How to Cure and Become a Vampire in Skyrim

Getting Infected

How it Works

The most common way players become infected with Sanguinare Vampiris (the name of the disease) in Skyrim is through combat with Vampires casting Vampiric Drain (each VD spell has a 10% chance of infecting you). If you want to become infected, it's beneficial for you to keep your distance with the vampires so they attempt to cast the spell instead of engaging with you in melee, as the spell is the only way for you to contract the disease.

You should be notified under the Active Effects menu when you're infected with the disease.

Vampire Dungeons and Locations

The following dungeons are locations of generic enemy NPC vampires.

• Broken Fang Cave
• Pinemoon Cave
• Mara's Eye Pond
• Haemar's Shame
• Morvath's Lair
• Bloodlet Throne
• Fellglow Keek

Curing the Disease

From Infection - Sanguinare Vampiris

From the moment you're infected, you have exactly 3 days where you can cure the disease just like any other. You'll know you're in this stage when you start getting messages such as "You feel a strange thirst come over you" at sunset and "You feel strangely weakened by the sunrise" at sunrise.

At this stage, you have three options...

• Drink a potion of Cure Disease
• Recieve a blessing from inside an alter or temple
• Ask a Vigilant of Stendarr to cure you.

Should you wait longer than 3 days, you will progress into vampirism. After this point, normal potions and methods of removing the disease will have no effect. You will have to take the following steps below in order to remove the illness.

From Vampirism

After becoming a vampire, you must complete a short quest inorder to cure yourself. To start the quest you must NOT be a stage 4 vampire, as NPC's will attack you on sight. If this is the case, skip to the follwing section on feeding to revert to stage 1.

A quick walkthrough of the quest involves the following steps:

1. Visit and inn and talk to an innkeeper; they will refer you to Falion of Morthal.
2. You will begin the quest Rising Dawn.
3. Falion will request a filled black soul gem. You may purchase an empty black soul gem from him for a little over 800 gold. Note that you can NOT use the Black Star for this quest.
4. Fill the black soul gem by killing a human NPC. To do this, you either need to cast Soul Trap* (see below) on the NPC and kill them, or kill them with a soul-trap enchanted weapon.
5. Return to Falion and speak with him.
6. Meet Falion at the designated summoning circle, a short walk from his house.
7. Observe the ritual and rejoice!

*You may purchase Soul Trap (spell) from Farengar Secret-Fire (Dragonsreach), Phinis Gestor (College of Winterhold), or Sybille Stentor (Solitude).

Other alternative methods include:

• Become infected with lycanthropy and turn into a Werewolf. But we'll assume replacing one disease with another isn't your primary goal.
• If you're using a PC, you can use the console code setstage 000eafd5 10 to remove the disease.

If you are a stage 4 vampire, NPC's (including the inn-keepers) will be hostile towards you, rendering the quest impossible. But don't worry! The following steps are all you have to do to revert to stage 1 (NPC's will not be hostile).

Feeding as a Vampire

Must... Feed... Blo... Blood!

As a vampire, you must feed on the blood of a sleeping NPC. After finding a sleeping NPC, simply crouch (use sneak) and stand over them and press feed when the option appears. Note that you should be alone with your victim when doing this, as all other onlookers will immediately become hostile and attack you.

Easy targets for feeding include the following:

• One exception to the hostile NPC rule are the Companions guild members. They do not attack you while feeding so long as you've joined their guild before becoming a stage 4 vampire.
• You can feed easily on your companions/followers by ordering them to sleep.
• Barracks in cities have sleeping guards day and night, although getting there may be difficult.
• There's a farmer in the Temply of Kynareth who is nearly always sleeping.

If you want to randomly search for NPC's, your best bet is to sneak into a city at night and break into locked houses. After feeding you will revert to stage 1 of vampirism.

Vampirism Benefits and Stages

It's important to note that after you progress from the intial infection (after 3 days) and become a vampire, you will continue to progress over 4 stages (each lasting 24 hours). Being a vampire isn't all bad; after all, you get to stalk the night and prey on defenseless humans as they sleep! You also get the following benefits (and a few weaknesses), sorted into the four different stages:

All Stages

• 100% disease resistance
• 100% poison resistance
• Illusion spells are +25% more powerful.
• +25% Sneaking
• While in daylight, health, magicka, and stamina have a stunted stunted regeneration rate of 100%. Simply put, the totals will remain the same but your stats will not return after use (e.g. using a spell will deplete your magicka bar and it will not restore automatically as it usually does).

Stage One

• +25% resistance to frost.
• 25% weakness to fire.
• While in daylight, health, magicka, and stamina are reduced by 15.

Stage Two

• +50% frost resistance
• 50% weakness to fire.
• While in daylight, your health, magicka, and stamina are reduced by 30.

Stage Three

• +75% frost resistance
• 75% weakness to fire.
• While in daylight, your health, magicka, and stamina are reduced by 45.
• NPC's will refuse to speak with you.

Stage Four (Feeding)

• +100% frost resistance.
• 100% weakness to fire.
• While in daylight, your health, magicka, and stamina are reduced by 60.
• Most NPC's will attack you on sight.

Well, that's about it for the guide. Feel free to leave suggestions and questions in the comment section below!