Well I finally got a vampire, I was so happy when a corpse drained of blood was discovered (and in one of the most visible bed cubicles too!).
The second time it happened I caught the culprit in the act, I was like 'Hang on, has my legendary hammerdwarf got injured, and is the pump operator treating him', nope, my Hammerlord was supping some blood
. I was so happy, and I felt the pump operator was so lucky, what a noble way to die.
I have to admit I was surprised when my new hammerdwarf who replaced my old hammerlord who jumped in a pond to kill frogmen (Fortress Defense) and was having such fun he forgot to climb out to breath and expired about half a second before a miner slammed his pick through the wall of the pond to drain it - uh where was I, a squad of furies attacked (FD, pretty tough enemy) and a solitary dwarf ran out to meet them, it was my newly recruited proficient hammerdwarf immigrant, after a few seconds he was still alive despite being dogpiled by the whole squad of furies who were tenderizing him with mace blows, so I sent out reinforcements to save him, now I've seen normal dwarves with a mail shirt and helmet survive some pretty severe beatings, and this guy had pretty good steel armor (from his deceased hammerlord predecessor who was #2 military dwarf so got the second best stuff), so I didn't think much of it that there was no death to the furies.
I think it's pretty hard to believe no-one saw him supping two corpses. Here's what I like to imagine, Elikasob the Legendary Hammerlord, crouched down next to his victim, and when anyone saw him supping blood, he looked at them, then he patted his artifact steel war hammer (which menaces with spikes of steel) and then he made a little 'skull smashing gesture', and they quietly moved along. I sentenced him anyway and the captain of the guard gave him a (very brave) beating.
And the best thing? He's a proficient
biter.
Now I am scheming to turn my other 3 Weapon Lords into Vampire Lords. My fortress is the kind where everyone gets recruited into the army as marksdwarves, and a few die every siege, so the attrition to the Vampire Lords' thirst will be about the same as to random idiocy.