Dragolescu
Don’t be so judgmental. The sins you speak of were our — pardon me, my — ancestor’s.
The Dragolescu bloodline was very important within The Ordo Dracul for a brief time. It emerged as a line of modern nobility, intelligent, forthright and bold. The advances of their founder into the realms of the dead and his ability to communicate with and make use of human ghosts provided the basis for much of what the covenant knows about modern haunts and Wyrm’s Nests associated with death. But the bloodline fell from grace in the middle of the 20th century, and now the name Dragolescu has come to be synonymous with sycophancy, name-dropping and the unforgivable sin of self-enslavement to otherworldly spirits.
Ioan’s sire, whom he swore never to name, decided that while he himself was a poor fit for The Ordo Dracul, this young physician would be perfect. Since the Ventrue had left his old life behind, he suggested that Ioan undergo the Embrace and begin his unlife in London. Ioan agreed, and rose the following night as one of the Kindred.
With his sire’s help, Ioan Dragolescu, now John Darlington, sought out the Dragons of London and easily passed their tests of membership. He particularly excelled in The Coil of Blood, learning all three tiers within a decade. In 1895, Sigmund Freud’s work inspired him to rethink the way the Ordo had been approaching their methods of teaching, and Darlington became one of the first Dragons to incorporate psychoanalysis into preparations for chrysalises.
His experiments with these methods didn’t last long, however (although his psychological work did receive a number of followers, and the “Darlington Methods” of preparing for learning The Coil of the Soul is still popular tonight). In 1897, the publication of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula threw the covenant and Kindred society in general, particularly in England, into an uproar. John Darlington was known to London’s Kindred as a wealthy Ventrue who chose Research and scholarly pursuits over covenant issues, — for at the time, The Ordo Dracul was more a secret society than a covenant. Following publication of Stoker’s novel, however, The Ordo Dracul was revealed for what it was and any “unaligned” Kindred came under close scrutiny. Darlington decided that the direct approach was safest, and announced to the vampiric community that he was a Dragon.
The Ordo Dracul’s leadership in London had mixed feelings about this admission. On the one hand, Darlington was a respected membership of the undead community and a promising student. On the other, he was cocky and bold, and worse, he was a neonate (if a talented one). Gossip in London seemed to indicate that Darlington was either going to greet a sunrise soon or was going to receive a promotion within The Ordo Dracul. His next announcement clinched the decision.
Darlington wisely went underground for a short period of time following this announcement, to avoid any hasty action on any other vampire’s part. The Ordo Dracul and The Invictus both researched his claim and found that he was, in fact, correct. The Dragolescu family was descended from a peasant family that Dracula had elevated to noble Status in 1457 after fathering a bastard with one of their daughters. The blood claim was weak, but true, and this left The Ordo Dracul wondering again what to do about John Darlington/Ioan Dragolescu.
Why the sudden interest in spirits? In actuality, it wasn’t sudden. Dragolescu had always found ghosts fascinating, but, like most Kindred, he possessed little facility for dealing with them himself. After the whirlwind of activity surrounding his lineage and the exposure of The Ordo Dracul had died down somewhat, however, he made these spirits his primary focus. During his time in hiding (which he claimed was spent in Ireland), he received a visit from a ghost of a vampire victim. Fascinated by the notion that Kindred the world over had been creating ghosts for time immemorial, he decided that these restless shades might carry information crucial to the transcendence of the undead.
The Kindred he assembled were of various ages and covenants, but all shared some experience and knowledge about ghosts. On the night of their first meeting, Dragolescu put forth his notion that the departed could act as teachers and perhaps servants to the undead, a notion that at least one of the Kindred present (a Daeva belonging to the Lancea Sanctum) found offensive. As she turned to leave, a disembodied hand, glowing a luminous shade of blue, appeared in the air and gestured for her to return to her seat. Unnerved yet inspired by this event, the Kindred took the name “the Blue Hand Coterie” thereafter.
During the years following, the Blue Hand participated in séances and exorcisms as often as it could. It was during this period that Dragolescu put forth his theories of Essentiaphagia or “soul eating,” which would later evolveinto a Discipline of the same name. The Blue Hand investigated hauntings all over the British Isles and sometimeseven ventured to mainland Europe, but for the most part remained focused on London. Members left, fell into Torpor or met Final Death, of course, but others joined aswell, including Dragolescu’s first childe, an Irish medium named Bridget Derry. The coterie reached 16 members in December of 1913, and on the Winter Solstace that year, Ioan Dragolescu once again shocked the Kindred world.
Over the course of the night, Dragolescu used methods of torture and execution designed and perfected by his infamous ancestor to murder the five mortals. Two of the five remained as ghosts. Dragolescu then used a heretofore-unseen Discipline to control and draw power from these shades and immobilize the non-Ventrue Kindred present (six of those present were Lords). These Ventrue then committed Diablerie upon their prisoners, each one consuming the souls of two of the helpless captives. Dragolescu himself committed the foul crime three times in one night.
Not all of the Ventrue present that night came through intact, of course. Two of them went mad, and were destroyed the following dawn. The others, though, pledged themselves to Dragolescu and became part of his new bloodline. “The dead shall bow before us, nourish us, guide us and provide for us,” Dragolescu reportedly said before falling into slumber that morning. “The Coils of the Dragon begin with flesh, progress to blood and end with souls.”
Needless to say, there were repercussions.
The Ventrue are no stranger to madness. Dragolescu, by the time of the Blue Hand Massacre, was already suffering from delusions of grandeur and mild Paranoia. His triple Diablerie made his blood powerful and granted him facility in Disciplines he had previously never known, but it also worsened his already wavering sanity. Following the Massacre, Dragolescu began referring to himself in plural. At first, other Kindred thought this to be a form of royal “we,” but it soon became clear that Dragolescu actually believed that he was more than one being. Members of his bloodline adopted this quirk as well, but only after they had achieved some proficiency in Dragolescu’s new Discipline.
Worse still, the Dragolescu discovered that their minds were never at rest. Plagued by knowledge of the afterlife and (for those who emerged from the Blue Hand Massacre) by the remnants of the souls they had consumed, they could not take solace from a day of sleep or even a sense of achieving a goal. Ad infinitum became the bloodline’s watchwords, and no accomplishment, no victory, no discovery would ever satisfy them again. It was this attitude that earned the bloodline the nickname of “the Restless.”
The new bloodline’s members spent several weeks after the Massacre consolidating their forces and continuing their Research. One of them, though records are unclear as to which one, sired a childe during this time as well. The childe fled London in a panic after an “incident” at a haunt, and nothing more is known of her, including whether or not her Dragolescu heritage ever came to the fore.
Had Dragolescu made public appearances after that point, he probably wouldn’t have survived. By his own admission, though, he was finished with playing the political games of Kindred society, stating that they could never be resolved and their players would learn nothing. He and his bloodline had other concerns.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the Dragolescu bloodline made great advances in The Ordo Dracul’s understanding of ghosts and haunts. The Restless corresponded with Kogaions and Kindred scholars across Europe and in the United States. Dragolescu stayed in London, but wrote frequent letters to members of his bloodline in his native Romania. Some of those letters survive, and express a deep-seated longing to return:
”We dream again of Romania, of our home and our mortal family. Decades since we died, and yet we are still only ancilla in the eyes of the Kindred. The other Kindred can rest, but they are single beings, one body and one soul. We are many…
”Is it possible to return? Does anything exist outside of London, outside our adopted country? Does the Thames lead anywhere, do the ships that leave port ever arrive at their destinations?
”Is Romania, then, our home? Or have we always been here? No, Romania exists and is our home, for we are descended from Him, from Vlad the Impaler. Such ghosts he must have created. Such restlessness there in the land of our birth.”
Whether or not that was true will never be known. Over the course of the night, Dragolescu claims, the voices of the spirits around him grew in volume until he could no longer hear those physically present. He called upon his fellow Restless to enact rituals to rid the area of spirits so that he could think straight, and then explained what he had seen. He claimed that the Dragon was rising, and that as before, he would lay waste to his country and slay a multitude. This time, however, he would use the “breath of the Dragon,” rather than his claws. None of the assembled Kindred had any idea what this could mean, including Dragolescu himself. As the decade wore on, however, the meaning became horribly clear.
The Second World War was hard on England’s Kindred. With so many of England’s mortal sons fighting, the vampires of the Isles had trouble feeding. Many Kindred sank into Torpor rather than take the chance of being bombed or starved. Dragolescu, however, was more alert than he had been in ages. He followed Germany’s progress doggedly, and actually had to be discouraged from traveling east to visit the country himself. (His bloodline felt that his desire to do so wasn’t entirely rational and would end in disaster.) As the war progressed, Dragolescu’s dreams became filled with images of poison, starvation and death, and he quietly supposed that Hitler was the rebirth of Dracula and that all other nations would fall before the Reich.
Needless to say, this attitude wasn’t popular among the Kindred of England. His own covenant warned him to keep his opinions about Hitler to himself. Expressing support for Hitler was insane enough, but any statement that could link the Nazis with The Ordo Dracul on an ideological level invited reprisals from other covenants and mystic societies, and the Dragons themselves. Dragolescu protested that he was not a Nazi and, in fact, didn’t care one way or another about Hitler’s racial or political propaganda. He was only concerned with the effect Hitler’s actions would have on the ghostly population of the world; for much as Dracula had done in the 15th century, Hitler was on the verge of wiping out a significant percentage of his country’s citizens. In the end, however, Dragolescu agreed to keep quiet, stating that “the end will come to pass no matter if we are silenced, and the unquiet spirits will serve us as we strive towards infinity.” By then, though, several of the influential Kindred of London, and of England as a whole, knew the name of Ioan Dragolescu, and equated it both with The Ordo Dracul and with the fascism of Nazi Germany.
The Sworn of Mysteries and the Sworn of the Axe noticed this, and began keeping a very close eye on Dragolescu.
A month later, Dragolescu began a ritual designed to make his undead body the conduit for every ghost murdered during Hitler’s regime. He felt that with that much spiritual power at his command, he could give some new purpose to the millions of dead, salvage some new power from the ashes of Europe and, in the process, become what Hitler could not. Whether or not it would have worked is unknown. Kindred of The Ordo Dracul swooped down upon Dragolescu’s home as the ritual built in power, razing the building and destroying his notes.
Dragolescu faced a trial by the Sworn of Mysteries. His crime was subjugating himself to the spirits, which carried a penalty of destruction. During the trial it became clear to Dragolescu that he had no way of successfully fighting the charge. He had made his bloodline a scapegoat, and for all he had contributed, The Ordo Dracul would never trust the Dragolescu bloodline again. Dragolescu issued a prediction to the court on August 7, 1945. He stated that a member of his bloodline would one night arise to complete the ritual he had begun, and become the unliving embodiment of all of world’s unquiet dead. That day, awaiting sentencing, Dragolescu somehow immolated himself, possibly with the help of one or more ghosts.
The Dragolescu are ambitious and driven, but, like Ioan himself, most of them are overly focused on the spiritual and ignore temporal realities as much as possible. As such, The Ordo Dracul finds them useful when dealing with spirits, but almost never includes them in diplomatic coteries. Modern Dragolescu sometimes feel cheated by Ioan’s actions, and many search for a way to redeem their line in the eyes of their covenant. Despite all that has happened, the Dragolescu are extremely loyal to the Dragons, and still take extreme pride in their founder’s relationship to Dracula.
A Traveler from the East
Ioan Dragolescu, the bloodline’s founder, changed his name to John T. Darlington when he arrived in London in 1884. The story of his Embrace is strange. Ioan was a Romanian doctor fleeing his native lands for reasons he has never fully explained (but given that his interest incommuning with and enslaving the dead by his own admission before his Embrace, that might have had something to do with it). While on the ship, Ioan met a vampire of Clan Ventrue who had once been a member of The Ordo Dracul, and was, like Ioan, fleeing from retribution. A storm blew the ship off course and the two of them commiserated and found common ground on a number of points, not the least of which was “modern” medicine as applied to theosophical and metaphysical problems.Ioan’s sire, whom he swore never to name, decided that while he himself was a poor fit for The Ordo Dracul, this young physician would be perfect. Since the Ventrue had left his old life behind, he suggested that Ioan undergo the Embrace and begin his unlife in London. Ioan agreed, and rose the following night as one of the Kindred.
With his sire’s help, Ioan Dragolescu, now John Darlington, sought out the Dragons of London and easily passed their tests of membership. He particularly excelled in The Coil of Blood, learning all three tiers within a decade. In 1895, Sigmund Freud’s work inspired him to rethink the way the Ordo had been approaching their methods of teaching, and Darlington became one of the first Dragons to incorporate psychoanalysis into preparations for chrysalises.
His experiments with these methods didn’t last long, however (although his psychological work did receive a number of followers, and the “Darlington Methods” of preparing for learning The Coil of the Soul is still popular tonight). In 1897, the publication of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula threw the covenant and Kindred society in general, particularly in England, into an uproar. John Darlington was known to London’s Kindred as a wealthy Ventrue who chose Research and scholarly pursuits over covenant issues, — for at the time, The Ordo Dracul was more a secret society than a covenant. Following publication of Stoker’s novel, however, The Ordo Dracul was revealed for what it was and any “unaligned” Kindred came under close scrutiny. Darlington decided that the direct approach was safest, and announced to the vampiric community that he was a Dragon.
The Ordo Dracul’s leadership in London had mixed feelings about this admission. On the one hand, Darlington was a respected membership of the undead community and a promising student. On the other, he was cocky and bold, and worse, he was a neonate (if a talented one). Gossip in London seemed to indicate that Darlington was either going to greet a sunrise soon or was going to receive a promotion within The Ordo Dracul. His next announcement clinched the decision.
Blood of My Blood
“Over the last few years, I have carefully researched my own mortal lineage,” explained Darlington in letters sent to key members of The Ordo Dracul and The Invictus in London. “As some of you know, I am not born of England, much though I have come to love her in my time here. My native land is that of Stoker’s whimsical fable, and indeed, in my living veins ran the blood of Vlad Dracula himself. I am a direct descendant of his line, and I am proud to claim membership in both his family and the covenant that he founded. The name I was born to is Ioan Dragolescu, and that is the name I shall use in Kindred circles henceforth.”Darlington wisely went underground for a short period of time following this announcement, to avoid any hasty action on any other vampire’s part. The Ordo Dracul and The Invictus both researched his claim and found that he was, in fact, correct. The Dragolescu family was descended from a peasant family that Dracula had elevated to noble Status in 1457 after fathering a bastard with one of their daughters. The blood claim was weak, but true, and this left The Ordo Dracul wondering again what to do about John Darlington/Ioan Dragolescu.
The Restless Dead
In 1901, a few nights after Queen Victoria died, Ioan Dragolescu came out of hiding and reentered vampire society. Apart from using his real name among vampires (though he kept his “John Darlington” handle for use when dealing with mortals), very little about him seemed to have changed. Upon returning to London, he immediately gathered a coterie of Kindred familiar with the spirits of the dead and began Research into the mysteries of ghosts.Why the sudden interest in spirits? In actuality, it wasn’t sudden. Dragolescu had always found ghosts fascinating, but, like most Kindred, he possessed little facility for dealing with them himself. After the whirlwind of activity surrounding his lineage and the exposure of The Ordo Dracul had died down somewhat, however, he made these spirits his primary focus. During his time in hiding (which he claimed was spent in Ireland), he received a visit from a ghost of a vampire victim. Fascinated by the notion that Kindred the world over had been creating ghosts for time immemorial, he decided that these restless shades might carry information crucial to the transcendence of the undead.
The Kindred he assembled were of various ages and covenants, but all shared some experience and knowledge about ghosts. On the night of their first meeting, Dragolescu put forth his notion that the departed could act as teachers and perhaps servants to the undead, a notion that at least one of the Kindred present (a Daeva belonging to the Lancea Sanctum) found offensive. As she turned to leave, a disembodied hand, glowing a luminous shade of blue, appeared in the air and gestured for her to return to her seat. Unnerved yet inspired by this event, the Kindred took the name “the Blue Hand Coterie” thereafter.
During the years following, the Blue Hand participated in séances and exorcisms as often as it could. It was during this period that Dragolescu put forth his theories of Essentiaphagia or “soul eating,” which would later evolveinto a Discipline of the same name. The Blue Hand investigated hauntings all over the British Isles and sometimeseven ventured to mainland Europe, but for the most part remained focused on London. Members left, fell into Torpor or met Final Death, of course, but others joined aswell, including Dragolescu’s first childe, an Irish medium named Bridget Derry. The coterie reached 16 members in December of 1913, and on the Winter Solstace that year, Ioan Dragolescu once again shocked the Kindred world.
The Blue Hand Massacre
Sixteen Kindred and five mortals entered Dragolescu’s home outside of London on the night of December 21, 1913. Included among the Kindred were the two remaining original members of the Blue Hand (one of whom was the Daeva who had triggered the appearance of the hand), Dragolescu himself and Bridget Derry. The other 12 Kindred were mostly neonates, some of The Ordo Dracul and some of other covenants, but all of whom had aided Dragolescu in finding andcataloging ghosts. The mortals were “sensitives” and mediums, and all were there under duress.Over the course of the night, Dragolescu used methods of torture and execution designed and perfected by his infamous ancestor to murder the five mortals. Two of the five remained as ghosts. Dragolescu then used a heretofore-unseen Discipline to control and draw power from these shades and immobilize the non-Ventrue Kindred present (six of those present were Lords). These Ventrue then committed Diablerie upon their prisoners, each one consuming the souls of two of the helpless captives. Dragolescu himself committed the foul crime three times in one night.
Not all of the Ventrue present that night came through intact, of course. Two of them went mad, and were destroyed the following dawn. The others, though, pledged themselves to Dragolescu and became part of his new bloodline. “The dead shall bow before us, nourish us, guide us and provide for us,” Dragolescu reportedly said before falling into slumber that morning. “The Coils of the Dragon begin with flesh, progress to blood and end with souls.”
Needless to say, there were repercussions.
The Madness of the Dragolescu
Diablerie is a violation of The Traditions and invites retribution from several quarters, but Dragolescu and his conspirators had thought ahead on that point. The Kindred whom they chose to diablerize had no childer and their sires were either dead or hadn’t been heard from in decades. Dragolescu knew that he couldn’t get away with his crimes forever, but hoped to forestall the consequences until he and his bloodline had the support of The Ordo Dracul. In that he was successful. The more important cost of his action was to his mind and soul.The Ventrue are no stranger to madness. Dragolescu, by the time of the Blue Hand Massacre, was already suffering from delusions of grandeur and mild Paranoia. His triple Diablerie made his blood powerful and granted him facility in Disciplines he had previously never known, but it also worsened his already wavering sanity. Following the Massacre, Dragolescu began referring to himself in plural. At first, other Kindred thought this to be a form of royal “we,” but it soon became clear that Dragolescu actually believed that he was more than one being. Members of his bloodline adopted this quirk as well, but only after they had achieved some proficiency in Dragolescu’s new Discipline.
Worse still, the Dragolescu discovered that their minds were never at rest. Plagued by knowledge of the afterlife and (for those who emerged from the Blue Hand Massacre) by the remnants of the souls they had consumed, they could not take solace from a day of sleep or even a sense of achieving a goal. Ad infinitum became the bloodline’s watchwords, and no accomplishment, no victory, no discovery would ever satisfy them again. It was this attitude that earned the bloodline the nickname of “the Restless.”
The new bloodline’s members spent several weeks after the Massacre consolidating their forces and continuing their Research. One of them, though records are unclear as to which one, sired a childe during this time as well. The childe fled London in a panic after an “incident” at a haunt, and nothing more is known of her, including whether or not her Dragolescu heritage ever came to the fore.
The Ordo Dracul Accepts the Restless
Dragolescu met with London’s Kogaion, and the two of them spent four full nights in conversation. When they emerged, that Kogaion met with members of the Sworn of all three Orders, and after much deliberation (during which Dragolescu and his followers were kept under “house arrest,” probably to protect them), decided that Dragolescu’s previous and ongoing contributions to The Ordo Dracul were enough to balance the crimes he and his followers had committed. The covenant provided protection to the Restless, in some cases promising the rest of Kindred society that they would handle punishment internally. The First World War, of course, probably acted to distract Kindred in England from the matter of Dragolescu, and some have even postulated that he might have somehow sensed the turmoil to come and chosen the date for the Blue Hand Massacre based upon that sense.Had Dragolescu made public appearances after that point, he probably wouldn’t have survived. By his own admission, though, he was finished with playing the political games of Kindred society, stating that they could never be resolved and their players would learn nothing. He and his bloodline had other concerns.
During the 1920s and 1930s, the Dragolescu bloodline made great advances in The Ordo Dracul’s understanding of ghosts and haunts. The Restless corresponded with Kogaions and Kindred scholars across Europe and in the United States. Dragolescu stayed in London, but wrote frequent letters to members of his bloodline in his native Romania. Some of those letters survive, and express a deep-seated longing to return:
”We dream again of Romania, of our home and our mortal family. Decades since we died, and yet we are still only ancilla in the eyes of the Kindred. The other Kindred can rest, but they are single beings, one body and one soul. We are many…
”Is it possible to return? Does anything exist outside of London, outside our adopted country? Does the Thames lead anywhere, do the ships that leave port ever arrive at their destinations?
”Is Romania, then, our home? Or have we always been here? No, Romania exists and is our home, for we are descended from Him, from Vlad the Impaler. Such ghosts he must have created. Such restlessness there in the land of our birth.”
The Beginning of the End
No matter what his feelings about his homeland, Dragolescu did not leave England. In 1933, Dragolescu received a number of guests, most of them members of The Ordo Dracul, at his home in London. It was the first time since the Blue Hand Massacre that he had allowed Kindred other than those of his bloodline into his house, and certainly those present felt a great deal of trepidation. Rumors about a repeat of the Massacre flew, but Dragolescu made his plans very public, assuring the Kindred in power that he had no intention of harming any of his guests.Whether or not that was true will never be known. Over the course of the night, Dragolescu claims, the voices of the spirits around him grew in volume until he could no longer hear those physically present. He called upon his fellow Restless to enact rituals to rid the area of spirits so that he could think straight, and then explained what he had seen. He claimed that the Dragon was rising, and that as before, he would lay waste to his country and slay a multitude. This time, however, he would use the “breath of the Dragon,” rather than his claws. None of the assembled Kindred had any idea what this could mean, including Dragolescu himself. As the decade wore on, however, the meaning became horribly clear.
The Second World War was hard on England’s Kindred. With so many of England’s mortal sons fighting, the vampires of the Isles had trouble feeding. Many Kindred sank into Torpor rather than take the chance of being bombed or starved. Dragolescu, however, was more alert than he had been in ages. He followed Germany’s progress doggedly, and actually had to be discouraged from traveling east to visit the country himself. (His bloodline felt that his desire to do so wasn’t entirely rational and would end in disaster.) As the war progressed, Dragolescu’s dreams became filled with images of poison, starvation and death, and he quietly supposed that Hitler was the rebirth of Dracula and that all other nations would fall before the Reich.
Needless to say, this attitude wasn’t popular among the Kindred of England. His own covenant warned him to keep his opinions about Hitler to himself. Expressing support for Hitler was insane enough, but any statement that could link the Nazis with The Ordo Dracul on an ideological level invited reprisals from other covenants and mystic societies, and the Dragons themselves. Dragolescu protested that he was not a Nazi and, in fact, didn’t care one way or another about Hitler’s racial or political propaganda. He was only concerned with the effect Hitler’s actions would have on the ghostly population of the world; for much as Dracula had done in the 15th century, Hitler was on the verge of wiping out a significant percentage of his country’s citizens. In the end, however, Dragolescu agreed to keep quiet, stating that “the end will come to pass no matter if we are silenced, and the unquiet spirits will serve us as we strive towards infinity.” By then, though, several of the influential Kindred of London, and of England as a whole, knew the name of Ioan Dragolescu, and equated it both with The Ordo Dracul and with the fascism of Nazi Germany.
The Sworn of Mysteries and the Sworn of the Axe noticed this, and began keeping a very close eye on Dragolescu.
The Dragon Falls
In April of 1945, Adolf Hitler committed suicide. A week later, Germany surrendered. Dragolescu, listening as his adopted country celebrated the demise of his hero, lost the few remaining shreds of Humanity and sanity that he possessed.A month later, Dragolescu began a ritual designed to make his undead body the conduit for every ghost murdered during Hitler’s regime. He felt that with that much spiritual power at his command, he could give some new purpose to the millions of dead, salvage some new power from the ashes of Europe and, in the process, become what Hitler could not. Whether or not it would have worked is unknown. Kindred of The Ordo Dracul swooped down upon Dragolescu’s home as the ritual built in power, razing the building and destroying his notes.
Dragolescu faced a trial by the Sworn of Mysteries. His crime was subjugating himself to the spirits, which carried a penalty of destruction. During the trial it became clear to Dragolescu that he had no way of successfully fighting the charge. He had made his bloodline a scapegoat, and for all he had contributed, The Ordo Dracul would never trust the Dragolescu bloodline again. Dragolescu issued a prediction to the court on August 7, 1945. He stated that a member of his bloodline would one night arise to complete the ritual he had begun, and become the unliving embodiment of all of world’s unquiet dead. That day, awaiting sentencing, Dragolescu somehow immolated himself, possibly with the help of one or more ghosts.
The Dragolescu Tonight
The Dragolescu bloodline, however, was too valuable to The Ordo Dracul to exterminate. Their facility with ghosts and haunts makes them superb “bloodhounds,” and members of the bloodline tend to be sent to cities with large numbers of reported hauntings. The stigma of their founder’s madness and devotion to Hitler’s Germany has stuck with the bloodline, however. While Kindred outside of The Ordo Dracul have rarely even heard of the Dragolescu, those inside the covenant call them “Pretenders,” and usually claim that their Essentiaphagia Discipline is nothing more than a specialized form of Auspex that allows communication with ghosts. This misconception suits the Dragolescu just fine, as they are still trying to live down their founder’s actions.The Dragolescu are ambitious and driven, but, like Ioan himself, most of them are overly focused on the spiritual and ignore temporal realities as much as possible. As such, The Ordo Dracul finds them useful when dealing with spirits, but almost never includes them in diplomatic coteries. Modern Dragolescu sometimes feel cheated by Ioan’s actions, and many search for a way to redeem their line in the eyes of their covenant. Despite all that has happened, the Dragolescu are extremely loyal to the Dragons, and still take extreme pride in their founder’s relationship to Dracula.
Culture
Culture and cultural heritage
Background: The Dragolescu Embrace almost exclusively from the ranks of mortals who have some affinity for sensing, communicating with or even controlling ghosts. The Essentiaphagia Discipline is much easier to master if the practitioner instinctively understands some of the truths about spirits, after all. The Pretenders aren’t as particular as their parent clan about Embracing from high society, but they do prefer people educated in classics, literature, folklore, history and the occult, which aren’t exactly blue-collar pursuits.
Ventrue outside of the bloodline may join, but The Ordo Dracul regulates this very carefully. Only those Ventrue who are judged to be strong enough to handle the restlessness and mental rigor of the bloodline are allowed to become Dragolescu. Ventrue who do often take “Darlington” as a middle name as a nod of respect to their new family.
Ventrue outside of the bloodline may join, but The Ordo Dracul regulates this very carefully. Only those Ventrue who are judged to be strong enough to handle the restlessness and mental rigor of the bloodline are allowed to become Dragolescu. Ventrue who do often take “Darlington” as a middle name as a nod of respect to their new family.
Common Dress code
Appearance: The Dragolescu are born of nobility, and, being a Ventrue bloodline, many of them are acquainted with high society. Their attire tends to be slightly dressier than appropriate for most occasions, and is often somewhat outdated, in favor of fashions from the 1940s and 1950s. Since Dragolescu are so often in motion, they tend to favor clothing that holds up to travel and activity well — something they can wear while kneeling in soot.
Very few non-Caucasian Pretenders exist, but this is more a result of the bloodline’s European location of origin than of any racial preference. Non-Caucasian Dragolescu are still likely to be English or otherwise European.
Very few non-Caucasian Pretenders exist, but this is more a result of the bloodline’s European location of origin than of any racial preference. Non-Caucasian Dragolescu are still likely to be English or otherwise European.
Art & Architecture
Haven: Unlike some Ventrue, the Dragolescu don’t tend toward lavish havens. Spacious, yes, especially if the Pretender in question is in the habit of creating ghosts rather than simply using them. But since the Dragolescu don’t rest easily, they don’t spend much time actually in their havens (again, unless engaged in research). A Pretender’s Haven is likely to be sparsely furnished but overflowing with books, notes and spiritualism paraphernalia, and might either be meticulously ordered or so cluttered that only the owner could possibly make sense of it.
Major organizations
Covenant: Despite their travails, the Dragolescu are for the most part still loyal The Ordo Dracul. What few remain usually become spiritual bloodhounds for the covenant, seeking out haunts and ghosts — under strict supervision, of course. Occasionally, a Ventrue from another covenant, usually The Circle of the Crone, joins the bloodline. The Invictus of some domains welcomes members of this bloodline, if they can verify their lineage back to Ioan Dragolescu. Why the First Estate is willing to accept the Pretenders is unknown.
Organization: The seat of Dragolescu power, such as it is, still rests in London. Despite the fact that the bloodline founder was Romanian by birth, the bloodline thinks of itself as undeniably English. Beyond that, a city with a Dragolescu presence typically also has a greater-than-average number of haunts. The Ordo Dracul keeps very close track of the Pretenders, however, never sure if or when Ioan Dragolescu’s last prediction will come to pass.
Organization: The seat of Dragolescu power, such as it is, still rests in London. Despite the fact that the bloodline founder was Romanian by birth, the bloodline thinks of itself as undeniably English. Beyond that, a city with a Dragolescu presence typically also has a greater-than-average number of haunts. The Ordo Dracul keeps very close track of the Pretenders, however, never sure if or when Ioan Dragolescu’s last prediction will come to pass.
Nickname: Formerly the Restless, now Pretenders
Character Creation: Mental Attributes are usually primary, but Physical or Social might be secondary, depending on the approach of a given Pretender. Skills depend on the background of the Kindred in question, but every Dragolescu has some rating in Academics, Investigation and Occult (thus Mental Skills are usually primary). Mental Merits are appropriate, though Social Merits tend to dry up quickly, given the bloodline’s reputation in The Ordo Dracul. Remember that a second dot of Blood Potency is necessary to be a member of any bloodline.
Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Dominate, Essentiaphagia, Resilience
Weakness: Dragolescu suffer the Ventrue clan weakness (-2 penalty to Humanity rolls to avoid acquiring Derangements after failing a degeneration roll). In addition, the Dragolescu know that the soul is eternal. Far from giving them hope, however, this knowledge wears on them, grinding their souls down as they face the prospect of eternity without rest or succor. Dragolescu characters cannot regain Willpower in any other way than by fulfilling their Virtue or Vice. They do not regain Willpower through rest, accomplishing goals or even at the end of a story.
Concepts: Blue Hand apologist, detective, disgraced Ventrue scion, genealogist, ghost hunter, ghost wrangler, haunt architect, horror writer, medium, prophet, student to the Kogaion
Historians sometimes wonder why Darlington sent his letter to The Invictus as well as his own covenant. The Invictus, after all, was probably the most powerful covenant in London, and could easily have covered up the information in the letter and slain Darlington. The simple answer is that he wanted two opposing factions (the Ordo Dracul and the First Estate) to see his claims — but then why not involve The Lancea Sanctum or The Circle of the Crone?
The answer is that Darlington knew of The Invictus’ penchant for placing importance on Blood Ties. While normally their interest rests largely with vampiric rather than mortal lineage, a claim of kinship with Dracula (who, remember, was much on the minds of Kindred at the time) was a claim The Invictus had to investigate, both as governors and as aristocrats. The remarkable thing about Darlington’s decision wasn’t that he chose to involve the First Estate, but that he trusted Invictus genealogists to tell the truth about their findings.
Parent ethnicities
Bloodline Disciplines: Animalism, Dominate, Essentiaphagia, Resilience
Weakness: Dragolescu suffer the Ventrue clan weakness (-2 penalty to Humanity rolls to avoid acquiring Derangements after failing a degeneration roll). In addition, the Dragolescu know that the soul is eternal. Far from giving them hope, however, this knowledge wears on them, grinding their souls down as they face the prospect of eternity without rest or succor. Dragolescu characters cannot regain Willpower in any other way than by fulfilling their Virtue or Vice. They do not regain Willpower through rest, accomplishing goals or even at the end of a story.
Concepts: Blue Hand apologist, detective, disgraced Ventrue scion, genealogist, ghost hunter, ghost wrangler, haunt architect, horror writer, medium, prophet, student to the Kogaion
Why Invictus?
Historians sometimes wonder why Darlington sent his letter to The Invictus as well as his own covenant. The Invictus, after all, was probably the most powerful covenant in London, and could easily have covered up the information in the letter and slain Darlington. The simple answer is that he wanted two opposing factions (the Ordo Dracul and the First Estate) to see his claims — but then why not involve The Lancea Sanctum or The Circle of the Crone?The answer is that Darlington knew of The Invictus’ penchant for placing importance on Blood Ties. While normally their interest rests largely with vampiric rather than mortal lineage, a claim of kinship with Dracula (who, remember, was much on the minds of Kindred at the time) was a claim The Invictus had to investigate, both as governors and as aristocrats. The remarkable thing about Darlington’s decision wasn’t that he chose to involve the First Estate, but that he trusted Invictus genealogists to tell the truth about their findings.
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