Portraits of Dracula from the Castlevania video game franchise.

Portraits of Alucard Tepes, son of Dracula, from the Castlevania video game franchise.

A few of my favorite characters from the Castlevania video game franchise. The art is by Ayami Kojima.

A few of my personal favorite promotional artworks from the Castlevania video game franchise. The artist is the amazing Ayami Kojima.

Murals featuring promotional work by artist Ayami Kojima for the Castlevania video games.

Murals of one of my favorite rulers, Prince Vlad Tepes III the Impaler, otherwise known as Dracula -- with both actual historic images and photos from the 1992 film Bram Stoker's Dracula, starring the incredible Gary Oldman. The Order of the Dragon was an elite chivalric order founded in 1408 by King Sigismund of Hungary. It's initiates were sworn to defend Christian Europe from its 'perfidious enemies', especially Ottoman Turks. In 1431 the duke of Wallachia, Vlad II, joined the Draconists as an inintiate of the Order and recieved the surname Dracul, from the Latin Draco and Greek Drakon, all meaning 'Dragon'. (In Romania, Drac means 'Devil'). His son, Vlad III, was born in Transylvania that year, and at the tender year of 5 was also initiated into the Order of the Dragon, in the year 1436, recieving the surname Draculea/Drakulya, meaning 'Son of the Dragon'. Also in the year 1436 Vlad II gained the throne of Wallachia, but in 1447 was ousted by rival factions. In order to regain his title he gained the help and funding of the very people he had sworn to fight, and promised the Ottoman Sultan his only two legitimate sons, Vlad III and his younger brother, as hostages to assure them of his trustworthiness. Vlad and his brother were held prisoner by the Turks, who often beat Vlad harshly due to his stubborn defiance against those whom he, as a young initiate, passionately believed to be the Enemy. Vlad hated his self-imposed hard life amongst the Turks, while his brother in the meantime adapted well to their new surroundings, even converting to Islam, joining the Ottomans and becoming a member of the Turkish court. He was eventually released and returned to Wallachia, but his father and another brother were unfortunately assassinated by rival nobles who blamed Hungary's losses in battle due to Vlad's alliance with the Ottomans. Vlad III, as ruler of Wallachia, swore revenge, and spent the next ten years devoting himself to getting rid of everyone responsible for his family members' deaths. This was actually when he first became notorious for his penchant for impaling his victims on spikes, amongst other atrocities, and he became known as Vlad Tepes, or Vlad the Impaler. He forced his captives to rebuild his family's castles, and the construction of his main castle Poenari was only finished after the last man fell, having QUITE literally worked the clothes from his back or worked himself to death from sheer exhaustion. Those who did not expire once the castle was finished were simply impaled, not one man spared. However, he also employed impalement as a final destination for Ottoman Turks he encountered in war, his vendetta against them unforgotten and horrificly executed--no pun intended--and used psychological warfare to great advantage as people actually turned from his castle, sickened by the sight of over 20,000 Turks rotting for months in a Forest of the Impaled surrounding the fortress, the higher the stake, the higher the rank of the victim. In total, his victims are believed by some to range anywhere from 80 to 100,000 deaths by torture ALONE. Vlad was killed in battle against the Turks in 1476. He was decapitated, the head preserved in honey and presented to the Ottoman sultan who then impaled it and put in on a display for all the Turks to see. No one knows where his remains were buried. Vlad's reputation rose (or fell, more like) to such an extent that even in Germany artists years after his death were making paintings of Vlad Tepes as Pontius Pilate condemning Jesus Christ to death, and in Russia they portrayed him as the Roman proconsul who ordered Saint Andrew's crucifixion -- ironic, considering Vlad's rigid faithfulness to the Order! Despite all of this, however, and also Irish author Bram Stoker's 19th century unhelpful account of the fictional Transylvanian vampire Dracula, Romanians still consider Vlad III Draculea as a national Christian hero, and consider him one of the 100 Greatest Romanians of all time, quite an honor.