Dracula

According to Abraham Van Helsing, Dracula "was in life a most wonderful man. Soldier, statesman, and alchemist. Which latter was the highest development of the scientific knowledge of his time. He had a mighty brain, a learning beyond compare, and a heart that knew no fear and no remorse... there was no branch of knowledge of his time that he did not essay."

Early Life
Vlad was born around 1430, the son of the prince Vlad II of Wallachia, a nation which would one day became part of Romania. His father was known as the Dracul or "Dragon," after the chivalric Order of the Dragon, of which he was a member. Thus, the younger Vlad III became known as Dracula, or "Son of the Dragon." Tales say he studied the black arts at the academy of Scholomance in the Carpathian Mountains, overlooking the town of Sibiu (also known as Hermannstadt) and gained a deep knowledge of alchemy and magic.

"As I am on the subject of thunderstorms, I may as well here mention the Scholomance, or school supposed to exist somewhere in the heart of the mountains, and where all the secrets of nature, the language of animals, and all imaginable magic spells and charms are taught by the devil in person. Only ten scholars are admitted at a time, and when the course of learning has expired and nine of them are released to return to their homes, the tenth scholar is detained by the devil as payment, and mounted upon an Ismeju (dragon) he becomes henceforward the devil's aide-de-camp, and assists him in 'making the weather,' that is to say, preparing the thunderbolts."

--Emily Gerard, "Transylvianian Superstitions" (1885)

Military Career
At around age 20, Dracula seized the throne from the man who had killed his father. Then he lost the throne to the same man, but retook it by killing the same man in hand-to-hand combat. In fact, he would rule rule Wallachia as Voivode (or prince) three times.

While violent rivalries with others in his homeland dogged his rule, the greater war he waged was against the invading Turks of the Ottoman Empire, who sought to conquer the whole region. In this cause, he was a pragmatist, frequently forging alliances with former enemies; his first wife Elisabete was the daughter of a rival, and his second wife Justina (known to some as Ilona) was the cousin of his jailor.

He is often considered one of the most important rulers in Wallachian history and a national hero of Romania. For the next century, descendants of his family-- known as the Drăculești-- would rule Wallachia. However, tales were told of his cruelty. If stories are to be believed, he impaled thousands with wooden stakes, creating forests of writhing bodies as warnings to his enemies, earning the nickname Vlad the Impaler. Historians differ on these details, but some blame him for as many as 100,000 deaths.

At the end of Dracula's second reign, his younger brother allied with the Ottoman sultan to attack him with a massive army. After a bold but unsuccessful attempt to invade the sultan's camp and kill him, Dracula had to withdraw with his forces into the Carpathian Mountains. He appealed to Hungary's king, Matthias Corvinus, his wife's brother, for help to fight the Turks and regain his throne. Instead, King Matthias-- son of Dracula's frequent family rival Janos Hunyadi, "the White Knight"-- ordered Vlad captured and imprisoned, forging letters to justify this betrayal to the Pope. Dracula's wife, surrounded by Ottoman forces at Poenari Castle, leapt from a tower into the nearby river Argeș, killing herself.

Dracula was imprisoned for 14 years, spending some of that time in Bran Castle and Castle Hunedoara. After a change in political alliances, a conversion to Catholicism, and a new marriage to Matthias's cousin Justina, Dracula was released to fight for Wallachia again. He won his throne once more, but did not reign long. Unknown to Dracula, supernatural forces had been shaping his destiny all his life, orchestrating tragedy, loss, and betrayal that shaped his dark cunning and preternatural will. When this work was done, he fell in battle, pierced with arrows from a troop of archers.

And perhaps some enemy of evil had prophesied what he would become, for the Turks were ordered to cut Vlad's body to pieces, and then send his head to sultan himself. Yet Dracula's remains were never found, and sources disagree on the place of his final burial.

Secretly, Dracula was laid to rest in a great tomb in the chapel of his castle... temporarily. His remains did not stay entombed for long.

Forbidden Lore
Dracula rose from death as a vampire, and the Red Death's work creating a truly daunting and relentless lieutenant came to fruition. While no qabal or other trustworthy source of information has been able to shed much light on Dracula's centuries as an undead vampire prior to the late 1800s, it is clear that his activities in Transylvania have made him a great source of fear, paranoia, and superstition among those living in the region.

Magda Arany, leader of the Transylvanian qabal known as the Sword of Hunyady, reports that Dracula spent decades building secret chambers beneath a network of castles he controls, which include at least three locations: Poenari (also known as Castle Argeș) on the river Argeș, east of the Borgo Pass along the Bistrita River, and atop a single grim peak overshadowing the city of Bucharest.

During these years, Dracula also created three powerful vampire "Brides", who live with him in his castle by 1889. Some reports say a "Satanic cult" (most likely an evil qabal) serves Dracula with fanatical devotion, and that they have goals related to undermining the democratic governments of Western Europe.

Dracula's ambitions soon grew beyond his homeland. Feeding upon the vigilant, hardened populace of Wallachia, Transylvania, and Moldavia became a troublesome chore, and the vampire sought to direct his greater plans from a cosmopolitan central hub well-connected to other nations. As a result, Dracula prepared his first incursion into England, arranging to purchase properties there which he could use as a headquarters.

When Jonathan Harker, the solicitor sent to guide Dracula through his real estate transactions, arrived at the decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains near the Borgo Pass, he encountered a Dracula who still lived in the trappings of a Transylvanian nobleman, claiming to be a Székely descended from Attila the Hun. In his conversations with Harker, he revealed himself as deeply proud of his noble heritage and nostalgic for the past, which he admitted has become only a memory of heroism, honor and valor by the current era. At this point, Dracula even appeared physically old, though later feedings would allow him to assume a more youthful appearance.

Jonathan Harker ran afoul of the Brides while in Dracula's castle. When Dracula left for England, he abandoned Harker in the castle as a meal for the three vampire brides, as he had promised them. Harker managed to escape, however, finding refuge at a convent. He suffered a mental breakdown after his experiences with the vampires; his fiancée, Mina Murray, came to nurse him back to health and married Harker there.

Meanwhile, Dracula made his way to England aboard a ship, the HMS Demeter along with caskets of his home soil (in which he needed to rest). This journey resulted in the deaths of the entire crew. On arrival, he began feeding on new victims, including one of Mina's close friends. The undoing of this venture began when Mina returned to England with her husband and they discovered Dracula's predations there. The two joined a coalition organized around Abraham Van Helsing, who sought to destroy the vampire. After Dracula learned of this plot against him, he took revenge by drinking Mina's blood and feeding her his own, destining her to become a vampire at her death.

Van Helsing, Jonathan, and the rest of their group sought to aid Mina is escaping this fate by hunting Dracula. Slowly succumbing to the vampiric blood that flowed through her veins, Mina's soul alternated between consciousness and a trance-like state in which she was telepathically connected to Dracula. However, Mina turned this to her advantage, using this telepathic connection to track the vampires movements. At Mina's suggestion, Van Helsing hypnotized her to access this information. Dracula fled back to his castle in Transylvania, followed by Mina and her allies, who attacked and defeated the vampire just before sundown. However, their understanding of the vampire's weaknesses was incomplete, and Dracula survived, escaping to a refuge in one of his other castles.

In early 1890, though not yet fully recovered, Dracula attempted to set up a new base of operations in San Francisco, allying with a malevolent local qabal before traveling to the city himself. Fortunately, both times Dracula has tried to take up permanent residence in a foreign country, stalwart foes of the Red Death have stopped him, and Dracula was driven away. However, the network of evil he and his followers constructed remains. It still plagues the West Coast of the continent-- and perhaps an even larger portion of the world-- to this day.

Dracula still seeks a new home in a modern city that is a center of travel and commerce, the better to advance his mysterious, inhuman agenda. Where and when he will appear again is unknown.

The greatest of vampires is notoriously difficult to kill; even Van Helsing failed to do everything necessary to inflict final death when his group managed to defeat Dracula. In order to permanently destroy Dracula, he must be immobilized in his resting place with a wooden stake, and then he must be beheaded. After he is beheaded, the decapitated head's mouth must be filled with garlic, while the body is taken and burned. Even after a vampire hunter does all this, their work is not yet done: once the body is completely burned, the ashes must be scattered in naturally running water, like a river. As of this writing, no one but Dracula himself is aware of all of these individual steps.