Vlad von Carstein

Vlad Von Carstein was the first of the Vampire counts, and is seen by many as the one who made Sylvania the cesspool of undead activity it still is today.

note: dating before 2010 may be wrong, because sources stating Isabella had just been turned vampire in 1808, also state that she had been turned in less than a human lifespan before 2010 (meeting with a chirugeon who tended to the sick Isabella) I'll stick to the first theorie.[¹]

Early life (?- early winter 2010)

 * -You cannot do this to me! I won't allow this to happen! This is my birthright! Sylvania,this castle...it is all mine.


 * -On the contrary, good sir. The Count can do anything -anything- that he so wishes. If he bade me reach into your chest and rip out your heart with my bare hands and feed it to the dogs, well...It might prove difficult, but if the count willed it, belive me, it would be done.


 * Vlad von Carstein and Otto van Drak, about the marriage of Isabella van Drak to Vlad.

Unholy marriage:

Little to nothing is known about Vlad before he appeared at Drakenhof Castle during a stormy night in 1797. During that fatefull night, the old Count of Sylvania was on the verge of dying, slew down by a mysterious illness. In 30 days, he had aged as many years. He lost control on his mussels, struggling even to speak. During the Count's last hours, 4 people were gathered around his dying bed: the village chirugeon and the local priest of Sigmar, who were trying to sooth the passing of the old Drak, his daughter, Isabella van Drak, and his brother, Leopold van Drak, who was " thoroughly bored". The Count refused to die, clinging on life with all the hatred he could master, because he knew that should he come to pass, his brother would take his place, a thought he disliked even more then dying.

Suddenly, the priest of Sigmar was overcome by terror and fell, hitting the bedpost of the Count and losing his consciousness. In the following silence, somebody knocked on the door. A trembling manservant introduced a unknown noble by the words: "The noble Vlad von Carstein, my l-lord". Leopold, trying to guess where the stranger had come from, could only mumble: "out of the storm". Vlad then addressed the Count Otto van Drak and his daughter, utterly ignoring Leopold, only answering to his inquiries of his origins by stating he was the eldest of the von Carstein family, a family he didn't expect Leopold to know, but that he could trace back before the creation of the Empire. He then silenced Leopold, stating he had come to offer his services to the current Count van Drak, only being in the vicinity while travelling to a wedding. Otto's face lites up, and he proposes the vampire to become the husband of his daughter, thus effectivly obliterating Leopolds claim to the title of Count. Vlad the turns to Isabella, claiming that at some point of the ceremony, it was usual for the bride to accept. Isabella, wanting the power she senses in Vlad, accepts, but asks him in a whisper a token of his love. Vlad then faces Lopold and tears his heart out of his chest with his bare hands before tossing him out of a window. He then presents Isabella the hart of her now dead uncle, upon which she coldly states she has no use of it, seeing it no longer beats. Shortly afterwards, the wedding is concluded.

Unrest:

Between that first night in 1797, and the dreadful winter of 2010, it is known that Vlad ruled Sylvania under different identity's to cover up the fact he was a vampire. During this period, the Count schemed on various ways to unbalance the province and to let his power grow. Assassination of political enemies, spreading of anti-Sigmarite feelings, famine.... Also, in the year 1808, he turned Isabella van Drak into a vampire, after the former had caught a plague probably released by Vlad to further destabilize Sylvania. Giving in to her pleas, he shares the blood kiss with her. However, the first blood Isabella drinks is that of a wolf she catches during a hunt. While being able to sustain an older vampire, animal blood contains a sort of madness dangerous for new vampires. It is unknown if Isabella's madness came from this incident, or if she was unbalanced from nature.

By the end of the millennium, Sylvania was known through the Empire as the poorest and most miserable of all provinces. When in the dreaded year 2000, a huge clump of wyrdstone fell out of the sky and flattened and corrupted the city of Mordheim, Vlad, like many others, seizes the occasion to gain power through the tainted wyrdstone and sends bands of young vampires and necromancers into the madness of the city of the damned.[²] The wyrdstone the found gave Vlad the power to release the power of a spell from the liche-lord Nagash, which would change the world forever.