Vlad Tepes III, King of Blood

No man in history is remembered with an aura of terror to match that of Vlad Tepes III. Speaking Vlad’s name around the family hearth is enough to terrify children to restless sleep, tales of his exploits cause even blackguards to wish for salvation, and the bloodlust of killers spikes to limitless peaks when they pray to him. Known through the Five Grands as the King of Blood, Vlad Tepes III is infamous for many a good reason.
Vlad Tepes III was born as the second Prince of Vecchia to Vlad II, also known by the moniker of King Dracul. One of the few independent kingdoms to survive the conquest of the newly formed Leem Imperium, Vecchia stood as a beacon of strength and inspiration to the remaining independent nations. However, the Imperium was clever, and kidnapped Vlad III and his brother, Radu, to force King Dracul into a submissive relationship, lest he lose his heirs. Held under house arrest in the Imperium’s capital of Aeternus, Vlad and Radu sought no redemption for their father’s loss of power, as they were both too young to understand the implications and too comfortable in their lifestyle to care. Their naivete would soon be dissipated on the day of the Boyar Rebellion.
The nobles of Vecchia, known as the Boyars, had grown disgusted with the capitulation of their king to foreigners. When their king gave up his power, he stripped the Boyars of their own; they could not take tribute from the lower classes, and were losing both status, luxury, and money. Thus, they killed King Dracul and supplanted him with his nephew, Vladislav, who declared independence from the Imperium in a coup known as the Boyar Rebellion. Growing concerned that the uprising would inspire other nations under their thumb to rebel, the Imperium mobilized the only other Vecchians with claims to throne, Vlad and Radu, to reclaim the nation in the name of the Imperium. Upon entering the border of Vecchia, the first sight to greet Vlad was the body of his father, impaled on the very verge of his ancestral home. Marching upon Vecchia with the might of 2,000 Legionnaires, the forces of Vlad and Radu eventually crushed the Boyar forces, but not without heavy losses. Radu himself was killed in the battle, and at the end fewer than 500 Legionnaires remained. Vlad took it upon himself to publicly execute his cousin, Vladislav, and order the deaths of every single Boyar, regardless of whether or not they took part in the uprising.
Surrounded by the blood of relatives, close and distant, and with the memory of his father impaled and his brother dead burned into his mind, Vlad began to unhinge, blaming the very Imperium that helped him regain power for the deaths of so many of his people. Vlad was no fool, however, and knew to bide his time. With no rivals to the throne, he ruled as the sole power in Vecchia. Compliant with the Imperium to hide his true intentions, Vlad began to silently build a force to counter the presence of the Imperium. Ten years later, on the anniversary of his recapturing of Vecchia, Vlad executed his plan in the dead of night, sending his people to disarm and capture every single citizen of the Imperium in Vecchia, whether they be soldier or peasantry. Closing off the gates to the capital, not one of the victims escaped, leaving the Imperium unawares of the massacre that was soon to take place.
The following day was the day Vlad Tepes III became the King of Blood. Vlad ordered the impaling of each Imperium citizen, demanding the ground of the city saturated in blood. The screams of hundreds echoed through Vecchia that day, and Vlad smiled through it all. Sparing only one child from the genocide, Vlad told the young Imperial to run home, and tell the Leem Imperium of what had transpired in Vecchia that day. However, Vlad, in all his sadism, forced the child to watch for hours as her fellows were murdered; hundreds of men, women, and children, slowly and painfully impaled, incessantly crying for mercy that would never be given. Terrified and broken, the child ran to the Imperium until her feet were little more than bloody stumps. Appalled, horrified, and furious, the Imperium immediately ordered a new war upon the nation of Vecchia, swearing to commit the same atrocities upon Vlad’s people as the ones done upon their own.
Marching with a force of 2,000 just as Vlad had a decade prior, an ambitious Imperial general led the army into Vecchia. Finding the gates of the city walls eerily open and waiting, the army of the Imperium entered the city, only to be met by the terrifying sight of the bodies of their people, impaled on hundreds of stakes. Finding the city empty save for the dead, the army marched through the blood and entrails until their feet were stained red, heading straight for the castle that stood as the heart of Vecchia and Vlad’s residence. Breaking down the gates, the general and his personal guard strode into the throne room, confident that Vlad would die that day.
Vlad was seated upon his throne, a goblet of blood in his hand and a smile upon his face. Save for the sounds of the soldiers’ armor, the castle was dead silent; the general, shocked, realized that Vlad was facing the entirety of the force of Leem alone, and began to grow concerned. Before the general could utter a command, however, Vlad, still seated upon his throne, lifted his goblet and spoke:
“The blood of your people stains your feet, And thus with every step, you carve a path to damnation. I gladly accept the honor of being your guide, From here to Hell, and all the places in between. By the blood of the Imperium and the might of my people, I hereby inherit the title of Dracul, King of Vecchia, And all the power it bestows upon me, From now until eternity meets its demise. It is with your lives that I build my kingdom.”
With each word that Vlad spoke, every member of the Imperial army felt both dread and pain enter their bodies. The blood upon the ground of the city bubbled and boiled, and previously hidden runes on the walls of the city began to glow a deep crimson. As the last words were leaving Vlad’s lips, the general and his guard were fetal on the ground, life leaving their bodies; the last sight they witnessed was Vlad draining his goblet. Blood dripping from his mouth to his clothes, Vlad had drank every last drop of blood from his cup. Right as the general slipped into death, he realized that he and his army had marched straight a trap and thusly into the arms of death. With the last flame of life extinguished, Vlad’s Blood Ritual was complete.
Vlad had spent the entirety of the last decade not only creating a silent army out of his people, but creating the most powerful Blood Ritual in history. He had ordered his masons to study Abyssal and secretly carve the conditions of the ritual into the city walls. Vecchian builders made small channels in the roads through the city disguised as construction errors; they formed an enormous ritual circle and symbols of power that were filled with blood on the day of the massacre. Merchants silently began collecting mythril and sending it to the castle, where it could be formed into a sort of capture rod to channel magical energy. The artisans who carved Vlad’s throne built the seat around the capture device. At the end of their work, the people of Vecchia had engineered a ritual that would funnel power into the literal seat of Vecchian power, the place where Vlad dictated the fate of the kingdom. Vlad designed the ritual to consume the lives of any within the ritual circle, turning their souls into raw power and channeling it directly into the king himself. On the day of the rituals execution, to spare his people, Vlad sent every Vecchian into the surrounding land, where they would escape the impending doom. When the last life was taken, Vlad Tepes III found himself satisfied with success; the souls, and thus magical power, of over 2,000 Imperials were his. He could feel eternity and power pulsing within his being, seemingly without limit. However, it drove him over the edge; his mind was lost to darkness.
His greed overpowering his kingly compassion, Vlad told his citizens to reenter the city. Sadly, it was not because his the ritual was complete; in fact, Vlad wanted the ritual to continue. Each Vecchian could feel the chill of death reach their hearts, and, like the Imperials, were filled with fear. One more emotion, however, gripped them; sadness. The king who had promised them freedom from the rule of the Leem Imperium had forgotten who he was underneath the power. As their souls were ripped from their very beings, the Vecchians hoped for one last day under the sun. This very prayer became one of Vlad’s only weaknesses; he found that if he is touched by sunlight, the desire of each soul to see the sun again caused it to rip free of Vlad, weakening him little by little.
Vlad Tepes III, King Dracul, Dracula. Once the ruler of Vecchia and now a Sovereign of Souls, Vlad was once seen as the hero that his people needed, a powerful king that would free his people from the tyranny of foreign powers. However, no mortal is immune to the all-consuming of greed. Once Vlad had a taste of the the absolute might his greed could bring him, he could not stop himself. The once leader of a nation became someone, something completely different. Vlad Tepes III is not the King of Vecchia; Vlad Tepes III is the King of Blood.
Vlad Tepes III is Dracula.