nijah:

Those who have lived for more than a thousand years are by far the most powerful of the vampires; they are called the Children of the Millennia. After several hundred years, and depending on the strength of their maker, vampires begin to exhibit special powers, referred to by most of them as “gifts”.

• Mind Gift (the combined abilities of telepathy and telekinesis). This is the ability to communicate and read thoughts, especially of humans, and to move objects with the mind. This gift is used largely to obtain blood – since via telepathy a criminal or amoral human can be sensed, and many of vampires refuse to feed on the innocent, this allows them to identify their prey. It is impossible for a maker or fledgling to contact each other directly, although in some cases it is possible for a vampire to seek out their master/fledgling by looking through the eyes of those near their fledgling, or by hearing the thoughts of their master/fledgling through others in a relay effect. A vampire of sufficient power or age may also unwillingly ‘hear’ the thoughts of all the humans within range of this power, leading to an old vampire saying: “If you do not learn to silence the voices, they will drive you mad.” Khayman of the First Brood possessed this level of telepathic power, but had trained himself to hear the multitude of thoughts as “one annoying noise.” Older vampires may also possess the ability to move objects with the mind.

• Spell Gift. This gift allows a vampire to cloud the mind of a human, bending the human to his or her will.

• Enhanced physicality and senses. All vampires have superhuman senses (sight, hearing, etc.) and strength, and are able to do things many times faster than humans can, with little or no effort. Eidetic memory from the moment of becoming a vampire seems to be natural, however, memories of their humans lives, particularly those relating to sensation, fade over the years. They can move faster than the human eye can detect, see in the darkest of nighttime, pick one sound out of even the noisiest area, and raise the volume of their voice to painfully loud levels.

• Fire Gift. Another power usually only developed by a Child of the Millennia. This gift is known to be possessed by Marius, Akasha, Eudoxia, Thorne, Khayman, Lestat, Mekare and Maharet, and later the vampires Merrick Mayfair and Quinn Blackwood. With the Fire Gift, a vampire can set alight an object or being of their choice. Use of the gift on humans was performed by Lestat, when he set aflame gunmen on the tropical island. The Fire Gift is specially fatal to vampires, as the “changed” blood found within their bodies ignites easily, thus rendering them extremely vulnerable to fire.

• Cloud Gift (flight). Not all vampires have this ability. Lestat, though young by vampire standards, gains this ability after repeatedly drinking Akasha’s blood. Quinn Blackwood was given the strength to use this gift by his maker, Petronia. Otherwise, flight is a power only exhibited by the Children of The Millenia. Louis, Gabrielle, and Santino are among a few that do not have this gift or are never mentioned having it. Most if not all vampires dislike or even hate flying, as they find it extremely unsettling due to it being a sign that they are truly no longer human.

• Killing Gift. Believed to be possessed by the eldest Children of the Millennia, like most gifts it comes with age. Known holders of this power are Akasha, Marius, Lestat, Maharet, Mekare, Khayman and Mael. This power was originally combined with the Fire Gift.  The exact nature of the power is unknown, but it seems to cause numerous fatal ruptures in the entire cardiovascular system.

• Immortality. Unless killed by one of the vampire’s weaknesses, namely sunlight and fire, or an elder vampire’s powers, it is said that they have the potential to live eternally. As they age they become more powerful and slowly their skin becomes whiter, smoother, and more reflective, resembling marble as seen with Akasha and Enkil, Maharet, Mekare, and Khayman. Lestat and Jesse Reeves share much of this ancient appearance due to receiving blood from Akasha and Maharet, respectively. During their immortality, vampires will sometimes go into a kind of hibernation, either because they have become mentally unbalanced from knowing what they have become, or because their surroundings have changed too much for them to cope with. This is hinted to usually happen within 100–200 years of being created, and is mentioned as the “dangerous time” by the elders. Many vampires commit suicide if they continually exist in the world. Maharet is the only vampire explicitly said to have never “gone underground”; she has lived, night by night, for over six thousand years, mainly by keeping the records of her mortal daughter’s descendants.

• Rapid Healing. Vampires are immune to most attacks other than their known weakness and even then are apparently able to heal quickly, especially if they feed or are covered in vampire blood. All vampires can potentially heal from any non-fatal wound, including decapitation, as proved by Mael, but time and blood are needed. A bullet wound, for instance, would heal within seconds, but serious burns from a fire would require decades, if not centuries, to heal. However, the greater the damage done to them, the stronger they will be when they are fully healed. An influx of blood from a vampire, especially a powerful vampire, can greatly speed up the healing process.