Vampires are a race of blood drinking supernatural creatures that were once human. They have been encountered by the Winchesters, Gordon Walker and other hunters. However it has been stated encountering a vampire is very rare as Hunters have hunted them near to extinction, although due to their ability to reproduce by transfusion, there only needs to be one for them to repopulate.
Little has been revealed about vampires, such as their organization, weaknesses and their origin. All vampires, however, originate from the Alpha Vampire.
Characteristics
They live forever, and several depicted vampires are hundreds of years of age or older. Their diet is based strictly on blood, and while Human blood is preferred, they can survive by ingesting the blood of other animals (although one such vampire, Lenore, refers to cow blood as 'disgusting'). Vampires must keep their victims alive or their blood becomes toxic to them. Vampires can only be killed by beheading, and then, they leave behind a corpse that can be examined to find their vampire teeth.
Type of Hierarchy
Vampires are organized into nests, with eight to ten vampires residing in each, with a mate for life. The younger members of the nest typically do the hunting for their elders, bringing back humans to be fed upon for days or even weeks.
Reproduction
Dean being transformed.
Vampirism is a blood-borne pathogen, spread by the ingestion of infected blood or by its direct introduction to the human blood stream. These are the only known methods of infection, since many hunters are seen getting splashed in the face with vampire blood without being turned. This means that the virus doesn't enter a person's system through the eyes, nose or unbroken skin. It may also mean that, in terms of ingestion, a certain quantity of the contagion is required to cause infection, considering getting splattered blood on the lips may result in some entering the mouth, becoming mixed with saliva, and winding up swallowed. These limitations are very beneficial to hunters due to the fact that killing a vampire can only be a gory experience.
Cure
The cure for vampirism.
Vampirism is rarely curable, with the only known cure being a ritual recorded by an ancestor of the Campbell Family of hunters. The ritual calls for the blood of the new vampire's sire, and will not work if the subject has fed on Human blood. The reversion is painful, but no secondary effects are retained.
Appearance
A vampire's appearance is that of a normal human. However, they all have common features, such as sharp, pointed, retractable teeth that emerge from their gums and extend beyond their human teeth, and immortality.
Powers and Abilities
- Super strength: Vampires possesses great strength, but it is known to vary with age. All Vampires are capable of lifting heavy objects and overpowering humans. Older vampires, however, can overpower their own and other creatures.
- Powerful Fangs: Vampires' teeth are superhumanly strong and can rip open a humans neck. leave huge bite marks on the corpse of the victim it has feed on.
- Super Speed: Vampires speed is greater then humans.
- Super agility: Vampires possess amazing agility. They can climb up walls and jump off buildings without hurting themselves. Vampires also have greater reflexes than humans.
- Superhuman Senses: Vampires have extremely keen senses. All of a vampires senses are enhanced to super human level. They can see in the dark, hear a humans heart beat, and possess enhanced sense of smell. A vampire can track a human's blood over long distance including other vampires. John Winchester warned Sam and Dean about how strong a vampire's sense really is. "once a vampire has your scent it's for life."
- Immortality: Vampires can live much longer than humans. They can't grow old and don't get sick.
- Invulnerability: Vampires can not be killed by conventional weapons like guns and knives.
Vulnerabilities
Castiel kills Lenore.
As other supernatural creatures, they have weaknesses that hunters can use on their advantage to kill them. The Angels can kill them without difficulty. Castiel killed Lenore by just placing his palm on her head.
- The Colt: As it can kill almost anything, can be used against vampires.
- Beheading: Beheading is the most used method to kill vampires.
- Dead Man's Blood: The use of blood from the recently deceased can also be used as a method to incapacitate vampires briefly.
- Sunlight: While sunlight can hurt them, John Winchester likened it to a really bad sunburn, it's not lethal as it only causes pain to vampires. Other kinds of lights can be harming to their eyes, as they shine more to them than to normal humans.
Early History
The Alpha Vampire was the very first vampire and he appears to have a psychic connection with other vampires. By the year 2006, vampires had been hunted so intensively and become so rare that John Winchester had thought they were extinct.
Season 1
Luther is shot by John Winchester with the Colt.
Daniel Elkins attracts the attention of a group of Vampires, led by Kate, who follow him home and kill him after a struggle. They take the Colt from him and Kate presents it to her mate and patriarch, Luther. The vampires live in an old barn where they capture tourists and feed on them, turning one such victim into one of their own. Their nest is invaded by the Winchesters and Kate is lured after them, only to be captured and infected with Dead Man's Blood. John Winchester used her as a bargaining chip to force Luther to hand over the Colt, after which the vampires tried to kill John and his two sons. But John shot Luther with the Colt, proving the legend that it can kill anything.
Season 2
Gordon tortures Lenore with Dead Man's Blood.
Sam is captured by a group of vampires who have sworn off human prey and have chosen to feed on cattle instead, but they are still living in fear of being hunted. Their matriarch, Lenore, wishes for Sam to go back to his brother and the hunter Gordon Walker and ward them off hunting her kin. Gordon refuses to do so, however, and discovers the nest and tortures Lenore with Dead Man's Blood to prove to the Winchesters that all vampires are monsters. Lenore resists her bloodlust despite his methods of temptation. The Winchesters turn against Gordon and free Lenore, having seen her resilience.
Season 3
Dixon attempts to infect a woman.
A vampire called Dixon has been infecting young blonde women with vampirism in the hopes of rebuilding his lost family and repopulating the vampiric species. He converts them by feeding them his blood under the pretense that it is a recreational drug, administered either with an eyedropper or in a drink. One of the girls he has recently turned is caught and interrogated by Sam and Dean, which puts them on his trail, but the timely arrival of a vengeful Gordon prevents them from pursuing Dixon.
Sam kills Gordon by garroting him with razorwire..
In a cruel twist of fate, Dixon captures Gordon and turns him into a vampire as punishment for the vampires he's killed in the past. Gordon is not a passive victim, however, and he uses his new strength to murder Dixon's girls and escape. This drives Dixon to despair and apathy, and when the Winchesters find his lair, he admits to everything he has done, it is implied that they kill him. Gordon, after escaping Dixon's lair, soon falls victim to bloodlust and feeds on human blood. He then continues his hunt for Sam by setting a trap, capturing and infecting another woman to work as a distraction and then isolating Sam so that he can attack him. Gordon underestimates Sam, however, and is subsequently decapitated with barbed wire and is dead in the fight.
Season 4
The Winchester brothers begin their supernatural investigation by looking into a vampire attack. However, the "vampire" turns out to be a shapeshifter who disguises himself as classic horror movie monsters, including Dracula.
Season 5
Dean decapitates a vampire on the hood of the Impala, quoting: "Eat it Twilight!".
Season 6
Dean becomes a vampire.
In Limestone, Illinois, Sam and Dean investigate the disappearances of several young women. They discover that the most recent victim was obsessed with Twilight-style vampires, and that she was communicating with someone who claimed to be a vampire online. At the same time, a blood bank van is robbed. Sam and Dean go to a club called the Black Rose, the girl's last destination, and discover vampires trying to "recruit" new members. Sam kills one vampire, but Dean is turned by a vamp named Boris. Sam intervenes, belatedly, and chases the vampire away. The Winchesters return to their hotel room, and Sam calls Samuel. Dean, who is prepared to be killed by Samuel, sneaks away to bid Lisa goodbye. He is nearly overwhelmed by his hunger, but resists and returns to Sam and Samuel. Samuel surprises Dean by revealing a cure in one of his ancestor's hunting journals. In order to work, Dean must consume no human blood, and must acquire the blood of the vampire that turned him, so Dean goes to the nest of the vampires with a syringe of dead man's blood.
Dean fights with vampires.
At the nest, a "recruiter" named Robert offers Dean blood, which he declines, and reveals that they are not longer allowed to kill people. Dean meets Boris, and tries to stab him with the dead man's blood, but Boris is too quick. Before Boris can kill Dean, all the vampires collapse, Dean included. He has a shared vision of the Alpha vampire, and perceives that the Alpha wishes to build an army. When he awakes, Dean must fight the vampires in the nest. He eventually kills all the members, except one beheaded by Sam and Samuel, and gets Boris's blood. Samuel prepares the cure and Dean drinks it. He vomits blood and passes out, but re-awakes as a human.
Alpha Vampire is captured by the demons.
Samuel Campbell and his people capture the Alpha Vampire. They subdue him using an I.V. of Dead Man's Blood and attempt to interrogate him, but he is extremely resistant to pain and doesn't give Samuel any information. After Samuel leaves the room where he is being held, he is approached by Dean and Sam and he reveals to them that, though he is the first vampire, he has a mother. He also tells them that Samuel is torturing him for information about Purgatory and its location. Shortly after their conversation, he escapes his cage and almost escapes, but demons appear and take him away on Crowley's orders. It is revealed that Samuel has been working for Crowley, who takes Alpha Vampire to continue interrogating it about Purgatory.
Castiel brings Lenore to Bobby's house so that they can ask her for Eve's location. She is hesitant, but eventually tells them where to find Eve: in Grants Pass, Oregon. She then asks to be killed. With Eve on earth, her nest has abandoned her and returned to feeding on humans, and even she has given in to her bloodlust on one occasion. Sam and Dean try to persuade her that after Eve is destroyed things will improve, but Lenore is doubtful. Castiel places a hand on her head and kills her.
Dean finds a creature that has vampire teeth.
In Grants Pass, Oregon, they find Eve experimenting with creating hybrid monsters. On examination of some of the hybrids in a bar, Dean finds they have strange hybrid attributes, one creature has vampiric teeth in addition to the spike of a Wraith protruding from its wrist. Dean dubs these hybrids Jefferson Starships.
Later, The Alpha Vampire is mentioned when Crowley asks Sam and Dean to find another Alpha. Sam and Dean ask if the Alpha Vampire wasn't enough for him. It is unknown what happened after.
Known Vampires
- Alpha Vampire
- Luther
- Kate
- Beau
- Lenore
- Eli
- Conrad
- Dixon
- Lucy
- Gordon Walker
- Boris
- Dean Winchester (temporarily)
Appearances
Season One
Season Two
Season Three
Season Five
Season Six
Season Seven
Lore
The Vampire, by Philip Burne-Jones, 1897
According to most lore, vampires subsist by feeding on the life essence (generally in the form of blood) of living creatures, regardless of whether they are undead or a living person. Although vampiric entities have been recorded in many cultures, the term "vampire" was not popularized until the early 18th century, after an influx of vampire superstition into Western Europe from areas where vampire legends were frequent, such as the Balkans and Eastern Europe. This increased level of vampire superstition in Europe led to mass hysteria and in some cases resulted in corpses actually being staked and people being accused of vampirism. Local variants of vampires were also known by different names, such as vrykolakas in Greece and strigoi in Romania.
Trivia
- They have appeared as monsters of the week in Season 1 episode Dead Man's Blood, Season 2 episode Bloodlust and Season 6 episode Live Free or Twihard.
- Along with the Demons and the Ghosts, vampires are the most recurring monsters in the series.
- In follklore, vampires are reanimated corpses that feed on human blood or life force and just like in Supernatural, can't be killed by sunlight, can hunt in ether at night or day.
- Their appearance is said to be bloated because of the blood they feed on humans and have rudy or dark skin (not pale). Vampires are also said to have glowing red eyes, and their hair, teeth, and nails have grown longer.
- Like in Supernatural vampires in folklore did not have fangs, but long grown teeth that are said to be supernaturally strong and their teeth can bite through anything.
- According to Folklore, vampires live in their graves and come out at night to feed on human blood. Vampires feed on their family first: their wife or husband, children, grandparents and cousins.
- In folklore, a person can become a vampire by ether by being bitten by a vampires, possessed by a demon, by birth, by violent death, or by excommunication. The most common way to become a vampire, however, was by being bitten by a vampire.
- In folklore, Vampires infected disease and sedates its victims when they feed on their human victims, could shapeshift into many kinds animals and take a living person form, and had great strength.
- Vampire in folklore were repelled by garlic, iron, and could not cross running water or a line of seeds. Wooden stakes were used to pin vampires down before killing them. Types of wood like Ash, Oak, Blackthorn, Hawthorn, or Ash wood were believe to be toxic to vampires and were used for staking.