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[Captain Willy]

I have a vampire problem and thought it was my mayor, so I locked him in his room and he died of thirst.

I'm guessing he wasn't it, any tips would be great, thanks!

[misko27]

Really long list of associations is usaully the tell-tale sign, but...

The easiest way is ta=hat since they never sleep, eat, or drink, they don't gat any of the attendant thoughts. Simply mark all dwarves you see with the thoughts with a nickname or something, then wait a few minutes, do it again. Last one is the vamp.

[Urist McPenguinhead]

Yeah, vampires generally have a really long list of past civs. Not all do though, and some normal dwarves have long ones too. I also think they get thoughts like "Hasn't had a drink in a very long time and would really like one" or something like that if they havn't drained anyone of blood recently.

[Berossus]

As mentioned, no thoughts about eating/drinking/sleeping are a very good indicator,
if you are using Dwarf Therapist its pretty obvious if they have a different name (true name) here than ingame (fake name).

[Kumis]

I wonder if Toady will ever implement the noble, "Witchfinder General".

For extra points have the noble elected/appointed!

[Sprin]

Send all but one dwarf in a borrow over magma sea grates then pull a lever...
VAMPIRE PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

[Sutremaine]

I also think they get thoughts like "Hasn't had a drink in a very long time and would really like one" or something like that if they havn't drained anyone of blood recently.

No, they get that thought when they haven't drunk alcohol in a long time, and it only appears on creatures with the [ALCOHOL_DEPENDENCY] tag. Vampires have the [NO_DRINK] tag, so they never drink alcohol (or water). There are no thoughts associated with blood-drinking or the lack thereof.

[GoombaGeek]

Send all but one dwarf in a borrow over magma sea grates then pull a lever...
VAMPIRE PROBLEM SOLVED!!!

The remaining dwarf will be the vampire.

[megahelmet]

Vampires can't drown! Set up a drowning station and start drowning suspected vampires. If they die, they are innocent and will be received unto Armok. If they live, they are a vampire and must be encased in obsidian!

[darkgloomie]

According to the Wiki article on vampires...

Statues and engravings may identify dwarves as vampires before it is common knowledge, and may even depict them sucking blood.Bug:5209
Likewise, pets adopted by vampires will identify them as vampires in the adoption announcement.Bug:5942
Vampires do not bother claiming bedrooms, which doesn't help their disguise.Bug:5642

So you can try to get some useless pets (like freshly hatched chicks) to be assigned to suspect dwarves and see the resulting announcement. In case they aren't, kill the pet. It'll help to get the dorf become less moody.

Or you can hope that your legendary mason who's churning statues like there's no tomorrow decides to do one of Urist McVampire as he drinks blood from his latest victim.

[GreatWyrmGold]

I don't think that normally adopting critters merits an announcement (although cats adopting dwarves does), and I know that the chicks will only be adopted if the vampire likes chickens.

Look at suspicious dwarves for lack of food/drink/sleep-related thoughts and needing alcohol.

[Sprin]

Actualy lock up suspected vamp lock door and observe.
please note they are pretty damn tough and 50 hammer strikes dont allways work so an Iron spike danger room AKA the death chamber is necasery for any self respecting jail.

[nanomage]

Vamps never have food-, drink-, or sleep-related thoughts, never claim bedrooms, have alcohol-deprived thoughts even in abundance of booze, usually have long lists of former allegiances, always worship a god or two and usually have all their family dead. Seriously, their personality screen is outright screaming: "Hey I'm Urist McDracula and I'm going for your legendary armorsmith next!". You can't miss it, just take care to look through their thoughts.
I hope vampires are getting more stealthy in the future.

[Sprin]

Also if someone witnes a vamp kill someone look at the witness as well as the suspect.
Kinda how I find my vamps.

[Sutremaine]

I hope vampires are getting more stealthy in the future.

You can mod in stealthier vampires to add to the default type, or you can use a syndrome to tweak the default vampires. The main issues as far as stealth goes are eating, sleeping and drinking. The eating and drinking tags can be removed entirely, either permanently or for long enough for the vampire to almost die from lack of those things. Sleeping is a little trickier, as creatures that sleep but have the [NOSTUN] tag will never wake up once they fall asleep. I haven't done any other science on the interaction of those two tags.

Then you have to apply the syndrome to the vampire. I favour using dwarven blood as the syndrome carrier, although this does leave a post-feeding window in which the vampire needs to eat, drink, and sleep, but hasn't had time to get hungry, thirsty, or drowsy and so won't have any thoughts related to those things.