Undeath - Vampires

Awakened to an endless night, vampires hunger for the life they have lost, and can only sat that hunger by drinking the blood of the living. Vampires abhor sunlight, for its touch burns them. They never cast shadows or reflections. Every vampire remains bound to its grave, where it must rest to maintain its strength.
A vampire's appearance grows more monstrous the further they stray from their mortality. When well-fed and calm, a true vampire will resemble the way they were in life almost exactly, save for the corpse-like pallor of their skin and the dark pits of their eyes (the whites too white, and the dark too dark). Their fangs will shrink until it is time to feed, though will always be noticeable. When a vampire loses control of themselves, they become more unsettling: their mouth widens, their eyes grow larger and black, and their skin loses color. Their fingers may become long and clawed, and they may grow or shrink in size. The proudest of vampires consider such transformation beneath them, but it is always just one outburst away.
Whether or not a vampire retains any memories from its former life (which most do), its emotional attachments wither as once-pure feelings become twisted by undeath. In place of emotion, vampires pursue physical symbols of what they crave.
While functionally, vampires in the Anchored Worlds setting work almost exactly the same, aesthetically they are different. Rather than the large, unwieldy canines typically associated with vampires, they have teeth that more closely resemble those of real-life vampires. The wounds caused by Anchored vampires are not dual puncture wounds, but gouge wounds with a very unique size and shape. Some take advantage of this fact and carve symbols or words into their victims, to strike fear into those who find the body. Vampires also have the unsettling ability to completely unhinge/elongate their jaw to allow for easier feeding.
Credit for images uses goes to palidoozy art and Anitomika Science.

Type

Supernatural

Origin

Magical

Cycle

Chronic, Acquired