I like the Anne Rice version best really...
Once there was a king and a queen of egypt, Akasha and Enkil. The land thrived under them, and everyone was happy, but then Enkil decided to check out some old chamber, he didn't come back, so Akasha decided to check on him, as she entered the chamber, she was imbued with the soul of the vampires, and she made Enkil a vampire. A vampire is made by another vampire, or by a VERY powerfull witch, the way a vampire make another vampire is by first sucking the victims blood and then replacing it with some of their own blood. This is called the dark gift. Most vampires are at least over 400-500 years old, and thus very wise, and fluent in many languages. If a vampire is exposed to sunlight, it will burn to death, but the time it takes for them to burn depends on the age and power of a vampire. A vampire made by a strong vampire is naturaly strong. Not all vampires are evil by nature, many wish not to be, and one vampire lived on rats and other animals for years.
The legend of dracula and other vampire stories are frowned upon and despised by real vampires.
Vampires can not reproduce, but that don't mean they have no sexuall contact, they have a lot of it in fact.
Names to remember is:
Akasha aka. Queen of the Damned
Lestat
Enkil
Marius
Pandora
Makare
Maharet
Most of this I collected from stuff my cousin told me, she has read a damn amount of Anne Rice books, and I have only read one, so the info might not be 100% accurate, theres a lot of important stuff that I have not added too...