You can become a vampire in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered, but you'll want to do your research before you commit to vampirism long-term. The primary reason for becoming a vampire (besides the cool factor) is the various buffs it offers to your stats, and the new mechanic it unlocks. At the same time, though, vampirism puts a series of limits on your gameplay that require you to take special caution when traveling during the daytime, fighting certain kinds of enemies, or doing certain activities outside the law.

Don't worry too much - if you do become a vampire, and you decide it's not for you, it's easy enough to cure vampirism and return to your old way of life. Perhaps the most important thing to note about becoming a vampire in Oblivion, though, is that the Cure for Vampirism is permanent; once you've been cured, you can never go back to being a vampire again. Therefore, you should fully understand what it means to be a vampire in Oblivion Remastered before you decide to go down that dark path.

How To Become A Vampire

Bite Me

There are effectively three ways to become a vampire in Oblivion Remastered. We'll list them here in order of easiest to hardest. The first and most obvious is to be attacked by an existing vampire. You can find vampires throughout the world - you'll naturally encounter them pretty early in the game if you take on the quest "Order of the Virtuous Blood." It's also fairly easy to find them in the sewers beneath the Imperial City - try Beneath the Bloodworks, which can easily be accessed via the Market Sewers.

Every time a vampire performs a melee attack against you, you have a chance of contracting Porphyric Hemophilia, the disease that will eventually develop into full-fledged vampirism. In other words, head to any location with hostile vampires and draw their aggro, then allow them to attack you repeatedly, healing through it, until you see the pop-up in the upper left corner revealing that you've contracted Porphyric Hemophilia.

Porphyric Hemophilia will turn you into a vampire if it remains uncured for 72 in-game hours. If you do cure it, you can still contract Porphyric Hemophilia again; it's only the cure for vampirism itself that's truly permanent. The first, second, and third time that you sleep after that 72-hour period has elapsed, you'll receive a popup telling you that your sleep was interrupted by strange dreams, and receive a share of your vampiric powers. After the third sleep, congratulations - you're a vampire.

Msirae's Heart

edge of Oblivion's map, just below the "s" in Lake Canulus.

Enter the dungeon and complete the entirety of the quest "Unearthing Mehrunes' Razor." Again, Sundercliff is huge, consisting of 23 distinct areas. At the very end of the quest, just before you take Mehrunes' Razor, you'll have an opportunity to remove a Beating Heart from the body of Msirae Faythung, the statuesque figure standing along the southern wall of The Nefarivigum. Pick up the Beating Heart and eat it, and you'll contract Porphyric Hemophilia, which will develop into vampirism after three days.

You may also craft a potion that infects you using the Beating Heart, but doing so requires a maxed-out Alchemy skill.

Do note that consuming Msirae's heart will have a couple of other unique effects: first, it'll grant you four points of Infamy, which may alter how certain NPCs respond to you during Oblivion's Persuade mini-game. It'll also give you Cannibal's Prion, which drains your Agility and Intelligence by 20 points each. You won't be able to cure your Cannibal's Prion without also getting rid of your Porphyric Hemophilia, so you'll just have to deal with it for the next 72 hours. If you just plan on waiting and sleeping until you turn, that's no big deal.

Dark Brotherhood

Last but not least, the Dark Brotherhood also offers a route to becoming a vampire. I've listed this one last because it arguably takes the longest, being made up of several quests instead of just one (although Sundercliff is big enough to give it a run for its money).

In order to become a vampire using this method, you'll have to the Dark Brotherhood and complete a significant part of its questline, finishing all the quests granted to you by Vicente Valieri:

• "A Watery Grave"
• "Accidents Happen"
• "Scheduled for Execution"
• "The Assassinated Man"

After finishing all of these, you'll earn his favor, and Vicente will offer to turn you into a vampire himself. Select the option "Dark Gift" when speaking to him, and you'll begin the quest "Darkness Eternal."

The Dark Brotherhood quest "The Purification" will render Vicente unable to turn you into a vampire, so if you want to become a vampire with his help, make sure you do so before progressing this quest.

You'll then have to sleep somewhere, at which point Vicente will visit you in the night. When you wake up, you'll see a message informing you that you've contracted Porphyric Hemophilia, and after three days, you'll become a vampire as usual.

Pros & Cons Of Being A Vampire

Feeding

As soon as you become a vampire, you'll unlock a new mechanic: the ability to feed on sleeping NPCs. In order to feed, you'll need to approach them, and press whatever button you usually use to interact (E on PC, A on Xbox, X on PS5). The various buffs and debuffs granted to you by vampirism are also affected by how long it's been since your last feeding (see below).

Guild Halls, inns, and temples are excellent places to feed, as they contain large numbers of sleeping NPCs and, as long as you're a member of the relevant Guild, you're not considered tresing.

Feeding is largely harmless; the person you feed on will not be damaged or killed, nor will they contract Porphyric Hemophilia and become a vampire. Just make sure you don't get caught, as feeding is a crime with a bounty of 40 gold. Feeding won't even wake up most NPCs, except for guards, who seem to be more likely to catch you in the act. In general, you should try to avoid feeding on guards.

Buffs & Debuffs

The following table includes all the buffs and debuffs granted to your character by vampirism. Note that they each get stronger depending on your current vampirism level, which is determined by how long it's been since your last feeding and can be viewed at any time in your character tab.

The following skills and attributes are subject to vampirism's skill and attribute bonus:

• Acrobatics
• Athletics
• Destruction
• Hand to Hand
• Illusion
• Mysticism
• Sneak
• Strength
• Speed
• Willpower

As you can see, vampirism is extremely beneficial to stealth builds in particular, as it grants you several abilities that make it easier to sneak around and detect enemies. It also gives you resistance to normal (i.e., unenchanted weapons), although that's balanced with a significant weakness to any and all fire damage. That'll make it especially difficult to complete most main quest content, including the Oblivion Gates.

Other Advantages & Disadvantages

The following are all the advantages and disadvantages of vampirism that wouldn't easily fit into a table.

• Vampirism gives you 100% disease resistance and paralysis resistance.
• You'll take sun damage any time you're out during the day. Certain environmental conditions, like the position of the sun, cloud coverage, and swimming underwater.
• You cannot fast travel or wait while taking sun damage. You'll need to fast travel at night, or from one of your owned houses.
• Your appearance will change: depending on your race, your eyes may change color, your skin may become pale, and dark circles may form under your eyes.
• Certain NPCs will refuse to talk to you at high levels of vampirism, and others will have less affinity for you.

Unless you want an especially difficult playthrough, I'd recommend saving vampirism for the endgame. Coping with the disadvantages can be especially difficult during the early game, with underleveled stealth skills and few fast travel points on your map. Vampirism can also make the main story more difficult, so I'd wait until you complete at least the majority of the MSQ.

How To Cure Vampirism

"Vampire Cure"

So you've tried it, and decided vampirism isn't for you. In the original base game of Oblivion, the only way to cure vampirism was with a long quest aptly named "Vampire Cure." This is faithfully ported over into the remaster, and I'll briefly describe it here, but I highly recommend using the Font of Renewal method outlined below instead. This was added with the Vile Lair DLC, which is also in the remaster, and is a much faster and easier way to cure your vampirism.

To begin "Vampire Cure," ask any NPC about "Cure for Vampirism," which will cause them to point you towards Raminus Polus at the Arcane University. He'll have you ask Count Hassildor in Skingrad, but you'll have to get Hal-Liurz's permission to speak with the Count first. He'll then send you to the witch Melisandre, who'll demand five Grand Soul Gems before she'll help you. Bring her the gems, and she'll give you a shopping list of ingredients you'll need to provide. Once you do so, she'll spend 24 hours brewing a potion to cure your vampirism.

Font Of Renewal

You can much more easily cure vampirism in Oblivion by interacting with the Font of Renewal in Deepscorn Hollow, a player house originally released as paid DLC for Oblivion but included with all editions of the remaster. Simply travel to the small southern island indicated by the cursor on the map above.

Simply travel to the location indicated above and you'll begin the "Deepscorn Hollow" quest, which simply involves swimming underwater to find the entrance to your new home. Inside, you'll find the Font of Renewal all ready to go, and you can interact with it to easily and permanently cure your vampirism in The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered.