So here's a biggie in your decision to become a demonic menace. Given the concept that “the blood is the life,” a vampire's most obvious diet is, of course, blood. That could be the blood of humans, animals, synthetic blood, or a range of other odd blood-related concoctions. Unless you're a vampire of the reluctant nature who's prone to robbing blood banks, then the acquisition of blood generally requires your taking a life. For the traditional vampire, a dietary plan is highly predictable and boring in regard to variety save for several blood types. That means no more Big Macs, Oreos, or Starbuck's Mochachinos. For the vampires of folklore, diets range from blood to the flesh of both humans and corpses and a wide range of human organs, birth-related matter, and other nasties such as entrails. If you're going be a true bloodsucker, know that you'll have to go with the flow.

What a Rush!

What's crucial to the vampire's obtaining blood is the secondary nature of feeding, which in and of itself provides a rush of adrenaline that produces energy and, among other things, sexual arousal. Like any addict, that rush is addicting, and depending on the type of vampire you are, your feeding schedule will vary. Some suckers require nightly nourishment, while others, like Whitley Strieber's fiends, require feeding one day in seven. Vampires who don't feed become severely weakened just as humans do without consistent fuel. So as a vampire, how do you acquire sustenance. Do you plan out your meals like Jenny Craig? Do you binge on jugular junk food? Is there such a thing as low-carb hemoglobin?

Planning Your Ruse

Like so many bad pickup lines at a cheap dive bar, vampires must typically plan their ruse in order to ensnare their sustenance. This means that at some point you're going to become a stalker. Of course, given the fact that some fiends have hypnotic powers, there seems little need for planning unless one simply enjoys playing the game as a twisted evil perpetuity. Traditional vampires tend to focus in on one bride or Brad Pitt-like hunk, who they will stalk without mercy until he or she can be made their eternal arm candy. As is typical of vampire cinema, that individual usually proves to be a vampire's undoing, as the vampire must fight to have what he believes is rightfully his and in doing so can go quite mad in pursuit of that goal.

Just so you know, the idea of stalking one's prey is prevalent in vampiric folklore, with many creatures harassing both the living and the dead. Some, like the Indian rakhsasa enter the bodies of the living in an effort to breed insanity. The Indian pisaca have the nasty habit of entering human bodies and feeding on their organs. And the Greek empusa, a shapeless vampiric demon, also enters the body to consume blood and devour flesh.

The more modern vampire forgoes those gruesome practices, instead abiding by more animalistic tendencies combined with those of social deviants. They wait. They watch. They strike.