Drăculeşti

Our wisdom flows so sweet. Taste and see.

TRANSMIT - initiate the Mertvaya voda signal - RECEIVE - initiate the Zhivaya voda frequency - KILLS VERMIN DEAD - initiate the sentinel syntax - MAY CAUSE IRRITATION - initiate the Tepes Proclamation - WITNESS - The Drăculeşti.

The universe is a dark cave. Time is a bat obscenity bouncing off the walls. Initiate temporal echo location. SHRIEK!

Initiate the sanguine spectrum.

The blood is the life. It sealed a promise, and a vagabond people became forever bound to the Drăculeşti, of the House of Basarab, and its line of Wallachian voivodes. They drank deep of the Living Water and of the Dead Water and swore that all monsters would know terror.

You little ones have spilt much ink, and more breath, on tales of the Romany, the wanderers, the gypsies, the people who came out of India and spread through Asia Minor and Europe a millennium ago. It's mostly lies, and it's not the point.

This is the point.

A family of the people camps near Harbabureşti, in Romania. They claim to be the heirs of the Order of the Dragon. They say they are descended from those who swore an oath to Vlad III Dracula, who some call the Impaler. They joined him in the hunt for the night breed - the strigoi, the moroi, the muroni, the zmeu, and the nosferatu. They fought against Dracula's estranged wife-turned-vampire, Mara.

Designation Drăculeşti is a living, hereditary story, passed on in meat-body iterations. They transmit via the oral tradition, passing on the true history of Dracula and his fall. Each generation trains for a great war. They hone their hatred for all supernatural predators.

Vampire, lycanthrope, or faerie - it matters little to these Romany. The time for such preternatural creatures ended the moment Dracula decreed it so. Perhaps the beasts that stalk the night tell their own bedtime horror stories of the Drăculeşti. Eh, sweetling?

This vicious zeal fills the villagers of Harbabureşti with a deep mistrust of these strange Romany. The simple folk lived peacefully, side by side with the supernatural as far back as their myopic memory stretches. They mutter that the influx of bloodthirsty monsters came only after the gypsies arrived and broke the truce.

The Drăculeşti do little to ease the worries of the villagers. They see such niceties as a waste of time. Their cause is high. Their empathy is limited.

Listen now, sweetling. Prophecies shiver on the wind - the war between light and dark in Transylvania, the return of Dracula, the Romany joining him to finish where their Prince failed before.

Do the prophecies speak true? The pieces tumble into place. The vampires return to Bacaş County. She has returned, secret worlder. Mara has returned!

The worries of the villagers are of little importance to the Romany. They know their purpose is far beyond the comprehension of simple farmers, and they don't care to explain their motives. They are there to fight dark forces, but they are also compelled by a prophecy that speaks of their role in the war.

Travelling with them is a seer called Anastasia. She has spoken a prophecy of a final war between the forces of good and evil in Transylvania, the return of Dracula and of the Romany as his champions - all to finish what the Prince failed at before.

Now, with Mara and the vampires returned to Bacaş County, all the pieces of the prophecy seem to be in place. War is at hand, and victory, they claim, awaits their side on the horizon.