampire. The first is to catch them in the act; the dwarf will be clearly marked for the duration of the attack (i.e. Urist McVampire, Vampire on the unit list, in red). A vampire does not mind if the player is currently "watching" or even following it. The second is to have a dwarf witness the event happening. This will permanently uncover their identities, but almost always results in a dead dwarf first. More arcane are indicators based on their physical abilities; vampires with injured guts do not vomit, with injured lungs they have no problem "breathing", nor will submerged vampires drown (evoking the concept of an olden witch test for finding vampirism). Technically being undead, animated corpses will not evoke cancellation spam when a vampire sees them. An easy (albeit, cheap) way of screening migrants is to send them through a hallway with a zombie on the other side of fortifications/windows in clear sight. Normal dwarves will run away from the horrible sight of a harmless zombie but vampire dwarves will walk right through.

Vampires often will wear items crafted from their kills. If a dwarf is wearing items made from the bones of dwarves, this is a pretty good indication that they are a vampire, and the same is true of vampires of other races. Sometimes these items can find their way into circulation through natural means, so it does not always mean that someone who possesses a dwarf or human bone item is a vampire; having multiples of these items is a stronger indication.

One good way to find vampires is to lock suspect dwarves in a room for a season. Vampires do not become hungry, only tired, so simply watching the group to see who begins to starve will identify the vampire. (Ideally, you then let them all out so they can eat before they die) This is a good alternative to the zombie process for undead-free forts.

Vampires often will accuse an innocent dwarf of their murders. This can point the savvy fort manager to the culprit as quickly as an honest witness to the crime. If an accusation from a single witness appears in the justice screen, it is likely false. Monitor the accused dwarf until you see them eat, drink, or sleep, which proves them innocent.

Looking at the deities that the dwarf believes in (in the relationships screen) can be quite helpful. Vampires often still worship the god that cursed them with vampirism, so one of the deities of a vampire may have a "cursed the dwarf [vampire's true name] . . ." clause. Note that the level of worship of their deity by vampires is *always* 'dubious'. (might be incorrect in 0.50+^[Verify] ) Deities also list historical figures which have begun worshiping them. If an already-cursed vampire comes to worship a new deity, they are flagged as such in the deity's history, with an "In the [season] of [year], [deity] received the worship of the [species] vampire [vampire's true name]" clause. Lacking both of these clauses from all of their deities seems to be a clear sign that the suspect is not a vampire. This non-bugged way of checking a vampire is linked to the "cheap" bugged way of checking of vampires, which is described in the final paragraph.

Then there are the (in Dwarf Fortress, inevitable) bugged ways. As mentioned in the bugs section, vampires can be discovered and identified in statuary and engravings, through their refusal to claim bedrooms, through adoption events, and through weapon kill lists. Additionally, if you have the vampire on follow, their title will change from their usual one ("Dwarf A") to "Dwarf A Vampire" when they are doing certain activities.

There are a few "cheap" ways as well. DFHack has a special command, "cursecheck," which returns the count of cursed creatures on a tile, and will report vampires. Anyway, it shows only "true" vampire name, which you cant find at unit list, and you can just check one dwarf at a time, so good tactics is to start check from new mayor, traders, administrators and other social-based dwarves. You also can use "cursecheck nick" command at the moment, when there is no cursor on the screen (for example when you at Unit List screen), and after running at Unit list press view and then ycustomize to look at the nickname: if unit is vampire - such will be his nickname. DF Hack manual says that set the type of curse as nickname does not always show up in-game, some vamps don’t like nicknames. Checking out a drained dwarf in legends mode will tell you that "In the year Z X was drained of all blood by Y."

To see if a vampire was cursed by a deity that it worships, look under the vampire's dwarf's relationships and view the deities that are listed. Give the dwarf a nickname and, when viewing the deity relationship, it will say: "In the [season description] of [year], [deity] cursed the dwarf vampire [nickname you chose] [dwarf's original name] to prowl the night in search of blood in [original location]". Since the nickname applies retroactively, this is a sure way to identify a vampire that happens to worship the deity that cursed it. This method is very tedious when looking at many suspects, and may apply to only a small fraction of vampires, so you should probably use it after trying the more obvious signs (like many former associations, or tags after "needs alcohol to get through the working day").

Finally, a suspected vampire will have an unusually large amount of kills, if you are using an utility such as Dwarf Therapist and you go to the military tab and filter by kills, they will have a very high amount of kills.

Rarely, vampires may settle in a burrow after fleeing from their parent civilization. Their vampiric status isn't hidden at all, so if you embark on that burrow, you will see that creature as a vampire from the start.

Defense

Vampires attack and drink from dwarves who are sleeping, so one defense is to force all dwarves to sleep and meet in the same room, increasing the likelihood of eyewitnesses catching the monster in the act. Curiously, even if convicted of a vampiric murder, a vampire will not necessarily be killed, but given a normal justice penalty, such as temporary imprisonment. If you want to get rid of them, you will have to take justice into your own hands and introduce the leech to a pit of lava, bottomless pit, arena fight, dropping tower, or other elimination method of your choice. Take note that vampires do not breathe, so using drowning chambers will not work, but melting chambers (like drowning chambers, but with magma instead of water) work as expected. This can be facilitated through the use of burrows, but you will need to be fast when using those, because vampires do not respect burrow restrictions if they decide to get another drink. However, one must take care that the vampire is properly memorialized, because even the ghosts of vampires will seek out your sleeping citizens and kill them.

Uses

If you can correctly identify a vampire and isolate it from the rest of your population, you can make use of them without fear of blood feedings. A lone vampire in a sealed room will never die of hunger or thirst, does not need to sleep, and will never age. The only way a vampire can die (without your vengeful intervention) is in combat or through syndromes. Sealing it somewhere prevents those. The only remaining risk is that the vampire may turn mad eventually, which without access to other dwarves to relate to should not be very likely. Even insanity is not the end for a vampire - since they remain physically needless, an insane vampire can still live forever, and non-berserk insane vampires remain citizens of your fort. They will be completely unusable for any work, but a locked-up melancholic or stark raving mad vampire is just as immortal as a sane one and cannot be elected mayor. If they get loose, they will not drain your citizens of blood, but melancholic vampires may attempt to end their own existence, given the opportunity.

Once you have your sealed vampire, your fortress becomes effectively eternal, since the vampire will always be alive even if the infamous fun claims your entire population. Be wary of ghosts, though, as they are the only being capable of reaching your vampire's eternal prison. Simply wait for the fun to pass and new immigrants to repopulate your otherwise abandoned fort.

Consider placing a chair and table in your vampire's sealed room and making them an undead accountant. As they have nothing to do but sit around for eternity, once they get their skills up, they may make exceedingly effective managers/record keepers. Work orders and stockpile updates currently seem to be psychically transmitted from the desk of the dwarf assigned to those labors, so entombing them in their office isn't an issue. However, vampire dwarves are still alcoholics, yet cannot drink anything but blood; the resulting job performance penalty from the "can't even remember the last time he/she had some" level of alcohol withdrawal significantly reduces the usefulness of vampires in this sort of role.

A cloistered vampire can also be used as a sleepless, un-eating and drinking dwarf who is always ready for some lever pulling, even if the rest of your dwarves die. With all that said, having an eternally cloistered vampire is not without drawbacks. As vampires do not drink, yet are still alcohol-dependent, they will eventually suffer performance penalties and take longer breaks. This can have fatal consequences if you need the lever to keep the goblin siege outside pulled now. Since dwarves get unhappy thoughts from having their clothes rot away, a vampire that's been naked for years is quite prone to tantruming or going insane, which can lead to even worse outcomes should they be assigned to the lever room. Of course, you could drop them some clothes from a chute, but what fun is that when there are other things to drop from above? Or you could assign the vampire to a squad and supply them with a set of armor, as armor doesn't wear out. Another way to mitigate cloistered vampire unhappiness is to convict them of one or more of their murders after they've been sealed in; they will eventually derive happiness from having their punishment "delayed".

Vampires do increase their stats like other dwarves, so that a weak vampire may be easily upgraded into a mighty one by using them as a miner or easily trained into a legendary swimmer. A vampiric craftsdwarf may be burrow-limited to their workshop plus a stockpile, or a miner restricted to specific mining levels, avoiding any other miners. It will be safe if all of the miners have separate, assigned bedrooms.

If a vampire gets injured enough to lose teeth and control of their limbs, the vampire may be in and out of the hospital frequently for a long time, which gives your medical team lots of experience fast. This can be very useful if the biome and surroundings make it so the hospital doesn't see too many patients.

Another possibility, should you be infested by the undead, is to turn as many of your dwarves into vampires as possible; due to not counting as living by the [OPPOSED_TO_LIFE] token, undead won't attack your vampire dwarves, turning them into minor annoyances. This may result in mass unhappiness from the lack of blood to drink^[Verify], but it may be preferable to losing the fortress. However, do note that a very long time without sucking blood heavily penalizes their skill rolls, leading to even legendary dwarves rarely or never producing masterworks.

If you have no better idea, you can use a vampire to explore the caverns; they are usually good fighters with military experience and will not run off to refill their waterskin. Tangentially, if you're feeling particularly adventurous, you can make the dwarf your very own Alucard as a trump card against invaders and FBs. Unleash the seals.

So, in general, when under control, vampires tend to be much more useful and valuable than most of your non-bloodsucking dwarves. Without access to any sleeping places or hospitals, they tend to be totally harmless to other dwarves.

Unfortunate accidents

Although keeping a single vampire in eternal solitary confinement can be a bonus for any fortress, it is always important to be capable of killing them whenever necessary (especially if the peasants unwittingly elect one as their leader and an unfortunate accident becomes necessary). However, vampires have certain abilities which will make it more difficult to properly take care of them—they cannot drown, and their physical strengths could make them tougher to kill with regular weapons. Fortunately, they are not resistant to high-tech particle physics experimentation.

Adventure mode

Becoming a vampire

There are three ways to become a vampire in Adventurer Mode. The classic method is slaying a vampire and drinking their vampiric blood (or simply attacking them, causing them to bleed and then drinking their blood off the floor), which immediately turns you into a vampire. However, not all vampires have infective blood. What causes a vampire to have non-infective blood is unclear, but it appears to be related to world age.^Bug:9774 Further research is needed.^[Verify] In some cases, drinking water that has been tainted with the vampire's blood will be more effective, much like drinking from a blood-tainted well.

Playing as a species of animal people able to suck blood out of people with a bite attack (a leech man, a tick man, a female mosquito man, etc) allows you to become a vampire by successfully biting and sucking the blood out of a living vampire during combat. While this reverse-vampire-vampirism sounds awesome on paper, however, caution should be taken due to blood-sucking animal people generally being smaller and more fragile than other races, making it very dangerous without careful preparation.

Another, safer method is by toppling statues of your god/s in a temple or sanctuary. Walk up to the statue and topple it with u then a. Toppling a statue in this way will lead you to being cursed: the curse will be either vampirism or werebeast transformation. Which curse you get appears to be randomly decided at the time you topple the statue (reloading the game and toppling it again has been confirmed to give the alternate curse.). If a statue unrelated to your religion is toppled, nothing will happen.

The third way of acquiring the vampire curse is to find an altar with a suitable set of divination dice and roll it until the gods are enraged and curse you for your insolence. After receiving a message stating "Do not tempt fate.", another roll of the dice will transform you into either a werebeast or vampire. As above, the curse is random, and reloading will give you a different curse.

Playing as a vampire

Player vampire detecting blood-having creatures behind a tree.

You will be able to feed on other creatures by using e and choosing the "Feed" option on an unconscious target. On becoming a vampire, Strength, Agility and Toughness are doubled. This is a multiplier effect applied to these attributes and while the affected stats are doubled, the displayed attributes in the statistics menu will not change. As a result, your adventurer can have average strength in the attributes menu, but their description will show them as extremely muscular. Physical attributes, such as endurance, are still able to increase after becoming a vampire.

If you have become a vampire, all warm, blood-bearing bodies that you can't directly see from your position will appear as tiles, or ☼ in ASCII mode. (The vampire ability to sense living creatures will satisfy your need to "See Animal" through walls.) Your Thirsty indicator will also show up as red, instead of blue. Due to such conditions, it is relatively impossible to quench your thirst on any member of a civilization without antagonizing any of your companions - even if you don't have any, there's still that chance that your victim might wake up in the middle of your feast and effectively set a whole civilization against you. Considering that vampires will not tire, the easiest way to deal with this is to sprint and jump over a river. Once on the other side, you just need to suck the blood of the first creature you find, and return to your companions. Note also that by talking to your companions, you can ask them (in the favor menu) to stay where they are, allowing you to walk out of their sight and suck the blood of the first creature you find. One way to counter this is to raid goblin/bandit camps, concentrating on one lone, weak unit far from any comrades, beat them till they give in to pain (but not to death) and then feed on them directly. You can do the same with wildlife, although some of them may be more aggressive, and most might die too quickly. You can also try to strangle your foes; they instantly pass out and will not die unless you keep on strangling them for a long time. For instructions on chokeholds, see the relevant article. Another solution is finding some indoor place with people inside and Sleep so you wake up while they are sleeping. Your companions go wait outside while you sleep, so you have a brief window of time to suck a sleeping person's blood.

After becoming a vampire, you become invisible to zombies, since you're now an undead night creature. It is usually preferred to raid a necromancer tower alone, because bringing companions will only get them killed, and your agility when you become a vampire will rise drastically anyway, causing you to outrun them. This increased agility will also give you better odds against bogeymen and night trolls, since you'll be quicker than both.

Playing as a vampire is a strong advantage, assuming you can manage your bloodthirst. The most convenient method of drinking blood is to wield a blunt weapon such as a mace: as long as you don't strike the head, enemies rarely bleed out or suffocate from blunt damage and it's easy to force them to give in to the pain. Interestingly, your allies don't seem to care if you drink blood from enemies (As of 40.24, it seems companions actually do care, and this can cause a loyalty cascade, it doesn't seem to matter if it's an animal or a sentient being), and blood can be drunk in a single turn in combat (occasionally killing the creature, depending on its size and your thirst). Vampiric bloodthirst shows up less often than normal thirst, and can usually be slaked in a single feeding from a human-sized opponent. Feeding from smaller animals such as dingos is possible, but multiple feedings may be necessary. You are more than able to survive several months (possibly forever)^[Verify] without drinking any blood, so don't worry if your thirst includes an exclamation mark with a beautiful bright red color! However, your strength and speed decrease as you get thirstier, so try to feed off of a few bandits before you challenge that angry bronze colossus.

Vampires, as noted before, do not need to eat, nor drink (normal fluids), nor sleep. As an adventurer, this is a huge advantage, as you don't need to stop, or worry about carrying consumables. As long as there's living, pain-feeling enemies, you can feed. Vampires also do not need to breathe and do not tire. They can swim as long as necessary and cannot drown, even to the extent of being able to swim oceans. A sufficiently skilled and armed vampire is essentially immortal for all intents and purposes.

Finding vampires

There are several ways to find a vampire in adventure mode.

• Asking local citizens (not nobles, hearthpersons or travelers) about "troubles" and "beasts" will usually point out the nearest ones first.
• Begin a conversation with the aforementioned citizens asking about directions to a being, specifically on the whereabouts of a vampire, named in the format of "the dwarf vampire Urist McBloodsucker".
• Filter the Events list of the Log or the rumor list in conversation for a location nearby. Vampires will be included among 'Beast' entries in the log, in rumor topics they vaguely identify someone's presence in a location and you will have to ask the rumor to get particulars.

Note: Always check the Log Entry's text for the date, as many stale reports will remain active rumors. Ask a knowledgeable traveler to learn their most recent location. If they can't guide you within the site of their last reported location, the vampire is most likely already slain.

Vampires will always have a flashing sprite. If the vampire has been outed, they may also be hostile. Accusing the suspect of being a night creature will reveal for certain. A vampire exposed either way also becomes an enemy of the site government and civilization, and therefore fair game to kill.

Killing vampires

Vampires in adventure mode that are in hiding always wield the basic knife common to all villagers and wear basic clothing, perhaps also jewellery – their lousy weapons make them a lesser threat than you might think. Old vampires with large kill lists still may not be all that effective in combat, since most of their kills are likely stealthy, non-combat kills a la fortress mode vampires. In some cases, the vampire may be accompanied by cultists who will assist the bloodsucker in combat.

Vampires don't breathe or feel pain, so don't bother trying to strangle them or using blunt weapons. Instead, just slice them up with something edged, so they rapidly bleed to death, try to decapitate them, or use wrestling to break their weapon arm and then finish them off at your leisure.

Vampires attack anyone around them once exposed, so if you like, you can allow them to begin attacking random civilians, and target them while they're busy, or even wait until the peasants weaken them.

Note that, even if you tell someone Urist McVampire was a vampire before you tell them you killed Urist McVampire, they may still dislike you as a killer.

Modding

It is possible to create your own unique vampire strain by editing the raws. These custom vampires can be outfitted with various abilities only limited by your own creativity. An example would be shapeshifting vampires, firebreathing vampires, superfast vampires, and even vampires with the ability to raise corpses are fairly easy to make by creating a custom interaction_customvampirenamehere note document.

Bugs

• Dwarven vampires remain dependent on alcohol but will not drink anything except blood in fortress mode, so inevitably end up showing symptoms of alcohol withdrawal. This has not been acknowledged as a bug. ^Bug:5189
  • Vampires can drink alcohol if it is served by tavern keeper.
• Statues and engravings may identify dwarves as vampires before it is common knowledge, and may even depict them sucking blood.^Bug:5209
• Likewise, pets adopted by vampires will identify them as vampires in the adoption announcement.^Bug:5942
• Vampires do not bother claiming bedrooms, which doesn't help their disguise.^Bug:5642
• Weapon kill lists identify vampires.^Bug:5635
• Soldiers will not attack vampires caught red-handed, and can be fooled by their counter-accusations.^Bug:5087
• Dwarves passing by a body drained of all blood will immediately drop what they are doing to report it to the captain of the guard, regardless of how many times it has already been reported.^Bug:8899

Example raws (as extracted from world.dat)

[INTERACTION:DEITY_CURSE_VAMPIRE_1] [GENERATED] [I_SOURCE:DEITY] [IS_USAGE_HINT:MAJOR_CURSE] [IS_HIST_STRING_1: cursed ] [IS_HIST_STRING_2: to prowl the night in search of blood] [IS_TRIGGER_STRING_SECOND:have] [IS_TRIGGER_STRING_THIRD:has] [IS_TRIGGER_STRING:been cursed to prowl the night in search of blood!] [I_SOURCE:INGESTION] [IS_HIST_STRING_1: consumed the tainted blood of ] [IS_HIST_STRING_2: and was cursed] [I_TARGET:A:CREATURE] [IT_LOCATION:CONTEXT_CREATURE] [IT_REQUIRES:CAN_LEARN] [IT_REQUIRES:HAS_BLOOD] [IT_FORBIDDEN:NOT_LIVING] [IT_FORBIDDEN:SUPERNATURAL] [IT_CANNOT_HAVE_SYNDROME_CLASS:WERECURSE] [IT_CANNOT_HAVE_SYNDROME_CLASS:VAMPCURSE] [IT_CANNOT_HAVE_SYNDROME_CLASS:DISTURBANCE_CURSE] [IT_CANNOT_HAVE_SYNDROME_CLASS:RAISED_UNDEAD] [IT_CANNOT_HAVE_SYNDROME_CLASS:RAISED_GHOST] [IT_CANNOT_HAVE_SYNDROME_CLASS:GHOUL] [I_EFFECT:ADD_SYNDROME] [IE_TARGET:A] [IE_IMMEDIATE] [SYNDROME] [SYN_CONCENTRATION_ADDED:1000:0] [SYN_CLASS:VAMPCURSE] [CE_ADD_TAG:BLOODSUCKER:NO_AGING:STERILE:NOT_LIVING:NOEXERT:NOPAIN:NOBREATHE:NOSTUN:NONAUSEA:NO_DIZZINESS:NO_FEVERS:PARALYZEIMMUNE:NO_EAT:NO_DRINK:NO_SLEEP:NO_PHYS_ATT_GAIN:NO_PHYS_ATT_RUST:START:0:ABRUPT] [CE_PHYS_ATT_CHANGE:STRENGTH:200:0:AGILITY:200:0:TOUGHNESS:200:0:START:0:ABRUPT] [CE_MATERIAL_FORCE_MULTIPLIER:MAT_MULT:NONE:NONE:1:2:ABRUPT] [CE_BODY_MAT_INTERACTION:MAT_TOKEN:RESERVED_BLOOD:START:0:ABRUPT] [CE:INTERACTION:DEITY_CURSE_VAMPIRE_1] [CE:SYNDROME_TAG:SYN_INGESTED] [CE:SYNDROME_TAG:SYN_INJECTED] [CE_DISPLAY_TILE:TILE:165:4:0:0:START:0:CAN_BE_HIDDEN:ABRUPT] [CE_DISPLAY_NAME:NAME:vampire:vampires:vampiric:START:0:CAN_BE_HIDDEN:ABRUPT] [CE_BP_APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:START:0:BP:BY_CATEGORY:TOOTH:APPEARANCE_MODIFIER:LENGTH:150:ABRUPT] [CE:COUNTER_TRIGGER:DRINKING_BLOOD:1:NONE:REQUIRED] [CE_SENSE_CREATURE_CLASS:START:0:CLASS:GENERAL_POISON:15:4:0:1:ABRUPT]

V · T · E Creatures
Races	Dwarf · Elf · Goblin · Human · Kobold Amphibian man · Antman · Bat man · Cave fish man · Cave swallow man · Olm man · Reptile man · Rodent man · Serpent man
Birds	Albatross (man · giant) · Barn owl (man · giant) · Blue jay (man · giant) · Bushtit (man · giant) · Cardinal (man · giant) · Cassowary (man · giant) · Cockatiel (man · giant) · Crow (man · giant) · Eagle (man · giant) · Emu (man · giant) · Grackle (man · giant) · Great horned owl (man · giant) · Grey parrot (man · giant) · Hornbill (man · giant) · Kakapo (man · giant) · Kea (man · giant) · Kestrel (man · giant) · Kiwi (man · giant) · Loon (man · giant) · Lorikeet (man · giant) · Magpie (man · giant) · Masked lovebird (man · giant) · Oriole (man · giant) · Osprey (man · giant) · Ostrich (man · giant) · Parakeet (man · giant) · Peach-faced lovebird (man · giant) · Penguin (little · emperor · man · giant) · Peregrine falcon (man · giant) · Puffin (man · giant) · Raven (man · giant) · Red-winged blackbird (man · giant) · Snowy owl (man · giant) · Sparrow (man · giant) · Swan (man · giant) · White stork (man · giant) · Wren (man · giant)
Bugs	Bark scorpion (man · giant) · Beetle (man · giant) · Brown recluse spider (man · giant) · Damselfly (man · giant) · Dragonfly (man · giant) · Firefly (man · giant) · Fly (man · giant) · Grasshopper (man · giant) · Jumping spider (man · giant) · Louse (man · giant) · Mantis (man · giant) · Monarch butterfly (man · giant) · Moon snail (man · giant) · Mosquito (man · giant) · Moth (man · giant) · Roach (man · giant) · Slug (man · giant) · Snail (man · giant) · Thrips (man · giant) · Tick (man · giant)
Desert	Desert tortoise (man · giant) · Gila monster (man · giant) · Leopard gecko (man · giant)
Domestic	Alpaca · Blue peafowl · Cat · Cavy · Chicken · Cow · Dog · Donkey · Duck · Goat · Goose · Guineafowl · Horse · Llama · Mule · Pig · Rabbit · Reindeer · Sheep · Turkey · Water buffalo · Yak
Mountain	Chinchilla (man · giant) · Dark gnome · Hoary marmot (man · giant) · Mountain gnome · Mountain goat (man · giant) · Wolverine (man · giant)
Ocean	Angelshark · Basking shark · Blacktip reef shark · Blue shark · Bluefin tuna · Bluefish · Bull shark · Cod · Coelacanth · Common skate · Conger eel · Crab (man · giant) · Cuttlefish (man · giant) · Elephant seal (man · giant) · Frill shark · Giant grouper · Great barracuda · Great white shark · Halibut · Hammerhead shark · Harp seal (man · giant) · Horseshoe crab (man · giant) · Leopard seal (man · giant) · Longfin mako shark · Manta ray · Marlin · Milkfish · Narwhal (man · giant) · Nautilus (man · giant) · Nurse shark · Ocean sunfish · Octopus (man · giant) · Opah · Orca (man · giant) · Sea lamprey · Shortfin mako shark · Sperm whale (man · giant) · Spiny dogfish · Sponge (man · giant) · Spotted wobbegong · Squid (man · giant) · Stingray · Sturgeon · Swordfish · Tiger shark · Walrus (man · giant) · Whale shark · Whitetip reef shark
River/Lake	Axolotl (man · giant) · Beaver (man · giant) · Carp · Hippo (man · giant) · Leech (man · giant) · Longnose gar · Mink (man · giant) · Otter (river · sea · man · giant) · Pike · Platypus (man · giant) · Pond turtle (man · giant) · Snapping turtle (common · alligator · man · giant) · Tigerfish
Temperate	Adder (man · giant) · Alligator (man · giant) · Badger (man · giant) · Black bear (man · giant) · Bobcat (man · giant) · Buzzard (man · giant) · Capybara (man · giant) · Coati (man · giant) · Copperhead snake (man · giant) · Cougar (man · giant) · Coyote (man · giant) · Deer (man · giant) · Dingo (man · giant) · Echidna (man · giant) · Fox (man · giant) · Gray langur (man · giant) · Green tree frog (man · giant) · Grizzly bear (man · giant) · Groundhog (man · giant) · Hare (man · giant) · Ibex (man · giant) · Kangaroo (man · giant) · Kingsnake (man · giant) · Koala (man · giant) · Moose (man · giant) · Opossum (man · giant) · Panda (man · giant) · Porcupine (man · giant) · Raccoon (man · giant) · Rattlesnake (man · giant) · Red panda (man · giant) · Rhesus macaque (man · giant) · Skunk (man · giant) · Weasel (man · giant) · Wild boar (man · giant) · Wolf (man · giant) · Wombat (man · giant)
Tropical	Aardvark (man · giant) · Anaconda (man · giant) · Armadillo (man · giant) · Aye-aye (man · giant) · Bilou · Black mamba (man · giant) · Black-crested gibbon · Black-handed gibbon · Bonobo · Bushmaster (man · giant) · Capuchin (man · giant) · Cheetah (man · giant) · Chimpanzee · Elephant (man · giant) · Gazelle (man · giant) · Giant desert scorpion · Giant tortoise (man · giant) · Giraffe (man · giant) · Gorilla · Gray gibbon · Honey badger (man · giant) · Hyena (man · giant) · Impala (man · giant) · Jackal (man · giant) · Jaguar (man · giant) · King cobra (man · giant) · Leopard (man · giant) · Lion (man · giant) · Lion tamarin (man · giant) · Mandrill (man · giant) · Mongoose (man · giant) · Monitor lizard (man · giant) · Ocelot (man · giant) · One-humped camel (man · giant) · Orangutan · Pangolin (man · giant) · Pileated gibbon · Python (man · giant) · Rhinoceros (man · giant) · Saltwater crocodile (man · giant) · Siamang · Silvery gibbon · Sloth (man · giant) · Sloth bear (man · giant) · Spider monkey (man · giant) · Tapir (man · giant) · Tiger (man · giant) · Two-humped camel (man · giant) · Vulture (man · giant) · Warthog (man · giant) · White-browed gibbon · White-handed gibbon
Tundra	Elk (man · giant) · Lynx (man · giant) · Muskox (man · giant) · Polar bear (man · giant) · Stoat (man · giant)
Subterranean	Amethyst man · Blind cave bear · Blind cave ogre · Blood man · Bugbat · Cave blob · Cave crocodile · Cave dragon · Cave floater · Creeping eye · Crundle · Draltha · Drunian · Elk bird · Fire imp · Fire man · Flesh ball · Floating guts · Gabbro man · Giant bat · Giant cave spider · Giant cave swallow · Giant earthworm · Giant mole · Giant olm · Giant rat · Giant cave toad · Gorlak · Green devourer · Helmet snake · Hungry head · Iron man · Jabberer · Large rat · Magma crab · Magma man · Manera · Molemarian · Mud man · Naked mole dog · Plump helmet man · Pond grabber · Reacher · Rutherer · Troglodyte · Voracious cave crawler
Mammals	Chipmunk (man · giant) · Flying squirrel (man · giant) · Gray squirrel (man · giant) · Hamster (man · giant) · Hedgehog (man · giant) · Rat (man) · Red squirrel (man · giant)
Reptiles	Anole (man · giant) · Chameleon (man · giant) · Iguana (man · giant) · Lizard (man · giant) · Skink (man · giant)
Miscellaneous	Toad (man · giant) · Wagon · Worm (man · giant)
Fantasy	Beak dog · Blizzard man · Foul blendec · Gremlin · Grimeling · Harpy · Ice wolf · Merperson · Nightwing · Ogre · Sasquatch · Satyr · Sea monster · Sea serpent · Strangler · Troll · Unicorn · Yeti
Night creatures	Bogeyman · Experiment · Ghost · Infected ghoul · Intelligent undead · Mummy · Necromancer · Night troll · Nightmare · Undead · Vampire · Werebeast
Semi-megabeasts	Cyclops · Ettin · Giant · Minotaur
Megabeasts	Bronze colossus · Dragon · Forgotten beast · Hydra · Roc · Titan
Hidden Fun Stuff	Angel · Demon · Dungeon guardian
Nonexistent	Centaur · Chimera · Griffon
See also: Random creature profile