How to Become a Vampire in Skyrim?

Vampires, the mythical creatures of the night, are one of the lore-friendly characters in the fantasy world of Skyrim. They look menacing with their pale skin, protruding fangs, and glowing eyes. Besides their unique appearance, they also have skills and abilities, making them stand out as sinister characters. 

There are mainly two different types of vampires in Skyrim. There’s your regular vampire and the vampire lord. The fun part is that you can become both of them regardless of your character’s race. 

Unlike in the lore, you don’t need to get bitten by a vampire to become one. You’ll just need to get infected with the vampire disease to become the creature of the night. But if you want to become the lord of the vampire race, you’ll need to complete a few quests from the Dawnguard DLC.

Whether you’re looking to roleplay as a vampire or try a different playstyle, we have you covered. Here, we’ll explain both types of vampires, their abilities, and the process of becoming both of them.

Get the Sanguinare Vampiris Disease

The most effective way of becoming a vampire is by fighting vampires. In combat, vampire attacks with weapons and spells have a 1/10^th chance of infecting you with the Sanguinare Vampiris. Once you’re infected with the disease, wait for three in-game days to become a complete vampire.

While you wait for the transformation, ensure that you do not use potions that cure the disease or pray at a shrine, as it will cure your vampirism. 

Additionally, you won’t be able to catch the vampiric disease if you’ve already become a lycanthrope. Werewolves have the passive, which makes them immune to all diseases. So, you’ll need to cure your lycanthropy before becoming a vampire. 

Finding Vampires

Vampires aren’t the type of enemies that you can commonly find in Skyrim. They are practically nonexistent during the daytime. Yet, there are certain locations where you can almost always encounter vampires.

They usually reside in caves, lairs, dens, catacombs, etc. You can also encounter them randomly while patrolling at night. 

One of the best locations to fight vampires is Movarth’s Lair or Haemar’s Shame. Here, you’ll only face low-level vampires that you can easily face tank with some decent armor and healing potions.

This gives you a better chance of getting infected with Sanguinare disease.

Vampirism Progression

Once you’ve contracted the Sanguinare disease, you’ll get a notification at the top left corner. If you’re unsure, you can confirm it under the Active Effects category in the Magicka menu. Getting infected will start your vampirism progression. 

There are four stages of vampirism. You’ll move to the next stage of vampirism with each day you go without feeding on NPCs or using blood potions.

At the final stage, you’ll become a complete vampire. As you advance through vampirism, your character will develop new abilities and vampire-like facial features.

Console Command

The console command is an unconventional way to change your character into a vampire. Console commands are tools commonly present in Bethesda titles that can alter and fix game elements. You can only use console commands on PC. 

1. While you’re in-game, press the tilde key {~} on your keyboard.
2. Type in player.setrace yourcurrentrace race vampire. If you’re currently playing as a Nord, then type player.setrace nordracevampire
3. Press the Enter key.
4. Exit the console command by pressing the tilde key again.

Abilities of a Vampire

Vampires are inherently strong against frost damage and weak against fire damage. The percentage of these buffs and nerfs depend on the stage of vampirism.

Similarly, the vampiric strength and the sunlight debuffs also depend on your vampire level. The higher your level, the more strength/debuff you will gain.

Vampires have the Champion of the Night and the Nightstalker’s Footsteps passive. These passives will make casting your illusion spells efficient and make it difficult to be detected while sneaking.

In addition, you’ll also have exclusive abilities such as Vampire’s Servant, Vampire’s Seduction, Vampire’s Sight, Vampiric Drain, and Embrace of Shadows, which can make roleplaying as a vampire an immersive experience.

How To Become a Vampire Lord?

Bethesda expanded the vampire lore in Skyrim with their Dawnguard DLC expansion. It introduced new characters, locations, quests, weapons, items, etc.

However, the main highlight of the expansion was the Vampire Lord, a beastly transformation besides the Werewolf.

Vampire Lords have different appearances than normal vampires. The pale skin complexion, sharp claws, bat-like face, and demonic wings are features that make them more intimidating.

To become the vampire lord, you’ll need to complete a few quests from the Dawnguard DLC. 

1. Talk to any innkeepers or town guards. Then, choose the “Heard any rumors lately” dialogue option. This will start the Dawnguard quest. 
2. Head to the location marker to reach Fort Dawnguard.
3. Once inside the fort, speak with Isran. He will instruct you to investigate the Dimhollow crypt for vampire activities. The Dimhollow crypt is a fairly easy dungeon filled with low-level vampires and skeletons. 
4. After you’ve reached the Dimhollow cavern, you’ll need to solve a puzzle. Simply push/pull the braziers till it’s lit with purple flames.
5. Placing the braziers correctly will change the platform and bring out a stone monolith. Interact with the stone monolith to release Serana. 
6. You’ll need to escort Serana to her home, Castle Volkihar.
7. Volkar will offer you his blood as a gift for rescuing Serana. If you accept the gift, you will become the Vampire Lord. Turning down his offer will banish you from the castle. However, you can still choose to become the Vampire Lord when you progress further down the quest line.

Here’s a video guide to help you with the steps explained above.

Abilities of Vampire Lords

Vampire lords have the same strength, weaknesses, and abilities as normal vampires. But unlike them, Vampire lords have a separate skills tree.

Here, you can spend your points to gain additional perks and abilities. You can earn perk points by killing enemies as a Vampire lord. 

Draining health from your enemies, raising the dead, summoning gargoyles, etc are some of the signature moves sets for a Vampire Lord.