Vampire


 * For similar creatures see Vampire (disambiguation).

Vampires were parasitic, long-lived creatures who inhabited countless worlds across the universe and beyond. They descended from the Great Vampires and reproduced by infecting other life forms. They subsisted on blood.

Characteristics
The vampire "curse" had different strains. (EDA: Vampire Science) The vampires encountered by the Fourth Doctor in E-Space, for instance, had pale skin and fangs, and aged rapidly to the point of death when their creator, the King Vampire, was destroyed. (DW: State of Decay) To be infected, an individual had to be repeatedly fed upon. Those infected had only a small chance of living through the mutation process. They became stronger and developed a sensitivity to light, mild hydrophobia and an allergy to the allyl component in garlic. Their mutated selves developed a hunger for protein and so they compensated for this by drinking blood. (EDA: The Eight Doctors, NA: Blood Harvest)

They preferred the blood of the living to that of the dead. (DW: State of Decay) They had a highly advanced cardiovascular system and fast recuperative powers and so small wounds healed nearly immediately. A significant blow had to be made to kill one, such as puncturing the heart or decapitation. (EDA: The Eight Doctors)

A related group of vampires, encountered by the Fifth Doctor had the ability to fly. They were capable of rapidly healing injuries and could summon other vampires by exuding a bloody mist, carried on the wind. They could change their shape and turn into mist. The DNA of these vampires was so contagious that even flowers growing on a vampire's grave would be affected. Vampires were affected by the faith of others as it affects the transition between the quantum and classical states of physics in the humanoid mind. It was therefore possible that Ice Warriors would be unable to perceive vampires. Faith or garlic could, in large enough doses, make a vampire completely vanish.

Because, as in Time Lords, the bioplasmic fields were centred on their brain stem, decapitation caused vampires to crumble into dust. The stomach of a vampire was bigger on the inside. They were unable to cross running water and instinctively slept during the daylight hours. They were unable to survive solely on animal blood without lapsing into a fugue. If a vampire converted a new individual but was destroyed before the next full moon, the new vampire would revert to normal. They were telepathic. (MA: Goth Opera)

Another group of vampires was encountered by the Eighth Doctor in San Francisco. These vampires crumbled into red ash if staked through the heart, could be destroyed by sunlight, and had reflections. If two vampires drank each other's blood, a psychic connection would form between them, a process known as bloodfasting. Two vampires linked in this way would feel each other's pain. Converting a new vampire required the initiate to drink a vampire's blood. These vampires also suffered from malnutrition if they tried to live on animal blood, in this case that of cows. (EDA: Vampire Science)

Vampires and Time Lords shared 98% of the same genes; regeneration was similar to vampiric abilities. (MA: Goth Opera)

History
During the Dark Time, the Time Lords of Gallifrey, under the command of Rassilon, came into conflict with a race known as the Great Vampires. (DW: State of Decay)

The Great Vampires were possibly the same as the Yssgaroth, who were accidentally unleashed into the universe by a Time Lord experiment. (NA: The Pit) Rassilon led the Time Lords in a war against the Great Vampires. The Time Lords used Bowships, which fired huge bolts of steel into the vampire's heart. Eventually, the Great Vampires were all slain, with the exception of the King Vampire, who escaped into E-Space. Buried on a planet in E-Space, the King Vampire infected three crew members of the Hydrax, turning them into vampires. They were found by the Fourth Doctor, who destroyed the King Vampire by flying a scout ship into its heart. (DW: State of Decay)

However, the three had infected many of the humans who lived on the planet. The Doctor and Romana met with a group from the House of Zarn. (EDA: The Eight Doctors)

The war destroyed dozens of inhabited planets. After this time, every Time Lord had a duty to deal with any vampires they encountered. (EDA: Vampire Science)

A Time Lord story shows an owl, symbolizing Rassilon, being overcome by a bat. It was claimed that the Great Vampire bit Rassilon and that Rassilon became a vampire himself. (MA: Goth Opera) In the ducts and serviceways of the Capitol there were vampire shrines still used in the Doctor's time. Small groups of heretics called the followed the Cult of the Vampire Rassilon. (Blood Invocation, MA: Goth Opera) Ruath claimed that Rassilon deliberately became a vampire, knowing that the Time Lords had reached an evolutionary dead end and faced certain extinction. Ruath claimed that he knew vampires would become the dominant life in the universe, and lay undead in his tomb awaiting that moment. (MA: Goth Opera)

Society
Vampires sometimes came together in covens. The traditional number for a coven was fourteen, one more than the number of lives allotted to a Time Lord. (EDA: Vampire Science)