Vampire
General
Classically speaking, a vampire is a creature that has died yet still lives and feeds off the living. Stories of creatures familiar to us as vampires can be found in just about every region of the world, and because of this, there is a high degree of variability amongst the cultures in their descriptions; add in the vampires of popular culture and you have a wide variety of abilities, weakness, and characteristics that define a vampire.
Additionally, there are the "modern vampires"; those who are still living, yet feel that they must consume some form of life from others, typically blood, or "life energy" (be it Chi, Prana, etc.)
History
The West
Find the usual stuff on ancient Greece and over to the european vampires
The East
wasn't Kali said to have vampiric qualities
Vampires of Fiction
In time, vampires went from creatures of myth and folklore to creatures of fiction, as vampires became antagonists (and eventually protagonists) in fiction.
need to snag the appropriate names and dates here
In making the transition to fiction, probably the most significant change to the vampire was making it a much more intelligent and human-like figure. Previously, vampires were described as creatures of little to no intelligence, and clearly not capable of blending in with the living. In fact, the vampire of old had more in common with the Zombie of modern film than what is portrayed now.
With fiction also came a greater variety in terms of the powers and weaknesses of vampires. Things such as silver, sunlight, holy water, garlic and crosses may or may not have affected the vampire of a particular story. Staking was generally a common weakness, though it had changed from folklore as simply a way to nail a vampire to the ground into a supernatural weakness.
Bits about transition from novel to film and comics, plus the creation of the vampire as protagonist
Modern Vampires
Related Topics
Concepts
Blood, Christianity, Cross, Garlic, Undead