Vampiric Draining

aka: Vampiric Drainer

If she'd simply eaten the garlic, she wouldn't be in this mess.

Vampiric Draining is a characteristic of certain supernatural creatures. These creatures nourish themselves by draining some vital element from living beings. It may be blood or other bodily fluids, mental or emotional energy, Life Energy or souls, or magical or spiritual power.

The effects of being the victim of Vampiric Draining depend on how much vitality the Vampiric Drainer took from you, and range from temporary tiredness to chronic exhaustion, to either shortening of lifespan or Rapid Aging (thus overlapping with Liquid Assets), to death. The victim may also transform into the same type of creature that fed upon them.

Draining Life Energy is a bit more common for "vampiric" creatures that are closer to the sci-fi end of the Magic Versus Science spectrum. The trope can also include "vampiric" weapons — that is, Evil Weapons that perform Vampiric Draining upon either their wielder or felled enemies/victims.

There are many motivations for draining others. Some of them include:

• Food (classic-style vampires).
• Enhancing their power.
• Satisfying a blood-consumption fetish, Horror Hunger or other psychological addiction.

Super-Trope to Kiss of the Vampire (where the vampiric feeding is either tolerable or pleasurable to the "victim") and Vampire Bites Suck (where the feeding is not a nice experience for the victim). Subtrope of Fantastic Diet Requirement.

Particular types of draining can be found in Life Drinker, Emotion Eater, and Soul Eating.

Often overlaps with Horror Hunger. May involve Blood Lust if that's the substance that's drained. See also Our Vampires Are Different, and Supernaturally Delicious and Nutritious.

Not to be confused with Life Drain and Mana Drain, which are stealing Hit Points and Mana Points from an opponent for yourself respectively.

Living Battery is the Science Fiction equivalent of this trope.

Not to be confused with Cannibalism Superpower.

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Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Bleach:
  • Hollows feed on spiritual energy as a secondary source of nourishment (the primary being the "hearts" of both living and dead Humans). Sources include humans, Soul Reapers and other hollows.
  • Another example would be Ayasegawa Yumichika. This ordinary Bishōnen Blood Knight is hiding his true power, which drains the spiritual energy of his target. When he does decide to use it, his battles end with a single strike. He can then use the drained energy to heal his wounds.
• Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. Kabaneri (humans who've undergone partial transformation into the zombie-like kabane) feed on human blood to survive. Without it, they get closer to kabane and try to feed off any nearby human, no longer recognizing their allies.
• Negima! Magister Negi Magi: Evangeline A.K. McDowell has the standard "vampire sucking blood" variant. She doesn't actually need blood to survive, but drinking it causes her to gain strength.
• Basilisk: Okoi can suck the blood of her enemies by touching their skin with hers. She vomits the blood out afterwards though, so it's basically just a way to attack and nothing more.
• Inuyasha: A clan of bat youkai favor the blood of humans as nourishment, but they can also consume animal blood and possible other alternatives as one, Tsukuyomaru, does not attack humans and has also forbidden his clan to do so.
• Jojos Bizarre Adventure has vampires in the first three parts, each of which feed on blood... with their fingers. They need it to heal their wounds (and in Dio Brando's case, to finalize the connection of his head to Jonathan Joestar's body). Part 4 gives us the Stand Highway Star, which breaks down a person's body by draining the nutrients from their cells; its user uses the stolen nutrients to help him recover from grievous wounds suffered in a motorcycle accident. Part 5 gives us the Big Bad Diavolo, who, while not a vampire, drains a young kid's blood after surviving a brutal battle with the leader of his assassination team.
• The true form of the Juubi in Naruto is capable of draining all of a shinobi's chakra in seconds. This is invariably fatal.
• Wicked City: The Black World radical masquerading as a call girl absorbs Giuseppe into herself and drains almost all of his Life Energy.
• Demon City Shinjuku. In the 1988 OVA Chibi tells Sayaka Rama that the Fire Demons take the form of young children and roam the city sucking the life force out of any human or animal that crosses their path.
• Vampire Hunter D. In the 1985 film the three Snake Women of Midwich drain D's Life Energy by wrapping themselves around him.
• Digimon:
  • In Digimon Adventure, to make up for his weakened strength in the real world Myostismon attacked women at night, draining them of blood and leaving them with anemia. The dub removed this explanation, making it seem like Myotismon was attacking the women for the fun of it. However, this wouldn't necessarily be out-of-character for Myotismon...
  • In Digimon Ghost Game, Starter Villain Clockmon preyed on humans by draining them of their "time", aging them rapidly and leaving them near death.
• In Death Note, when a shinigami kills a human with a Death Note, their remaining lifespan is added to the shinigami's. They can also take half the remaining lifespan of a human who owns a death note in exchange for the power to see people's true names by looking at their face.
• Ayakashi Triangle: Ikon and the creatures born from them feed on haku taken from humans and other ayakashi, both to satisfy their Horror Hunger and advance themselves along the Bishōnen Line. The stronger they are, the faster they can drain: It took hours of an ikon possessing Lu for it to tire her out. A jinyo like Sosuke gobbles up haku fast enough to use as an attack, paralyzing whatever body part its taken from. Ayakashi are made of haku, though, so they aren't so much "drained" by ikon as Eaten Alive.
• Subverted in Ranma ½. Mousse aided a jizo stone statue, which tried to return the favor by taking the appearance of his crush Shampoo and going on dates with him. Since he's tired every time the main characters see him, they think the jizo was sucking out his life, but Cologne figures out at the end that it wasn't intentionally harming Mousse. Mousse was simply exhausted from going on dates all night (with a stone statue in the back seat, no less) on top of his job as a restaurant delivery boy.

Comic Books

• The DCU:
  • Firestorm (DC Comics): Killer Frost, unusually for An Ice Person, can absorb heat in order to strengthen her own powers. She can also do this to people, siphoning their own warmth and freezing them to death. In fact, in the case of the third incarnation, Caitlin Snow, she has to do this in order to keep herself alive.
  • Robin (1993): The villain Johnny Warren gains a whole slew of abilities powered by draining the Life Energy out of people after making a demonic pact.
  • Superman: The villain Parasite has the ability to drain the knowledge, life-force and superpowers of anyone he touches.
  • Wonder Woman (1987): The Erinyes string up Wonder Girl and Ferdiand to exsanguinate them and drink their blood, from which they pull memories and things about their victims.
• The Heap is forced to drain animals of blood in order to get oxygen. He targets birds, dogs and livestock, but he usually does not attack men, unless they are evil.
• Marvel Universe:
  • Cloak and Dagger (Marvel Comics): Cloak's weaponized Teleportation Sickness stems from the fact that anyone enveloped in his "dark dimension" is vampirically drained of Life Energy, which Cloak refers to as "the light of the soul". This causes physical depletion and intense psychological distress. Worse, Cloak is at least psychologically dependent on regularly consuming Life Energy in this way; if he goes too long without it, withdrawal-like symptoms intensify until he is compelled to feed. His partner Dagger is actually a kind of inversion of this trope; she produces too much Life Energy, to the point that if it isn't siphoned regularly, she begins to lose her mind. Thus their partnership is a symbiotic relationship; Cloak keeps his Horror Hunger in check by draining Dagger, which in turn preserves Dagger's mind.
  • X-Factor (2006): Baron Mordo kidnaps Monet St. Croix's father in order to lure her into a trap so he can drain her life essence and put his cancer into remission. Monet's father notes that her life energy seems to attract "parasites" like Mordo and Monet herself directly compares Mordo to a vampire.
  • X-Men:
    • Rogue has this due to her mutation, enabling her to drain Life Energy and temporarily borrow someone else's powers. Because of Power Incontinence, she can't touch anyone without draining their strength, which is understandably harsh on her social life. The Brazilian publishing emphasizes the vampiric metaphor, naming her as Vampira.
    • Selene is a "psychic vampire" who can drain the Life Energy of human beings to sustain herself. If she drains the victim's entire life force their bodies crumble into dust. She can use absorbed life force to enhance her physical strength, speed, stamina, agility, reflexes, and durability to superhuman levels.

Fan Works

• Abraxas (Hrodvitnon): After fusing to Vivienne Graham to form Monster X, San retains the ability to suck the energy and radiation out of opponent Titans with a bite that he had when he was part of Ghidorah, and he briefly uses this ability defensively and heroically against MaNi/Elder Brother.
• The wraiths on the Plains of Death in With Strings Attached feed off Paul's life energy—except he has so much that they explode from overeating.
• Doraku from A Growing Affection is a rather Affably Evil and polite man who outright explains to a captive Naruto, Sakura, Hinata and Lee that he falls under "enhance his power" from drinking blood (he insists that his demon clan aren't vampires but did inspire them) saying he gains whatever ability the person has. He never drinks someone to death though just tastes the blood and it works. Has the side effect of enslaving people he drinks.
• Besides the Will of Evil: Reiziger has the ability to literally suck the life out of living creatures to heal and strengthen himself, leaving his victims as grey, aged and desiccated husks. He keeps growing consistently stronger and more powerful as the story progresses, consuming more and more lives to add to his power.
• The Empath: The Luckiest Smurf story "Smurfette's Inner Beauty" has Hogatha using the Spell of Syphonia, which drains Smurfette of her long life and beauty in order to give the evil witch a more youthful and attractive look. This goes on for hours until Empath's True Love's Kiss breaks the spell and restores Smurfette's youth and beauty while also restoring Hogatha to her true age and looks.

Films — Live-Action

• Color Out of Space (2020): Ezra speculates on his Apocalyptic Log that the Color grows strong by feeding on what life it comes in contact with in the area.
• Godzilla: Some incarnations of King Ghidorah are capable of this. Keizer Ghidorah in Godzilla: Final Wars drains Godzilla's power with his bite, as does the MonsterVerse incarnation of Ghidorah in Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019).
• Lifeforce (1985). The three space vampires drain Life Energy from humans to sustain themselves (and to store in their ship for future use during their long hibernations). The humans they drain become zombies who must drain Life Energy from other humans every two hours or be turned to dust.
• In Scanner Cop II, psychic 'scanner' Carl Volkin devours the lifeforce of other scanners to add to his own power. Staziak even compares him to a vampire at one point.
• In the X-Men Film Series, Rogue can do this through touch.
• In Hocus Pocus, the three witches do this to a young girl to maintain their youth.

Literature

• The Others in the Night Watch (Series) can collect the emotional energy of the Muggles and convert it into mana. In a twist, the nominally-good Light Others can only "feed" on positive emotions, whereas the "bad" Dark Others take away painful and unpleasant feelings.
  • Should be noted though that in order to have emotions to feed upon, the Light Others foster positive emotions in their environment, whereas Dark Others foster negative emotions.
  • This is expanded in later novels, when Anton finally figures out that the Others are parasites, and magic proficiency is determined by a person's own ratio of magic production vs. absorption. Humans produce more magic than they absorb, while the Others absorb more than they produce, allowing them to use it. The higher the absorption/production ratio, the more powerful the Other. Zero-level Others only absorb and can do anything they want with ease. This also means that being far away from humans (say, in orbit or on another planet) would render an Other powerless.
    • In one book, a disillusioned Other wishes to turn every human into an Other using an ancient magical text. While the obvious problem with this is mentioned (i.e., absolute chaos), it is not mentioned that it would also drastically reduce the supply of magic in the world, making it almost impossible to cast spells.
• In the novels of Deverry, several of Rhodry's prior incarnations are unintentionally killed by their lover, a former air elemental who was transformed into something akin to a succubus by a Guardian. She used the drained energy to gradually make her manifestation form more human.
• Vardalek in Eric, Count Stenbock's True Story Of A Vampire appears to be what we'd recognize as a psychic vampire, gradually draining the life from his prepubescent thrall.
• The weaponized variant of Vampiric Draining shows up in the Kull story "Riders Beyond the Sunrise", in which Kull confronts his Arch-Enemy, Thulsa Doom. The sorcerer wields a sword that slowly saps Kull's strength and transfers it to Doom, allowing him to fight without tiring while Kull gets weaker and weaker. Disarming Doom and swapping his normal sword for the magical blade allows Kull to defeat the sorcerer.
• The dementors from the Harry Potter series.
• Elves in M.C.A. Hogarth's The Blood Ladders Trilogy keep human slaves in order to drain magic from them, as their immortality uses up more of their own magic as they age.
• In The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School, "Shrimp" Harper has the ability to "breathe in" the life force of others, leaving them feeling tired and run-down. In the sequel, The Haunting of Drearcliff Grange School, she discovers that she has the ability to "breathe in" other things than life force, such as mental confusion or even arm-brokenness, and has the potential to be an Empathic Healer.
• Way of Choices Bai Hai, an otherwise normal human, captures Xu Yourong the Phoenix, to drain her unusual blood and steal her power. He manages only because she was already wounded, poisoned and weak almost unto to death, and swiftly dies from the poison in her blood.
• Wonder Woman: Warbringer: Pinon can drain an opponent of blood and then "digest" it at her leisure to heal or power herself or Jason.
• The Licanius Trilogy: Thanks to his quasi-dead nature, Davian does not generate Essence as all other living things do. So in order to survive, he must leach small amounts of Essence from everything around him. Normally, the amount he drains from any one thing is inconsequential, but if he so chooses he can rapidly drain all the Essence from specific targets, causing them to crumble to ash.
• Certain Dark Things: The Revenant vampire variety have the unique power to drain or donate life energy with a touch. The donation can save a recipient's life and accelerate healing, albeit with excruciating pain; the draining causes victims to shrivel up and die — in that order.
• Ate from The Faerie Queene is sustained by drinking the blood and sucking the life from those who succumb to stupid feuds and rivalries. She was born to feed this way by the demons who raised her.
• Magic University: Sirens feed on human sexual energy, and if done too much this can put them into comas. This happens to Nichols and later Frost in the first book at the hands of Michael, though he didn't mean to.
• Universal Monsters: In book 4, the trio learn that Imhotep is stealing blood from people, using a needle. In the original film, he never did so, leaving them confused about his motives; it later turns out it was meant to replace Anck-Su-Namun's dried-up blood.

Live-Action TV

• Beyond: The beings in the Realm appear to feed this way, as Frost ages rapidly when touched by one.
• The final season of Earth: Final Conflict introduces the Atavus, the original race that split into Taelons and Jaridians. Being away from their homeworld, they have to replenish their energy on a daily basis by feeding on sentient beings (in this case, humans) using their energy claws. The subject doesn't survive the process. The Atavus found that they really enjoy the feeding process. Their chambers allow them to create human/Atavus hybrids who also have this ability.
• Interview with the Vampire (2022): Vampires sustain themselves by exsanguinating humans, or animals if they're a vegetarian, although the latter option isn't healthy because it's subsistence living.
• The Fangire, and indeed most of the Demon Races seen in Kamen Rider Kiva.
• Lost Girl: Main character Bo is a succubus and can heal herself from injuries by draining life from humans or fae, normally during sex.
• Motherland: Fort Salem: Adler remains young through draining youth from her biddies (who are volunteers).
• The Wraith from Stargate Atlantis feed on the life force of humans. Being fed upon by a wraith shortens the victim's lifespan, and produces Rapid Aging. It provides the Wraith with both bodily nourishment, and fuel for their Healing Factor. Notably, Wraith can also work this ability backwards, de-aging someone. They usually use both to "train" captive humans, eventually getting them addicted to the Wraith. This is how they control Wraith-worshipers, whenever it's necessary to use humans (e.g., infiltration). Whether a Wraith would die if they went without it is iffy, as they can hibernate for literally centuries if supplies are low. The only "starving" Wraith we ever see (because he was captured by humans) became delirious and started mixing poetry with prophecy.
• Star Trek: The Original Series
  • Episode "The Man Trap". The creature on planet M-113 lives by draining all of the salt from other living creatures and thus killing them.
  • The cloud creature in "Obsession" gains nourishment by draining the blood from human bodies.
  • The giant space amoeba in "The Immunity Syndrome" eats by draining Life Energy from all living beings within the cloud of darkness it generates.
• Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • "Time's Arrow" has the Devidians, invisible aliens who steal human neural energy to live (one wonders how they survived to evolve to sapience) and who go back in time to prey on humanity in the 19th Century, when there were still plagues to excuse mysterious deaths.
  • In "Man of the People", the Enterprise transports an ambassador, Alkar, who forms a connection to women and does this in reverse, offloading his negative emotions on them, allowing him to be clear-headed in negotiations, but causing Rapid Aging and death to his victims.
  • "Sub Rosa" reveals that a ghost-like energy being has done this to many generations of Beverly Crusher's family.
• In Supernatural, the djinn drain blood or fear from their victims.
• Sweet Home (2020): One of the monsters has a very long prehensile tongue which it uses to drain people's blood.
• The Twilight Zone (1959): In "Queen of the Nile", a middle-aged actress named Pamela Morris is actually an ancient Egyptian queen who is thousands of years old; she maintains her youth by draining the Life Energy of young men with a magic scarab beetle. She succeeds in draining our protagonist Jordan Herrick to death.

Myths & Religion

• Succubi and Incubi, in some presentations, drain the life-force of their victims through sexual contact. White Court vampires in The Dresden Files are one example. In some cases, the life-force is carried in the victim's semen, which the succubus has to, um, ingest.

Tabletop Games

• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Cerebral parasites, thought eaters and brain moles feed on psionic energy, which can kill their victim.
  • Phthisics are evil beings created by giving physical form to people's neuroses, and survive by draining the intelligence of other creatures through their fangs.
  • The Will-o'-Wisp haunts places like bogs, swamps and dungeons where death traps like mires, quicksand and Pit Traps can be found. It tries to lure adventurers into those traps so it can feed on their fleeing Life Energy as they're dying.
  • Vampires feed on both blood (Constitution points) and life force (negative levels), while wights are weaker undead who drain life through slam attacks.
  • Alu-demons drain Life Energy by touching a living creature. Each touch drains 1-8 Hit Points and cures 1-4 Hit Points of damage the alu-demon has taken.
  • The 3rd Edition spell death knell drains the Life Energy from a dying creature, killing it. Doing so increases your strength, your Hit Points and adds 1 to your Character Level for the purposes of spellcasting.
  • The 3rd level wizard/sorcerer spell Vampiric Touch drains health points from the victim to replenish lost health.
  • The 5e dhampir player race is compelled to feast on one particular aspect of the living. This can be concrete elements such as blood or cerebrospinal fluid, or more abstract concepts such as dreams or generic "psychic energy". (Note that players are not required to have their characters act on these urges.)
  • Original D&D Supplement IV Gods, Demi-Gods & Heroes:
    • In the Melnibonean mythos, the rune sword Stormbringer feeds on souls and Life Energy. The monster Quaolnargn consumes Life Energy. Vampire trees can send their leaves through the air to suck the blood out of their victims.
    • In the Hyborian mythos based on Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories, the Kraken feeds on human souls and Life Energy from its victims. The deities Tsathoggus and Yezud and the monstrous Vampire Gorgon of Akhlat all consume Life Energy. The vampire vine sucks the blood out of its victims.
  • Dark Sun:
    • A thrax can drain all of the water out of an intelligent creature by touch. It can only drink water from a living creature, not normally. If it uses this attack on a human and the human survives, they may turn into a thrax themselves.
    • Monstrous Compendium Appendix — Terrors of the Desert: The t'chowb can drain points of Intelligence by touch and add them to its own Intelligence rating, to a maximum of 24 points. The victim loses the Intelligence points permanently, but the t'chowb only gains them for one day.
  • Dragon magazine #238: "The Return of the Wizards Three" descries the spell Scourge of Stars, which creates a magical whip that drains Hit Points from creatures it hits and bestows them on the caster. If the caster is injured the extra Hit Points heal those injuries first. If any are left over they heal any future injuries for the duration of the spell.
  • Greyhawk: In the adventure "The Lost Passage of the Suloise", the evil entity known as the Mother will drain the levels (Life Energy) of any creature inside its body.
  • Dungeon magazine:
    • Issue #31, Ravenloft adventure "Bane of the Shadowborn'': The Ravenloft Darklord sword Ebonbane sustains itself by draining the Life Energy of the living animals in its domain, killing them.
    • Issue #41, adventure "A Way With Words": Vampire moss feeds on the Life Energy of all living things within ten yards, draining one Hit Point per minute. If a victim is reduced to half (or less) of its maximum Hit Points, it will eventually fall unconscious.
  • Ravenloft setting
    • 2nd Edition boxed set, "Realm of Terror" booklet: When someone fails a Ravenloft Powers check, one possible reward is gaining 3-6 points of Strength for 10 minutes (after drinking blood) once per day, and one possible penalty is being required to drink blood once per day with no benefit.
    • Monstrous Compendium Appendix I: The doppelganger plant can possess people using its mind bondage power and change them into podlings. It then drains 1-4 Hit Points of Life Energy from them per day until they die.
• Gygax magazine #3 adventure "The Marmoreal Dungeon of Garn Pat'uul". A vampiric cloud called a Horla can drain two Hit Points of Life Energy from all creatures inside its 15 foot diameter. Each two Hit Points drained heals 1 point of damage to the Horla.
• Shadowrun. Many Awakened creatures have the Essence Drain ability, which allows them to drain Essence (life/magical energy) in order to restore the Essence they lose due to their Essence Loss weakness.
• The Vampiric Bite and more generic Leech powers from GURPS.
• All Elohim in Demon: The Fallen require Divine Faith to live and cast magic, and the only way the Fallen can obtain it is from humans, the image of God. For this, they can either reveal themselves to certain humans and let their Faith trickle to them constantly, or reap them for all their Faith in a one-time boost. Unlike vampires, demons don't actually expend Faith by merely existing.
• Space Gamer Fantasy Gamer magazine #7, article "Villains Finish First!". The super villain Vampire Prince of Darkness can use his power Drain Life Force on an opponent to weaken their soul.
• Mongoose Publishing's Strontium Dog RPG. The alien criminal Xen the Brainwraith enters a victim's skull, settles around the brain and exerts Mind Control over the victim. Each day it remains in the victim's head it drains a point from one of the victim's four physical characteristics (Intelligence, Strength, Endurance and Dexterity, in that order). When the victim's Intelligence is reduced to zero the victim becomes a zombie. When all four reach zero the victim dies. It has killed hundreds, if not thousands of people.
• This is one possible (though far from the only) use for the generic "Drain" power in the Hero System, which depending on precisely how it is defined can temporarily lower any characteristic or power and isn't hard to link with an appropriate Aid effect to the character's (or monster's) own. At least one earlier edition provided both effects in one convenient package via the separate Transfer power, but Sixth Edition no longer includes this; the Drain/Aid combination can model pretty much any desired effect along the lines of this trope with more flexibility, anyway.
• The Dark Eldar in Warhammer 40,000 work like this, due to the curse Slaanesh the god(dess) of pleasure put on them. Dark Eldar feed on soul energy, and one of the most effective ways to gain it is torture their victims in absolutely horrifying and unimaginable ways. They need to do this to keep themselves young, otherwise they'll rapidly age and die, and then fall into the clutches of Slaanesh who's in hell waiting for them.
• Lejendary Adventures
  • The Peccant permanently drain the Health (Life Energy) of human and humanoid victims and add it to its own health.
  • A Volitant Bruholak can do this too, but from any living creature.
  • A Nosferatu can do this by biting a victim, but keeps the Health only temporarily.
  • An Apparition can drain Speed (movement), Precision (dexterity) or Health by touch and temporarily add it to its own.
  • The Shadowling can drain Health and add it to its Health/Free Will for one hour.
• Rolemaster Shadow World supplement Jaiman: Land of Twilight, adventure "Cult of the Third Moon". The Priestess of the title cult performs a human sacrifice ceremony at midnight in order to drain the Life Energy of the victim and maintain her immortality.
• Call of Cthulhu. Several Cthulhu Mythos creatures can drain blood.
  • Byakhee can drain blood by biting a victim. Each round thereafter the byakhee will drain 1-6 points of the victim's Strength until it reaches zero and the victim dies.
  • If a chthonian's tentacle hits a victim it inserts itself into their body and starts draining blood and other bodily fluids. This drains 1-6 points of Constitution per round from the victim. If a victim is hit by more than one tentacle each one drains 1-6 Con/turn. The lost Constitution cannot be regained. When the victim reaches zero Constitution it dies.
  • When a Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath grabs someone with a tentacle, it holds the victim to its mouth and drains 1-3 points of Strength per round. The lost Strength cannot be regained.
  • Shub-Niggurath drains victims with its mouths the same as its Dark Young, but drains bodily fluids at a rate of 1-6 points of Strength per round.
  • After a star vampire grabs a victim with its talons it can bite and drain blood from it at a rate of 1-6 points of Strength per round.
  • If hungry, Tsathoggua holds a victim against his body and drains 1 point from each of the victim's characteristics (Strength, Constitution, Size, Intelligence, Power, Dexterity, and Appearance. Each full month of hospital care restores 1 point to each characteristic.
  • Early versions of the rules had regular vampires. Their bite could drain 1d6 Strength points of blood per round.
• Classic Traveller
  • Journal of the Travellers' Aid Society #4. Since the Reticulan Parasite (based on the Alien xenomorph) doesn't eat the bodies of the creatures it kills, it's been speculated by biologists that it uses the victims' Life Energy to sustain itself.
  • Judges Guild adventure Darthanon Queen. The randomly created Dyson monster could regenerate damage by absorbing the Life Energy of the humans it killed.
• Fantasy Games Unlimited's Aftermath. Vampires are human beings mutated by biological agents or radiation. They consume blood drained from captured humans.
• Gamma World adventure GW1 Legion of Gold. In the buggem lair, the parn embryots will jump onto victims' heads or shoulders, bite them and suck out their bodily fluids at a rate of 10 Hit Points per combat round.
• Carcosa: Weird Science-Fantasy Horror Setting. In hex 2107 a Spawn of Shub-Niggurath drains blood on a successful hit, doing 1 die of damage per round.
• It Came from the Late, Late Show. The Energy Form alien floats around draining the life force (Life Energy) of its human victims.
• Man, Myth & Magic Book III The Adventures Book, adventure "The Great Pyramid Revealed". While exploring the Great Pyramid in Egypt the PlayerCharacters will encounter a room filled with rare underground plants called Indego Gentian. The plants use any creature that enters the room as food, draining both Power (magical energy) and Life Points (Life Energy) from them.
• RuneQuest
  • Supplement Dorastor: Land of Doom
    • A lamia drains Strength from a victim by biting them and Power by kissing them.
    • When a succubus in female form has sex with a male she drains one point of Constitution from him.
    • When a vampire bites its victim it doesn't just drain blood, it drains Fatigue as well.
  • Gygax magazine #4 article "Djinn: Spirits between Heaven and Hell". All jinn can replenish lost magic points by draining the Life Energy of a living creature. Each point of Power in the victim yields two magic points.
• Arduin RPG, The Compleat Arduin Book 2: Resources
  • Demons
    • Hellflash demons attack targets with bolts of electrical energy and devour the victim's soul when it dies.
    • The Greater Demon Apharoe the Star Witch can drain the soul of a victim by kissing them for two consecutive melee rounds.
    • The Greater Demon Sl'yth the Nightmare Demon can use its psychic powers to suck another creature's flesh off its bones and devour it. If the victim dies from this Sl'yth will also consumes the victim's soul.
  • The Drich undead are evil beings that survive by drinking the blood and eating the hearts of living, sentient beings during a horrible ritual. Each victim sustains them for a week, so they spend all their time hunting down new ones.
  • The Lich undead must drain the Life Energy of a sentient being at least once every 13 day Arduin lunar cycle or become unable to move (but it can still think).
  • Rakshasha (sic) can rend with their claws and bite with their fanged jaws. While doing so they psychically drain and devour their victim's soul.
  • Star Spiders are about 10-12 feet wide and long. Opponents that are sucked or pulled into their mouths are destroyed by heat and radiation at a rate of 51-100 Hit Points per combat round, which also consumes the victim's soul.
• Varanae generic RPG supplement Monstrum 1
  • The Brain Mushroom drains spells from the mind of a spell caster (or 3-12 points of Intelligence from non-wizards) in order to survive.
  • The Perygem is a living jewel from another dimension. When it touches another creature it can steal that being's soul, after which it returns to its own dimension. Once there it feeds on the Life Energy in the stolen soul at a rate of 1 level per week.
• Chaosium's supplement All the Worlds' Monsters Volume III
  • Demon Spiders are the size of a large timber wolf and can cast webs that drain Life Energy from any creature they hit.
  • A Leicht Geiste drains levels of Life Energy from any creature it touches. Each level it drains gives it an additional Hit Point.
  • The Lifesucker is a large beetle-like monster with two 8-foot long tentacles that each drain one level of Life Energy on a hit.
  • The Soul Stealer undead monster can drain 6 levels of Life Energy from a creature by touching it.
  • The Red Spider drains its victim of one point of Constitution by hitting it with one of its claws.
  • The Vamplock can drain 2 levels of Life Energy with its bite.
  • The Great Wraith drains 2-5 Life Energy levels for each hit by one of its claws, has Telepathy and can regenerate 3 HitPoints per melee turn.
• SPI's Dragon Quest supplement The Enchanted Wood
  • A dense fog will manifest an evil strangling mist that feeds on the Life Energy of creatures it kills to sustain itself.
  • The PlayerCharacters may be led astray by a glowing light that lures them into deathtraps. Once they're trapped the Will o'Wisp will return and touch them to drain their Life Energy as they're dying.
• Night Life: Nearly every monstrous species of PC has some variant of this trope, as draining victims of whatever one's monster-type needs — blood, vigor, youth, whatever — is the usual method of restoring one's own health and/or staving off Horror Hunger.
• In Nomine: Impudites, a type of demon, feed by consuming the Essence — spiritual power — of other beings, primarily humans.
• The Unofficial Hollow Knight RPG: Any character with the Bloodsucker trait is able to drain blood from other creatures in order to feed themselves. This is useful for stretching out the party's food supplies and getting around disadvantages from the Carnivore and Herbivore traits - even if there's no food that the bloodsucker can eat, they can just drain nutrients from their allies who don't have such restrictions on their diet.

Toys

• BIONICLE:
  • Gorast, after exposure to Pit Mutagen. Not surprisingly, given her mosquito-like appearance.
  • Also Krika, who had to drain body heat from living things to stay alive.
  • Anyone who wears the Kanohi Avsa, the Mask of Hunger; the only one in the main story is Vamprah.

Video Games

• Metroid: Metroids feed on life energy and leave their victims as desiccated husks. At least one specimen is able to inject energy into others, too.
• Ultimate Spider-Man: Venom needs to absorb his victim's energies.
• Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords:
  • The Humanoid Abomination Darth Nihilus feeds on the Life Energy of others through the Force to sate his endless hunger. He has done this to entire planets. The Player Character is revealed to function in a similar manner, as after losing their connection to the Force they begin to draw upon it through others. Your Karma Meter determines whether this symbiosis is parasitic or mutualistic. In the third game Star Wars: The Old Republic, The Emperor is shown to have a similar power to Nihilus but still retains some of his "humanity".
  • The Force drain family of powers allow normal Dark Side users to do this on a much smaller scale, draining the Life Energy or Mana Meter of opponents to replenish themselves.
• Dark Souls: The Dark Hand uses the Dark Soul of the Undead to drain humanity in its grab attack. Can be used a limited number of times on NPCs, too.
• Blood Knights: The player character Alyssa, a vampire, uses this ability to Life Drain her enemies and restore her health. An early vampire boss (also a Healing Boss) can do this too, though not to Alyssa - instead, her arena is filled with caged prisoners, and she'll drain her captives' life to boost her own periodically.
• Brain Dead 13: Vivi will do this to Lance if he doesn't make a choice of either a shave, manicure, or facial quick enough. And the result is downright unpleasant: though over in a split-second, we see Lance visibly shrivelled into a mummy-like state as a result of her appetite. Also, the ghosts with nooses around their necks will possess Lance and drain the living soul out of him!
• Dungeon Crawl has the Vampiric Draining spell, which is more of a life-force drain. It's one of the few renewable ways that Deep Dwarves can heal.
• StarCraft II: This is the fundamental play style of Alarak. He actively heals himself by either killing his own units or enemy units, and won't survive long without doing so.
• Elden Ring: The Deathbed Companions are a positive example; they can drain Life Energy through hugs, which they use to Mercy Kill people on their deathbeds in a soothing manner. The player meets one such companion named Fia, who offers a hug and a temporary boost to the Poise stat in exchange for a temporary 5% health reduction.
• The Elder Scrolls
  • This is obviously a trait the series' vampires. However, there are over 100 known "bloodlines" of vampire in Tamriel, and each has some distinguishing features and abilities. The majority use the standard Breaking and Bloodsucking method, but others are known to magically drain the health of their victims or swallow their victims whole instead.
  • This is an ability of the Hunger, a form of lesser Daedra very similar in appearance to the "alien-style" Chupacabra, complete with claws, spikes, and a "sucker" mouth. Hungers are capable of draining the Fatigue of their prey. In game, this tends to take the form of a spell, but given their appearance (and the fact that the "spell" is immune to Silence), it can be implied that they are really using their sucker-like mouths.
  • The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: In the Dragonborn DLC, this is an ability of the Seekers, a Cthulhumanoid form of lesser Daedra in service to Hermaeus Mora, the Daedric Prince of Knowledge. All of their spells drain or absorb the health, magicka, and/or fatigue of their targets. Additionally, these spells are ranged and home-in on their targets.
• Endless Legend: The Broken Lords were once a faction of noble human warriors and knights who transformed themselves into living armor in order to survive the collapsing climate of Auriga. This resulted in them requiring Dust to survive. They can refine and consume naturally-occurring Dust, but another source is draining it from the bodies of living beings, a process that harms and eventually kills them. While honor dictates that they use the former method, the latter is far easier, faster, and much more pleasant.
• Infamous 2: The Bio Leech attack lets Cole drain the bioelectric energy of the Militia. Bio Leeching gives you Evil Karma for it and the satisfaction of monstrous Conduit gluttony.
• Bug Fables: One of the side-quest bosses is Monsieur Scarlet, an ant criminal who lures adventurers into his lair with false help requests on quest boards, and then kills them via draining out their life force. He came dangerously close to doing this with Levi and Celia until Team Snakemouth puts an end to it. During the battle, he can also heal himself by attacking a party member.
• Khimera: Puzzle Island: The mastermind of the whole game clarifies their feeding habits, instead of physical comsumption, it's the extraction of Life Energy:
  Aylith: I'm not going to eat you, like, in the literal sense.
  [...]
  I'm just going to drain your life energy, leaving your body behind as a lifeless husk!
• Mega Man:
  • Shade Man in Mega Man 7 and Dark Necrobat (Dark Dizzy) in Mega Man X5 both have an attack that restores their own health by draining it from a target.
  • Mercury in Mega Man V has an unusual form of this, stealing items from an opponent with his Grab Buster, or converting energy from them into energy pellets to restore himself. By Power Copying the Grab Buster, Mega Man can do it too.
• Warcraft:
  • Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos: Vampiric Aura is a passive ability seen on high-end Undead units and the Looks Like Orlok Dreadlords which allows friendly melee units to heal damage every time they attack an enemy. The Vampiric Potion gives a similar but temporary effect to the hero that uses it.
  • World of Warcraft: High Elf offshoots have a very bad habit of falling into magical addictions that require this kind of treatment if they get separated from their sources of power.
    • In Burning Crusade which debuted the Blood Elves/Sin'dorei as a playable race, they were desperately seeking to find a replacement for their recently destroyed Sunwell and would suck mana energy out of nearly anything that could give it to them, effectively making them mana vampires. However this part of their characterization was dropped at the end of the same expansion, when the Sunwell was restored and their addiction was cleansed, though they would keep the ability to mana tap for a few more expansions before it was removed for not making sense with the story.
    • Darkfallen/San'layn are Blood Elves who died during Kael'thas' march to try to kill Arthas back in Warcraft 3 and were resurrected as Elven Vampires and cursed with the traditional hunger for blood. Every time one is fought, they have an attack to either drain your energy, or pin you down and directly drain your blood.
    • Void Elves/Ren'Dorei introduced at the tail end of Legion are Blood Elves who have been touched by the power of the void, an entropic force of nothingness. Besides Hearing Voices and having to struggle constantly against falling to the insane whispers in their head, it's also mentioned that being touched by the insatiable, ever-hungering darkness of entropy has once more cursed them with a desire to drain life energy from living things. However, unlike Blood Elves' mana tap, there's no racial skill that reflects this.
    • And finally there are Venthyr, keepers of the Afterlife of Revendreth in Shadowlands. It's not even kept subtle that they're vampires, they Look Like Orlok and pretty much every one of them has some form of life drain attack. However, in their case it's not blood, but anima — the energy of the soul — that they drain as harvesting it from souls they're redeeming and feeding it back to their realm and others' is what keeps the rest of the Shadowlands running.

Visual Novels

• Nasuverse:
  • The True Ancestors, who go insane if they completely abstain for too long, but don't actually require it for sustaining themselves; the addiction is purely psychological.
  • The Dead Apostles, however, require blood for physical sustenance, making them closer to the classical vampires in this regard.
  • Rider from Fate/stay night, who is decidedly not a vampire, but rather a Gorgon (namely, Medusa).
  • Servants in general can drain people's life force to sustain themselves if they can't get sufficient mana from their Master, though most of them will refuse to do it on moral grounds (they are Heroic Spirits, after all).
• Wilhelm Ehrenburg from Dies Irae and its prequel is able to create a field of effect where all life is slowly drained and fed to him. Even inanimate objects start to decay and break down if caught in it for too long. It additionally also turns him closer to a true vampire with all the same perks and drawbacks as a real one would have. And fittingly, the field is also crowned by a blood red moon when it is activated.

Webcomics

• The creatures in the Shocking Horror arc of Breakpoint City (begins here) do this via spikes through the forehead.
• In Charby the Vampirate An-Keth can pull life energy from anything around them, including plants, to speed up their already impressive regeneration abilities when badly injured, leaving a patch of dead plants and other remains wherever they were when doing so.
• Earthsong: The "vampire" species normally drink blood, but those with soulstone power can feed on Life Energy instead. Friendly Neighborhood Vampire Tristram can also drain plants and can heal people by transferring life energy into them.
• In Endstone, Cole can do this.
• This has appeared a lot in The Order of the Stick since the story first introduced vampires and Durkon became one, and the High Priest of Hel, leading a group of vampires in a quest to destroy the world.
• In El Goonish Shive, being possessed by a body-snatching Aberration has this effect.
• Lotus Cobra Is Evil: From "Favorite Zendikar Card"◊: Referenced with Sorin Markov, Vampire Lord's favorite card being "Feast of Blood".
• Unsounded: Efheby envenom human victims and then drink their soul and memories. If they're careful their victims can mostly recover from a couple of bites, but after enough bites the tattered remains of their soul won't fit together anymore and they'll lose their mind and die no matter how careful the efheby is.
• In unTouchable, modern vampires have learned to discreetly feed off humans' energy by touching them. It's relatively harmless but can cause temporary lassitude.

Web Original

• In the Whateley Universe, this is one of Vamp's powers. If she draws too much energy from the victim (say, a mutant with Energizer powers) she tends to go bananas until it wears off.
• SCP Foundation:
  • SCP-472 ("The Bloodstone"). Anyone who goes within 18 meters of SCP-472 will lose up to 1.35 percent of their biomass. It's implied in the article that it's somehow feeding on its victims by draining their blood.
  • SCP-522 ("Blood-draining Carpet"). When a human being stands on the middle of the carpet, it will wrap itself around the person, insert thousands of hairs into them and drain them of all of their blood in a few minutes.
  • SCP-742 ("Retrovirus"). People infected with SCP-742 will drain the bone marrow from other humans. The stem cells in the marrow allow them to cease aging, and stem cells taken from fetuses allow them to create a SCP-742 filled fluid that they can infect into other humans in order to infect them.
  • SCP-932 ("Night Feeder"). If the creatures are not fed they will attack people who are awake. This will so severely drain the victim that they will be rendered comatose and eventually die of a heart attack. The draining process has the side effect of allowing the creatures to reproduce.
  • SCP-1421 ("The Unreliable Oracle"). SCP-1421 drains the Life Energy of all living beings within five meters of it. This has an effect similar to long term fasting, eventually causing death and mummification of the corpse.
  • SCP-1448 ("LegendTripping"). SCP-1448 encourages people to perform rituals that shed blood where it lives. No trace of the blood can be found afterward, because SCP-1448 absorbs it.
  • SCP-1529 ("King of the Mountain"). After SCP-1529 uses its Hypnotic Eyes to take control of a victim, it approaches them and drains their heat energy, causing them to die of hypothermia.
  • SCP-1627 ("Mushroom Wars"). When a human being touches a SCP-1627-A, over the next two weeks the human will undergo Rapid Aging until death. This provides sustenance to the SCP-1627-A.
  • SCP-2056 ("Tsiatko"). SCP-2056 has a funnel-shaped mouth lined with sharp teeth. It bites large trees with its mouth in order to drain nutrition. This leaves the tree desiccated, malnourished, and 73% likely to die.
  • SCP-3359 ("The Dry Guy"). Victims of SCP-3359 are transformed into walking mummified corpses that instinctively seek out the blood of the living to (temporarily) return to their former state. They are capable of draining bodily fluids of living creatures through their skin by touch alone, and when a "rehydrated" one is asked why they don't just simply use water he equates it to eating dirt.
  • SCP-5721 ("What Passes As Worship In The Digital Age"). The messaging app Discord, of all things, which drains users' Life Energy for the Greco-Roman goddess Eris thanks to a clause in the TOS giving her permission. Good luck trying to sue a deity.

Western Animation

• Ben 10:
  • Michael Morningstar, first appearing in Ben 10: Alien Force, can drain the Life Energy from his victims.
  • Ben 10: Omniverse: Vladats such as Lord Transyl can naturally do this, as can the Omnitrix's Vladat DNA sample Whampire although Ben tries to resist the urge when he turns into him.
• Jonny Quest TOS episode "The Invisible Monster". The title creature can drain the energy from a human body by touch, thus "consuming" the person.
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony 'n Friends: The witch Somnambula retains her youth by sucking the life out of others, and drains the magic from unicorns to enhance her own power.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic:
    • Changelings feed by draining ponies of their love. They even have fangs to complete the vampiric look, the show's time slot won't allow for any graphic biting, however. The IDW comics tame this a little further. Take a gawk. They get better after discovering they can feed by simply sharing love with each other.
    • Lord Tirek grows stronger from draining other living creatures of magic, and he specifically cannot absorb magic fron inanimate objects. When overdosed on magic, he loses all control and turns into a raging beast.
    • The Dazzlings, a band of Sirens from My Little Pony: Equestria Girls – Rainbow Rocks, feed on negative energy, as well as enchant people with their singing, turning them into mindless drones. They seek popularity to gain the possibility to turn more people against each other, becoming more powerful.
• Gigabyte, a powerful virus from ReBoot has one oversized claw that he uses to drain the energy from his victims, in an attempt to restore himself to full power.
• A Halloween episode of The Simpsons has Homer being attacked by a pair of vampires that suck out his blood, only for the two of them to grow fat and pass out due to also absorbing Homer's unhealthy high cholesterol and fat. Homer still turns into a bat after the fact.
• Rather than draining people of their blood like in most other versions, in Ultimate Spider-Man Michael Morbius drains people of their Life Energy.
• In the Star Darlings cartoon, Big Bad Lady Rancora can drain positive energy and turn it into negative energy in order to empower herself, with extreme drainage being lethal to her victims.
• In Barbie and the Secret Door, Malucia's magic scepter can drain other beings of their magic and leave them powerless, with her end goal being to capture all of Zinnia's magic.

Real Life

• Vampire bats are Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
• Ticks, lice, fleas, mosquitoes, and leeches all drink blood, but are so small that they don't individually do significant harm (unless they transmit a disease). Also, bedbugs. They aren't vectors for any diseases, so at least they won't cause a disease outbreak. But infestations tend to be persistent. They're astoundingly hardy, seem to actively prefer humans, can go for months without needing to eat, and can leave thousands of annoying, scratchy bites all over you. There is a reason why most landlords tend to put some sort of clause in the new lease stating that you'll be held financially accountable for an infestation if it can be traced back to bugs that came with you.
• Male garter snakes, newly arisen from winter hibernation, will sometimes mooch off other male snakes' body heat so their ectothermic bodies can warm up and become more active. By acting and emitting an aroma like a female garter snake, the chilly male attracts snakes that have already basked in the sun to cluster and coil around him, transferring their accumulated warmth to the supposed female they're trying to court.
• Spiders to a point, as they are unable to eat solid food. After killing their prey with venom, even if there's some evidence spider venom often just paralyzes the victim instead of killing it, they will pump out digestive fluid into the wound and will suck the liquefied entrails with most species leaving an intact husk behind when they end feeding.

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