| “ | The Tyranny of the Sun has been broken! | „ |
| ~ A vampire in combat. |
Vampires are supporting characters in The Elder Scrolls franchise, with their roles expanded in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and expanded even further in the Skyrim DLC, Dawnguard. The DLC introduces the Volkihar Clan. Though not all vampires in the series are hostile, most of them are. Vampires come in many variants, in rank, their race and how powerful they are.
Description[]
With the Dawnguard DLC installed, Vampires are easily identified by the glowing golden-orange eyes they have, along with the pale skin on their faces, appearance of veins under the skin, and many other telltale signs of being infected with vampirism. Along with all this, vampires can now be identified by their unique Vampire Armor they wear as it comes in three different colored variants: Red, gray, or black.
They also use a unique Destruction spell only they can use, known as "Vampiric Drain". This carries the chance of infecting the Dragonborn with the vampiric disease Sanguinare Vampiris. If not cured within 72 in-game hours using a Potion of Cure Disease, a shrine like a Shrine of Talos, or meeting with a Vigilant of Stendarr to cure them, the Dragonborn will become a full vampire and will need to see Falion in the Hjaalmarch Hold capital of Morthal to undergo a ritual to purge the vampirism and return them to normal.
Vampires are only found during nighttime hours in random encounters. Sometimes, they will be disguised as Vigilants of Stendarr they killed and looted for their Novice Robes of one of the five Schools of Magic and Steel Cuffed Boots to lure the Dragonborn in under the surmise of being Vigilants, then revealing themselves once the Dragonborn gets close enough to realize the deception. Other times, they will ambush the Dragonborn if they run across them. In another instance, a vampire's thrall will be acting like they are in trouble, and when the Dragonborn investigates, ambushes them with the vampire they are serving. Vampires can also be aided by Death Hounds, undead dogs whose bite is as cold as the grave and deal ice-based damage to their victims to drain their health and stamina, and multiple Death Hounds attacking at once can be lethal to the Dragonborn. Should there be a corpse nearby, vampires will use Conjuration spells like Raise Zombie to reanimate it to fight for them, but when the corpse is struck down or the spell-caster is slain, the spell is broken, and the corpse dissolves into a pile of ashes, so it cannot be reanimated again. Already dead bodies found in various locations around Skyrim will remain permanently as ash piles upon return visits to the locations after they reset if the corpses were reanimated during an earlier encounter.
Vampires also have a natural immunity to ice that grows as they go without feeding for several days, but in return, they have a natural weakness to fire that does the same thing, so while using ice-based Destruction spells on them will be useless, fire-based spells will seal their doom.
Vampires also are trained to use one-handed weapons when unable to use their magic or Vampiric Drain against their foes.
The best way to kill a vampire is to try and sneak attack them before they can use any spells, especially Conjuration to reanimate corpses to fight for them. Most vampires will use Destruction magic with their Vampiric Drain as well, while others with fight with their melee weapons to take out their foes. Once a vampire is dead, their bodies can be looted for their unique armor, weapons, vampire dust, which can be used in alchemy, and some gold.
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