Largely, I feel the Cyrodiilic strain should be kept how it was in Oblivion, with the powers you gain in Skyrim added as well. You take on sun damage at higher levels and people don’t want to have anything to do with you. However, I also feel feeding should be encouraged, which is why I’d have the Cyrodiilic vampires have a huge boost to speech/barter when at level 1. This I feel fits well with the Order’s MO of manipulating people, and would provide at least marginal incentive to people to keep themselves well fed besides the townspeople trying to kill you. Feeding should also only regress you one stage, rather than reset you back to stage one each time. Vampiric Drain’s effect should also be strengthened, but that will be developed further below.

Location wise, I feel that the vampires of the Order would be best suited to the western half of Skyrim, and other areas that lack considerable amounts of snow. While they could be found in various caves and other hiding spots, several high profile NPCs should be of this strain as well (such as Sybille Stentor), indicating that the Order has begun to move in on Skyrim. In the case of that quest that Sybille gives you, you should be tasked with eliminating Volkihar, becoming an unwitting pawn in the Order’s schemes of ousting their competition.

Now that we’ve gotten the Cyrodiilic strain out of the way, let’s take a look at feeding. In my opinion, only the Cyrodiilic vampires should be encouraged not to feed (and even that’s debatable). Other vampires, such as the Volkihar and the new Vampire Lords, should be encouraged to feed at regular intervals. And here is where I propose a new feeding system. Vampirism should keep stages with these two strains, but in a different way. Here’s the rank system I propose:

Vampire Fledgling: What you are when you first turn.
Blooded Vampire: Lowest form of vampirism after you level from feeding for the first time.
Vampire Mistwalker: Second Stage
Vampire Nighstalker: Third Stage
Master Vampire: Highest level of vampirism.

Rather than increasing in a level of vampirism by not feeding, you would grow a level after feeding on X amount of people, either by feeding on them in their sleep, or by the current method Vampire Lords use to level up and gain perks. Currently I was thinking that you’d level to Blooded after 10, Mistwalker after 25, Nightstalker after 75, and Master Vampire after 150 victims.

As previously stated, you would regress if in power if you didn’t feed regularly. If you were a Master Vampire, and you didn’t feed for three days, you’d regress to Nightsalker and have to regain your Master status. If you didn't feed for another three days, you'd regress to Mistwalker, and so on, all the way back down to Blooded Vampire.

With vampires under this feeding system, there wouldn’t be the current system of seesawing drawbacks and bonuses. Being a vampire in the early stages would be a hard (un)life. Your weaknesses would be maximized and your bonuses would be negligible. However, if you survived long enough to reach the highest levels of vampirism, the reverse would be true. You’d have maximized strengths and lesser weaknesses. These effects would be determined based on what type of vampire you were. A Master Volkihar would have different abilities than a Master Vampire Lord, and thus feel different in combat. We’ll start looking at this proposed new system with the Volkihar.

The Volkihar are ice based creatures, and as such many of their abilities would factor the cold. They’d also be much more about up close combat, rather than the Cyroidiilic strains emphasis on Sneak and Illusion.

Constant Abilities throughout stages: Water Breathing, Night Eye, +15 unarmed damage, Vampiric Drain, and the ability to access 4-5 Volkihar dens throughout Skyrim (homes located under the ice).

Blooded Vampire: 5 points of damage per second in sunlight, 100% weakness to fire, 10% resistance to frost, 5 points of frost and stamina damage with unarmed attacks. Vampiric drain does 5 points of damage per second.

Vampire Mistwalker: 3 points of damage per second in sunlight, 75% weakness to fire, 40% resistance to frost, 10 points of frost and stamina damage with unarmed attacks. Vampiric Drain does 10 points of damage per second. Also gains the ability Freeze: a once a day power similar to Ice Form.

Vampire Nightstalker: 2 points of damage per second in sunlight, 40% weakness to fire, 75% resistance to frost, 20 points of frost and stamina damage with unarmed attacks. Vampiric Drain does 15 points of damage per second. Also gains the ability Snow Veil: A once a day power similar to Frost Cloak that also increases the regen rate of H/M/S while damaging nearby opponents.

Master Vampire: 1 point of damage per second in sunlight, 10% weakness to fire, 100% resistance to frost, 30 points of frost and stamina damage with unarmed attacks. Vampiric Drain does 20 points of damage per second. Also gains the abilities Snow Storm: A once a day power similar to Blizzard that can be used without charging and Frozen Forms: A once a day power similar to Ice Form, but with an area of effect.

As a Volkihar, most of the ordinary denizens of Skyrim would want little to do with you. Thus there would be several Volkihar Dens scattered throughout Skyrim that you could use to establish homes. They’d mostly be found in airpockets that could be accessed by diving into lakes and finding the tunnels leading to them, or by finding the part of the frozen surface of the lake you could “activate” to go through the ice and enter your home. They’d provide safe storage, a bed to rest, and other benefits to the player to make up for the fact they wouldn’t be welcome in most other places, and would offer a variety of qualities of life (I’d really like one to be in a sunken ship, but logistics might pose a problem).

There’d also be a few Volkihar dens (mostly in the east) that had others of your kind where you could go to exchange gear and buy supplies and other such needs, and I’d suggest there being an item called Veil of the Volkihar, which would allow you to disguise yourself in towns when worn that could be acquired after a fairly long Volkihar questline.

As for the Vampire Lords, it’s difficult for me to say what should be done with them. It needs to be a sort of marriage between the outcast Volkihar and the Cyrodiilic strain that blends in with its prey.

Constant Abilities: Night Eye, +10 unarmed damage, Vampiric Drain.

Blooded Vampire: -40 to H/M/S and regen rate is cut in half in sunlight, Vampiric Drain does 5 points of damage per second, NPCs hostile. 100% weakness to sunlight weapons/magic.

Vampire Mistwalker: -30 to H/M/S and regen rate is cut in half in sunlight, Vampiric Drain does 10 points of damage per second, NPCs hostile. 75% weakness to sunlight weapons/magic. Also gains Vampire Seduction.

Vampire Nighstalker: -20 to H/M/S and regen rate is cut in half in sunlight, Vampiric Drain does 15 points of damage per second, NPCs not hostile when not transformed. 40% weakness to sunlight weapons/magic. Vampire Seduction becomes stronger.

Master Vampire: -10 to H/M/S and regen rate is normal in sunlight. Vampiric Drain does 20 points of damage per second, NPCs not hostile when not transformed. 10% weakness to sunlight weapons/magic. Gains the Power Bat Form, which allows them to turn into a flock of bats even when not transformed (continuously drains magicka). NPCs will become hostile if they see you transform to or from this state.

However, I feel that they should have increased sun damage in their transformed states. This would encourage those who wish to utilize the Vampire Lord form to blot out the sun when they feel like transforming. To that end, the stat reduction is strengthened by 1.5 when transformed in sunlight and the weakness to sunlight weapons/magic is doubled.

In effect, the three vampire forms would be set to different playstyles. Those favoring Rouge builds would find the Cyrodiilic Order more to their liking than the Mages, who would gravitate towards Vampire Lord. Volkihar would be for Warriors, allowing them to continuously keep their enemies drained of stamina and unable to do power attacks/move quickly.

Shared bonuses across all vampires regardless of stage would be:
Night Eye
+10 unarmed damage boost (+15 for Volkihar)
Vampiric Drain
+5% H/M/S regen rate at night
Disease Immunity
Poison Immunity

Shared weaknesses across all vampires regardless of stage would be:
20 point extra damage when hit with Silver
20 point extra damage when hit with sunlight weapons/magic
No H/M/S regen when wearing silver equipment

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s move on to lycanthropes. (Don’t worry, this will be considerably shorter.)

Werewolves overall seem to be fine now, minus a few tweaks. These tweaks would largely be necessary to help make them different from another lycanthrope many of us have wanted to come across since we first heard about them: Werebears. One of these tweaks would be to include both werebears and werewolves, in pre-transformed states on the roads, and in transformed states in the wilds. I know we have wild werewolves already, but there’s one problem: They can’t infect you. I really think that has to be changed so that you can become a werewolf without having to join the Companions.

For starters, let’s look at what all lycanthropes should have in common:

Forced lunar transformations twice a month (Companion’s werewolves would be exempt, as would those wearing the Ring of Hircine). Transformations would last from 8 PM to 530 AM, and you would be notified about it several hours before the transformation sets in, giving you plenty of time to get out of town before you change.
Night Eye ability in both human and beastform
+10 Unarmed Damage when in human form (+20 for Werebears)
Ability to toggle between various howls/roars and Night Eye
+5% H/M/S regen rate in human form
20 points extra damage in both human and beast form when struck by silver weapons.
H/M/S don’t regenerate when silver items equipped
No rested bonuses while having the beastblood
Disease Immunity

To make werebears feel different than their werewolf counterparts, I propose the following:
Base their damage on Two-Handed Skill.
Base their armor on Heavy Armor (AR rating of 350 at 100 skill level)
Give them 300 extra Health and Stamina upon transforming.
Their sprinting speed should be a little faster than a horse, but gobble stamina. Conversely, their power attacks would use little stamina.
Their normal walking speed should be a tad slower than human form.

Werewolves on the other hand:
Base their damage on One-Handed Skill
Base their armor on Light Armor (AR rating of 175 at 100 skill level)
Gain only 100 extra Health and Stamina upon transforming
Very fast sprint speed and slow rate of stamina depletion while sprinting
Power attacks use more stamina than werebears.
Faster walking speed than human form.
Give them the ability to Sneak.

Werebears would have Roars, similar to werewolves’ Howls. These are the ideas for Roars I currently have:
Fear Roar (Stronger than werewolves’ similar Howl)
Disarm Roar (Disarms nearby opponents)
Adrenaline Roar (Roar that causes werebears H/S regen rate to skyrocket for 60 seconds similar to Histskin and Adrenaline Rush. Longer cooldown than other Roars)