Oak Stake

The Oak Stake is a weapon in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. The player will need it to collect Dracula's corpse at the mansions.
==Description==
Available for purchase from Oak Stake merchants hidden somewhere inside each of the five mansions. The Oak Stake is a one-time use weapon; it is thrown in a straight trajectory, similarly to the Dagger, only much slower. Once it is used, it's gone forever and another must be purchased. They are exclusively used to shatter the orbs containing Dracula's remains. If a stake is used against an enemy, it will simply pass flying through it without inflicting any damage. Furthermore, stakes cannot be thrown outside of mansions (except in certain outdoor locations, like at the entrance of a mansion).
It isn't mandatory to buy the Oak Stake from the merchant dwelling in the same mansion as the relic it holds; in fact, in some cases it's advisable to take a moment to buy another stake after having acquired the relic in a mansion if the merchant in it is still easily accessible, in case it's known that the one in the next mansion will be harder to reach (this is especially true for the merchant in Bodley Mansion, who dwells in a very secluded area where the player is required to take a very long upper path full of powerful enemies, find a hidden pathway behind some breakable blocks, and then find yet another hidden path by passing through a couple of illusory blocks; whereas the room with the orb is easily accessible from the entrance and the relic can be obtained right away if already holding an Oak Stake in the player's inventory).
==Other appearances==
===Castlevania (animated series)===
The stake is referenced in the animated series in the seventh episode of the second season, "For Love", where after a long fight between Dracula and his son Alucard –and with the odds against the latter– realizing all the suffering his actions have brought, the Vampire Lord tells his son that he is sorry and lowers his guard, allowing Alucard to pierce his heart with a broken wooden bedpost from his childhood's bed as he hugs him, dying afterward.
==Item Data==
==Dialogue Data==
==Gallery==
Oak Stake - Simon's Quest - 01.png|Oak Stake artwork from the Japanese Simon's Quest instruction booklet.
Wooden stake - Animated series - 01.png|Alucard holding a broken bedpost from his childhood's bed in the Castlevania animated series.
==Trivia==
*A cross-shaped Stake was originally intended to appear in the first Castlevania, as seen in design materials found in the Castlevania Anniversary Collection. It was intended to be used against Count Dracula, who could not be defeated without it.
*In traditional folklore, pounding a wooden stake into a vampire's heart is said to be one of the assured methods of killing one, thus this item's inclusion in Castlevania II: Simon's Quest, among other weapons and artifacts that supposedly can slay the undead. Strangely, though, the oak stake has no effect on Dracula during the final battle, it will simply fly through him harmlessly.
*Although the Oak Stake makes no further appearances in the games themselves, it was mentioned in the background section of Castlevania: Bloodlines, where it was revealed that Quincy Morris in his final moments used a wooden stake to fell Dracula. It is also to be noted that in the original novel, Dracula was instead killed with a Bowie knife instead of an oak stake (which was only used to pin Dracula down instead of directly killing him). On a similar note, it was mentioned in a fax from Konami to Electronic Gaming Monthly around the time of Bloodlines release that Lucy Seward, Eric Lecarde's fiancée, had a stake placed into her heart and decapitated post-mortem to ensure she didn't return as a vampire.
*A Stake sub-weapon was planned to appear in Castlevania (N64), but was scrapped on the final release of the game, along with many other planned assets, due to rushed development to meet release deadlines. An image of it and other planned sub-weapons appeared on game magazine previews of the era.Castlevania 64 cut sub-weapons and items.
==References==
Category:Weapons
Category:Simon's Quest Items