Born in Virginia in the late 16th century, Darla becomes a prostitute and, as a result of this, becomes infected with syphilis. In 1609 she lies dying bed, when The Master, an ancient and powerful vampire pays her a call. After siring her, The Master gives her the name Darla, she will eventually live so long that even she can no longer remember her true name. Darla remains with The Master until 1753 when she runs across a young tearaway by the name of Liam. Taking a liking to the handsome, if drunken, young man, she lures him into an alley and turns him into Angelus and he becomes and remains the one love of her life.

For 150 years the two roam Europe causing death and mayhem everywhere, earning her beloved Angelus the name, The Scourge of Europe. They find themselves in London in 1860 where Angelus becomes smitten with a young girl who has the gift of the sight. He sires her and the three become a family until Drusilla finds a mate of her own in Spike.

1898 finds the four in Romany and one fateful night Darla brings home a present for Angelus in the form of a gypsy girl. Though tasty, the gypsy is very much beloved by her clan who put a curse on Angelus giving him back his soul. With a soul, Angelus is repulsive to Darla and she throws him out into the street. She loves him still though, and visits the gypsy clan to try and persuade them to reverse the spell, unfortunately, Spike feeds on the rest of the clan and renders her bargaining points useless.

Seeking excitement, the three of them head to China for the Boxer Rebellion in 1900 and here Angelus tracks her down and asks to be taken back with promises that they can return to their old life. She takes him back but soon finds that Angelus will only drink from the evil doer and, when he refuses to drink from a baby, she once again kicks him out.

Leaving Spike andDrusilla, Darla returns to The Master, who during the 1930's becomes trapped in a sunken church in Sunnydale, California. In 1997 she helps Sunnydale in his attempts to free himself from the church but their efforts are foiled by the Slayer. Learning that Angelus is in town, now calling himself Angel and dating the Slayer no less, she hatches a plot to bring him back to her and kill the Slayer at the same time. Posing as one of Buffy's friends, she goes to her house and attacks her mother, making sure that it appears Angel is the culprit. Her attempts to bring Angel back to her are in vain, and when she tries to kill Buffy, Angel stakes her.

Three years after her death, L.A. law firm Wolfram and Hart perform a ritual to bring Darla back in human form. Their purpose in bringing her back is to torment Angel, who is now living in L.A. and has got on their bad side. Darla visits Angel while he is sleeping and disturbs his dreams with the aid of a potion. When Angel's lack of sleep has made him just cranky enough, they move onto phase two and let Angel see Darla in public. Still very much in love with her boy, Darla has her own plans and still tries to woo Angel back to her.

Unfortunately, being human again has brought back her old human condition of syphilis which is too far gone to cure. After spending 400 years as a disease free vampire, Darla hates her human form and turns to Angel to turn her again. When he refuses, she tries her luck in a seedy demon bar, but Angel has other ideas and undertakes a series of trials in order for Darla to be cured. Having watched what he goes through, albeit in vain, to save her life, Darla decides to accept her fate. Before death takes her though, Wolfram and Hart find Drusilla who sires her once more.

Reunited again, the pair have fun pillaging L.A. and massacre many of the Wolfram and Hart staff before Angel catches up with them and sets them both on fire. The two survive the ordeal and go into hiding for a time. Meanwhile, his efforts save Darla in vain, Angel finally goes to the dark place Wolfram and Hart wanted him to be, and, not caring for his soul, he finds Darla and the two have passionate sex, three times. To Darla's dismay, rather than losing his soul Angel has an epiphany and, warning her he will kill her if he sees her again, returns to his friends.

Their night of passion wasn't to be forgotten, however, and Darla conceives an impossible child. Despite her efforts to be rid of the child, nothing earthly or otherwise will kill him. Nine months later, she returns to L.A., largely pregnant. But the child that could never be has a soul, which for a time, infects Darla who begins to have intense maternal feelings for the child. Unable to give birth and knowing that, once she no longer carries the child she will no longer have a soul in her, Darla stakes herself to save her child. Still caring for her child, she returns just once more in ghost form to try and save him from taking an innocent life.

Joyce Summers was living in L.A., happily married with a teenage daughter when things started to go wrong. The daughter, Buffy would get into fights and trouble at school, finally getting expelled after she burned down the gym. Amidst these problems her marriage breaks down and she finds herself making a new life as a single parent in the small town of Sunnydale. Although she has a good job running a gellery, her homelife doesn't get much better when, despite all her promises, Buffy still manages to get into trouble at school. She soon learns that, despite her apparant problems, Buffy has a clear head in a crisis and this makes her proud.

With a new job in a new town and her daughter making new friends, Joyce tries to move on with her life too and soon meets Ted, a computer parts salesman and a great cook. Unfortunately, Ted is first accidentally killed by Buffy and then turns out to have been a robot anyway, so she decides to leave men alone for a while.

When she first learns the true reason for her daughter's strange behaviour, that she is a Vampire Slayer, she has a hard time dealing with this, especially when Buffy is first in the frame for murder, then gets expelled from school; again. The ensuing argument between mother and daughter leads to Joyce rashly telling Buffy that if she leaves the house she better not return. Buffy, however, has the world to save and so has to leave, and runs away to L.A.. When she returns, Joyce gradually starts to come to terms with her daughter's calling and even has a romantic tryst with her watcher, Giles, albeit under the influence of enchanted band candy.

Joyce thinks that things are finally working out when Buffy graduates from highschool with good grades and without the world coming to an end. Buffy goes off to college and meets a nice young man, but Joyce soon has another teenage duaghter to contend with, Dawn. Then those niggling headaches she's been having turn out to be a tumour and Joyce needs an operation. With both her daughter's beside her, Joyce recovers from the operation, but in her medicated state she she's that Dawn is not really a teenage girl. When Buffy explains it all to her, her mother's instincts tell her that, no matter what Dawn is, she still needs her protection. Joyce, however, is unable to give this as, just as once again she was venturing on a love life, a post operation aneurysm takes her life. RIP Joyce Summers, mother of two exceptional girls.

Jesse McNally was just another kid at Sunnydale High, friends with Xander and Willow and so not one of the in crowd, until the day that Cordelia snubbed him at The Bronze just one time too many and he decided to try his chances with another girl. Unfortunately for him, that girl was Darla, out hunting for food for The Master.

Taking a bite on the way, Darla takes him to The Master's lair where she runs into Buffy, a new potential friend of Jesse's and a vampire slayer. Although Buffy manages to save Jesse, Darla recaptures him whilst Buffy his pre-occupied fighting Luke. When The Master learns that his dinner is a friend of the Slayer's he gets an upgrade to bait and is turned into a vampire. He fails even at this though as Buffy and Xander escape the trap set for them.

On the night of The Harvest, Jesse returns to The Bronze, picking out Cordelia as his victim only to have Darla give her to Luke. But Buffy intervenes and saves the day once again, leaving Jesse to be, partaially accidentally, stakes by his once friend Xander.

Principal Flutie does his best in a very difficult situation, that of Sunnydale High School Principal. Try as he will to give the students the benefit of the doubt, and all the encouragement and support that young teenagers need, things just never seem to go well at Sunnydale High. His efforts are all in vain, and when a school trip to the zoo leads to some students becoming possessed by hyena spirits the poor Principal ends up hyena prey.

Heinrich Joseph Nest, otherwise known as The Master is a vampire so old that his features have permanently become those of the monster within him. The full history of The Master is not known, but it is known that he sired Darla in Virginia in the 16th century. She later introduced him to Angelus. The Master was jealous of Darla's love for Angelus but obviously took a liking to the young vampire's pluck and inner evil as he later considered him his right hand man. Drawn by the Hellmouth, The Master comes to Sunnydale in the 1930's intending to open the Hellmouth so that demons would once again rule the earth. His mighty plan is foiled, however, when an earthquake struck the abandoned church he had made his lair and The Master becomes trapped between this world and the Hellmouth. He remains in limbo for 60 years until the coming of The Harvest.

The Harvest enables a ritual to be performed whereby one of his subjects could become a vessel through which The Master could receive the nourishment he needs to regain his power and break down the mystical barrier holding him in the church. Unfortunately, the pesky Slayer has come to Sunnydale and ruins his plan by killing the vessel before The Master can become free. However, you can always rely on a good prophecy and The Master has two in his favour.

First, one which will bring him the Anointed, who will lead the Slayer to him. And another saying that the Slayer will come to him and she will die. Both prophecies come true and The Master's protege, The Anointed faithfully leads Buffy to The Master, where he kills her and gains the strength to free his bonds at last. The prophecy, however, didn't take into account the Slayer's friends, who save her life enabling her to get her revenge and The Master is eventually dust. Unlike other vampires, The Master's bones remain, and, despite the scoobies burying them in sacred ground, his followers dig them up and perform a ritual to bring him back. Buffy, of course, interferes and this time makes sure she grinds The Master's bones so that he cannot be ressurected again.

A loyal, although not too bright, subject of The Master, Luke, before meeting Buffy, has only come across any human that has fought him and lived, and then only because they caught him sleeping!

At the coming of The Harvest, Luke becomes the vessel for The Master, and, taking over the Bronze, starts taking his victims, one by one. Buffy, however, has other ideas, and though they fight evenly matched, she gets the upper hand when she smashes a window with a light behind it and convinces Luke that daylight has come. While he is distracted by this, she beheads him.

A young vampire, made sometime during the 80's if you go by his dress sense, Thomas is one of The Master's minions. Sent out to find food for The Master, Thomas finds Willow at the The Bronze, all ready and willing to 'seize the day' with him. He lures her to The Master's lair, but unfortunately, Willow has recently made friends with the Slayer who saves Willow and stakes Thomas.

Amy Madison is a normal girl, living in Sunnydale, trying to deal with the normal trials of High School. That is until her mother, who is a witch, decides that she is wasting her life and performs a spell to switch bodies with her so that she can relive her youth and once again be the best cheerleader in the tri-county area. But When Mrs Madison stops at noghing to get what she wants, Buffy becomes suspicious and, once again, spoils the fun. With a little help from Giles, Amy is back in her own body, and her mother finds herself trapped in a cheerleading statue.

Amy, however, follows in her mother's footsteps and becomes an accomplished witch herself. When Xander spots her handing in invisible homework he blackmails her into doing a love spell for him, which of course goes very, very wrong.

Amy quietly continues to hone her witchy powers until an apparant occult linked child murder occurs and Sunnydale's Mothers Opposed to the Occult (MOO) rise up against witchcraft. Amy, Willow and Buffy are in danger of being burnt at the stake and Amy cast one spell to many, turning herself into a rat to escape the flames. Although Willow somehow manages to save rat-Amy, despite many efforts she is unable to turn Amy back into a girl.

So, for the next few years, Amy remains a rat, living in a cage in Willow's bedroom, with only a brief respite when Willow unknowigly changes her back from rat to human and then back again.

However, Willow grows in power and, in need of company when Tara leaves her, she finally manages to turn Amy permanently human again. Life is confusing for Amy at first, especially coming to terms with the fact that Prom is long over, Larry who was going to take her, is not only gay, but dead, and Tom and Nicole split up. Amy soon returns to her old ways though and introduces Willow to a friend of hers, magic drug dealer, Rack. As Willow becomes addicted to magic, she soon realises that she is putting her friends in danger and decides to quit. This means ending her friendship with Amy. Despite giving Willow a little magic hit, Amy is unable to persuade her to go back to her magical ways. It takes Amy some time but she eventually begins her revenge on Willow, with a little help from her new skinless boyfriend she turns her into Tara's killer, Warren.

As a female Preying Mantis demon, 'Natalie' must find a virgin to copulate with in order to fertilise her eggs. To this end she takes on the name of a retired ubstitute teacher and finds her way to Sunnydale High School. Murdering the nice biology teacher, Dr. Gregory, she takes his place, in her human form of course, and uses her powerful pheronomes to attract the young male virgins in her class, starting with Blaine and Xander. Lruing them to her house, she captures them and is about to mate with Xander when Buffy comes to the rescue. With the help of some bat sonar (which the preying mantis cannot stand) and a big axe, she takes the demon apart.

Janna of the Kalderash Clan was brought up to hold her old gypsy values very dear, including that of ensuring the curse on Angelus, the vampire that took the life of the clan's dearest daughter, remained intact. With this in mind Janna is sent to Sunnydale to keep an eye on Angelus and ensure that he doesn't achieve the moment of true happiness that break the curse Styling herself as a "techno-pagan", Janna changes her name to Jenny Calendar and becomes the computer science teacher at Sunnydale High.

Finding that Angelus has sruck up a close friendship with the Slayer, Jenny finds ways to get close to the watcher, Giles. However, she finds herself falling for the stuffy librarian and begins to see things from a slightly different viewpoint when she sees that Angel is now working for the good isde.

This is not what the Gypsy elders had in mind, and when one of them senses that Angel is close to finding that one moment of perfect happiness, they send Jenny's uncle to warn her. Find out the truth about the curse, Jenny tries to separate Buffy and Angel, but the fates intervene, the curse is broken and Angel becomes Angelus once more.

Confused as to why her boyfriend is no longer the man he was, Buffy finds the answer in Jenny, discovering that she knew about the curse. Feeling betrayed, Giles breaks up with Jenny, leaving her to try and right her wrongs by translating the original curse. Unfortunately, Angelus gets wind of her plan and, murders her just as she and Giles are about to be reunited.

Jenny's image would later be used by Drusilla to torment Giles and by The First to torment Angel.

Being a tiny person, Principal Snyder relishes the power that being Principal brings and, hating children, feels it to be his natural calling. Unlike the majoriy of Sunnydale residents, Snyder is at least partially aware of the town's problem with vampires and frequently provides the police with cover stories for the many supernatural happenings in the town.

From first meeting Buffy he takes an instant dislike to her and believes that she will come to a bad end. He makes it his life's work to find an excuse to expel her from the school and her seeming involvement in the murder of Kendra gives him just that opportunity, and a tingly feeling. He finds himself beaten though when both Giles and Joyce go over his head to the school board who decide that Buffy deserves an education.

Having scorned the previous Principal for getting himself eaten, Snyder finds an ironic death when he himself gets eaten by the Mayor-snake on Graduation Day.

Collin was a sweet young boy, happily coming home from his holidays when the horrible accident happened. The bus he was on was attacked by vampires who kill most of the passengers and turn some, including Collin, into vampires themselves.

Rising from the dead, Collin, fulfills a prophecy and becomes The Anointed One, The Master's great warrior who will lead the Slayer to her death. He may only be a small boy, but he learns at The Master's side and does indeed lead the Slayer to him and to her death. But Buffy isn't defeated so easily and, rising from the dead herseld, she defeats The Master.

Undeterred, Collin becomes leader in The Master place, gathering his followers and instructing them to dig up The Master's bones in order to perform a rirual to resurrect him. Unfortunately, Buffy is also undeterred and crushes The Master's bones completely, leaving Collin with the impression that he really doesn't like her.

He plans his revenge for the night of St Vigeous, but unfortunately a new vampire comes to town, upsets all his plans and, deciding that he doesn't much like all the ritual, sends Collin into the daylight.