Feral vampire

"Not to be confused with Feralis vampire." Feral vampires, often colloquially referred to as ferals, are a subspecies of vampires who have mostly or completely lost their humanity, effectively turning "feral" and leaving behind a mindless, monstrous husk, whose main objective is to feed and kill in order to satisfy their insatiable hunger for the flesh and blood of humans and/or vampires.

Description
Regular vampires can "turn feral" if they lose too much of their humanity, usually through excessive killing and feeding. This process may be gradual, but can be accelerated if the individual in question feeds exclusively on the flesh and blood of their fellow vampires.

Upon turning feral, the individual's eyes, including their irises and sclera, turn completely black; they also gain a mouthful of fangs, and their nails are replaced with long, sturdy claws that can tear through even vampire skin and flesh, despite their durability, with ease. Their appearance will deteriorate further the longer they stay feral, gradually becoming more monstrous and eventually decaying into a skeletal-like creature. Upon death, they immediately desiccate and disintegrate into ash.

Most notably, a vampire's mental state and capabilities will deteriorate the more they turn feral. As a result, most feral vampires will have lost their intelligence, memories, and other cognitive abilities; they are rarely able to recall anything about themselves, much less recognize their loved ones. Throughout the process of turning feral, individuals may also experience extremely fluctuating moods, often skewing on the side of violent aggression and other negative moods, heavily favoring aggressive means over logic and reason, regardless of their previous personalities.

In exchange for their intelligence, feral vampires gain superior physical attributes that triumphs those of regular vampires; newborns who have turned feral can prove to be a difficult match to even older vampires. Their senses are more attuned to detecting the nearest blood source, vampire or human. Their skin, despite their decayed state, becomes much more durable and impenetrable, and only specialized weapons that are especially fatal to vampires are ones that are known to do any significant harm to feral vampires.

History
TBA

Known feral vampires

 * Jesse Whitlock (formerly)
 * Zeke Walker †

Trivia

 * In the early drafts of the first book, feral vampires were instead called "Cannibals", then later "Savages", before being finalized as "ferals".