Vampires

Vampires are almost as old as Humans. They are an eternal race born of a necromantic ritual, utilizing the power of the moon and blood to create the Undead. They are hemovores, subsisting entirely off of blood.

History
Like all Engineered undead vampires were originated by a necromancer dabbling in controlling the dead. The particularities of the original ritual are lost to time, but the basic criteria can easily be reproduced. The continued rituals of various necromancers over the centuries have resulted in a number of different genitum, or subraces.

The ritual consists of turning a living being directly into an undead by using lunar energies and blood magic to anchor the individual to their physical bodies.

Culture

 * see also: Vampire Territories, List of Vampire gentils

Global vampire culture is hard to describe considering the vampire population contains individuals from every age of human civilization, with any individual holding the values of their particular time period and country of origin.

Generally, vampires are solitary, especially in less developed countries. There predatory natures leading them to a life of constant migration.

But the older vampires, having grown tired of constant migration, have developed systems to lay down roots.

Common vampiric characteristics
All true vampires possess the following abilities, traits, and weaknesses.
 * Eternal life - all vampires will live indefinitely, ceasing to age at the time of their undeath.
 * Sunlight kills
 * Enhanced senses
 * Enhanced strength, speed, endurance
 * Immunity to telepathy
 * Can only be killed through decapitation, bodily destruction, exposure to sunlight, pierced through the heart by wood
 * Reproduce through blood exchange
 * Feed off of blood
 * A "bond" with all those directly sired

Subraces

 * see also: List of Vampire genitum

A vampiric subrace is known as a genitum. Each genitum possesses the common characteristics of a vampire, but also possess one, or more, metaphysical trait depending on the

The subraces of vampires each possess the common traits of a vampire, though the original necromantic ritual creating them has been lost, various subsequent attempts have been made resulting in vampire races with differing abilities. The primary difference can be seen in the type of blood that was used to create the progenitor of the line.

Each subrace is known as a genitum.