Wooden stake

A wooden stake is a shaft of wood approximately 12-15" in length with one end sharpened into a point, making it an ideal melee stabbing weapon. Let's face it, wooden stakes really only have proper use... killing vampires. As almost any and all vampire lore will tell you, vampires are particularly tough little boogers to kill, but they do have that one infamous vulnerability - a stake through the heart. Classically, a stake imbedded through the heart of a vampire would render a vampire powerless, leave him immobile or return him to a natural state of death. Removal of the stake was strongly discouraged as it was believed that this could allow the vampire to thereby re-awaken. As vampire fiction grew more popular over the decades, wooden stakes became even more practical. In most current fiction, a wooden stake doesn't just render a vampire inert, it can actually reduce him to a pile of ash. Such is the case with staked vampires featured on shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel. Even more modern programs like True Blood demonstrate that a stake to the heart is instantly fatal. True Blood vampires don't "dust" like Buffy vampires, but instead explode in a violent tableau of blood, gore and snot. Very messy. On the short-lived Blade: The Series, the titular vampire killer Eric "Blade" Brooks kept a bandolier of special titanium stakes on his person at all times.