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Fictional species

In the fictional world of the television series Buffy the Vampire Slayer and its spin off series Angel, a vampire is a unique variety of demon that can exist on the earthly plane only by inhabiting and animating a human corpse. In Fray, a Buffy comic book spin off set about a century in the future, vampires are also called "lurks".

Vampires in the canonical Buffyverse differ significantly from their counterparts in the 1992 Buffy the Vampire Slayer movie. While the movie's vampires possess the ability to fly, maintain a relatively human appearance, and do not disintegrate into dust upon death, the canonical vampires introduced in the television series are portrayed as demonic spirits that inhabit human corpses. The canonical vampires (introduced in the first episode of the television series) are demonic spirits that inhabit human corpses. Because of their partly human nature, vampires are considered impure by other demons. According to Rupert Giles, a character in the series, when an ancient race of demons called the Old Ones were banished from Earth, the last one fed on a human and mixed their blood, creating the first vampire. This vampire then feeds on other humans and makes more of its kind, essentially being a biological weapon against the human race for the Old Ones. According to Illyria, a character in Angel, vampires existed during her time as an Old Onelong before the rest were banished from the realm.

The series vampires exhibit superhuman abilities, including increased strength, heightened senses, and accelerated healing. These powers intensify as they age or when they consume the blood of powerful supernatural beings. Vampires live indefinitely without aging, with the oldest losing the ability to appear human. Vampires in the series possess all the memories and skills of their human predecessors. They also retain much of their host's personality, including any mental illnesses or emotional instabilities. For example, Spike (unlike most vampires) retained his love for his dying mother. Harmony kept her valley girl personality and her love of unicorns. Darla tells the newly turned Liam/Angelus that "what we were, informs what we become"; after her resurrection as a human, she says that the darkness he unleashed as Angelus was always in him as a human, long before they met, resulting from memories of abuses by his father. Vampires in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe live on a diet of blood, preferring fresh human blood; they can distinguish the blood of different animals by flavor, and those who do not drink human blood enjoy that of otters. They require no other food or drink; although they can ingest it, they generally find it bland. Prolonged deprivation of blood can impair a vampire's higher brain functions and they become "living skeletons", but do not die. They do not need to breathe airalthough they can breathe to speak or smokeand they cannot pass breath on to others via CPR. They are affected by drugs, poisons, and electricity, and they can be sedated and tasered. Some vampires in the series enjoy recreational drug use like alcoholic and caffeinated beverages, and tobacco; Spike, the witty "bad boy" vampire, frequently enjoys smoking cigarettes. Vampires can change at will between human appearance and a monstrous form with a pronounced brow ridge, yellow eyes, and sharp teeth. This transformation can happen in seconds. In human form, they can be detected by their lack of heartbeat and lower body temperature. They do not cast reflections, although they can be photographed and filmed.

The series vampires can be killed by beheading, burning with fire, sunlight, or excessive amount of holy water, by penetration of the heart by a wooden object, or detonations of powerful explosives. When killed, a vampire rapidly turns to dry dust. They heal quickly from most injuries, but do not regrow lost limbs and can acquire scars. Their flesh burns in direct sunlight, and on contact with blessed objects such as holy water, a Bible, recently consecrated ground, or a Christian cross. This vulnerability to sunlight limits vampires movements to largely occur during the night. Spike, however, is shown on several occasions to drive during the day by blocking the sunlight through covering the windows and dashboard in foil, leaivng a small strip along the dashboard to see the road. Similar to sunlight, coming into direct contact with a cross can burn a vampire's skin; Buffy at times wears a cross pendant necklace as a small form of protection. Vampires can enter consecrated buildings but appear to feel ill at ease. Vampires are attracted to bright colors and are said to dislike garlic. In the series, Vampires cannot enter a human residence without having been invited once by a living resident; however, once given, such an invitation can only be revoked by a magic ritual. If all living residents die, they can enter freely. Areas open to the public and the homes of other vampires, demons, and non humans are not protected. To reproduce in the series, vampires must drain a human being of most of his or her blood, then force the victim to drink some of the vampire's blood. The amount of time it takes for a new vampire to rise seems to vary; Buffy often kills vampires as they rise from their graves, but other vampires rise after only a few hours. There is no explanation given for this in the series. They cannot normally reproduce sexually, but mystical circumstances allow the characters Angel and Darla to conceive a son, Connor, who has a human soul with vampire like abilities of strength, endurance, agility, and senses, but none of their weaknesses or need to drink blood. Also, Connor physically ages like humans, indicating that, unlike vampires, he is not an immortal and therefore will die eventually.

Vampires in the Buffy the Vampire Slayer universe do not have human souls, but a character Giles in the episode "The Harvest" says the human corpse a vampire is born into is infected with a demon soul via vampiric blood, and therefore lacks a conscience. Angel and Spikevampires characters whose human souls were restored to themfeel remorse for their previous actions. However, soulless vampires are capable of feeling human emotions such as love, though these tend to be expressed as twisted and obsessive behavior, and without souls, they typically can only experience the negative affectivity associated with evil. Variations of vampires are seen on both Buffy and Angel. In the Angel season two episode "Through the Looking Glass", Angel and his team travel to a parallel world, Pylea, where he becomes a "Van Tal" demon with green skin, spines and a bestial appearance. This form is described in the series as the vampire (specifically the demon that creates the vampire) in its purest form. While in this form, Angel lacks the ability to reason, possessing neither the compassion his soul gives him nor the sadism he possesses as Angelus. The seventh season of Buffy introduces the Turok Han, an ancient species of vampire analogous to Neanderthal man. These Turok Han, colloquially referred to as "über vamps", are stronger and harder to kill than common vampires, can usually withstand a stake to the chest without dusting and show only minor burns when doused with holy water, but can still be killed by beheading or sunlight.

In the show, the idea of the "vamp faces" — to have vampires' human features distort to become more demonic — was implemented because Whedon wanted to have high school students that the other characters could interact with normally only to discover that these people would turn out be vampires, creating a sense of paranoia. The character of the Master was designed to be in permanent vamp face to highlight his age and make him appear animalistic. Make up artist John Vulich based the Master's appearance on a bat, saying that the character has devolved to a more primal, demonic state over the years. It was decided that vampires and their clothes would turn to dust after they died. The introduction to one episode, "The Wish", parodied this vampiric trait; when Buffy kills a non humanoid demon, Willow wonders why the demon corpse "doesn't go poof" and must be buried. Joss Whedon had the vampires explode into dust because it was practical, it demonstrates that they are monsters, he did not want a high school girl killing bad guys every episode and have them clean up bodies for 20 minutes, and it also "looks really cool". In the first episode, vampires' clothes reflect the era in which they died. Joss Whedon felt this concept was a "charming notion" but rejected it because he believed that if every vampire in the show were dressed in old fashioned clothes, they would cease to be scary. When creating the vampire "rules" that they would use in the show, the writers used elements from existing vampire lore. They decided the vampires would not fly as in the Buffy movie because they could not make flying vampires look convincing on a television budget. Garlic is mentioned or used as vampire repellent in a few episodes, but its effect on vampires is never stated. Some established rules, such as a vampire's inability to enter a home uninvited, both helped and hindered the storytelling. Whedon said that whereas shows such as The X Files spend time explaining the science behind the supernatural and making it as real as possible, Buffy and Angel are more concerned with the emotion resulting from these creatures and events than justifying how they could conceivably exist. The shows therefore tend to gloss over the details of vampire and demon lore, simply using the Hellmouth as a plot device to explain unexplainable things.