Count Dracuvoir

The ill-fated relic of a bygone age, **Count Dracuvoir** is a monster who has dominated and terrorized Yvelsylvania for centuries. Once a judicious warlord who defended the land from Tiamat's coalition, he has since succumbed to dark powers and taken to preying upon the innocent at night. He persists beyond the grave, a blight that suffocates the land long after the battlements were deserted. The Count is called *nosferatu* by the people of Carpathes Village, who have been subject to constant hardship under his evil eye.

## History

The Count keeps an extensive record of his past achievements, even if parts of it have aged to dust to his chagrin. According to his accounts, he was a prince who thwarted a tribe of invading Golurk and chased them across the river Datnu into their own country—this among other great successes that established him as a shrewd commander in battle. He routed invaders and barbarians on numerous occasions, expanding his nation's borders with each victory and holding them impressively. For his merciless guardianship, he was respected by many and loved by few. Still, the Count married and retired to his castle when he had appointed officers he could trust to secure the frontier.

Unfortunately, his retirement did not last. Across the sea, the Dragon Queen Tiamat was rapidly expanding her dark empire and becoming a threat unlike any the world had faced before. She and her allies quickly turned their attention to Raltsylvania once their continent was suitably yoked. The war between Tiamat's Atramentium and the Count's Raltsylvania was long and bloody. Both sides committed atrocities, including the impaling of prisoners, as was customary at the time. With no end in sight, Tiamat elected to awaken the ultimate weapon on her enemy's soil in spite of her counselors' protests. What ensued was nothing less than the removal of all life energy in Raltsylvania. The Count, personally leading his army to cut down the invader, was at the epicenter of the devastation. He perished with his soldiers among the trenches.

Roughly one hundred years passed, and the wailing shades of the entire country had ample time to stew their collective grudge. Not least among these wounded souls was the Count himself, who died cursing the name of his enemy. Hundreds of others, perhaps thousands, gravitated to the Count's undying bloodlust, and in time they congealed into a malevolent Thing of Shadow. Inhabiting the weathered bones of the fallen warlord, the evil collective reconstructed his visage and became *nosferatu*—vampire. The resultant creature wears the warlord's face and retains his identity, but at its core it is a wretched engine of ruination. As the Pokémon who had recolonized the dead country soon learned, the mysterious Count Dracuvoir hungered for the life he and his army had lost.

## Personality

"*The House of Dracuvoir has ever been the heart's blood, the brains, the sword of our people.*"
— Count Dracuvoir professing his proud stewardship of Yvelsylvania
Count Dracuvoir manifests as a grizzled and aged gentleman of outstanding couth. He speaks with an inflexibly thick accent, but he carries himself with an elegant and aristocratic air. He is fair to the extent that he concedes his defeat at the hands of Team Baywatch and Dr. Van Slowking and does not seek revenge against those who decisively thwart his designs. The Count's cordiality includes polite address and even hospitality towards weary travelers, but he does not take insults lightly. Any disrespect towards the history of his nation is likely to incur his wrath fatally. Moreover, he completely abandons his pretenses of warmth when he sets about to quench his predatory thirst for life. The Count is known to abduct innocent children from the villages surrounding his castle and coldly ignore the wailing of their mothers until his wolves have bled them out too.

The vampire's worldview is as warped as it is eccentric. In spite of his warlike past and monstrous present, he ironically espouses the beauty and sanctity of all life. Perhaps out of memories of his country's former glory, he treasures symbols of vitality and despises those of death and undeath. On occasion, he even supports attempts to rejuvenate the land, such as the application of sacred ashes. Yet at the same time, the Count revels in the destruction and consumption of life—he adores the living in the capacity of a connoisseur as much as a naturalist. His opinions on matters of good and evil compound the mystery. He glorifies life but maintains that Pokémon are inherently evil creatures. He holds all of creation responsible for the catastrophe that befell him and his fellows. Thus, the Count rationalizes the devastation he causes and the underlying malice he exhibits towards all living things.

Count Dracuvoir keeps a Woobat companion named Renfield, but the bat is little more than a slave to the fiendish vampire.

## Legendary powers

The Count is a monster created by the necromantic energies of the ultimate weapon and a shadowy grudge. He possesses many unnatural abilities.

* Super strength, agility, and durability
* Tireless stamina in dark of night
* Illusory control over his own shadow and reflection
* Masterful psychic levitation and flight
* Masterful hypnosis and telepathy
* Psychic control over Woobat, Lycanroc, and potentially other Pokémon
* Supernaturally secure footing on vertical and inverted surfaces

Nevertheless, the Count's curse imparts a number of crippling weaknesses on him in addition to his uncanny powers.

* Inability to rest, except in Yvelsylvanian soil
* Inability to cross water, except at slack or flood of tide
* Inability to enter buildings constructed since his transformation, unless invited
* Insatiable predatory attraction to other Pokémon's vitality
* Burn wounds upon contact with Mystic Water

Count Dracuvoir is also known to react violently to garlic, but it is unclear whether or not this aversion relates to his undeath.