NIGHT GOD !

#𝐍𝐄𝐅𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐔𝐋     a   private,   highly   selective   &   mutually   exclusive   roleplay   &   writing   blog   for   an   original   interpretation   of   vladislav   drăculea,   aka   ‘ count   dracula ’,  𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐨𝐝 𝐬𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐭, the reigning king of vampires, from   bram   stoker's   dracula.   ( does   not   portray   Vlad   Țepeș. )   heavily influenced  by  eastern-european  folklore.

bio. playlist. arc iii.

here you can find a few notes regarding my portrayal of  𝙲𝙾𝚄𝙽𝚃  𝙳𝚁𝙰𝙲𝚄𝙻𝙰  that i consider to be especially important. these may be what are most overlooked or forgotten in threads, or just things that i personally think are important to differentiate him from the canon that currently exists.   

        my portrayal is not vl*d the impaler.  this decision came after months of speaking to romanian and hungarian writers in and outside of the rp community who expressed incredibly displeasure toward the books, movies and other media that consistently portray a folk hero as an evil and malevolent vampire.  while my count does still take the titular name, he is not at all related to the historic figure. he is not a prince, he was never voivode, and is originally from (and rules) in transylvania, was adopted, etc.  his crown/throne as boyar is illegitimate and was won through despotism. at most, he would have been a lord or very possibly a vicomte before his parent’s death.

        my portrayal does not like being called ‘’vlad’’. this dimunitive is his least favorite, despite it being used by comrades and friends for well over a decade. he has always been fond of his full name, vladislav (rather than the hungarian form, vladislaus), and what few dimunitives were used by members of his immediate family; vladik, volodya (volodislava) and the most common: vadya. 

        while bram stoker decided to ignore the russian, ruthenian, croatian and greek folklore that involved vampires being unable to go into sunlight, i have adopted it.  i’m very fond of the idea of them being averse to light and photosensitive. he will be burned if he steps into sunlight, especially during the summer months - this can be negated if he wears protective coverings, but he will lose most of his powers during the daytime as book canon decrees. 

          his castle is located directly on the border between transylvania and bucovina, hidden in the mountainous forests to the southeast of the borgo pass. this was not the castle he grew up in, but rather the place of his exile when his vampiric resurrection came to light. hence why it received the name castle dracula rather than the castle where his parents raised him near alba iulia.  before modern day, it appears that everyone in and around bistritz knows that he is a vampire. it’s not a secret until around the 1920s and beyond. 

          this character is both intensely manipulative and seductive.  he will come off as flirtatious if only to charm his way into your character’s good graces. his intentions are always bad.  usually to get a willing blood donor, or to kill the character in question - do not forget that he is a villain.  that said, i am not averse to him gaining actual friendships and/or romantic relationships.  i greatly enjoy when two characters click despite his atrocious personality.

         my portrayal of the count is a cold, malevolent and irredeemable villain. you will never, ever find me writing a redemption arc on this blog. despite me liking him as a character, i will always recognize the awful shit he’s done. from human extinction as a primary goal to his aggressive spread of vampirism, these are and will always be frequent topics concerning his behavior. i recognize that he has had a terrible life, but i also recognize that he is taking that fact out on the literal whole population of humanity. 

         he is incredibly strong.  he also possesses the ‘usual’ vampiric powers.  increased speed (though not to s. meyer’s extent), prodigious strength,  panther-like reflexes (book-canon) and the ability to turn into a bat at will. this portrayal will also acknowledge his lycanthropy, which allows him to transform at will into a hulking black wolf- and his ability to turn to mist to travel through small spaces.  that said, his weaknesses are also greatly acknowledged here. roses, silver of any kind, religious items (they do not hurt him, but calm him, see below…) wooden stakes, sunlight, etc. 

         my portrayal is not hurt by symbols of christianity, nor is the count a catholic.  he was originally raised in the know of the secret solomonari beliefs, worshipping zalmoxis as the dacians once did. it wasn’t until he entered his early teen years that his family converted to eastern orthodoxy. specifically hungarian eastern orthodoxy whilst continuing to practice their pagan beliefs and traditions in secret.  that said, he has a very strained relationship with God and Christ, being that he has actually been to hell. 

       the count has been alive for nearly 1,600 years.  his ‘physical’ birth date is 1432, but whilst in hell (mentioned above) time did not progress. he spent a little over one thousand years in the pits of hell being tortured for the sins he committed in the many battles across eastern europe.  he was assassinated after being pardoned for heresy on orthodox easter day of 1466. 

       my portrayal created vampires through this means. of course, when i say ‘vampire’ i mean the eastern european variety we see portrayed in a lot of media- moroi, strigoi, stryzga, verdilak, the ones clearly inspired by dracula.  he drank the blood of the devil when he sold his soul, thus creating what he is- and the beginning of ‘bloodletting’ that can turn one into a vampire. while trapped in stasis-hell enduring torture for a thousand years, the demons who fed off of him transferred this blood from their other victims, creating and spreading these vampires as far back as 3000 years prior to the common era.  in this way, he is sort of like the adam to (slavonic) vampire kind.  he has ever been a mythological figure.  and most people - and possibly even vampires - likely believe he is just a book figure or a media joke that does not exist.  but they know of him.  he is just as much a legendary figure as baba yaga, dimna juda or koschei the deathless.

       mina is not his reincarnated wife.  he was married to the duchess yelizaveta of volhynia.  i will never go that route. not only is it disrespectful to both women, it’s a notorious cop out of the wrongs committed by the count in the book, as well as his psychic link to mina murray- i do believe this could be written out in very interesting and thought-provoking ways, and i am not against shipping the two with extreme care and plotting beforehand.   along with this, my portrayal does not link vampirism and sex and never will, especially given that one of the adjacent female characters exclusively feeds on children throughout the book. while he and his partners may enjoy vampirism during sex, it is still just a means to feed and occasionally to infect.

i know this is a tired point of my portrayal but when i say that stoker exclusively using ''the red mouth'' ''his red lips'' 'his malevolent crimson maw' 'voluptuous ruby lips with sharp, white teeth', this is the character. the count has a beautiful, heart-shaped mouth with blood-stained lips. they aren't lacquered, though they appear to be from the inside to the cupid's bow. this is due to how much he has pressed them to a wound. but more than that, he is not a man so much as a phantom. he is the mouth, what he is is teeth. a feminine yet deadly trait that tempts each of the people who either feel, see or fear it, to the point that his own victims do not hinder him from feeding despite their terror of the unknown. his teeth are fucking massive in comparison to a normal vampire's. they do not retract and are always visible when he parts his lips, sometimes even resting on the lower lip if he is not conscious of the act. you can see them if his mouth is open and you are standing several feet away.

"He was laughing with his red mouth; the sharp white teeth glinted in the moonlight / the pointed teeth, the bloodstained, voluptuous mouth /  I knew the swaying round forms, the bright hard eyes, the white teeth, the ruddy colour, the voluptuous lips. They smiled ever at poor dear Madam Mina / fixed and rather cruel-looking, with peculiarly sharp white teeth; these protruded over the lips, whose remarkable ruddiness showed astonishing vitality in a man of his years ...

he must have stood outside for more than hour in the darkness, looking up upon the whitest marble and the fresco above the main entryway. so many painted arches and little spires that reminded him of the curved tops of some eastern orthodox chapels he'd seen in the far hills of ruthenia. for some time afterwards he found himself entrenched in the many indoor marketplaces that ran onward through the darkness of the night. bathed and cloaked in shadow that did not touch the many candles and chandeliers, he marveled within them at the talent and skill of the painters who had left their work for sale. were he not attempting to keep a lower profile, the count would have bought them all, set them upon a ship and had them rushed up the danube to his castle in bucovina.

his spine curved in a feline manner, bending down until his pale, bone-white face was nearly being licked by the flames. the delicate brushwork of expensive oil paints, the ultramarine dye used on the elaborate embroidery in tapestries unfolded and thrown across carved tables that were likely worth more than the inventory itself. his preternatural eyes blinked twice, suddenly captured by movement in his peripherals. a waifish form, thin and willowy and all things pleasant that you could find in the form of a young tree. he did not yet bend back to his original, gargantuan height, and instead stood stock-still so that he might marvel at @desiresuffering 's face, his red mouth parted just enough to show the very tips of long, white teeth.

" a patron of the arts? " he does not wait for a reply, finally lifting himself from his stoop, long-fingered hands and their glassy claws folded neatly behind his back. he supposed he did stick out. wearing a rather expensive red brocade over a black ruffled shirt. he should have attired himself more simply if he had not wanted the civilians to approach him with curiosity... and yet ...

⠀⠀⠀⠀oh, the familiar scent of the great, dark gift. nestled between the ribs and beating through a heart that had already passed on. thick and red and sweeter than any wine. barely there, but old. ancient, but newly christened to the night he could tell. there was a sort of spice that lingered in the nose when you came across a fledgling. monstrous, delectable things. but they were always beautiful, weren't they?

until the ships came in, that was. then the streets were all in uproar, with too many sweaty faces turned and rushed toward the marina. a ship had come from france. this wasn't particularly exciting, of course, but it was rumored to be filled with yet more pearl-laden ladies and top-hatted gentlemen than had previously come before. but goodness, what sort of ship came up empty? this one had. empty save for half-a-dozen corpses left exsanguinated on deck, all with permanently frozen faces twisted in shock and terror. and then there was a terrifying black dog that had darted from the ramp the moment anyone had attempted to board.

but that had been an hour ago. already it had become gossip at the tables that lined the corner of canal street. matte-coated lips whispering about the number of stretchers that were being taken to the back of those gaudy police wagons. how macabre.

alas, that did not matter. nothing did now that he had arrived, dressed appropriately in one of the nicer fineries he'd found aboard the vessel. he was a deadly presence. a throbbing in the blood. an echo so vast and so deep that traversed beneath and through the streets that it called to any who shared the draw, the lust, the pull of one's lips to carmine blood.

he would be as they were! these half-witted mortals that cared naught for anything but their comfortable lives. he would be like the lofty, happy people with a smile stretched upon red lips, drawn back over pallid gums and too-white teeth that were sharper and longer than knives. the gentleman gathered himself toward the crowd, footfalls near silent, eyes as glassy and silver as the midnight moon. indeed, the count adjusted the brim of the stovepipe atop his head, long black hair pulled savagely across his shoulders as he came to stand beside another. blonde and beautiful, tall and broad shouldered. oh, but delicious --- he reeked of it. of youth. of a warm, red meal racing beneath those veins. the count could only smile, wondering how he must have savored it.

a pair of red lips parted on his deathly face, and an accented, svelte baritone soon slid from between them like honey. " quel événement terrible s’est produit ici aujourd’hui ! you will forgive me, i trust, for intruding ser... did you perchance hear of what caused so terrible a tragedy? "

“  maybe to dracula,  it isn’t a mirror at all...  ”

                 in the 19th century, mirrors were created with a backing of silver - an extremely pure metal that was used to repel lycans and vampires. but the silver is what kept vampires from being able to see themselves in it, and would hurt them if touched. but what about mirrors that *weren't* made with silver? - were they used for vanity purposes??  for dracula, the answer is no.

the count used these mirrors for far different purposes, and often kept them scattered around his castle in shards.   this goes back to similar figures like baba dochia, dragobete, koschei the deathless and baba yaga, who in some stories used water or mirrors as portals to their abode.   the lake nesamovyte, in bucovina, also has a legend about the lake having a frozen mirror at the very bottom which is used to house the souls of the evil dead, as well as teleport horrible storms to the region.            his castle, located in bucovina, is said to have a great and terrible many-headed zmei (dragon) in its depths, submerged in a great, frozen lake where the bottom cannot be reached by the living.  that dragon is known as the weathermaker, or a balauri type dragon, and shoots lightning from its mouth and calls down horrid storms. 

thus, i am stating that the count both keeps a mirror on himself ( a small shard, triangular in shape, shattered from being thrown and not cut ) hidden deep within his pockets and wrapped strictly by a velvet cloth. this is used for emergency travel, whereas the remaining shards of this mirror (touched by alchemic magic) have been left to hover above a lectern in a tower at his castle .  this mirror, as i am taking from cv lore, is how he moves his castle- along with the heat and electricity provided by the balaur in his castle’s depths, that provides an endless supply of clean energy that is instant and hotter than the surface of the sun.  thus electricity is necessary to power the spell that has been placed on the mirror itself, and each shard resonates with the ability to move not only dracula, but through a mass amount of his energy and power, the castle in itself.   the mirror in his pocket allows him to return to the point he came,  this is namely whatever place he calls home at the time.  this mirror too can be fragmented, and the spell will remain intact unless the shards are utterly destroyed.