Turns out becoming a blind vampire is a bit of a process.
So, what I did:
I rolled an elven adventurer, demigod, and went to the nearest dwarven fortress to gear up. Having done this, I headed to a bandit camp, which had been most cleared out by previous attempts, killed the rest of the bandits, and retired, but not after putting my weaponry in my backpack, so I would be most harmless. I then started a bearman with skill in wrestling, walked over the bandit camp, and strangled my adventurer to the point of unconsciousness, but no further. I then bit the eyes, and using wrestling, mangled them beyond recognition. I then waited one hour, just to make sure the adventurer was blind (I checked the description), and then killed the bearman. I unretired the elf, fast traveled to a human town with a temple that I knew was potent, (I had to use DFhack to reveal where I could topple a statue) toppled a statue, became a vampire, and that's all that has happened so far.
The first thing I learnt was: Bandit Camps are the best places to store your soon to be blind adventurer while you make one to blind it.
The second thing: Do not become a vampire before you are blinded, because you can't choke an adventurer to unconsciousness, and then blind them. The best way to become a vampire while blind is to take a screenshot of where you drop out a fast travel near a temple, and follow that to a statue, which can be toppled out of vision range (thank god)
Please note: Interaction is very limited outside of vision range. Jumping is disabled, and attacking anything will be very hard, because you need to occupy the same tile.
EDIT: What the upstairs of a tavern looks like: