VII - RoseRed

a history of the ordo dracul
in the late 1930s. The tale, scribed by a Turkish chronicler
in Egrigoz, in Asia Minor, speaks of a “young man
with light skin, but dark eyes, and his brother, who at
first blush appeared to be a woman. I watched them together,
and the older one said to the younger, ‘I have
remained pure and kept my mind and heart free of these
infidels’ rantings, while you are one short step from bending
knee to their God. But know this: Nightly our brother
and father visit me, and tell me of dark and terrible things
in my future. I shall see the day when the unconquerable
shall fall and the circle is broken, but you shall die
upon broken promises and in great agony.’”
This tale seems to refer to the Invictus (“the Unconquerable”)
and the Circle of the Crone (“the Circle”), and
as the Rites of the Dragon indicate, Dracula would later have
dealings with both covenants, though of course they did
not suffer any kind of defeat at his hands. More interesting
is the reference to Dracula’s father and brother visiting him
and telling him of the future. While it’s possible that Dracula
was simply lying to his brother in order to frighten or shame
him, the fact remains that Radu the Handsome did indeed
die of a “broken promise.” According to the Rites of the
Dragon, Dracula impaled his brother upon a stake after
promising, falsely, to Embrace him once he died.
The second piece of evidence linking Dracula to the
supernatural, indeed to the Kindred, while he was mortal
comes from an extremely dubious source. This incident
supposedly took place in 1911. A Kindred historian
of the Libitinarius bloodline attended her sire, along
with two other observers of different clans, while the
sire lay in torpor, recording his fevered dreams through
the use of Auspex. One of them later stated that “she
[the historian] began to convulse, her nose and eyes leaking
profuse amounts of blood so dark it resembled pitch
in the dim light. As she did so, her hand continued to
work upon the page, but instead of writing fragmented
sentences culled from her torpid sire’s mind, she wrote
in clear, precise script, albeit in a language with which I
was unfamiliar. At the end of the script was a signature
that filled me with dread: DRAKULYA, A.D. 1459.”
What the “Libitinarian script,” as it is known among the
Dragons, actually said was never revealed. All four Kindred
— the sire, the childe and the two observers — perished in a
fire later that year, and the script itself vanished. Rumor has
it that the Kogaion of an unknown city has part or all of it in
her possession. If this is true, surely some members of the
Libitinarius bloodline would give much to obtain it.
✫✹★✪✼✳★’✺✂✫✬★✻✯✂★✵✫✂✹✬✩✰✹✻✯
Vlad Dracula died, as far as the mortal world knows,
in 1476 near Bucharest. As with many famous leaders,
fantastic stories and conspiracy theories about his death
abound. The most famous is that he dressed as a Turk to
escape his enemies and was subsequently killed by his
own men. In any case, his story doesn’t end there.
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chapter one
6