Vampires have many characteristics that vary from each vampire depending on where they came from.  Here are some of the characteristics:

• They need blood to survive because it is the elixir of life, without blood they will die.   The blood gives them energy, power and replenishes their body.  It is the key to immortality 
• They only come out at night because they fear sunlight. 
• They grow stronger, tempering with time.
• In folklore, it is not mentioned that vampires have fangs.
• They have an angular face and a waxy complexion--looking pale and drained.
• They have the ability to shapeshift in other words change into an animal like bats, rats, cats, raven and wolves.
• They have the power to control animals(the animals that they can change into).
• They live in their graves during the day and rise during the night
• They have no reflections, so when they look in the mirror they don't see anything
• Vampires die if they have been staked through the heart by wood, burned or by decapitation and removing the brain.
• Religious symbols do not harm folklore vampires.
• When vampires drink the blood of a person that person will turn into a vampire.
• When a person dies violently, committed suicide or was wrongly accused and killed, he or she may become a vampire.