Becoming a Vampire in Skyrim

I vant to suck your blood!
I vant to suck your blood!

Vampirism has made its way back in the latest Elder Scrolls release with a couple changes and here’s what you need to know about it.

Vampirism, known as the disease called Sanguinare Vampiris, takes three days to come in to effect, if you don’t wish to become a vampire it’s best you take a Cure Disease potion or find an altar quickly. Once you become a vampire you’ll notice a few changes like your character’s physical features and the new spells: Vampire’s Sight, Vampiric Drain, Vampire’s Servant, Vampire’s Seduction and Embrace of Shadows. There are of course advantages and disadvantages to becoming a vampire and it seems that sneak based characters will fair best with the disease of vampirism.

In order to become a vampire you need to find someone who has the vampirism disease. Vampires can be found in many caves and catacombs like Shriekwind Bastion and Broken Fang Cave. Once you find a vampire let them attack you, of course don’t let them kill you. While fighting a vampire look for the effect Sanguine Vampiris, if you have it let it incubate for 3 days. After 3 days you will officially become a vampire.

  1. Upon transformation you’ll become completely immune to disease and poison
  2. Champion of the Night: Illusion spells are now 25% more powerful
  3. Nightstalker’s Footsteps: You become 25% harder to detect while sneaking
  4. Resistance to Frost
  1. People begin to hate you and in stage 4 of your vampirism they will begin to attack on sight of you.
  2. The sunlight becomes your enemy, your stats in Magicka, Health and Stamina reduce and no longer automatically regenerate when in the sunlight.
  3. Fire becomes a weakness

If you do not keep up with your feeding you will a eventually advance through the 4 stages of vampirism. As you move through each stage your powers increase but so do your weaknesses.

Stage 1
  1. Vampire’s Sight: You can Night Vision for 60 seconds
  2. Vampiric Drain: Absorb 2 health per second from your enemies
  3. Vampire’s Servant: Reanimate a create level 6 or less for 60 seconds
  4. Magicka, Health and Stamina reduced by 15 points
  5. 25% weakness to fire
  6. Resist Frost 25%
Stage 2:
  1. Vampire’s Seduction: Creatures or Humans won’t fight or flee for 30 seconds
  2. Vampiric Drain: Increases to 3 health per second
  3. Vampire’s Servant: Increased level cap to 13 or less
  4. Magicka, Health and Stamina reduced by 30 points
  5. 50% weakness to fire
  6. Resist Frost 50%
Stage 3:
  1. Vampiric Drain: Increases to 4 health per second
  2. Vampire’s Servant: Increases level cap to 21 or less
  3. Magicka, Health and Stamina reduced by 45 points
  4. 75% weakness to fire
  5. Resist Frost 75%
Stage 4:
  1. Vampiric Drain: Increases to 5 health per second
  2. Vampire’s Servant: Increases level cap to 30 or less
  3. Embrace of Shadows: Gain Vampire’s Sight and Invisibility for 3 minutes once per day.
  4. Magicka, Health and Stamina reduced by 60 points
  5. 100% weakness to fire
  6. Resist Frost 100%

In order to maintain your vampirism you must feed on human blood. The easiest way to do this is to sneak up to sleeping citizens and drink from them. Once you get your fill you’ll revert back to stage 1 and the process begins all over again. Feeding also makes your character appear more “healthy” so that you can fit in to society a little better.

There are two ways to cure vampirism. The first requires you to become a werewolf, once you do this your vampirism disappears. The other way requires a quest called Rising at Dawn, you can start this quest by speaking to a mage named Falion in Morthal. Vampirism can be contracted more than once even after you find the cure.

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Phill
Phill

Phill is a long time Elder Scrolls enthusiast who decided to create a community of his own. He is the founder of both The Skyrim Guild and The Shadowed Mare -- two of the earliest Skyrim and Elder Scrolls Online websites.

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sleepress
sleepress
9 years ago

where can i find a vamp

Shane Scarbrough
Shane Scarbrough
Reply to  sleepress
9 years ago

Hi sleepress,

Here are some of the locations in Skyrim where you can find Vampires: Broken Fang Cave, Bloodlet Throne, Cronvangr Cave, Fellglow Keep, Half-Moon Mill, Haemar’s Shame, Mara’s Eye Pond, Movarth’s Lair, Pinemoon Cave, Shriekwind Bastion, and Potema’s Catacombs. Also, if you have the Dawnguard expansion pack, there’s a marked increase in random Vampire encounters — even in cities.