The Targoviste Incident

## **Rebirth**

Dracula, having renamed himself in full to Vlad 'Dracula' Ţepeş, rose to become the strongest of vampire-kind and the leader of his race. He had developed a pure hatred of humanity, and a reputation for sheer brutality. He was known to impale his victims and slaughter entire villages should they wrong him.

By the late medieval period of Europe in Wallachia, Romania, Dracula had lived alone and in isolation inside a castle, which was capable of teleporting magically. He had also come to possess a vast wealth of scientific knowledge, which was stored away within the depths of the castle. His hatred for humanity still lingered, but he had grown tired of terrorising the world only to be be defeated and doomed to a semi-existence for yet another century.

In order to deter visitors or robbers from entering, Dracula had the impaled corpses of his victims displayed at the front of the castle grounds. A warning that promised a brutal and painful death to those willing to ignore it.

## **Meeting Lisa**

In 1455, he had an unexpected visitor: a woman named Lisa who was conducting research to improve medicine and wanted to become a doctor. She had come to Dracula to learn of the science that only he knew, but he threatened her with his distrust of the humans. To his surprise, Lisa was not afraid of him, and she encouraged him to explore the changing world. Finding himself attracted to her, Dracula welcomed Lisa into his home.

At some point later, Dracula married Lisa. Together they had a son they named Adrian. They then lived in a cottage outside of Targoviste, Wallachia, where Lisa continued her research into medicine. At his wife's behest, Dracula traveled across the world to learn from its people and humanity. During his travels, he met and befriended two misanthropic humans, Hector and Isaac.

## **War on Humanity**

In 1475, Vlad's happy days with Lisa came to an abrupt and tragic end. One night, while returning home from his travels, he discovered that the cottage was completely burned down. He then encountered Mrs. Djuvara who was treated by Lisa. While she was laying flowers, Vlad learned from her that Lisa was arrested on false charges of witchcraft, and she was sentenced to death. Enraged, Vlad abandoned his human identity and became Dracula once more. He then warned Mrs. Djuvara to take her family and leave Wallachia before teleporting away in a pillar of fire.

Arriving at the site of Lisa's execution, Dracula demanded to know what happened to his wife. When the Bishop proclaimed that she was a witch and that he himself was just a myth, the vampire was angered and gave the people of Targoviste one year to make their peace with God before his return to destroy them. Returning to his castle, Dracula prepared to summon an army from Hell within one year. But then his son Alucard appeared and begged him not to kill innocent people. Dracula shouted that there were no innocents left because no one acted to save Lisa. Alucard attacked Dracula but was swiftly defeated, and was allowed to leave afterward.

Dracula approached both Hector and Isaac respectively to help create his new army, to differing perspectives as Isaac immediately understood the need for genocide while Hector preferred a more humane way to culling humans. Nonetheless, both parties agreed to aid the former in building an army of Night creatures from the dead, with Dracula granting them powers and knowledge of necromantic magics and demonology.

One year later, Dracula appeared in Targoviste, as promised, to the Archbishop and people celebrating Lisa's death and calling his existence a farce. He unleashed his army on Targoviste, massacring the populace, and the horde proceeded to descend upon the rest of Wallachia.