Vampires - A study report

"There be mosquitos, then it be ticks, finally it be vampires. The biggest, ugliest and most useless of the unholy trinity af bloodsuckers. What thy gods were thinkin' neigh smitin' them suckers. I never will be wiser."
-A Diestrian Blacksmith

Vampirism

To understand vampirism and its causes, we need to first study the creatures in mind. To this end, we look at the three types of vampire to exist. Demons, Vhaaki and Bloodsworn.
The vampires of inferno are the first iteration of their ilk to exist, according to the interrogation and studies of demons, their art and tales as well as direct autopsies of the demonic vampires. From what we can tell, these creatures known as Incarnates do not carry the same soulkiss as the Vhaaki. While their forms are warped from the same coalescent aspects of chaos and decadence, there is a purity within them entirely lacking of the V mutation.
These demons are in other words incapable of spreading the vampire disease through bites and in some cases, claws and nails. While they could likely embrace a victim through magic, the implications of such an act is that like all curses and hexes, there is a way to reverse or break it.
The Vhaaki, or Ancient Vampires as we know them can be considered as the vampire race. Embraced by the soulkiss and the V mutation, whatever these creatures may have been in the past has no lingering traces. These creatures are infamous for wanting little else than to spread their disease unto others. An act they carry out either by directly biting, scratching or warping creatures with their magic. Thankfully, vampirism if caught early can still be cured by cleansing these wounds if recently gained. If five days to a week passes, it may often be incurable but preventative medicines can still be granted to block out the bloodlust and still allow a bloodsworn to live an ordinary life.
To that point, we've practically explained the Bloodsworn as well. These people come from mortal races and have been embraced by the bloodkiss, rendering them infected with the V mutation.

Classification and structure

As there are many types of vampires, especially so when you consider bloodlines, covens and their abilities, their ilk have been cathegorized into X different tiers.
The familiars: Creatures, such as pets and beasts who are enthralled or biologically manufactured as companions and servants of vampires.
The Dregs: Mortals or otherwise living, sentient or unsentient servants and slaves who do the bidding of the vampires.
C-tier vampire: Vampires that have been recently born or embraced, that show little affinity to any darker powers and more often than not still carries most of their humanity with them.
B-tier vampire: These vampires still have not been reborn in the soulkiss but have taken advantage of their vampiric abilities. While it would be foolish to blindly trust these creatures, there are those who manage to conquer their vampirism to still use it for noble deeds.
A-tier vampire: These vampires have fully ascended into ancients and are highly dangerous, as well as cruel. They should be purged on sight.
S-tier vampire: This tier is not so much a collection of groups that are on similar tier of threat assesment as well as the development of their V-mutation, but unique and highly mutated cases that go beyond the average vampire. These ones are not to be trifled with and in scale of power, is often entire leagues above even A-tier ones in terms of threat.

Furthermore, other studies also target the vampire society as a whole, classifying them into various different subgroups as a greater whole. To understand these creatures, one must also understand their chain of command. In this case, from the bottom up to the highest foundations.
A coven of vampires is a small gathering of around a dozen, to max a hundered individuals. Though it rarely sees numbers rise above fifty, due to their subtle nature. Covens may start with a single or a handful of low tier vampires. B-tier, on the rare occation even A-tiers. They exist in these small numbers to recruit and/or embrace more vampires into their ranks.
Eventually, the covens will become too big, which also implies too notorious to remain in the recruitment grounds. Being that of mortal citizens and towns. Rarely villages, as often everyone in a village knows everyone and the populace are zealously vicious about the destruction of their ilk. In this case, the coven turns into a bloodline. A bloodline generally keeps out of society as a whole. Usually having their base within a vampire domain.
The bloodline is how covens are shaped though, as they tend to have around three to five so called masters. Highly dangerous vampiric individuals who carry the same strain of V-mutation in their veins as the Overlord who embraced them. These masters serve a role to mobilize lesser vampires, whip them into diciplinary servants and grow the vampire realms. They are well known to summon their respective covens they rule to Sanguine Feasts. A tradition known to serve as a tactical ploy for them, which often follows hostile movements.
When several vampire bloodlines unite, either through internal fighting or common goals align, a vampire faction is formed. The faction is always run by a single overlord, who's bloodline serve as the main backbone. It is however enhanced with the bloodlines of other bloodlords, which are but a single step down the ladder to that of the overlord.
Second to last, we've got Vampire Kingdoms otherwise known as a Domain which is the geographical area that holds several cooporating vampire factions. The leader of these massive organisations are known as Vampire Queens or Vampire Kings. Highly dangerous S-tier vampires that one should never go up against without an army or three at their backs.
Ultimately, most of these are united underneath one gargantuan evil. The Sanguine Dominion run by noone else than the Vampire Empress herself. Firstborne of the entire kin and breeder of the V-mutation. Her classification couldn't even be set by mortal means.

Contamination and spread of the V-mutation

The Bloodkiss: known as the basic version of the V-mutation, which is more akin to a vampiric virus. If one falls sick with the virus, they'll go through five days of a harsh fever which slowly becomes more manageable as each day passes. Blisters can be found on the arms and legs of the victim, as well as their skin going deathly pale with the red veins visibly scarlet. Their eyes go bloodshot with a yellowish hue around the iris.
The victim soon finds themselves feeling as if reborn. Strength, energy, agility or other traits of theirs will be found to have increased as well as their prowess with magic and resistance towards other diseases. Slowly, an intense bloodlust will creep up though which can be quenched either by feeding on blood, or cured with alchemy. The bloodsworn doesn't necessarily require the consumption of blood to avoid any symptoms or dangers from exposure to sunlight. In fact, abstaining from blood will eventually put the vampirism in a dormant state, decreasing some of the positive traits they gained, though ultimately turning them more mortal.
The Soulkiss: is known as the symbiotic, active version of vampirism which directly mutates the individual in question. The Soulkiss can be granted through two means. Either someone who carries the bloodkiss embraces their vampirism and aims to evolve it for power or other reasons. Alternatively, intense and unreasonable cruelty which an individual finds thrill or pleasure in may have a direct effect on the link between soul and mind.
Just like acts of purity, faith and hope can grant people holy abilities or ascended almost angelic traits, or those who delve deep into sin and chaos can grow horns or receive other demonic traits, vampirism works similar but curiously different from that of chaos. Whereas sin is not inherently evil in modest extents, such as how greed and ambition can give someone the tools to invest in a greater good, or how wrath can spur someone to fearlessly protect a loved one, the vampiric aspect is the combination of chaos and corruption. The coalescent essence which creates the cancerous mutative sickness that is the soulkiss is primordial evil. Sin for the sake of sinning. Cruelty for the sake of cruelty. Preying on and destroying the dreams of others for the sake of mindless consumption.

Bloodlines

Eventually, vampires with unique or incredibly powerful abilities will rise up among the rest of their sort. These vampires, which often turn into Overlords or Bloodlords have, through either years of feeding, alchemy, or dumb luck managed to recieve traits which garner incredible advantages to spread down the lines to their own embraced victims. These strains of the mutation form bloodlines which could enhance the strength, magical prowess or other aspects of their minions and thus effectively evolve the vampiric forces to greater strengths. Though it also forms a bond of compliance between master and servant within the strain. Causing those powerful and gifted within the same gene to have a greater psychic dominance over those with a lesser evolved strain. Ensuring that they can easily command their lessers into battle, or to perform other tasks.