Vampire: the Masquerade. History channel documentaries about “real vampires.” It seems literary vampires are more popular than ever, and there are more real vampires walking among us than most “normals” ever realized.

Modern day vampires are a form of Otherkin. Vampires are not to be confused with Goths.

The vampire subculture encompasses many varieties of vampiric beings. The major delineations are: sanguine vampires, who consume life energy by consuming small amounts of blood; psy vampires, who primarily draw on psychic, emotional, or magickal energy; sexual vampires, which include incubi, succubi, and leannan sidhe (an Irish faery version of a vampire, succubus, and muse all in one); and of course, the donors, who are sometimes vampiric themselves, but often suffer from the opposite condition, having an overload of energy that they are constantly trying to siphon off.

Vampires are not simply playing a Live Role Playing Game (LARP or RPG) such as Vampire: the Masquerade; nor are they merely people who like to dress up in costume. Such individuals are called “vampire lifestylers.” Lifestylers do not have a physical need for blood or energy to maintain health and well-being, they just enjoy the vampire mystique.

Most vampires are capable of harmless “ambient” feeding, drawing on the excess energy that floats around the room in large crowds of people, who naturally emanate such energy.