How to Become a Vampire in Skyrim

Obtain Dawnguard. This is an expansion for Skyrim, and is required to access the Vampire Lord perks. Dawnguard is available for all systems that Skyrim is available for. Vampire Lords have significantly different weaknesses to frost and fire compared to standard Skyrim vampirism.

• Vampire Lords can transform into fearsome winged beasts. You will be able to cast Blood Magic and can unlock a variety of powerful vampiric abilities.

Start the Dawnguard quest. After you install the Dawnguard expansion, guards and innkeepers will begin telling the players about the group of vampire hunters. This will begin the quest. You will need to travel to Fort Dawnguard, located in the southeastern corner of the map, to the east of Riften.

Start the "Awakening" quest. After speaking to the Dawnguard, you will receive this quest, sending you to Dimhollow Crypt. Once there, you will find the vampire Serana, who asks the player to escort her to her father at Castle Volkihar.

Escort Serana home. Take Serena to Castle Volkihar, located to the west of Solitude. Return Serana to Lord Harkon and he will offer to make the player into a Vampire Lord. This is your first chance to become a Vampire Lord, but you will have two more chances later on if you decline here.

• In the quest Chasing Echoes, Serana offers to turn the player into a Vampire Lord. This is because living things cannot normally enter the Soul Cairn.
• After defeating Harkon completing Kindred Judgment, the final quest in the Dawnguard questline, the player can ask Serana to make her/him into a Vampire Lord.

Use the console (PC only). If you'd rather not go through the quests to become a Vampire Lord, you can enable it by cheating through the console. Open the console by pressing ~.

• If you are not a regular vampire, turn into one by using the commands at the end of the previous section first.
• Enter the following command to give yourself the ability to turn into a Vampire Lord: player.addspell 300283b. Then, type player.addspell 301462a to gain access to the Vampire Lord spells.

Balance your positive and negative effects. Every 24 hours after becoming a vampire, you will progress to the next "Stage" of vampirism. There are four possible stages, with increasing bonuses and negative effects. Feeding will always return you to Stage One.

• Each stage will increase your resistance to Frost, but will increase your susceptibility to Fire.
• The damage you take from sunlight increases each stage.
• Each stage grants you access to more vampiric spells and increases your vampiric strength.
• NPCs will become more hostile towards you as the stages increases, attacking you on sight at Stage Four.

Travel at night. Sunlight will hurt you, especially if you are in the later stages of vampirism. Night-time travel will also help keep you out of sight of most NPCs. Make good use of your vampiric abilities to hide yourself from sight.

Feed to quell your bloodthirst. If you want to avoid most of the negative effects of vampirism, you will need to feed regularly. If you are playing standard Skyrim, you can feed on sleeping people by approaching them and pressing the interaction button as if you were Pickpocketing. Another option will appear, allowing you to Feed.

• If you're playing Dawnguard, you can feed on a conscious person if you cast the Vampire's Seduction spell first.
• Feeding will cause witnesses to become hostile, and will incur a 40 gold bounty if you're caught.
• Feeding on your spouse is one of the easier ways to manage your bloodthirst.

Cure your vampirism. If you've had enough of being a vampire, you can undertake a special quest to reverse the effects. First, ask any bartender for rumors and you will be told about Falion, who studies vampires. You can find Falion in Morthal.

• Falion will inform you that vampirism can be reversed with a filled Black Soul Gem. You can fill a Black Soul Gem by casting Soul Trap on a humanoid opponent before defeating it. Falion will sell you an empty Black Soul Gem if you need one.
• Turn filled Soul Gem over to Falion and he will remove your vampirism. This can be repeated as often as you'd like, as long as you have a filled Black Soul Gem.