The Book of the Unquiet Dead: Vampires

Look, at least the scribes leftsome blank space on the later pages, probably less from lack of knowledge and more for their own safety. While it is a bit safer nowadays, for most of history it was not condusive to ones health to make an enemy of vampires.

— Jasper Cameron, Leader of The Bronze Ravens

Vampires_{as annotated by Hrothgar Rumrunner}

While not the most powerful, the common Vampire is the most numerous of what we call the Greater Undead. That is to say that they posess the intelligence that they had in life. Well, unless they have gone feral. It is a common misconception that they are all hyper-intelligent masterminds, one likely spread by the vampires themselves.
That is not to say that they aren't dangerous. Like the stongest of the lesser undead, they have supernatural strength and speed, and can shrug off damage from most common weapons.

This basic bullshit. Even unenchanted weapons will work, they just appear not to because of the rapid healing that all vampires have as long as they have blood to spare. So they will go down eventually, it just takes more hits. Silver weapons are no more effective than steel, same with moon-blessed weapons. BLESSED weapons, on the other hand, are just as effective as against any of the other undead. As with most creatures with rapid regeneration fire and acid work wonders.

One of the most common misconceptions is that there are different "kinds" of vampires. If you are thinking in terms of "dwarf, elf, halfling etc" then yes, i guess you are correct, however we would reference you back to the forward of the book. IF you are thinking in terms of "feral, spawn, lord" then really ferals are the only ones than need to be distinguished. The others can be thought of more accurately in similar terms to dragons, A spawn is the youngest type of vampire, and a Lord is older and as such, more dangerous.

yea, but at least by and large you cant bump into a dragon by accident and their hunting grounds are much better marked. Vampires are dangerous because they can look like a normal person until it is too late.

Vampires, of course, subsist on drinking the blood of their victims, and as such it is usually easy to identify an area where one is active. Dead victims drained of blood with two puncture marks on the neck.
While vampires will most often kill their victim, should one survive, most often because the feeding was inturruped, then the victim shall instead turn into a vampire swawn themselves. In this way vampirism is similar to lycanthropy. Spawn should not be confused with thralls, those who have fallen under the hypnotic sway of a vampire.
The presence of Spawn and Thralls around an older vampire is why they often live separate, often masqerading as a local noble. A more established coven may have several older vampires that can rotate through acting as the public "face" to create less suspicion amoung the locals.

Ah yes, the "two pricks on the neck" tell-tale. Honestly more likely to be an anti-vampire cult of some sort trying to rouse suspicion to get a purge into the area.
Vampires, by and large dont kill victims anymore, but instead feed from a collection of mortals large enough that no permanent damage is done to any of them. This "stable" or "herd" often work for the vampire in one form or another, usually for the benefit of protection and/or position in the local community. This switch to being more symbyotic with the local community happened around 1000 years ago with the rise of the Vampire Clans.
By and large, only feral and fanatic vampires leave a trail of corpses, and in many areas the Vampire Clans hunt down these outliers themselves as they are "bad for buisness." However, as one moves towards more remote areas the influence of the major clans wanes. This is why the older tales of vampires persist more in the rural areas. Like where this book was written.