Someone who incorporates fictional vampire imagery and trappings into his or her personal life, often cultivating a Vampyric physical appearance, including but not limited to a very pale complexion, a wardrobe made up predominantly of dark clothing, a style of dress which is modeled on Victorian or Renaissance fashions, black or blood-red lipstick, sunglasses, fangs, FX contacts, and a generally melancholy or lugubrious air.

Lifestylers often form alternative extended families and social structures modeled on the 'covens' or 'clans' of vampire fiction and role-playing games. Many also utilize lingo and terminology taken from vampire fiction and RPGs. Some are real vampires in the sense of craving blood, while others are blood fetishists, and still others are just drawn to the Vampyre aesthetic. This is an outgrowth of, but distinct from, the Gothic subculture.

A role-playing game developed by Mark Rein-Hagen and published by White Wolf in the early 1990s. Inspired by the novels of Anne Rice and the growing fascination with vampires in popular culture, V:tM portrays a dark, Gothic-Punk world where immortal vampires ran human society from the shadows. Vampire: the Masquerade separates vampires into different types, called clans, each of which has characteristic strengths and weaknesses. These fictional vampires order their society into Elders, Ancilla (of middling years), and Neonates (the youngest, also known as childer), and each city is run by a vampiric Prince.

The vampires in the so-called World of Darkness abide by a set of rules that insure vampiric secrecy, known as the Traditions or simply as The Masquerade. White Wolf's Vampire: the Masquerade was the first publication to refer to vampires as Kindred. Other terms developed by them include sire, the vampire responsible for making a new vampire; childe, a new vampire; and the embrace, the process of becoming a vampire. The game became very popular, and it even earned its own short-lived television series, Kindred: the Embraced. The pro-wrestler Gangrel, who used to be part of the quasi-vampiric team called the Brood, was sanctioned by White Wolf. His wrestling name is the name for one of White Wolf's vampire clans.

The word Vampire (Vampir, Vampyre) has oblique origins, but researchers and scholars for the most part agree that it can be traced to the Slavic Tongue. There have been continuous debates however, as to its etymological sources. The word may have come from the Lithuanian wempti ("to drink"), or from the root pi ("to drink"), with the prefix va or av. Other suggested roots have included the Turkish uber ("witch"), and the Serbo-Croation pirati ("to blow"). Associated forms developed from the Serbo-Croation term, such as Vampir, Upyr in the Russian, Upior in the Polish, and Upir in the Byelorussian. Some scholars prefer the concept that upir is older than vampir, an eastern Slavic name that spread westward into the Balkans, where it was adopted by the southern Slavs and received vigorous circulation. The word vampire (or vampyre) arrived in the English language with two 1732 publications: the March translation of a report by the investigators looking into the case of Arnold Paole of Meduegna and the May release of the article Political Vampires.

Vampyre is a variant spelling of vampire that endured into the nine-teenth century, and as you have witnesses through out the net, it is still exercised by many today. Vampyre is closely connected to the Latin Vampyrus, to john Polidori's title for his short story The Vampyre (1819), and to the works of experts of previous centuries, including Zopfus, Rohl, and Ranft. As the word Vampire came into more common usage with the translation of such Eastern European names as upior, upyr, vampir, and vapir into English, vampyre became less common.

Through out the Vampire Community, you will come across spelling variations of vampire. Some feel that vampyre is superior to vampire because it possesses a more aristocratic flair with a dark, elder essence. Sometimes the reason for the use of vampyre is due to the admiration of how it simply appears. Others just like to keep it simple and use the more modern vampire variant.

Politcal Correctness of the variants of spelling are not carved in stone and it is therefore left up to the preference of the individual. Both variants are acceptable in the group majority.

Someone who has a condition which includes but is not limited to a physical thirst and need for blood (which is non-erotic in nature; and in more significant quantity than is generally required or desired by other blood-drinkers), or psychic energy (real need exists for energy draining of others emotional energy and that of the earth.)

In general, this is the magick practiced by vampires or vampyre lifestylers. Many of them are pagan and follow the old ways, and the ways of magick are an integral part of their beliefs. Most vampires or vampyre lifestylers practice numerous techniques associated with energy manipulation. Many also practice some form of magick, most oftenly ritual magick or chaos magick. Vampyrecrafte refers to magickal techniques specifically designed by vampires and vampyre lifestylers to take advantage of their unique abilities. Vampyrecrafte often has a dark flavor to it, although in general it is more of a balance between dark and light techniques. *This term is primarily used with the OSV.