Let’s line these two culprits up and compare their salient features:

Supernatural Powers

Vampires: Varies depending on the storyteller, but frequent features are immortality; flight; heightened senses; psychic influence (unto the point of enslavement); super speed and strength; physical transmutation into bats, shadows or mists; and control over animals. In short: stuff people typically think is pretty cool.

Werewolves: Chomp, chomp, smash. Not so smooth at parties, but pretty useful when hunting in the woods.

Preferred Dwelling

Vampires: Typically ancient, well-guarded castles, even if not particularly well-maintained. A mansion of comparable luxury will do. But really, what’s keeping you from having both?

Werewolves: A pile of leaves somewhere, maybe a cave – pretty much wherever he passed out the previous night. The forest is his true home.

Manner of Dress

Vampires: If he leaves the crypt wearing anything but a tuxedo and at least one gold amulet, that’s a Dealbreaker, ladies.

Werewolves: In the luckiest of circumstances, a de facto loincloth consisting of the tattered remains of the previous evening’s clothes. Less fashion than function, tattered pants (and, depending on the gender, a tattered, fortunately-placed makeshift sports-bra) are the appropriate ensemble for any lycanthrope–whether you’re hulking out, or hulking in.

Average Lifespan

Vampires: Left to their own devices, eternity. In fact, it is notoriously hard for a community to completely rid themselves of a Vampire infestation.

Werewolves: Unclear. In the Underworld “Saga,” Werewolves are also immortal, but this seems to play against consensus. (And, as in all my OTI posts, by “consensus,” I mean “in Teen Wolf.”) Let’s infer that, since this is a disease which conveys its powers upon the afflicted only in short, periodic bursts, presumably an unchecked werewolf would die in accordance with the natural lifespan of its human form. An American werewolf, then, would presumably die due to complications from Type-II Diabetes at around age 65.

Cognitive Capabilities

Vampires: Formidable. A Vampire is presumably at least as smart as he/she was during life, further augmented by the impartial tactical perspective that can only be attained by removing one’s soul. They’re not lacking for time, either, which means (A) They can educate and acclimate themselves as society grows and alters, and (B) They can make plans over extraordinarily large time-frames. This also allows them to develop something completely alien to their Werewolf counterparts: an internal culture. The Vampire learns, adapts, and seizes power in part through communication with other vampires, allowing them to experience and react to the world with a breadth of complexity rivaled only in the minds of living humans. Still, relative to their non-undead human counterparts, Vampires are at a substantial advantage, having the prior experience of living among them, and the wisdom that immeasurable time has brought them. Also, they can control our thoughts and actions. So, that’s a bonus.

Werewolves: Bmmwuurrwl?

Preferred Food

Vampires: Vamps are finicky eaters, and their preferred food–the blood of nubiles and/or innocents–admittedly takes a while to prepare. Sure, they’re occasionally known to grab the proverbial ‘quick bite.’ But when given his druthers, your average Vampire prefers to ensnare his food through guile, persuasion, and the occasional assistance of a mad henchmen. Indeed, it’s the rare case where Nosferatu is forced into subsistence living; he can typically win whichever victim his long-silent heart desires.

Werewolves: The Wolves eat whatever is immediately available, and which they can kill. In film, this set is highly biased toward nubile young women in white evening gowns, but this is less diagetic and more the filmmakers’ recognition that–even when talking about dismemberment–sex sells. The point here, though, is that these unfortunate debutantes-turned-PuppyChow were not lured into the grasp of their defiler. They caught the attention of their beastly tormentors by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Access to Minions

Vampires: Whether or not a given Wampir will employ a cadre of servants is up to his own discretion, but his ability to acquire them is unquestionable. He can drive someone mad unto the very breaking point, literally turning them into Tom Waits. Control’s not an issue, either: even sane minds can be twisted (at considerable distance, mind you) toward the Vampire’s will. Of course, an older vamp can make a few younger vamps to do his bidding, but given their own single-mindedness (and the additional competition for resources they represent), the best bet lies in employing some crazy old Gypsies. They’ll work for next to nothing, and don’t need to be driven mad or mind-controlled. My understanding is that Carpathia is such a wanton crud-shack that even working for the blood-thirsty undead beats day-labor. Same goes for Hollywood.

Werewolves: With rare exception, employing others to do your bidding requires some form of conscious thought. So… nope. If a Werewolf wants to get something done, he has to do it himself.

How You Become One

Vampires: Again, the details vary depending on the specific story, but in most cases a person’s entrance into Vampire society is a process requiring the willful participation of a Vampire. This is a selective group, into which only the rarest of humans are considered potential applicants. The rest are food.

Werewolves: You get bitten by a Werewolf, plain and simple. There’s no seduction, no deep-emotional entanglement, no exchange of souls and blood. As a consequence, becoming a Werewolf is–compared to becoming a Vampire–fantastically easy. It could happen to anyone at anytime. Well, assuming “anytime” means “at night, during a full moon.” You catch my drift, though.

How You Kill One

Vampires: We’ll get to the killing in a moment, but let’s cast a broader net and look at the most famous Vampire weaknesses.  Anything vaguely religious seems effective–crosses, holy water and the like (Ankhs might do if you’re one of those people)–and of course Vamps hold a famous grudge against garlic.  Note that none of these items are particularly difficult to come by, especially for lowly villagers.  To wit, religious artifacts, after food, clothing and some sort of adorable thatch-roofed hut, were among the only possessions you’d expect a poor person to have during the last ~2000 years or so.  Likewise with the garlic; one doesn’t even have to roast it to be effective, though I thoroughly advise it.  It’s delicious.

That said, if it’s time stop warding-off and lay the ole’ hammer down, there are many perfectly reasonable ways to kill a vampire.  Sadly, the most easily attainable of these–sunlight–is pretty difficult to implement.  In films, it’s most often used against waking Vamps who are lured against their will into it.  This requires tricking the Vampire, not a trivial task (see above under “Cognitive Capabilities.”).  In theory, one could always cart a sleeping vampire out into the open with some sort of dolly system, but then, if you had access to a sleeping Vampire, you’d be able to end it right then and there.  The preferred implement, of course, is a wooden stake, applied through the heart.  Like garlic or crosses, not that hard to come by; if you’re a farming peasant, you probably have some on hand already, but in a pinch you could whittle one yourself for free.  If you’re feeling luxuriant, here’s a 25-pack for ~$8.53 US (not including shipping and handling).

Werewolves: Unlike their Vampiric brethren, the Wolves don’t give a dime about your God or his/her desires.  Wood’s cool with them; they’ve often seen smashing through or inhabiting in it.  No, other than heart worms, the only thing a Werewolf’s known to dislike is silver, not the sort of thing that a peasant can easily acquire. In fact, the preferred method of killing a WolfMan is gunshot with silver ammo, requiring not only access to silver, but a silver smithy, ownership of a gun, and the 5-7 day waiting period that entails.  Even if we assume that the “gun show” loophole in most state laws allows you to purchase a 0.40 Smith & Wesson from a meth addict in an alley somewhere, there’s still the issue of ammo.

I personally know nothing about guns, but this guy recommends using 140 grain (~0.32 ounces) bullets with the above gun, though he’s calibrating on copper shot, not silver.  As of the time of this writing, silver stands at ~$16.35 US/Oz, meaning that each bullet will set you back a whopping$5.23 (!) After taxes, that’s roughly an hour’s work at minimum wage, hence the sort of weapon more commonly wielded by the gentry class.

Incidentally, the price of silver seems to be dropping, so monitor your investments accordingly.

Are Gypsies a Knowledgable Resource?

Vampires: Yep, Gypsies work for them.

Werewolves: Yep, Gypsies hunt them.

Life is hard when even Gypsies see you as a pest.

So, if we take all these aspects together, what does the Vampire/Werewolf dichotomy represent?  Follow me…