Carmilla

The Blood Countess

## Names and Epithets

### Aliases

Mircalla von Karnstein, Millarca von Karnstein, Carm, Camilla, Karmilla, Elizabeth Bathory, Erzsebet Ondrushko, Mistress C, Vampira

### Titles

Most Well-Known Female Vampire, Queen of the Damned, Vampire Queen, Queen of the Vampires, Lady in Red, the Red Goddess

## Profile

### Occupation

Founder and Head of the Carmilla Faction, Queen of the Vampires, General of the Scarlet Brood, Human Countess

### Affiliations

Carmilla Faction (Founder), Crimson Court (Head), Scarlet Brood (Member), Carmilla (Novel), House of Karnstein, Carmilla’s Castle, Council of Red Sisters

## Relationships

### Consorts

Laura, Bertha Rheinfeldt (Deceased), Unnamed Partners

### Parents

Unnamed Parents, Lilita Morgan (Adoptive)

### Other Relationships

General Spielsdorf (Respectful Enemy), Cornelius von Vordenberg (Enemy), Lilith (Benefactor), Count Dracula (Fellow Vampire), Vlad III (Fellow Vampire), Count Orlok (Fellow Vampire), Absalom (Master), Hector van Neck (Former Sire)

## Other

### Equipment

Karnstein (Chainsaw-like Spike Whip), Bloodstorm (Vampire Staff), Iron Maidens

### Status

Alive

**Mircalla von Karnstein**, simply known as **Carmilla**, is the most well known female Vampire, the founder of the Carmilla Faction, and the head of the Crimson Court, her own coven, and a highly prominent member of the Scarlet Brood.

## Overview

She was the lover of the human-turned vampire Laura Hollis. She was the vampiress that loyally serves the Vampire God Absalom and brought the Nosferatu Count Orlox, Count Dracula, and vampire king Vlad III to Absalom. Carmilla had nocturnal habits, but was not confined to the darkness. She had unearthly beauty, and was able to change her form and to pass through solid walls. Her animal alter ego was a monstrous black cat, not a large dog as Dracula. She did, however, sleep in a coffin. Carmilla make her victims succumb to a perverse and unholy temptation that has severe metaphysical consequences for them.

## Appearance

Because of her actions, she had unearthly beauty, and would do anything to maintain said beauty to the point where she becomes reviled at herself for assuming a monstrous form when enraged. She wears a reddish brown cloaked dress which features a hood. Her hair is a long dark brown. She also wears an elaborate choker embedded with red jewelry.

As the years progressed, her hair took on a pristine silver color though it is unknown why. Like most vampires her skin is a ghostly white.

## Personality

Carmilla is intelligent, manipulative, seductive and deceptive to the point where tricked a priest into abandoning his faith in God and nearly seduced Seras Victoria into joining her side. Haughty, proud, and extremely arrogant, her body is coiled around with vanity; like sulfuric acid turned into human form. She cares very little for life as she reveled in the wanton slaughter of the London inhabitants during the Scarlet Brood's attack to resurrect Absalom. Even though she was sired by Hector, she originally possess a hatred toward men and their cruel suppression of female vampires and women in general. This hatred towards men may stem from how she was treated in her youth as a noble.

Every factor of her life, such as her livelihood as a noble that spanned many years, her contempt for humans except for her fellow blood relatives due to being hardened by them, and so forth, all pushed the former human noble into a bizarre killer. Touch her, and all things will be inflamed immediately. And yet stupidity exists at her core, to put it another way, it is possible to say that she has a faint goodness within her that just barely stops her audacity.

Despite her arrogant disposition, Carmilla holds eternal loyalty to Absalom and Hector van Neck (to a lesser degree), serving them faithfully to the very end. She enjoys bathing in the blood of her victims, she hates those who use the powers of Darkness while opposing her lord, and she holds strong contempt towards humans though it does not reach outright hatred. Under different masters, Carmilla is far more skewed in loyalty. Naturally, Carmilla will betray a clearly bad master, and she will even embrace the recognition of being called a traitor. But still, even if she does not go as far as to serve, if it is probably a master with a bottomless goodness, one who is aware of, and furthermore, accepts her past, in that case, she will appear to become willingly cooperative even if not completely loyal like with Absalom.

Possessing a sarcastic disposition, Carmilla is strong willed and melancholic. Often preferring to keep distant from others, it is rare for her to make friends with people. She maintains a laid back lifestyle, and mainly dresses in dark outfits. Carmilla places little importance on cleanliness, often failing to clean up after herself. She has a very loose conception of private property and personal ownership, taking whatever she wishes from others without regard to their feelings on the matter. Underneath her sarcastic and cold behavior, Carmilla is insecure and possesses a soft side along with a considerable temper, which flares up when someone she cares about is hurt, after repeated failures, or when anger is necessary for success.

Carmilla chooses young girls as her victims or lovers. Her romantic behavior toward Laura both attract and repulses others until she was turned into a vampire. Carmilla is borderline obsessed with her own beauty and is thus extremely vain. She chooses young girls as her victims or lovers, the former being more frequent due to using their blood to maintain her beauty. Her obsession with beauty often results in the rare encounter of her not killing one who possesses extraordinary beauty but instead offers to give them eternal life to maintain it so as it stare at it forever such as she once did with Laura. While Carmilla selected exclusively female victims, she only becomes emotionally involved with a few.

She has a strange quirk which makes her remember memories of Elizabeth Bathory even though they are two separate beings. This quirk however does make her memories scramble sometimes believing that she is Elizabeth Bathory.

## History

### Origins

While it is unknown who she was before being a vampire or even her origins in general, they are many different stories attempting to do just that. Carmilla's ture origins are unknown as her story has many different variations of her past even if she never confirm any of them. It could be because Carmilla has a fondness of giving many different origins so her true story is unknown or it could just be she doesn't actually remember her own tale due to her old she is.

In all origins, Carmilla was speculated to be a human noble like Elizabeth Bathory in terms of insanity and vanity. It is believed that she existed around the time of Hector van Neck himself and was dreaded by civilizations as a demoness that breaks into people's homes in the dead of night to feast on the blood of virgin women. Her actions are what may have led to Babylonians to refer to her as "Lilitu".

One makes her origin is that her actions in craziness and cruelty became so bad that her own servants seek to kill her and did so by stabbing her in the back before burning the mansion she lived to make certain she perished. However, Carmilla was stand able to move to the deepest chamber of her mansion where she called for Lilith who after some vows made her a vampire.

Another origin is that she was once a fallen noble named Mircalla von Karnstein whose family being punished due to the head of the family causing a treasonous act against the kingdom they lived in. When waiting for her execution, the demon Lilith came for her and gave an offer to live on as a vampire. Mircalla accepted the offer and so became a vampire along with be gifted with demonic powers. Breaking out her prison, she kills the men guarding her prison cell and run into the night. After that, she went to kill all who mocked her.

Nevertheless, Carmilla is said to be as old, or even older than, Dracula and maybe even Vlad III himself, thus making her one of more elder vampires only beaten by Absalom and Hector van Neck, the latter being the one who sired her in the first place under Lilith's orders. Carmilla became a vampire from Hector van Neck though according to some legends, instead of biting her, Hector fed her the blood of the Turok-Han which made her the second Lasombra after Hector himself.

### Elizabeth Bathory

Due to her many similarities and the fact that the novel of Carmilla was inspired by her actions, there is a theory that Carmilla is actually the same person as the actual infamous Elizabeth Bathory herself. Carmilla's connection to the historical Hungarian noblewoman is similar to how Dracula was once believed to be Vlad III but unlike them, this theory lasted a lot longer and had actual evidence rather than pure speculation. This theory began in regards to her activities being similar to Elizabeth as she has been seen bathing in blood numerous times whenever she receives a visit from one of her subjects or another vampire from a different coven.

However, this theory also has evidence to disabuse it as Carmilla has talked about events that happened many millenniums ago, so way before Bathory's human birth, yet she spoke them as if she was actually there. With Carmilla being known for giving many different origins, this theory has no way to be proven true or false. It wasn't until a Lilim personally spoke to a Hunter about Carmilla and Bathory's connection that this theory could be laid to rest. The true story was that they are separate people but they do possess a psychic link due to Lilith's machinations and a battle with a Hunter which resulted in Carmilla gaining Elizabeth's memories.

### Meeting her Sire

Afterwards, Carmilla would use her newfound power to terrorize her kingdom who, according to her, turned on her in a fit rage because of her cruelty and constant unjustly murdering of the peoples' daughters. She would also come to be known as the "Lady in Red" due to her disguising herself in a long cloak of dark red which according to some was washed with the blood of her victims.

She eventually was approached by Hector once again, who managed to calm her down, and instead offered her a different outlook on her new un-life where she would use her power and influence to instead build a larger and more powerful kingdom under her rule. She contemplated this suggestion for a while before finding herself agreeing with Hector. However, in return for his aid Hector asked that she joined his cause in where they would resurrect the Blood Good Absalom to have a united world of vampires under his hand with Carmilla freely reigning over her own section in the world without any opposition. Carmilla agreed wholeheartedly and became part of the Scarlet Brood.

### Finding Laura

As Hector was making preparations for the awakening of the Scarlet Brood, Carmilla was given free reign to indulge herself in the meddles of humans. In addition, Carmilla was also said to have encountered the Weird Sisters who taught her arcane and dark magic. In regards to her meddles with humans, on such famous encounter was her "fixation" with a human woman named Laura.

When Laura was six years old, Laura has a vision of a beautiful but strange visitor in her bedchamber. The "solemn, but very pretty face" was that of Carmilla, though Laura did not know that at the time. Laura narrates, "She caressed me with her hands, and lay down beside me on the bed, and drew me towards her, smiling." Yet, after falling asleep, Laura has the sensation of two needles in her breast, causing her to cry out. At this point the lady slips out of bed and escapes to underneath the same bed. When the maids of the household try to consul Laura, says, "I knew the visit of the strange woman was not a dream; and I was awfully frightened." She later claims to have been bitten on the chest, although no wounds are found on her.

When Laura becomes a teenage, she and her father were admiring the sunset in front of the castle when her father tells her of a letter he received earlier from his friend General Spielsdorf. The General was supposed to bring his niece, Bertha Rheinfeldt, to visit the two, but the niece suddenly died under mysterious circumstances. The General ambiguously concludes that he will discuss the circumstances in detail when they meet later. Laura became saddened by the loss of a potential friend, and longs for a companion.

Why Carmilla was fixated with Laura is never fully explained, and a debate that is argued even amongst other vampires for Carmilla was known to show any feelings of romance or affection towards anyone other than herself. Carmilla herself wrote in her journal that Laura's beauty radiated like the sun but one that would not repel her but instead draw her forward, further going on to say that her beauty was so great it even stayed her hand in killing her and taking it for herself.

### Foreign Stranger

When Laura is out one night with her father, lamenting over not having a companion, she sees a carriage tumble over an overgrown tree root. Carmilla, the very same woman that Laura saw that night in her nursery, was in the carriage. Because Carmilla's mother is in a hurry to get to her destination, she places Carmilla in Laura's father's care, leaving hastily in the carriage. After Carmilla rests for a while, Laura is given leave to see her, and the two recognize each other from all those years before. Both girls instantly recognize the other from the 'dream' they both had when they were young. It is in that Laura and Carmilla form a sort of friendship.

Carmilla appears injured after her carriage accident, but her mysterious mother informs Laura's father that her journey is urgent and cannot be delayed. She arranges to leave her daughter with Laura and her father until she can return in three months. Before she leaves she sternly notes that her daughter will not disclose any information whatsoever about her family, past, or herself and that Carmilla is of sound mind. Laura comments that this information seems needless to say, and her father laughs it off. Even so, Laura and Carmilla contiune their sort of friendship.

### Concerning Signs

Carmilla and Laura grow to be very close friends, but occasionally Carmilla's mood abruptly changes. She sometimes makes unsettling romantic advances towards Laura. Carmilla refuses to tell anything about herself or her background, despite questioning from Laura. Her secrecy isn't the only mysterious thing about her. Carmilla sleeps much of the day, and seems to sleepwalk at night. When a funeral procession passes by the two girls and Laura begins singing a hymn, Carmilla bursts out in rage and scolds Laura for singing a Christian song. When a shipment of family heirloom restored portraits arrives at the castle, Laura finds one of her ancestor, "Mircalla, Countess Karnstein", dated 1698. The portrait resembles Carmilla exactly, down to the mole on her neck.

During Carmilla's stay, Laura has nightmares of a fiendish cat-like beast entering her room at night and biting her on the chest. The beast then takes the form of a female figure and disappears through the door without opening it. After it, Laura's heath began to decline. She continued to have the nightmares, and one night she sees Carmilla at the end of her bed stained in blood. Laura races to Carmilla's room after this episode, but Carmilla is not there. One o'clock the next afternoon Carmilla is back in her room, with no explanations as to why she had gone missing the night before.

Once Carmilla is back, Laura's father notices Laura's illness and orders a doctor. The doctor hears Laura's account of her nightmare and takes notes of the wound just below Laura's throat. The doctor talks to Laura's father, and in a sinister way Laura's father that if the right steps are taken, she will be quite well again, at least on the high road to a complete recovery, in a day or two.

That afternoon Laura and her father go for a picnic in Karnstein, a town of ruins. On their way, the father and daughter run into the General, heading to the same ruined town. He joins them in their carriage and starts to relay the story of his own niece and her illness and sudden death. The General, Laura, and her father finally make it to Karnstein, and meet a woodman who then directs them to an old man that knows of the history of the town and its past inhabitants. The woodman notes that the village was "troubled by revenants," vampires. The General, whose niece he believed was killed by the vampire Mircalla (known to him as Millarca), wants to find her tomb to kill the vampire. It was from there the General hires a Witcher to kill the Vampiress.

Carmilla arrives to the ruined village, but the General and the Witcher immediately recognizes her and goes to kill her. She escapes, and then disappears. Her disappearance ends the nightly terrors the Laura experienced. A few days later the old man that the woodman referred to, the Witcher that the General hired, carried out the "formal proceedings" of killing Carmilla (Mircalla) in her tomb as a sharp stake driven through the heart of the vampire. Then the head was struck off, and a torrent of blood flowed from the severed neck. The body and head was next placed on a pile of wood, and reduced to ashes, which were thrown upon the river and borne away.

### Aftermath

Unlike other vampires, Carmilla did not succumb to her injuries thanks to Absalom, as she was able to regenerate from her fatal wounds in a couple of years. She then became busy in making a Sumerian ritual involving the godess Inanna to revive her adoptive mother and siblings once again as vampires. When she succeeded, she realized that they became completely subservient to her. After enjoying her newly found power over them, she commanded them to start what would be her ascension as Absalom's right hand.

After that Carmilla started watching Laura again, this time in secret, where she witness her 'lover' getting married with a man which Laura felt sad about, strangely resulting in broken heart. Carmilla felt her undead heart break in millions of pieces, a longing towards Laura that she finally could not deny. Even so, Carmilla continued watching even after she started seeing the husband abusing Laura. However, Carmilla anonymously gave information about these events to Laura's father. She finally interfere when he almost accidently killed Laura, at the same time as Laura's father rushed to see what happened with General Spielsdorf and the witcher.

They came to see Carmilla just kill the man and move to the bleeding Laura. Before them, they saw her panic before deciding to bite Laura so she return to life as a vampire. However, the three men started to attack the vampiress to which Carmilla fought back only to be nearly killed by the Witcher once more though she inflicted serious wounds to the latter as well during their vicious scuffle. Seeing that she was still weakened from her near-death experience at the hands of the Witcher when she slept, she ran away.

When Carmilla came back, she saw Laura's father holding the now undead hand of his daughter as she finally unleash everything that happened after she married that man. As the father humorless said that Carmilla save her life, the vampire came of the darkness in front of them.

Before they could attack her again, she beg for them to listen. She told them that Laura needs to learn how to live as a vampire and only she could do it. She also talk about her previous lover who was the niece of the general had died from an unknown illness which broke her mentally and all the people she killed afterwards was her lashing out. She was also clear that she was a mentally horrible person but she loved any lover she had.

Reluctantly, all three men allowed Carmilla allowed to take Laura and train her but gave a statement and a threat. First was that they would describe Laura as dead by her husband who would soon be killed by the general in retaliation so she would be unable to show her true identity in human society and second is that she is ever harmed by Carmilla, they would make her pay no matter what.

## Myths and Legends

The idea of Carmilla's origins being purposely or unknowingly being vague and numerous is inspired by how DC treats the many origins of the Joker.

## Quotes

* *"Sometimes after an hour of apathy, my strange and beautiful companion would take my hand and hold it with a fond pressure, renewed again and again; blushing softly, gazing in my face with languid and burning eyes, and breathing so fast that her dress rose and fell with the tumultuous respiration. It was like the ardour of a lover; it embarrassed me; it was hateful and yet overpowering; and with gloating eyes she drew me to her, and her hot lips travelled along my cheek in kisses; and she would whisper, almost in sobs, "You are mine, you shall be mine, and you and I are one for ever"."* - Laura, Carmilla's companion.

* *"I mean, nobody told me! Nobody ever told me this was all a mistake! That's why I ended up like this! Ah, my true name is... Elizabeth Báthory!"* - Carmilla in her non-clarity.

## Gallery

*Carmilla with Laura**Portrait of Carmilla when she was Human**Carmilla in her demonic form**Winged Carmilla with Laura**Carmilla biting Laura**Carmilla in another appearance**Carmilla in another appearance**Carmilla in causal clothing**Carmilla in a more human appearance*

## Image Sources

* (Carmilla by irenhorrors d7yv9b6-fullview.jpg) Carmilla by IrenHorrors
* (Carmilla by irenhorrors davyk2y-fullview.jpg) Carmilla by IrenHorrors
* (Wampyr.jpg) Wampyr by hanime87
* (Carmilla theDURRRRIAN.jpg) Carmilla by theDURRRRIAN
* (Castle age carmilla by genzoman d3nh2jo-fullview.jpg) Castle Age - Carmilla by GENZOMAN
* (Carmilla GENZOMAN.jpg) Carmilla by GENZOMAN
* (CARMILLA.png) Carmilla by Kutori
* (The bloody countess by minielche d82zjtc-fullview.jpg) The Bloody Countess by minielche
* (Countess carmilla by banished shadow d8a9jrq-fullview.jpg) Countess Carmilla by Banished-shadow
* (Fate Grand Order Carmilla Assassin Smiling.png) Carmilla by ???
* (AssassinCarmGOStage4.png) Assassin Carmilla Stage 4 illustrated by okojo
* (CE832.png) Heroic Spirit Traveling Outfit: Carmilla illustrated by okojo
* (Carmilla by dezetran de47l3u-fullview.jpg) Carmilla by dezetran
* (Carmilla by tilhe d8g0gfv-fullview.pn) Carmilla by tilhe
* (Fitzgerald, funeral from Carmilla.jpg) Funeral illustration by Michael Fitzgerald
* (Carmilla.jpg) Carmilla illustration by D. H. Friston