What is Vampire? part 1

Nature

Vampires are a supernatural species in the Twilight universe (other known species are werewolves and shape-shifters). It is known that humans can be turned into vampires, and vampire venom is nothing more than a deadly poison to animals.
Vampires are feral, predatory creatures, far more savage and beast-like than their human appearance suggests. They growl, snarl, hiss, and curl their lips back baring their teeth as signs of aggression when provoked. Even older "civilized" vampires (ex. the Cullens) can break their human facade and show their ferocious instincts. When they sense danger, they go almost immediately into a defensive crouch, after which they bare their teeth as a sign of warning. If the warning is not heeded, they will let out a feral snarl and attack. In a fight, vampires use both their hands (grappling) and their teeth. Their bites can sever the limbs of their opponent (vampire teeth are known to be able to cut through their skin) as well as kill (ripping out the throat). Their grappling can tear off limbs and is known as a better way to fight than just going for the kill (mostly inexperienced vampires and newborns do so).
When they hunt, they completely lose their sense of self and give in to their thirst, which can be dangerous to a nearby human.
Despite their natural instincts, vampires are also capable of human feelings, such as love, protectiveness, compassion, care, respect, self-control, empathy and remorse.

Nutrition

James bites Bella

"When we taste... human blood, a sort of frenzy begins. It's almost impossible to stop."

―Edward telling Bella.

Blood is the only component of a vampire's diet in the Twilight series. When they drink blood, it is absorbed throughout the body, and it satiates their thirst and makes them physically stronger, but not necessary for life. In the Twilight universe, vampires do not starve to death without blood; but their thirst will increase and their physical capabilities will decrease the longer they abstain from blood altogether. The absence of blood will result in them weakening mentally, inhibiting their ability to think with rational thought, and ultimately resulting in them losing all sense of humanity and rationality until they drink blood.
Human blood makes a vampire physically stronger, and smells most appealing - it is also the hardest to resist. However, they can receive the same nutrition from animal blood, though it smells unappetizing and makes them physically weaker than a human-feeding vampire, but only fractionally. After a vampire's thirst has been satiated, he can go on without drinking blood for a week or two.
Since newborn vampires still have their own human blood lingering in their bodies, they tend to be physically stronger and faster than older vampires, with sharper senses. This, however, doesn't last very long as the venom naturally consumes this blood throughout the course of the newborn year.
To a vampire, the taste of blood varies on a massive basis. Due to their acute senses, they can detect whether or not a human has recently consumed alcohol or drugs, because their blood tastes unclean and can leave a vampire with a nasty aftertaste.
A vampire who chooses to abstain from drinking human blood and instead drinks the blood of animals is referred to as a vegetarian vampire.
"Singers" are humans who appeal to one vampire more than any other human. A singer for one vampire is usually not a singer for another vampire. Singers are irresistible to a vampire, and it takes massive amounts of self-control to stop a vampire of draining the singer.

Physical appearance

"As predators, we have a glut of weapons in our physical arsenal — much, much more than really necessary. The strength, the speed, the acute senses, not to mention those like Edward, Jasper, and I, who have extra senses as well. And then, like a carnivorous flower, we are physically attractive to our prey."

―Alice to Bella

A vampire's (Edward Cullen) skin sparkles when exposed to sunlight

Vampires are extraordinarily beautiful, some more attractive than others, such as Rosalie and Heidi. This is one of the several features meant to attract their prey - more specifically, to attract, fascinate, and (if necessary) seduce, unsuspecting humans. How physically appealing their prey finds them is determined by how desirable they were as humans themselves. If an already attractive human were to be transformed, their physical beauty would be "breathtaking". If they were of average interest, their attractiveness would be lower. If however they were not particularly pleasing to the eye, they would become average (as shown with James), but this is a rare occurrence, because vampires normally select exceptional humans to turn.
Vampires skin is described as "chalky", alabaster, or marble (because of its texture and feel, as well as its appearance). Regardless of original ethnicity, a vampire's skin will be exceptionally pale. The hue varies slightly, with darker-skinned humans having a barely discernible olive tone to their vampire skin, but the light shade remains the same. They owe their unnatural pale complexion to their lack of blood flow; once they reach the first anniversary of their transformation, they no longer possess blood of their own (though they still become slightly flushed after feeding). When the venom spreads, it also leeches pigment in the skin, so after the transformation is complete, the vampire loses nearly all its skin color, as well as any moles, freckles, scars, or any other part of the skin with pigment from their human life. Their strong resemblance to marble statues rests also on their skin's granite-like appearance and impenetrability, as well as the no longer need to blink - the venom-based fluid that resides in the eyes now fulfills the function of eyelids and also lubricates the eye so that it can move easily within its sockets. The vampire also is unable to produce tears after the transformation, as tears are used to remove objects harmful to the eye, and those objects would be unable to harm a vampires eye. A vampire may not move at all, if need be, and if they stay immobile for several thousand years, they will start showing the appearance of fragility or petrification, though their physical capabilities will remain unchanged. Aside from Aro's clouded, "milky" eyes, Bella notes that his skin - as well as that of his brothers, Marcus and Caius - looks like paper. However, though they feel closer to shale than granite, they are no more fragile than those remaining active.
A wise vampire will avoid exposure to direct sunlight, so not to be seen by humans during the day, unless the sky is overcast, since their skin sparkles like diamonds; their cells have become hard and refractive as if they were so many small prisms.

Newborns

"They're incredibly powerful physically, for the first year or so, and if they're allowed to bring strength to bear they can crush an older vampire with ease. But they are slaves to their thirst, and thus predictable."

―Jasper Hale

The Seattle newborn army: an army of newborn vampires.

Newborn or newborn vampire is the term for a vampire that has been transformed for less than one year. On average, a newborn's physical strength, senses and speed greatly surpass that of an older vampire because they still have their own blood lingering in their veins. As time passes, however, the venom in them will consume that blood, and the newborn's physical capabilities and thirst will slowly diminish until it reaches that of a normal vampire, by the end of its first year. A newborn's thirst for blood is overwhelmingly painful, described by Bree Tanner as being a "fire in the throut", and they will feed as much as possible to curb it.

Personality

Two newborns attacking each other for blood.

Newborns are often bloodthirsty, violent and uncontrollable. Their enhanced emotions are hard to control and they anger easily. They are also likely to kill each other to compete for blood. When they catch the scent of blood, their hunting instincts will take over and cloud their ability to focus, even the thought of being near blood is enough to make their thirst unbearable. However, as they live longer as vampires, their thirst will slowly diminish and become easier to manage. Their secondary human emotions and desires will mostly become dormant for a while, and resurface slowly over time.

Bella as a newborn

Bella Cullen was an exception to this rule, as she had time to think about her decision and therefore did not have the first brutal year that most vampires encounter. Carlisle Cullen showed an amazing control of his thirst for human blood as a newborn, which kept him from feeding on humans and redirect his thirst to animal blood instead. Rosalie Hale had never drunk human blood in her vampire life, though she had killed her murderers and their bodyguards by torturing them to death.
It is impossible to predict how long a newborn or an average vampire will remain vicious and bloodthirsty before their secondary desires and personality resurfaces, since every person is different.
Some indications which show a newborn are their bright crimson eyes (due to the blood left in their body at the time of changing), uncontrollable thirst (except in Bella Cullen's case) and incredible strength. In the Olympic Coven, Emmett Cullen was the hardest to contain when he was new because of his superior physical strength, though he did become a vegetarian successfully.

Physical description

The newborns are caught off guard by the Quileute wolves.

Newborns appear much like normal vampires with the exception of their eyes. A newborn's eyes are an incredibly bright crimson, indicating that their own blood is still in their system, though their heart is no longer beating. In a year that a vampire feeds on animal blood, their eyes will change from red to amber and then to gold. If he reverts to feeding on human blood, the eyes will darken to be almost a burgundy color.
Newborns are also incredibly powerful in the physical sense, being much stronger and faster than a regular vampire, with sharper senses, which allows them to easily crush an older vampire. As they become older their strength begins to wane, and after the first year, their strength will be reduced to that of an average vampire. In Breaking Dawn, Bella arm-wrestles with Emmett and wins easily because of her newborn strength.

Newborns in Seattle.

History

The Cullens against the newborns.

A vampire named Benito originally invented the idea of creating a newborn army, which were hard to stop, triggering the vampire wars of the south, and devastating their population as a result. This meant that the Volturi arrived and stopped them. A newborn army also appeared in Eclipse, created by a vengeful vampire named Victoria to destroy the Cullens and Bella. The newborns caused carnage in Seattle, with many people dying at their hands. When the Cullens find out that the army is moving in on them, they form an unusual allegiance with the Uley pack and initiate a battle against them, and win with much ease due to Jasper's knowledge of newborn movements and weaknesses.
In Eclipse, Jasper mentions a Mexican vampire named Maria who had previously created an army with Jasper's help. When the newborns grew and became of little use, he was to dispose of them. Except for one case, Peter, who was kept as a babysitter for the newborns. Later he ran off with Charlotte, after her newborn mark, to save her from being disposed of. Years later, they came back to him, inviting him to the North and its better life. He accepted the invitation.

Immortal children

Introduced in the novel Breaking Dawn, immortal children are human infants and toddlers turned into vampires. They are said to be so beautiful it takes just one look to be under their control. In addition, it is said that an immortal child's tantrum can kill people, since they cannot easily control themselves. Edward described them as adorable little children with smiles and dimples that would destroy a village in one of their tantrums.
It is presumed that while their mental age is stuck at the age they were transformed, they still have the vampiric gifts of enhanced strength and speed as well the the supernatural gifts of certain vampires.
Because they are too young to be controlled, the Volturi killed all those who could be found. Creating one has become the worst crime in the vampire world, under penalty of death for both creator and created. Under this law, anyone who knows about or stands by the child is also punishable under this law.
Even after the law was established, the Volturi captured two children to experiment on. However, no matter how many centuries they'd spent to teach them, they still could not be controlled or taught. Carlisle Cullen stumbled across these children during his stay in Volterra and learned of this law. After they determined that immortal children could not be tamed, they had the children destroyed.
In Book 3 of Breaking Dawn, Irina spotted Bella, Jacob and Renesmee hunting and mistook Renesmee for one, prompting her to report the child to the Volturi. Her mother Sasha had created an immortal child (Vasilii), and she had to witness her mother's and brother's executions.

Libishomen

Libishomen is the word that the people in South America (tribes like the Mapuche or the Ticunas), call vampires. Libishomen are blood drinking demons who prey exclusively on beautiful women. In the Twilight Saga, the vampire Joham, who believes that he is creating a new race by impregnating women with half-mortal, half-vampire babies (like Renesmee), would be called Libishomen. Joham has created half-mortals which include Nahuel and his half-sisters.

Deviations from traditional vampire legend

• Vampires in the Twilight universe are hard to destroy, as they are not harmed or deterred in any way by sunlight, holy water, running water, garlic, stakes, or crosses.
• Their bodies and skin are made of a material that is as hard as diamond (if not harder), to humans it is impenetrable.
• They are much stronger than most other vampires in fiction. Some are strong enough to stop a cement truck on a freeway with one hand.
• They sparkle like diamonds in the sunlight.
• They are reflected by mirrors and show up in photographs.
• They have no need for coffins; they do not sleep.
• They are not theriomorphic - meaning, they cannot transform their bodies.
• They do not have two fangs as all of their teeth are incredibly sharp and strong - strong enough to easily chew through steel, or their diamond hard skin.
• A vampire society has developed, with a conduct code that provides them with a greater chance of survival than if they were alone.

Enemies

A shape-shifter vs. a vampire

Vampires are said to have two natural enemies: werewolves and shape-shifters, to each of the creatures the other smells disgusting. These smells are too enhanced for a human sense of smell. Vampires are said to be stronger than shape-shifters, and can usually overpower them easily. In Quileute history, one lone vampire was able to kill two wolves at one time, and the same vampire managed to kill three of the four wolves that hunted him another time, while the fourth managed to rip him apart.
Vampires often fight among each other. There have been many cases throughout history where vampires created armies of newborns to challenge one another and gain territory.
If a vampire's mate is attacked or killed, then he or she will likely seek revenge, hunting down and killing the attacker.
In Eclipse and Breaking Dawn, the Cullens and La Push shape-shifters become allies, partially because Jacob imprints on Renesmee.