Vampires

Vampires (吸血鬼,) are an immortal ageless race that feeds on the blood of humans. A human who ingests vampire blood becomes a vampire. All vampires were originally human, although they like to pretend otherwise and look down on young vampires as "former humans." The origin of the first vampire has yet to be revealed.

A noble vampire may choose to sire a human to keep as a companion to ward off the boredom of eternity. However, many vampires show aversion to spreading their curse and may try to use another noble to turn the person they designate. Should they sire a vampire themselves, that vampire will always be much weaker than them in power and grow to resent them for cursing them to such a state.

Vampires lose their emotions until only the greatest components of their personalities remain in addition to their everlasting thirst for blood. Although they may originally feel guilty about drinking human blood and killing humans, they gradually come to consider them nothing but food after decades of feeding on them and watching the humans foolishly wage war with one another and repeat the same mistakes redundantly. They can generally resist their thirst for blood for only three days at most before losing control. They consider biting and drinking a human dry to be the greatest pleasure. Vampires can also enjoy drinking vampire blood, but the details and limitations of this have yet to be revealed. Mikaela lives off of Krul's blood for four years before it is no longer effective at quenching his thirst.

As hemovores, they can only ingest blood and nothing else. Vampires concerned with anything other than blood are considered to be eccentric. Krul Tepes and Ferid Bathory are considered to be eccentric, and Mikaela even more so. Vampires have no sexual desire or any other desires, aside from the craving to drink blood. Many of them try to make themselves interested in something in order to stave off their eternal boredom.

A vampire who starves does not die but rather becomes a demon.

Vampires typically band together out of their own self-interest and not out of affection or love for one another, and they have no qualms about killing their own allies once they lose their human feelings.

They typically sleep between early morning and noon.

Sunlight and Cursed Gear are both capable of killing vampires. However, most vampires wear enchanted rings or armbands in order to ward off the effects of the sunlight. Cutting off a vampire's head using normal weaponry will not kill a vampire, although it will render the vampire unable to use his or her body. When a vampire is killed, he or she becomes ash.

Appearance
Vampires have fangs, pointed ears, and red eyes. Incomplete vampires maintain their original eye color until ingesting human blood for the first time. However, vampires have methods of changing their appearances. For instance, Saitō appears with normal ears and wears colored contacts to mask his eye color.

They have no body heat, pulse, or bodily excretions since their metabolism has utterly stopped. True vampires never grow older and are much stronger than an incomplete vampire of equal rank.

Incomplete Vampire
A human that ingests the blood of a vampire does not become a vampire but rather an incomplete vampire. The only known incomplete vampire in the series is Mikaela Hyakuya. Newly-turned vampires can survive off of the blood of the one how sired them, but this will only work for a limited period of time.

Incomplete vampires retain their human eye colors but grows fangs and grow in strength. Whether or not their ears grow pointed like a true vampires is unknown. Unlike true vampires, they continue aging until drinking human blood until becoming true vampires.

An incomplete vampire has no heart beat.

Despite incomplete vampires not being true vampires, true vampires seem to have no aversion towards them. Mika is seen alongside them several times, and they seem unperturbed by the prospect of an incomplete vampire working with them.

Progenitors
Progenitors are royalty among the vampires. All progenitors are nobles but not all nobles are progenitors. By default, they are extremely powerful and higher ranks even more so. However, progenitors of the same rank are not necessarily equal in power. Sixth Progenitors and above have the right to attend meetings of the Progenitor Council. It is likely that all vampire monarchs are progenitors of an esteemed lineage.

The rank of progenitor corresponds with the number of progenitors holding that rank. For example, there is one First Progenitor (status unknown), two Second Progenitors, three Third Progenitors, and so on.

A vampire always holds a rank weaker than his or her sire. For instance, a vampire sired by a Seventh Progenitor would not be able to have a rank greater than Thirteenth Progenitor.

Not shown:
 * 17th Progenitor Zane Lindau

Nobles
A human turned into a vampire by a progenitor becomes a noble. Nobles are far stronger than the average vampire and wield superior weapons. There are 20 ranks of nobles.

Common Vampire
Common vampires tend to be weaker than the higher classes but remain stronger than humans. A common vampire with greater battle prowess has influence similar to a lower-ranked noble.

Laws

 * Vampires are forbidden from any meddling with the Seraph of the End. Violation will result in severe consequences.
 * Prior to the Apocalypse, vampires were forbidden from meddling with human affairs. This law was overturned once the human population became threatened, and vampires rose up to save their food supply.
 * In Sanguinem, vampires are forbidden from drinking blood directly from a human. They may only drink blood directly while on the surface or on the battlefield. This is because more vampires tend to drink their prey dry than not. However, laws are determined by the vampire rulers of each city and may vary even within the same country.
 * Drinking blood from another vampire is taboo but grants immoral pleasure.
 * Only nobles are permitted to turn a human into a vampire.
 * According to Ferid, vampires are not allowed to use another vampire's blood to turn a human into a vampire. He says the punishment for doing so is imprisonment deep underground for all eternity for both the vampire who used the blood and the vampire who was sired with it.  Since a vampire's brain will continue to regenerate, he says the prisoner will forever long for blood without any way to fulfill that desire and any ability to die.

Natural Abilities
Vampires have impressive power and regenerative abilities; this increases with their lineage and age. They can easily reattach a limb. It is also possible to reattach a vampire's head, although the vampire in question will need someone to bring the two ends of the neck together. Nobles have the authority to turn a human into a vampire if they so choose. Vampires may increase their abilities by drinking human blood at any time. Their eyesight allows them to distinguish a target several hundred meters away, even in pitch-black darkness. All of their senses are greatly enhanced, although they no longer view anything as beautiful.

Weapons
In battle, they use their natural abilities as well as different types of weapons. First-class weapons pierce a vampire's hand and drink vampire blood in order to significantly increase their power. Their nature is unknown, but they have existed prior to the 1300s.

Second-class weapons are used by common vampires, and are not as powerful as first-class weapons.

Protective Gear
Vampires most commonly wear armbands on their left arms to protect themselves from UV light. They may also wear rings. This allows them to move under sunlight without harm, although they still dislike it. In Book 2 of The Story of the Vampire Michaela, Ferid becomes distressed and groggy during daytime when his ring malfunctions.

Technology
The vampires have advanced technology compared to the humans and comment when human technology becomes advanced. Ferid takes notice of it when he first comes across a Horseman of John in Book 2 of Guren Ichinose: Catastrophe at Sixteen. During the Progenitor Council meetings in Vampire Reign, the vampires talk to each other across the world through video.

Weaknesses

 * They have immense pride and typically underestimate their human opponents or may refuse to work together with vampires of rival factions.
 * Sunlight! Exposure to UV light will create a toxin in their bodies, and vampires must wear protective gear to neutralize this effect.
 * They can be killed if their heads are destroyed. One bullet will not do the job.
 * Cursed gear and enchanted gear used by the Japanese Imperial Demon Army limit their healing capabilities.

Trivia

 * They typically refer to the humans as "livestock" instead of calling them by their names.
 * Yūichirō Hyakuya reads a book in chapter 1, which states vampires are only 7x as strong as humans. Considering a vampire's ranking, this can be a severe underestimation.
 * Krul, Chess, and Horn either have small horns or horn-like decorations on their heads.
 * Any vampire is capable of turning a human, but their laws only give permission to progenitors.
 * Only sixth progenitors and above may attend a Progenitor Council meeting under normal conditions.
 * Abnormal conditions include when a lower-ranking vampire is reporting on the battlefield or a lower-ranking vampire is the vampire of highest authority in a region.