You've seen that Skyrim: Dawnguard DLC trailer, right? Vampires are finally getting the attention they deserve, with a ton of new life-draining abilities and perks. Only problem is, Dawnguard isn't out, and won't be for another month or two. But you know what is out? Some great vampire mods that give vampires all sorts of new gameplay and spells to make them generally excellent to play with right now. Sink your teeth into into these!
I'm a growing undead boy.
The first and most major mod an aspiring bloodsucker should install is Sann's Vampire Overhaul, which strips how vampires in Skyrim work down to the bare essentials before building them back up in a way that's twice as interesting and four times as powerful. It keeps the four stages of blood deprivation, but also adds vampire ranks to climb by biting enough necks. Each gives you enhanced power and abilities, culminating with the Ancient rank which lets you pretty much gallivant out in the sunlight with little more than a tan. Additionally, vampire sight is now a toggle rather than a temporary buff (making you more deadly at night,) and you can breathe underwater permanently -- which makes sense, considering you technically don't breathe at all, what with being dead and all.
It's the most comprehensive vampire mod currently in the Steam workshop, and while there are a few alternatives, it's certainly the one that's managed to pay attention to every single aspect of being a vampire. You can even feed off fresh corpses, as well as reanimate anything shy of level 80 to be your permanent companion. Impressively, there's even an entirely new perk tree just for the bloodsuckers.
Got it made in the shade. Well, 50% made, anyway.
Working elegantly in concert with SVO is Vampires: Shelter in Shadows . It's a relatively basic mod that lets vamps avoid the nasty debuffs that come from being out and about in the day by sticking to the shade. It's not complete protection -- it just reduces any regeneration by 50% -- but that seems like a pretty fair compromise to me.
Just like living in Alaska.
Or maybe it isn't. Maybe you're enough of a depressing bastard that you would rather see as little sunlight as possible, and instead of staying inside all the time, you'd rather it was just winter or something. I mean, you are in Skyrim, right? It's snowy all the time! So you'll want Longer Nights, then, which elongates out the hours between dusk and dawn, leaving you with more darkness to hunt in, draining grannies of their precious lifeblood. Creep.
All of this is very well and good, except for the fact that you're not a vampire already, and you're getting a bit bored killing the ones that charge at you before they get a bite off. Well, providing you're OK with starting a new character, you could just install Additional Vampire Races, which gives you the option to start as a vampire version of any race. Cuts right to the chase, so to speak. And, if you install Alternate Start - Live Another Life, you can even start in the midst of a vampire coven, complete with cave and slumped, drained corpses.
Which should keep you going for a month or two, I think. Especially if you have to spend your days sleeping underneath the sofa, because coffins are really damned expensive these days.